bugfairy
28 reviews liked by bugfairy
I fucking love Persona 3. But for years on end, I always avoided The Answer. Discussions online would always conclude with The Answer being nothing but just grindy, non-canon filler. An expansion not worth your time. My impressionable 14-year-old self sadly dismissed it entirely because of its reputation and moved on to other entries in the Shin Megami Tensei series. With The Answer returning to Persona 3 Reload as ($35?!) DLC, I finally decided to proceed with my belated playthrough so that I may draw fair comparisons between the original and the remake when the time comes.
It's astounding how the message of this epilogue went over so many people's heads. The Answer is such a bittersweet conclusion to my favorite game of all time and its exploration of the grief felt by the cast after the main game's ending is beautifully told, albeit the player must endure exhausting gameplay in between each impactful scene, derailing the pace a bit. Nevertheless, it's wild how many in the community misunderstood certain plot elements like Yukari's behavior or the true reasoning behind what transpired on the Promised Day. Yukari was so valid here. I don't wish to speak much about it, but I cannot figure out how The Answer mischaracterize any of its party members nor how it "ruins" the message of the main game. If anything, it elevates my feelings of the original and now I loathe myself for putting it off for so long.
Hopefully Reload's interpretation of the Answer can offer more accessibility to those put off by its increased challenge and endless dungeon crawl and its absence of the fucking compendium because seriously that choice is the only thing that really bothered me. On any note, see you in September! Maybe I'll actually jot down my thoughts about Persona 3 Reload as a whole when that time comes.
It's astounding how the message of this epilogue went over so many people's heads. The Answer is such a bittersweet conclusion to my favorite game of all time and its exploration of the grief felt by the cast after the main game's ending is beautifully told, albeit the player must endure exhausting gameplay in between each impactful scene, derailing the pace a bit. Nevertheless, it's wild how many in the community misunderstood certain plot elements like Yukari's behavior or the true reasoning behind what transpired on the Promised Day. Yukari was so valid here. I don't wish to speak much about it, but I cannot figure out how The Answer mischaracterize any of its party members nor how it "ruins" the message of the main game. If anything, it elevates my feelings of the original and now I loathe myself for putting it off for so long.
Hopefully Reload's interpretation of the Answer can offer more accessibility to those put off by its increased challenge and endless dungeon crawl and its absence of the fucking compendium because seriously that choice is the only thing that really bothered me. On any note, see you in September! Maybe I'll actually jot down my thoughts about Persona 3 Reload as a whole when that time comes.
I declared that I will make September, my birthday month, a month playing important games on my backlog I've been dying to play. Video games I know I will rate highly and greatly enjoy. I was able to pull that off, to some extent, but what a shame this incredible month of mine had to end with a whimper. Sonic Frontiers was my game of the year for 2022. To say I am disappointed in this DLC is a massive understatement.
What the fuck happened at Sonic Team this past year that moved them to make this vile, frustrating content update that convinced me to think less of Sonic Frontiers as a whole. I appreciate the effort to make this last update a challenging experience for all players. I really do! I found most of the trial towers and cyberspace levels to be fun! The Cyberspace levels in particular has me excited for what's to come in Sonic Team's 3D level design. Branching paths and precise platforming to access shortcuts are what I expect a 3D Sonic level to feature. Rumors spread about a remake of Sonic Adventure, and I am confident that Sonic Team is able to pull that off. Sorta. Not really. Not at all actually. In fact, I am very, very worried!
The other 90% of the update fucking reeks. Bullshit trials given by the Kocos on top of Ubisoft towers where falling once just breaks the whole fucking climb where some mechanics restart to help you try again but some others straight up don't, requiring a full save reload so that you're not teetering on the edge of platforms where the slightest miss input can send Sonic flying down towards the ground. Remember that you can Drop Dash? No? Well, you fucking will when you accidentally hold the jump button for too long so when you carefully land on a platform, Sonic just boosts his dumbass straight off. Finally when you reach the top you're either greeted with the most frustrating challenge that'll make you tear the sticks off the controller or a braindead, easy parry trial that you wish appeared more often. Until the game takes away your normal parry and forces you to perfect parry through an entire boss rush with essentially a fucking timer. Perfect parries are garbage and I swear, do not work. Hit detection and animation problems already infested the base game, therefore introducing a perfect parry mechanic right at the end of a whole-ass game where parry timing didn't matter at all is insanity. Who even gives a shit about the other playable characters when you barely have any time with them at all? Hell, all three new characters are able to glide over puzzles making their whole gameplay a snooze-fest. Nothing much to say there. I wish they were playable more often in other Sonic games, that's all I guess. Final boss was pretty cool but still filled with awkward jank.
