Earningcone1442
2007
I really enjoyed my time with persona 3 although I'm not sure I've played a game that's so highly regarded, yet has so many aspects people complain about.
To address the immediate elephant in the room, I think everyone's complaints about the AI party members are overblown. Before I started the game, this was the aspect of the game I was most worried about. By the way people talked about it, it seemed like you had no input over what your party members did at all, so I was happy to know that you could still give them some input through the tactics system. I'll admit I had a few rough AI party moments when I started playing, but as I progressed and unlocked more tactics commands this became more and more of a nonissue for me. Once I unlocked the knock down command, just doing the bare minimum of setting everyone to knock down pretty much solved any issue with the party system I had initially (e.g. Marin Karin spam, attacking enemies that were already knocked down, etc.). This also allowed me to finish most battles with an all out attack and pick up a lot of wand cards and extra personas in shuffle time which helped cut down on grinding.
I don't want to give the impression that the AI party members are better than being able to freely control them because obviously free control would be better, but I think the tactics system is better than most people give it credit for (especially as you start unlocking more commands as you progress further into the story) and proper use of it negates most of the AI's questionable choices about 95% of the time.
I know some people have issues with Tartarus as well, but I didn't mind it (although I haven't played any other dungeon crawlers to really compare it to anything). I found that it was a nice break between the everyday activities, and as I progressed further I found myself spending more and more time there as I had less and less to do in the social sim aspects of the game.
Instead, my biggest issue with P3FES is its over reliance on RNG. Going in to the game, I knew there would be some RNG. After all, the game's an RPG after all there's always some sort of RNG involved, but it's so much more prevalent in P3 than any other RPG I've played. There's RNG involved in when you recover from being tired, from finding rare chests required to complete certain requests, in finding extra personas, in fusion, and there's probably more that I'm forgetting to mention.
My biggest issues with the RNG were with finding certain rare items required for Elizabeth's requests. I went for 100% Elizabeth requests in my run, and finding some of those rare weapons in rare chests ended up taking way longer than it should have. Being able to find other items in rare chests after you've accepted the particular request in addition to the rare percentage of getting the rare chest to even spawn is just mean.
My biggest issue with the game is the RNG involved in persona fusion. I really grew to hate the fusion system in this game and it's all because of the random skill inheritance. For some reason this was the aspect of the RNG that just never wanted to work for me and I often spent multiple hours constantly rerolling movesets to get something usable in the persona I was trying to fuse. It gets even worse when trying to fuse ultimate personas (or just any of the personas that require more than 3 personas to fuse them). The more lower leveled/weaker personas that had terrible movesets involved in the fusion always seemed to have more of an influence on the final personas moveset than the actual strong personas whose moves I was actually trying to pass down. My most extreme example of this was when it took me more than 3 days of constant rerolling to get a Thanatos with an ok moveset and I ended up giving up and settling for a moveset that I still wasn't satisfied with (I don't need Mudo or mudoon when I'm trying to pass down Die for Me and Mudo boost!).
Moving on to the positives, I think the game still looks nice. The 3D areas are surprisingly detailed and of course the portraits and 2D cutscenes all looks nice.
The story was also really interesting. I think the game did a good job of introducing new aspects to the story that seemingly aren't connected only to reveal how it's connected to the overarching plot in a satisfying way. Additionally, the ending was really strong and got me.
I also really liked the main cast by the end of the game. I think P3 does a good job of showing how this group of people who are pretty much strangers or all have hidden beefs with each other grow and come together as a family.
The social links tend to be kind of hit or miss, but the good ones are really good and for the most part, the bad ones are just kind of boring or underwhelming. Most of them felt simple compared to future games in the series, but there's a fun charm to their simplicity and you really feel like you get to know the characters by the end of most of them. I do wish there were social links for more than just the female SEES members, but that goes to show how much I like the main cast. I know portable adds a bunch of new social links and I'm definitely planning to check it out some time in the future.
Plus it goes without saying, the soundtrack is amazing. I think the music chosen for each area fits perfectly and I like how the soundtrack is implemented into the overworld and seeing how everything changes the further you progress into the game.
Overall, I found P3 to be a really good time. If you're hesitant to try it because of the aspects everyone complains about, I would still recommend giving it a try (and if you really can't adjust to the AI party members, there are mods to change that). I really hope those complaints don't deter people from playing P3 since it's great aspects really outshine the aspects everyone complains about.
To address the immediate elephant in the room, I think everyone's complaints about the AI party members are overblown. Before I started the game, this was the aspect of the game I was most worried about. By the way people talked about it, it seemed like you had no input over what your party members did at all, so I was happy to know that you could still give them some input through the tactics system. I'll admit I had a few rough AI party moments when I started playing, but as I progressed and unlocked more tactics commands this became more and more of a nonissue for me. Once I unlocked the knock down command, just doing the bare minimum of setting everyone to knock down pretty much solved any issue with the party system I had initially (e.g. Marin Karin spam, attacking enemies that were already knocked down, etc.). This also allowed me to finish most battles with an all out attack and pick up a lot of wand cards and extra personas in shuffle time which helped cut down on grinding.
