loose thoughts, don't really care for much of a coherent review this time around.

maybe doesn't have as many cool "moments" as other games in the series but probably the most thematically compelling all around (other than maybe 0) and definitely my favorite rgg game now. feels like it has the same vibes as earlier entries where the stories weren't great but cool shit happened and i liked seeing the characters interact and beat the shit out of each other, but having a lot less of a struggle to manage tone whatsoever than 7 did (mostly because it did not go for many deeply emotional moments) and having themes that come across more coherently and less clumsily than dreams in 5.
gameplay is also improved compared to 7 and i think at this point (at least with kiryu's party) that infinite wealth has gameplay i enjoy more than any of the beat em up style rgg titles. kinda sucks how lopsided some of the cool and interesting mechanics are onto being just part of kiryu's kit when ichiban does not get anything remotely as interesting but oh well
the party dynamics are also so much better in 8. ichi/nanba/saeko/adachi in 7 is definitely good but ichi/tomi/chi/adachi and kiryu/seonhee/nanba/zhao just does so much more for me. felt way more invested in the party in 8 than i did in 7 and i already was pretty invested in 7's party. i'm sad that tomizawa is tied to hawaii because an ichiban group without him is going to feel super hollow afterwards.
speaking of new characters i like, yamai is probably one of the best characters this series has introduced in years and my biggest gripe with the story is that his backstory is hinted at and then just kinda ran through at the end. really hope they continue to use him since he's really a great presence. his second dynamic intro is also like the best one in the entire series


despite the fact that the misconception that 6 was designed and intended to be an ending for kazuma kiryu as a character plagues this fanbase so we need to pretend that it's bad when kiryu takes up screen time after that game ended or whatever, kiryu is the highlight of this game and it is not even a competition. maybe a lot of the "the game should've been more about ichiban!" crowd are just people who started with 7 and/or did not play through the kiryu games but i still think he was absolutely worth including in this game and i think this could've ended up being one of the weaker entries in the series without him. sorry ichiban, but you are kind of yakuza 4 kiryu in this game where you are dragged into the story because you are the Like a Dragon Guy and need to be there. even if your final boss basically gets a better version of the munakata intro (with a worse song because even if the music is better in 8 the ichiban games have a terminal case of Ichiban Gaming Intro HD 720p) i did not find your part of the game as compelling as kiryu's outside of strong character writing. character writing in general is probably some of the strongest the series gets in this entry though so it's definitely not a waste of time.


infinite wealth in general honestly feels like it is setting up for a third ichiban game to really tie it all together, more of a middle point for ichiban while progressing kiryu's story to a point where it actually feels reasonable to start ending his, so despite not actually being excited for 8 until much later into the prerelease cycle i'm very excited to see what rgg studios does for like a dragon 9: lost in new york

yakuza 3 is kind of sad to me, a good game held back by glaring issues. mine is still one of the strongest foils to kiryu and still has the coolest boss intro and battle theme in the series and most scenes with him are incredible, and i really like the story in terms of kiryu and the orphanage and all of that, but the combat is pretty weak and the actual conspiracy that drives the plot is by far the weakest in the series and it's hard to reconcile with that when the behind the scenes scheming and what not that drives the plot is too uninteresting to do that very well. equally integral to and great for kiryu's story and progression as it is uninteresting and not really worth revisiting in my opinion

i might play more with friends, but it's as generic a survival game as you can imagine made by some of the most soulless just doing it for a quick buck devs in the industry. i don't particularly care about the stolen pokemon designs (they are bad though) but the whole game is filled with stolen ideas and concepts with almost no spin on it. i don't doubt people genuinely find it fun, but it's as soulless and greedy as their previous game craftopia but because there's pokemon and they can hold a gun it sold 7 million copies and counting! sad for the industry, and the people acting like this is some special new indie company making a huge ambitious game and not their like 4th asset flip garbage hoping it catches on to make some money is pretty silly. i realize i'm part of the problem playing it at all, even if i did do it though gamepass. also, the gamepass version is behind on updates and entirely broken and pretty unplayable with friends almost certainly on purpose to push people to spend real money for it on steam (which judging by reviews is working!) and that sucks. idk, this is the most bitter i've been in a review and i don't really think less of anyone who is playing it and enjoying it because i understand it's just a kind of fun trendy game but i guess it's just the entire circumstance around this game that really bums me out.

Remember when Naughty Dog used to make games like Jak & Daxter and Uncharted while not being held hostage by a egotistical Zionist who believes he can do no wrong and a bigger company who so desperately wants the same 7 franchises they've relied on heavily since 2017 to be cinematic video game showcases so they can easily translate them into movies and TV shows because said-company's previously existing movie/TV IPs have either underperformed or is forced to have shared custody with the Mouse™?

On a completely unrelated note the Last of Us Part II is a very nothing remaster and they're now announcing the new cast for season 2 of the show.

"There are good things even when you become an adult... Just a few..."