Highly do not recommend trying this out. Watch the cutscenes on YouTube instead. What a shitter. I'm going to bed.
What the fuck happened at Sonic Team this past year that moved them to make this vile, frustrating content update that convinced me to think less of Sonic Frontiers as a whole. I appreciate the effort to make this last update a challenging experience for all players. I really do! I found most of the trial towers and cyberspace levels to be fun! The Cyberspace levels in particular has me excited for what's to come in Sonic Team's 3D level design. Branching paths and precise platforming to access shortcuts are what I expect a 3D Sonic level to feature. Rumors spread about a remake of Sonic Adventure, and I am confident that Sonic Team is able to pull that off. Sorta. Not really. Not at all actually. In fact, I am very, very worried!
The other 90% of the update fucking reeks. Bullshit trials given by the Kocos on top of Ubisoft towers where falling once just breaks the whole fucking climb where some mechanics restart to help you try again but some others straight up don't, requiring a full save reload so that you're not teetering on the edge of platforms where the slightest miss input can send Sonic flying down towards the ground. Remember that you can Drop Dash? No? Well, you fucking will when you accidentally hold the jump button for too long so when you carefully land on a platform, Sonic just boosts his dumbass straight off. Finally when you reach the top you're either greeted with the most frustrating challenge that'll make you tear the sticks off the controller or a braindead, easy parry trial that you wish appeared more often. Until the game takes away your normal parry and forces you to perfect parry through an entire boss rush with essentially a fucking timer. Perfect parries are garbage and I swear, do not work. Hit detection and animation problems already infested the base game, therefore introducing a perfect parry mechanic right at the end of a whole-ass game where parry timing didn't matter at all is insanity. Who even gives a shit about the other playable characters when you barely have any time with them at all? Hell, all three new characters are able to glide over puzzles making their whole gameplay a snooze-fest. Nothing much to say there. I wish they were playable more often in other Sonic games, that's all I guess. Final boss was pretty cool but still filled with awkward jank.
Highly do not recommend trying this out. Watch the cutscenes on YouTube instead. What a shitter. I'm going to bed.
Look I'm sorry, I know you're trying your best, but nothing you do will convince me that Sora is straight.
I dedicate this work to the Muses, so that they may guide my hand as I undertake this herculean task.
We live in an age of unprecedented interconnectedness. News travels across the globe in a manner of minutes, and journeys that used to take months of careful planning and as much time to execute can now be made on a whim in an afternoon. Information is obtained, processed, and distributed without regard for national, continental, or linguistic barriers. And yet, one thing has eluded speakers of the English language for years. In December 2021, Bandai Namco Games released PUI PUI MOLCAR Let’s! MOLCAR PARTY in Japan and Southeast Asia. The game features a full English translation, but for some reason, there is almost no information on the game in English to be found online. I seek to fix that. I will brave the frontier that is PUI PUI MOLCAR Let’s MOLCAR PARTY and document my findings for the world to see. This will be my magnum opus. This will be the mark I leave on history.
For those unaware of the cultural phenomenon that is PUI PUI MOLCAR, it is a stop-motion animated series released in Japan in 2021 that follows a group of car/guinea pig hybrids as they navigate the stressful and oftentimes cruel world of being used as transportation for their human masters. This manifests in such gruesome and emotional ways as being left outside in the heat, being hijacked and used as a getaway car, or eating trash because it looked like food (Let’s! MOLCAR PARTY actually reveals that carrots, the primary food and fuel source for the molcar, are made from processed and recycled trash, which provides some much-needed context to the episode “Chewing Chewing Cleaning”). As any self-respecting game developer would, the geniuses at Bandai Namco Entertainment decided that the best way to present these complex and moving stories in video game form would be the long-standing tradition of a mini game collection. Such masterpieces as Game & Wario (2013) or Rayman: Raving Rabbids 2 (2007) no doubt influenced Bandai Namco’s decision to present the gripping story of Moltown and its inhabitants in this way.
The game itself is structured around the aforementioned Moltown, which the player is tasked with building up from zero. This is doubtless due to some kind of unmentioned tragedy leveling the town and its inhabitants, which leaves the surviving molcars with the burdensome task of rebuilding their civilization. The molcars, which are rendered in impressive detail, do this by partaking in a series of 10 sacred rituals known as “minigames” in order to win a currency known as PUI. As this PUI can be used to magically recreate buildings and to procure accessories for the surviving molcars, it is doubtless the concentrated form of divine favor, bestowed upon the molcars by whatever deity they worship. Once enough PUI is gathered, the molcars use it to restore one of 12 buildings to Moltown, which I will go through in order of their appearance.