I don't want to give the impression that the AI party members are better than being able to freely control them because obviously free control would be better, but I think the tactics system is better than most people give it credit for (especially as you start unlocking more commands as you progress further into the story) and proper use of it negates most of the AI's questionable choices about 95% of the time.
I know some people have issues with Tartarus as well, but I didn't mind it (although I haven't played any other dungeon crawlers to really compare it to anything). I found that it was a nice break between the everyday activities, and as I progressed further I found myself spending more and more time there as I had less and less to do in the social sim aspects of the game.
Instead, my biggest issue with P3FES is its over reliance on RNG. Going in to the game, I knew there would be some RNG. After all, the game's an RPG after all there's always some sort of RNG involved, but it's so much more prevalent in P3 than any other RPG I've played. There's RNG involved in when you recover from being tired, from finding rare chests required to complete certain requests, in finding extra personas, in fusion, and there's probably more that I'm forgetting to mention.
My biggest issues with the RNG were with finding certain rare items required for Elizabeth's requests. I went for 100% Elizabeth requests in my run, and finding some of those rare weapons in rare chests ended up taking way longer than it should have. Being able to find other items in rare chests after you've accepted the particular request in addition to the rare percentage of getting the rare chest to even spawn is just mean.
My biggest issue with the game is the RNG involved in persona fusion. I really grew to hate the fusion system in this game and it's all because of the random skill inheritance. For some reason this was the aspect of the RNG that just never wanted to work for me and I often spent multiple hours constantly rerolling movesets to get something usable in the persona I was trying to fuse. It gets even worse when trying to fuse ultimate personas (or just any of the personas that require more than 3 personas to fuse them). The more lower leveled/weaker personas that had terrible movesets involved in the fusion always seemed to have more of an influence on the final personas moveset than the actual strong personas whose moves I was actually trying to pass down. My most extreme example of this was when it took me more than 3 days of constant rerolling to get a Thanatos with an ok moveset and I ended up giving up and settling for a moveset that I still wasn't satisfied with (I don't need Mudo or mudoon when I'm trying to pass down Die for Me and Mudo boost!).
Moving on to the positives, I think the game still looks nice. The 3D areas are surprisingly detailed and of course the portraits and 2D cutscenes all looks nice.
The story was also really interesting. I think the game did a good job of introducing new aspects to the story that seemingly aren't connected only to reveal how it's connected to the overarching plot in a satisfying way. Additionally, the ending was really strong and got me.
I also really liked the main cast by the end of the game. I think P3 does a good job of showing how this group of people who are pretty much strangers or all have hidden beefs with each other grow and come together as a family.
The social links tend to be kind of hit or miss, but the good ones are really good and for the most part, the bad ones are just kind of boring or underwhelming. Most of them felt simple compared to future games in the series, but there's a fun charm to their simplicity and you really feel like you get to know the characters by the end of most of them. I do wish there were social links for more than just the female SEES members, but that goes to show how much I like the main cast. I know portable adds a bunch of new social links and I'm definitely planning to check it out some time in the future.
Plus it goes without saying, the soundtrack is amazing. I think the music chosen for each area fits perfectly and I like how the soundtrack is implemented into the overworld and seeing how everything changes the further you progress into the game.
Overall, I found P3 to be a really good time. If you're hesitant to try it because of the aspects everyone complains about, I would still recommend giving it a try (and if you really can't adjust to the AI party members, there are mods to change that). I really hope those complaints don't deter people from playing P3 since it's great aspects really outshine the aspects everyone complains about.
I was really interested going into The Answer since people either seem to really hate it or really like it, and I could never get a general consensus on it whenever I would ask people about it. After playing through it myself... Yeah it's a mixed bag, although I do find myself landing more so on the positive side of the aisle when it comes to this game.
The 3 biggest complaints I've heard people have about this game are: 1. Too much grinding/gameplay not being appealing, 2. People are acting out of character and 3. It ruins/invalidates the ending of The Journey. I think most of these complaints are valid and I want to address each of these separately and give my own thoughts on them.
Starting with the gameplay/grinding complaints: if you didn't like Tartarus or the battle mechanics in The Journey, then The Answer is not gonna be for you. If you did enjoy those parts of The Journey, then you'll probably enjoy your time with The Answer since that's basically all the extra game mode is comprised of.
As for the grinding issues people have with the game, I never experienced those issues myself. I got through the game very comfortably by using my first run through an area to explore/collect items and fight enemies then just bum rush to the boss on my second time through. I only had to grind twice playing through the game like this, and that was more so to help my other, lesser used, party members catch up to the levels of my more used party members.
Out of character complaints: I'm kind of mixed on this one myself. There were only 2 characters that stood out to me as being weirdly written/out of character on my play through, Akihiko and Yukari. I thought Aki was overly agro for the first few areas of the Abyss of Time, but he chilled out as the game progressed and become more like how he was in The Journey. I'm still really mixed on Yukari's characterization even after finishing the game more than a week ago. I do think they leaned a little too far into this new characterization for her and it does feel like it goes against her development in The Journey, but at the same time I understand that grief affects everyone differently and can make people act against their better judgement sometimes so I feel weird trying to compare her characterization between the two game modes directly.