"This is... the burden of sin"

might be a bit more personal of a review at the start than i intended but oh well! also dragged on new-persona a bit more than i wanted but i'm keeping it in because i find it important to my thoughts on the game

i think i played eternal punishment at the perfect time in my life. i'm a largely aimless adult who thought they knew what they wanted out of life but is currently just in a state of trying to find something that makes sense, something to hold onto and give me a direction. at the same time, i'm only 20 years old at the time of playing the game and writing this, and more than an aimless and confused adult, i'm a scared kid who doesn't know and isn't ready for what being an adult entails. because of this, i've never really related more to a cast of characters in a game more than the cast of eternal punishment.

if you know anything about persona it's probably persona 4 and 5, which uh. you can see my reviews on those games to find out how i feel about them. their casts are of teenagers whose biggest problems never seemed to be anything that i could relate to, other than futaba who is autistic and has trauma, but even then there's this thin layer of tropiness on every character so you can't even relate to them past a superficial level of recognizing a small bit of yourself in them for the sake of doing the bare minimum to be hip and relatable teenagers.
in p2ep however, you have a group that amounts to a directionless adult, an adult who is questioning his direction, an adult who lost his way, and an adult who is too absorbed in the direction she took to really go any other way (she is the weakest example of the theme). later on, you also get (in my playthrough at least, there are two persona 1 party members you can choose between later on and i chose nanjo) an adult who found his way and has an experience that strengthens his resolve, and a teenager who is deeply afraid of being alone, and is scared of what becoming an adult is going to mean for him.

the party in eternal punishment are all handled so well and the way they interact with each other feels just as real as the friends in innocent sin. its a palpable feeling where these characters are in their lives and careers and how happy they are with it and i love it, it made me feel like maybe there is a way for me to claw my way out of the uncertainty of early adulthood, a way for me to... Change My Way.

sorry

aside from the characters, the narrative is also a great continuation of innocent sin and the original persona (but mostly innocent sin). you get really nice conclusions and additions to the characters from the first game sprinkled throughout, and seeing as it is a sequel to innocent sin, a lot of content that is greatly benefited by having played that game first. whereas innocent sin ends in a sorrowful and hopeless note for these kids who didn't do anything to deserve it, eternal punishment highlights that hopelessness at first, but ultimately shows it all through a lens of hope. i won't spoil much but these characters get mostly happy endings and they get to move on with their lives and find a place and direction they can be happy with, and after playing 2 games i would hope i at least get to feel a little nice about what happens in the end.

gameplay wise, eternal punishments psp port is a lot better than the psp port of innocent sin. a lot of minor quality of life features make the battle system a lot more fun to mess with and it isn't so awful that you're going to be begging for a visual novel adaptation. it's honestly one of the more fun turn based systems in a jrpg i've played even if near the end i started to get a little bored, at least of the random encounters and some reoccurring bosses. the dungeon crawling is also a lot better in this one aside from a certain dungeon near the end of the game. it's hardly ever aimless and frustrating like i felt innocent sin could be.

overall, eternal punishment is an amazing game and a perfect finale to innocent sin, and it's a shame that persona just never was this good or real again. maybe with a new director to the series we could see a return to this style of storytelling and presentation in the series, but with how popular the newest games are and how prominent the dating sim elements are, i don't see that happening sadly. it's not all bad though, because these old games, or in the case of the original and the psp port of innocent sin, the stories, hold up incredibly well and far surpass their younger peers. i implore anyone who feels like they can't get into modern persona or just anyone who wants a good jrpg to sink a few weeks into to play this duology, i promise you won't be disappointed.

STOP MAKING MEGA MAN

ROBOT MASTERS WERE SUPPOSED TO BE GIVEN REAL JOBS

YEARS OF MEGA MAN ENTRIES yet NO-REAL WORLD USE FOUND for STAR MAN

Wanted a strong and tough robot master for a laugh? We had one for that. It was called "GUTS MAN"

"Yes please give me WAVE MAN. Please give me GRAVITY MAN" - Robot masters dreamed up by the utterly deranged

"Hello I would like to fight Gyro Man please"
They have played us for absolute fools

not to beat a dead horse but persona 5 is the epitome of style over substance

one of the most overhyped games of all time, and i kind of regret the 140 hours i sunk into it when i played it initially in 2019. i liked it at the time but it was also the first big jrpg i had played at the time, and the more games in the same genre or that tackled the same themes i experienced, the less love in my heart i had for persona 5. theres a lot there but other than the aesthetics (which im not a fan of) and the music (which is basically just baby's first acid jazz sampling) there isn't much to whats there. the characters give you the facade of being deep and intricate when they get introduced but unless you're akechi or fucking morgana you either don't get development past your introduction or that development practically gets disregarded for the rest of the story.

the story itself is also noncommittal to the idea of rebellion that it sells itself on. empowering the underdogs of society but only in a way that supports that status quo. we wouldn't want to actually try to say anything now would we? the closest thing to challenging the status quo that these kids actually do is by targeting a single corrupt politician.

i know there was a lot of drama a while ago about people experiencing the game by watching it and how that "isn't how you're supposed to" but you genuinely lose out on nothing and i honestly might have a higher opinion of this game if it was just the story bits and not the insufferably droning jrpg with a 3/10 dating sim tacked onto it.

overall i just genuinely do not like this game and after 3 years of stewing on those feelings i don't think much is going to change my mind. i think a large part of that is that i don't like the presentation much (it wore off on me pretty quickly when i initially played and i never reacclimated to it) and the ost is only really good for 2 or 3 songs unless you've just never listened to any form of jazz fusion or its derivatives.

i wouldn't call persona 5 a bad game but with how long it is and how much time i invested into it, i can't help but be frustrated with how shockingly little i actually got out of the experience positively.