The Answer ruins/invalidates the ending of The Journey: I don't get this complaint at all. Without getting too spoilery, the specific complaint I'm referencing is that The Answer invalidates the MC's sacrifice in The Journey. I didn't get that interpretation at all from The Answer's ending when I finished it and even had to rewatch it again on youtube to confirm I didn't miss anything and I still don't understand that interpretation. I definitely didn't interpret it that way, but I'd be interested in hearing more people's thoughts who did interpret the ending that way so I could get a better understanding.
As for what didn't work for me, my biggest issue is once again the fusion system. The lack of a persona compendium is annoying but wasn't game ruining. The worst it does is lead to some tedious battles to try and get the persona you want in shuffle time. I'd highly recommend anyone who's interested in playing the Answer having a fusion calculator and a list of the personas that are available in each area of the Abyss of Time in order to reduce the amount of battles required to fuse the specific personas you want. The personas that appear in shuffle time seem to scale with your level so I would find an area where the persona I'm looking for was a high level spawn and only shuffle time grind towards the ends of those areas to increase their chances of appearing. The VA work is really good too. Aigis' VA in particular really goes all out and was just great.
Similarly to The Journey, I still really hate the random skill inheritance. However, since the fusion system is much simpler in The Answer (there are only normal and triple fusions) I spent much less time resetting for decent movesets in The Answer than I did in the Journey. It didn't make those times I had to constantly reset for decent moves suck any less, but they were less prevalent which I appreciated.
As for what worked for me, I really liked the look and design of the new areas. The large rooms with the falling sand and the pendulums in particular stand out to me as just looking really cool. The music is always is also great. I know everyone says this, but it's cool how the new battle theme is the next verse of the battle theme from The Journey.
I also really liked the bosses (for the most part). The bosses all utilize a unique strategy and actual new enemy designs used in the bosses and throughout The Answer were all really cool and creative. This led to the bosses being more engaging and interesting to fight than the bosses in The Journey and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed them.
Thinking back on The Answer, I'm definitely happy I played through it and I'd probably play through it again if I ever get around to playing through FES again. It's definitely got a lot of strengths, but the weaker/weirder stuff about it stands out a lot more than the weaker aspects of The Journey. There's still a lot to like and I think it ends on a good note, but whole experience felt very mixed throughout. It's a game I have a hard time rating, since my thoughts on it seem to constantly change every day, but for now I'm settling on an average but mostly positive score for it.
The 3 biggest complaints I've heard people have about this game are: 1. Too much grinding/gameplay not being appealing, 2. People are acting out of character and 3. It ruins/invalidates the ending of The Journey. I think most of these complaints are valid and I want to address each of these separately and give my own thoughts on them.
Starting with the gameplay/grinding complaints: if you didn't like Tartarus or the battle mechanics in The Journey, then The Answer is not gonna be for you. If you did enjoy those parts of The Journey, then you'll probably enjoy your time with The Answer since that's basically all the extra game mode is comprised of.
As for the grinding issues people have with the game, I never experienced those issues myself. I got through the game very comfortably by using my first run through an area to explore/collect items and fight enemies then just bum rush to the boss on my second time through. I only had to grind twice playing through the game like this, and that was more so to help my other, lesser used, party members catch up to the levels of my more used party members.
Out of character complaints: I'm kind of mixed on this one myself. There were only 2 characters that stood out to me as being weirdly written/out of character on my play through, Akihiko and Yukari. I thought Aki was overly agro for the first few areas of the Abyss of Time, but he chilled out as the game progressed and become more like how he was in The Journey. I'm still really mixed on Yukari's characterization even after finishing the game more than a week ago. I do think they leaned a little too far into this new characterization for her and it does feel like it goes against her development in The Journey, but at the same time I understand that grief affects everyone differently and can make people act against their better judgement sometimes so I feel weird trying to compare her characterization between the two game modes directly.
The Answer ruins/invalidates the ending of The Journey: I don't get this complaint at all. Without getting too spoilery, the specific complaint I'm referencing is that The Answer invalidates the MC's sacrifice in The Journey. I didn't get that interpretation at all from The Answer's ending when I finished it and even had to rewatch it again on youtube to confirm I didn't miss anything and I still don't understand that interpretation. I definitely didn't interpret it that way, but I'd be interested in hearing more people's thoughts who did interpret the ending that way so I could get a better understanding.
As for what didn't work for me, my biggest issue is once again the fusion system. The lack of a persona compendium is annoying but wasn't game ruining. The worst it does is lead to some tedious battles to try and get the persona you want in shuffle time. I'd highly recommend anyone who's interested in playing the Answer having a fusion calculator and a list of the personas that are available in each area of the Abyss of Time in order to reduce the amount of battles required to fuse the specific personas you want. The personas that appear in shuffle time seem to scale with your level so I would find an area where the persona I'm looking for was a high level spawn and only shuffle time grind towards the ends of those areas to increase their chances of appearing. The VA work is really good too. Aigis' VA in particular really goes all out and was just great.
Similarly to The Journey, I still really hate the random skill inheritance. However, since the fusion system is much simpler in The Answer (there are only normal and triple fusions) I spent much less time resetting for decent movesets in The Answer than I did in the Journey. It didn't make those times I had to constantly reset for decent moves suck any less, but they were less prevalent which I appreciated.
As for what worked for me, I really liked the look and design of the new areas. The large rooms with the falling sand and the pendulums in particular stand out to me as just looking really cool. The music is always is also great. I know everyone says this, but it's cool how the new battle theme is the next verse of the battle theme from The Journey.
I also really liked the bosses (for the most part). The bosses all utilize a unique strategy and actual new enemy designs used in the bosses and throughout The Answer were all really cool and creative. This led to the bosses being more engaging and interesting to fight than the bosses in The Journey and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed them.
Thinking back on The Answer, I'm definitely happy I played through it and I'd probably play through it again if I ever get around to playing through FES again. It's definitely got a lot of strengths, but the weaker/weirder stuff about it stands out a lot more than the weaker aspects of The Journey. There's still a lot to like and I think it ends on a good note, but whole experience felt very mixed throughout. It's a game I have a hard time rating, since my thoughts on it seem to constantly change every day, but for now I'm settling on an average but mostly positive score for it.
1999
I wanted to go back to my roots and play a fun monkey game. After experiencing Ape Escape, I don't think I've played a game that accomplished everything it set out to do so perfectly since Celeste.
Ape Escape is so fun and it's full of that old school ps1 charm. The premise is super unique and the art style is great and just fills you with that warm feeling of comfort that you can only get from a chunky ps1 game. The goofy voice acting comes around to being great and just makes the game all that much more enjoyable.
I don't think I've ever played a game that took as much advantage of the controller as Ape Escape either. It's obvious the game was designed with the dualshock in mind and the game does a great job of utilizing every feature of the controller without making it overly complicated.
The structure also feels unique compared to other 3D platformers. Going in, I was expecting it to play like a
collect-a-thon platformer, but I was surprised by how unique it felt. The gameplay style is hard to describe, but it feels like it's halfway between a 3D collect-a-thon and a more typical 3D platformer and it was very refreshing.
Each ape serves as a unique puzzle that has multiple different ways of approaching it, depending on the gadgets you like to use or the type of movement/approach you like to take which helps replays stand out.
It's not a perfect game, but my issues with it are so small they're just nitpicks. For example, I never fully got used to the menu UI. It's hard to describe, but the menu options default to undoing what you just selected, so for example, if you want to load a save and select that option, the first option in the subsequent menu is to go back to the previous page instead of confirming you want to load the save. This just really messed with my muscle memory from playing other games.
I'm also not a fan of how the time trials are tied to 100% completion. Time trial modes don't really appeal to me in general and in games like Ape Escape, where there is no reward for 100% completion, making the time trials contribute to the completion requirements just feels like padding.
Ape Escape has always been one of those bucket list 3D platformers for me and I'm just so happy that it lived up to the hype. It's not one of my favorite games at the end of the day, but it accomplishes everything it sets out to do so perfectly and is just so fun and unique that I can't help but give it 5 stars.
Ape Escape is so fun and it's full of that old school ps1 charm. The premise is super unique and the art style is great and just fills you with that warm feeling of comfort that you can only get from a chunky ps1 game. The goofy voice acting comes around to being great and just makes the game all that much more enjoyable.
I don't think I've ever played a game that took as much advantage of the controller as Ape Escape either. It's obvious the game was designed with the dualshock in mind and the game does a great job of utilizing every feature of the controller without making it overly complicated.
The structure also feels unique compared to other 3D platformers. Going in, I was expecting it to play like a
collect-a-thon platformer, but I was surprised by how unique it felt. The gameplay style is hard to describe, but it feels like it's halfway between a 3D collect-a-thon and a more typical 3D platformer and it was very refreshing.
Each ape serves as a unique puzzle that has multiple different ways of approaching it, depending on the gadgets you like to use or the type of movement/approach you like to take which helps replays stand out.
It's not a perfect game, but my issues with it are so small they're just nitpicks. For example, I never fully got used to the menu UI. It's hard to describe, but the menu options default to undoing what you just selected, so for example, if you want to load a save and select that option, the first option in the subsequent menu is to go back to the previous page instead of confirming you want to load the save. This just really messed with my muscle memory from playing other games.
I'm also not a fan of how the time trials are tied to 100% completion. Time trial modes don't really appeal to me in general and in games like Ape Escape, where there is no reward for 100% completion, making the time trials contribute to the completion requirements just feels like padding.
Ape Escape has always been one of those bucket list 3D platformers for me and I'm just so happy that it lived up to the hype. It's not one of my favorite games at the end of the day, but it accomplishes everything it sets out to do so perfectly and is just so fun and unique that I can't help but give it 5 stars.
For the longest time, Hit and Run has been one of those games that's always been on my radar but I've never had the means to actually play myself. I've loved the simpsons since I was a kid so I'd always wanted to play it, but once I actually got my own copy of the game, for the longest time it would be one of those games that I'd pick up, play for a bit, then drop it before every finishing the first level. This was my third attempt at actually finishing the game and it finally clicked for me.
First of all, if you've ever been in a similar situation to me where you'd drop the game because of the repetitive gameplay loop, I'd recommend going for 100%. This is what I did this time and taking the extra time to explore Springfield and look for collectibles really helped break up the repetition of the earlier driving missions, while I was still getting used to the controls.
Going on to the positives, this is without a doubt the most engaging and lived in Springfield has ever felt in a Simpsons game (at least out of the ones I've played). The hubs are all fun to drive around and explore and filled with so many little details, jokes and references. It's very clear the devs had a lot of fun designing the hubs and it only adds to the charm of the game for me. The sandbox is also just really fun to mess around in whether it's testing out new cars and costumes or just being a general nuisance (kicking the npcs is more fun than it has any right to be).
The writing is also great and feels right out of the classic era of the show. The actual plot is pretty nonsensical, but the game has fun with it and never takes it super seriously.
The controls can be kind of hit or miss. It's very clear that most of the focus was spent on the driving controls because the driving feels great and is really fun. The best cars have that perfect fast and loose feeling and provide that "easy to be use, but tough to master" controls design that makes completing tough drifts or taking harder to access shortcuts feel really rewarding the later you get into the game.
On the other hand, the controls that do not involve driving are really janky. Going for 100% will require some platforming and it doesn't feel good. Everyone feels oddly heavy and the double jump timing in particular feels super awkward and delayed. The closest description I can think of is that it feels like Crash's weird double jump timing in crash 3 N sane but more delayed. The weird thing though is that Hit and Run's platforming is consistent in it's jankyness. So while it never feels good, it's far from impossible and you can adjust to the weird heaviness and double jump timing with a little effort.
I'm also not a fan of how the cost of the costumes and vehicles scale up in the later levels. On it's own this isn't a problem, but the game reuses a few levels without adding more places to get the coins needed to afford the later mandatory vehicles and costumes. I don't think this would be a problem on most casual playthroughs, but buying all the vehicles and costumes is required for 100%, so that means coin grinding will be required if you wanna go down that route and it sucks.
Lastly, the final level really drops the ball. The set up is super fun, but the second half of the level just consists of doing the exact same drive 3 times and it's very repetitive. The difficulty curve can also be all over the place in this game. The final mission has become pretty infamous for this, and while I don't think it's as bad as most people say it is it's still noticeably harder than the missions leading up to it. Level 6 also has this issue with the mission where you have to destroy the laser gun stands (I still don't know what I did differently from my previous attempts in my one successful one) and it's also an issue in a lot of the street races.
Overall, the strengths and charm massively outweigh the cons for me. The open world is the best in any simpsons game and the writing and voice acting are all perfect. I'd still probably say The Simpsons game is my favorite Simpsons videogame between the two, but I'd have to replay that game in order to say for sure.
First of all, if you've ever been in a similar situation to me where you'd drop the game because of the repetitive gameplay loop, I'd recommend going for 100%. This is what I did this time and taking the extra time to explore Springfield and look for collectibles really helped break up the repetition of the earlier driving missions, while I was still getting used to the controls.
Going on to the positives, this is without a doubt the most engaging and lived in Springfield has ever felt in a Simpsons game (at least out of the ones I've played). The hubs are all fun to drive around and explore and filled with so many little details, jokes and references. It's very clear the devs had a lot of fun designing the hubs and it only adds to the charm of the game for me. The sandbox is also just really fun to mess around in whether it's testing out new cars and costumes or just being a general nuisance (kicking the npcs is more fun than it has any right to be).
The writing is also great and feels right out of the classic era of the show. The actual plot is pretty nonsensical, but the game has fun with it and never takes it super seriously.
The controls can be kind of hit or miss. It's very clear that most of the focus was spent on the driving controls because the driving feels great and is really fun. The best cars have that perfect fast and loose feeling and provide that "easy to be use, but tough to master" controls design that makes completing tough drifts or taking harder to access shortcuts feel really rewarding the later you get into the game.
On the other hand, the controls that do not involve driving are really janky. Going for 100% will require some platforming and it doesn't feel good. Everyone feels oddly heavy and the double jump timing in particular feels super awkward and delayed. The closest description I can think of is that it feels like Crash's weird double jump timing in crash 3 N sane but more delayed. The weird thing though is that Hit and Run's platforming is consistent in it's jankyness. So while it never feels good, it's far from impossible and you can adjust to the weird heaviness and double jump timing with a little effort.
I'm also not a fan of how the cost of the costumes and vehicles scale up in the later levels. On it's own this isn't a problem, but the game reuses a few levels without adding more places to get the coins needed to afford the later mandatory vehicles and costumes. I don't think this would be a problem on most casual playthroughs, but buying all the vehicles and costumes is required for 100%, so that means coin grinding will be required if you wanna go down that route and it sucks.
Lastly, the final level really drops the ball. The set up is super fun, but the second half of the level just consists of doing the exact same drive 3 times and it's very repetitive. The difficulty curve can also be all over the place in this game. The final mission has become pretty infamous for this, and while I don't think it's as bad as most people say it is it's still noticeably harder than the missions leading up to it. Level 6 also has this issue with the mission where you have to destroy the laser gun stands (I still don't know what I did differently from my previous attempts in my one successful one) and it's also an issue in a lot of the street races.
Overall, the strengths and charm massively outweigh the cons for me. The open world is the best in any simpsons game and the writing and voice acting are all perfect. I'd still probably say The Simpsons game is my favorite Simpsons videogame between the two, but I'd have to replay that game in order to say for sure.
2024
I tried my best to go into reload relatively blind, I played FES beforehand but I didn't watch a majority of the trailers or any of the gameplay footage. Going in, I was expecting reload to be good and fix most of my issues with FES. After playing FES and reload almost back to back, I was surprised at how faithful reload was. Most of the changes made feel additive and serve to improve the pacing of the original game's story while also fleshing out a few characters' motivations.
My biggest issue with the original game was its over reliance on rng in the 100% experience. This is the biggest detractor for me whenever I think about replaying FES (just the thought of spending hours rerolling move inheritance while fusing personas hurts). As expected, reload fixes this by letting you pick the moves you want to inherit directly which I really appreciated. I was not expecting the game to go even farther and retool Elizabeth's requests that heavily relied on rng in FES. There's no more rerolling floors to try and get a gold chest to spawn only have another small chance of actually finding the weapon or item you're looking for. Additionally, while reload still has gold shadow requests, the shadows don't immediately disappear if you so much as look at them, so you actually have a good chance to hit them and not have to waste 30-60 minutes having to reroll floors trying to get them to spawn again. These changes alone drastically improved the completionist experience for me.
The original game is also notorious for having a strict time limit when going for max social links. Reload does a few things to alleviate the stress of trying to complete everything (more opportunities to increase social stats, hermit not taking up a whole day, etc.). I still ended up maxing my last link the day before the final boss, but my playthrough was very unoptimized. The game adds new hangouts/storylines for the male SEES members so most of the time I managed to save on social links was spent maxing these as well. I still really appreciated the added flexibility in maxing out all the social links and it only adds to the replayability of the game for me since I never felt the need to be super particular about doing every link on a specific designated day like I did on my 100% run of FES. The idea of replaying the game and optimizing my route just gives me a sense of satisfaction that I haven't felt since playing Majora's Mask for the first time.
Party members are controllable now, and while I am a defender of FES's battle system and think the hate for the AI party members is very overblown, I can't deny direct party control just feels better and helps speed up the pace of fights.
Tartarus has a lot of changes too. I ended up appreciating the new camera angle a lot more than I thought I would since it greatly reduced the amount of ambushes due to me swinging my sword too early or my aim being off by just a little bit. There's also more stuff to do in tartarus besides climb floors and fight bosses/enemies now plus a few new floor gimmicks to change up the gameplay every once in a while. Being able to run and fast travel on floors you've explored before are also nice QOL changes that help keep the pace of the game going. I liked tartarus in the original game, so I'm not sure if these changes are enough to sway the people who hated tartarus in the original game, but I'd imagine the QOL changes alone would greatly improve your tartarus experience if you hated the original.
If you're trying to get into the modern persona series, I'm not sure if reload is the best game to start with over royal. Reload is very faithful to the original game and the original persona 3 can be a bit of a slow burn. In contrast, I think royal's opening is a little faster paced and it's first conflict leaves a stronger impression/hook. If go into reload with this in mind, I think you'll really enjoy it.
To address the elephant in the room, it does suck that we still don't have a definitive persona 3 experience since reload lacks the P3P exclusive content, but with The Answer dlc being confirmed, I feel I can confidently say that reload is the definitive FES experience for me.
Overall, I really loved my time with reload. Persona 3 is just a really special game, and the new changes really enhanced the overall experience for me. I love the added character stuff and it only serves to help flesh out the world I loved from the original game even more. Reload might be the closest a non-pokemon rpg has felt to a comfort game for me. I know I'm going to replay it and experiment with new routes many times in the future.
My biggest issue with the original game was its over reliance on rng in the 100% experience. This is the biggest detractor for me whenever I think about replaying FES (just the thought of spending hours rerolling move inheritance while fusing personas hurts). As expected, reload fixes this by letting you pick the moves you want to inherit directly which I really appreciated. I was not expecting the game to go even farther and retool Elizabeth's requests that heavily relied on rng in FES. There's no more rerolling floors to try and get a gold chest to spawn only have another small chance of actually finding the weapon or item you're looking for. Additionally, while reload still has gold shadow requests, the shadows don't immediately disappear if you so much as look at them, so you actually have a good chance to hit them and not have to waste 30-60 minutes having to reroll floors trying to get them to spawn again. These changes alone drastically improved the completionist experience for me.
The original game is also notorious for having a strict time limit when going for max social links. Reload does a few things to alleviate the stress of trying to complete everything (more opportunities to increase social stats, hermit not taking up a whole day, etc.). I still ended up maxing my last link the day before the final boss, but my playthrough was very unoptimized. The game adds new hangouts/storylines for the male SEES members so most of the time I managed to save on social links was spent maxing these as well. I still really appreciated the added flexibility in maxing out all the social links and it only adds to the replayability of the game for me since I never felt the need to be super particular about doing every link on a specific designated day like I did on my 100% run of FES. The idea of replaying the game and optimizing my route just gives me a sense of satisfaction that I haven't felt since playing Majora's Mask for the first time.
Party members are controllable now, and while I am a defender of FES's battle system and think the hate for the AI party members is very overblown, I can't deny direct party control just feels better and helps speed up the pace of fights.
Tartarus has a lot of changes too. I ended up appreciating the new camera angle a lot more than I thought I would since it greatly reduced the amount of ambushes due to me swinging my sword too early or my aim being off by just a little bit. There's also more stuff to do in tartarus besides climb floors and fight bosses/enemies now plus a few new floor gimmicks to change up the gameplay every once in a while. Being able to run and fast travel on floors you've explored before are also nice QOL changes that help keep the pace of the game going. I liked tartarus in the original game, so I'm not sure if these changes are enough to sway the people who hated tartarus in the original game, but I'd imagine the QOL changes alone would greatly improve your tartarus experience if you hated the original.
If you're trying to get into the modern persona series, I'm not sure if reload is the best game to start with over royal. Reload is very faithful to the original game and the original persona 3 can be a bit of a slow burn. In contrast, I think royal's opening is a little faster paced and it's first conflict leaves a stronger impression/hook. If go into reload with this in mind, I think you'll really enjoy it.
To address the elephant in the room, it does suck that we still don't have a definitive persona 3 experience since reload lacks the P3P exclusive content, but with The Answer dlc being confirmed, I feel I can confidently say that reload is the definitive FES experience for me.
Overall, I really loved my time with reload. Persona 3 is just a really special game, and the new changes really enhanced the overall experience for me. I love the added character stuff and it only serves to help flesh out the world I loved from the original game even more. Reload might be the closest a non-pokemon rpg has felt to a comfort game for me. I know I'm going to replay it and experiment with new routes many times in the future.
Ace Attorney, but British! I had never played a Layton game before PL vs PW, but this game left a very strong first impression with Layton trying to throw hands with a monster in the first 5 minutes. Going into the crossover, I was told it was much more of a Layton game than an Ace Attorney game. If that's true I'm excited to eventually get to the Layton series.
The gameplay is split about 50/50 between the Layton and Ace Attorney styles. You get your Ace Attorney courtroom scenes with (what I'm assuming are the standard) exploration and puzzle solving playstyle from the Layton series replacing what would be the investigation segments from the ace attorney games. The two styles mesh pretty well, and kind of works like the investigation segments from Ace Attorney 1 with added puzzles.
While I think the two gameplay styles fit together for the most part, I went in to this game primarily as an Ace Attorney fan, and I'd being lying if I said I didn't miss some of the added investigation mechanics from AA 2 and 3.
The story is pretty good and the character writing is all super fun. I can't speak for the accuracy of the Layton characters' portrayal, but Maya and Phoenix felt like they were plucked right out of the original trilogy. The way the characters all meet each other is perfect too, super funny!
I thought the story was really interesting and well paced. The writers did a great job of continuously escalating everything and making each plot point hit really hard and crazy. I'm not sure it fully sticks the landing and I think the ending reveal kind of comes out of nowhere. However, the reveal is used effectively in the final courtroom segment, so it's not a deal breaker for me.
The court scenes are pretty good as well. I've heard the new mechanics come back in future AA games so I'm excited to see how they are further developed. The new courtroom structure was interesting as well, and I had a fun time adapting to the new type of logic used in the new setting. I think the middle court cases felt a little too formulaic at times, but they contribute to the story in an interesting way. The new prosecutor is fun too.
Overall the AA and Layton crossover is pretty fun. It's got a lot of fun character interactions and the story gets really crazy really fast. I don't think it quite sticks the landing towards the end of the story, but it's more consistent in quality than Apollo Justice and is still a crazy fun ride a majority of the time.
The gameplay is split about 50/50 between the Layton and Ace Attorney styles. You get your Ace Attorney courtroom scenes with (what I'm assuming are the standard) exploration and puzzle solving playstyle from the Layton series replacing what would be the investigation segments from the ace attorney games. The two styles mesh pretty well, and kind of works like the investigation segments from Ace Attorney 1 with added puzzles.
While I think the two gameplay styles fit together for the most part, I went in to this game primarily as an Ace Attorney fan, and I'd being lying if I said I didn't miss some of the added investigation mechanics from AA 2 and 3.
The story is pretty good and the character writing is all super fun. I can't speak for the accuracy of the Layton characters' portrayal, but Maya and Phoenix felt like they were plucked right out of the original trilogy. The way the characters all meet each other is perfect too, super funny!
I thought the story was really interesting and well paced. The writers did a great job of continuously escalating everything and making each plot point hit really hard and crazy. I'm not sure it fully sticks the landing and I think the ending reveal kind of comes out of nowhere. However, the reveal is used effectively in the final courtroom segment, so it's not a deal breaker for me.
The court scenes are pretty good as well. I've heard the new mechanics come back in future AA games so I'm excited to see how they are further developed. The new courtroom structure was interesting as well, and I had a fun time adapting to the new type of logic used in the new setting. I think the middle court cases felt a little too formulaic at times, but they contribute to the story in an interesting way. The new prosecutor is fun too.
Overall the AA and Layton crossover is pretty fun. It's got a lot of fun character interactions and the story gets really crazy really fast. I don't think it quite sticks the landing towards the end of the story, but it's more consistent in quality than Apollo Justice and is still a crazy fun ride a majority of the time.
2020
Really cool little platformer, like they really didn't need to go this hard. It's really impressive how much content is packed into such a short little game. Each level is tightly designed with engaging action platforming segments, little hidden collectibles and lots of fun little references and easter eggs celebrating the entire history of playstation and a lot of its core series.
I don't think I've played a game that made as full of a use of its controller since ape escape. It's hard to describe what it is about Astro's playroom works as well as it does, it's just really fun and it feels like the devs had a lot of fun making it.
Astro's playroom is just super charming and cool. It doesn't take long to playthrough or even 100% and it's one of the best ways to introduce yourself to the PS5 library. If you have the means you should check it out. It's a game anyone can get a lot out of.
I don't think I've played a game that made as full of a use of its controller since ape escape. It's hard to describe what it is about Astro's playroom works as well as it does, it's just really fun and it feels like the devs had a lot of fun making it.
Astro's playroom is just super charming and cool. It doesn't take long to playthrough or even 100% and it's one of the best ways to introduce yourself to the PS5 library. If you have the means you should check it out. It's a game anyone can get a lot out of.
After finishing Spyro 3 Reignited I felt very conflicted. Content wise, I think Spyro 3 is probably the best of the original trilogy, but I couldn't shake the feeling that I played the worst version of the game after finishing it.
I took a break from the reignited trilogy after finishing Spyro 2 back when the game released in 2018. I remember hearing about all the performance issues and glitches with 3 specifically and figured I could take a break and wait for the glitches to get patched since I was feeling some burn out after completing Spyro 1 and 2 back to back. Based on what I had heard about Spyro 3 when the trilogy originally released, I think a lot of those original glitches and performance issues were fixed, but I still experienced a lot of really annoying glitches and performance issues even now in 2024. My game's performance slowed down to a crawl multiple times and the skateboarding races ended up being really annoying since I experienced multiple instances of Spyro trying to half pipe of the middle of the race track, completely killing my speed and making me wipe out most of the time.
To focus on some positives, I think Spyro 3 does a better job of balancing the new ideas introduced in Ripto's rage with the core collectathon gameplay from Spyro 1. I think most of 3's minigames are better than 2's. I'm really glad the spirit particles from 2 are gone and think that it makes the levels feel less repetitive and formulaic than 2's.
I think Spyro 3 also has the best story and villain in the original trilogy. The cutscenes with the sorceress are great and serve as a great motivation to take her down.
I know the different characters tend to be hit or miss with people, but I generally liked them. I think they provided a nice variation to the gameplay while mostly staying true to spyro's core gameplay. I think Sparx's sections are probably the weakest since the controls never fully clicked for me and it probably has the least to do with the core gem collecting of the trilogy.
Overall, I think Spyro 3 is alright. I think I can say it's my favorite of the trilogy, but I can't help but feel I would have had more fun with the original. I was shocked with the lack of polish still present in Reignited's Spyro 3, and while none of it is game ruining, it was still really annoying to deal with and ended up sticking with me more than the stuff I liked about the game.
I took a break from the reignited trilogy after finishing Spyro 2 back when the game released in 2018. I remember hearing about all the performance issues and glitches with 3 specifically and figured I could take a break and wait for the glitches to get patched since I was feeling some burn out after completing Spyro 1 and 2 back to back. Based on what I had heard about Spyro 3 when the trilogy originally released, I think a lot of those original glitches and performance issues were fixed, but I still experienced a lot of really annoying glitches and performance issues even now in 2024. My game's performance slowed down to a crawl multiple times and the skateboarding races ended up being really annoying since I experienced multiple instances of Spyro trying to half pipe of the middle of the race track, completely killing my speed and making me wipe out most of the time.
To focus on some positives, I think Spyro 3 does a better job of balancing the new ideas introduced in Ripto's rage with the core collectathon gameplay from Spyro 1. I think most of 3's minigames are better than 2's. I'm really glad the spirit particles from 2 are gone and think that it makes the levels feel less repetitive and formulaic than 2's.
I think Spyro 3 also has the best story and villain in the original trilogy. The cutscenes with the sorceress are great and serve as a great motivation to take her down.
I know the different characters tend to be hit or miss with people, but I generally liked them. I think they provided a nice variation to the gameplay while mostly staying true to spyro's core gameplay. I think Sparx's sections are probably the weakest since the controls never fully clicked for me and it probably has the least to do with the core gem collecting of the trilogy.
Overall, I think Spyro 3 is alright. I think I can say it's my favorite of the trilogy, but I can't help but feel I would have had more fun with the original. I was shocked with the lack of polish still present in Reignited's Spyro 3, and while none of it is game ruining, it was still really annoying to deal with and ended up sticking with me more than the stuff I liked about the game.