1. The Mol Shop
The only building to have survived the destruction of Moltown, the Mol Shop is exactly what it advertises itself as, a shop. In the game itself, it only sells accessories that are used to customize your molcars, but it doubtless serves a much greater purpose in wider molcar society due to its proximity to the third building on this list.
2. The Photo Studio
The Photo Studio is a monument to eternity. The molcars use it to preserve images of themselves for future generations, and the player is tasked with arranging these images in order to best capture the essence of molcar society.
3. The Hangout Area
The Hangout Area is at the core of molcar society. This is where molcars go receive “pats” from their divine overlords. What exactly these “pats” are is unclear, but as molcars seem to be pleased by them, they are of no doubt important to their culture and belief systems.
4. The DJ Booth
The DJ Booth is where molcars go to participate in the first minigame, Mol Rhythm. Given a set of three directions, molcars are tasked with reproducing said directions to a beat. The minigame very much resembles a game that the western world knows as Simon Says, but that is a gross oversimplification of its artistic and cultural significance.
5. The Soccer Stadium
It is here that molcars go to compete against each other in a sport known as Mol Soccer. Two teams, consisting of one to three molcars each, are tasked with pushing an oversized ball into the opposing team’s goal. As molcars lack clear hands and require all four wheel-like feet to move, this is done by running and jumping into the ball. The actual sport is quite similar to the hit video game Rocket League (2015), which is most likely little more than coincidence.
6. Potato’s Driver’s House
This is where molcars go to throw their Surprise Parties. A Surprise Party is an event in which molcars gather and dance while attempting to not wake up the human occupants of a given building. The event takes on a form very similar to the schoolyard game known as “Red Light, Green Light” and being caught dancing when the human participant wakes is considered quite the cultural faux pas.
7. The Arcade
The Arcade is where PUI PUI Turf Battles are held. Four molcars are dropped onto a floor equipped with lit panels and are made to brutally fight over territory. Any panel a molcar steps on is changed to that molcar’s assigned color and awarded to them as their own turf, but other molcars can just as easily claim it as their own by stepping on the aforementioned panel. This leads to PUI PUI Turf Battles being quick, messy affairs where molcars scramble to protect their own territory while still expanding it. This nature of territorial conflict is no doubt a harsh critique of human nations and their tendency to go to war over tracts of land.
8. The Dump Site
This is where molcars take their collected trash and convert it into edible carrots in a minigame known as City Cleaning. In it, molcars are tasked with gathering bags of trash that are littered about Moltown’s streets and returning them to the dump site. When they arrive, the trash is emptied out into a machine and miraculously converted into carrots, thus preserving the ecosystem and contributing to molcar society. If only mankind could find such a use for our own refuse, but that is little more than wishful thinking,
9. The Villain’s Hideout
This is where molcars go to partake in Mol Missions. A Mol Mission is an event in which molcars run away from a giant, mechanized shark capable of launching damaging lasers in multiple directions. This is perhaps the most mysterious of the events, and there is little I can say to expand upon it further.
10. Molfes Land
This is where molcars go to participate in the event known as Molfes. Molfes very much resembles our own Fall Guys (2020), as molcars are tasked with running through an obstacle course in the allotted time. It is a relatively simple minigame, but serves as a testament to the physical prowess of these creatures.
11. The Desert
The desert is where molcars go to brave the Mol Of The Dead event. As to why the desert is considered a building, I do not know, but as that is how the molcars treat it, I will follow their example. Mol Of The Dead sees molcars run through an apocalyptic wasteland as they scrounge for supplies and avoid the zombie hordes that call the wastes home. The event, at its most basic level, resembles Pac Man (1980).
12. The Racing Arena.
This is where molcars go to participate in PUI PUI Racing. This event consists of two laps around a short, carrot shaped track. The first molcar to complete both laps is deemed the champion, leaving the remaining molcars to compete over the lower places.
13. The Bank
The site of the final minigame, the bank is where molcars go to play Hide and Mol-seek. In a game that resembles our own “Cops and Robbers”, two teams of molcars are let loose in Moltown. The robbers team is tasked with evading capture while the cops team is tasked with capturing the robbers. The two scamper through the streets, coming into close contact with each other, but often avoiding direct confrontations. If Moltown is able to turn crime into such a simple game, I wonder about the frequency of legitimate crimes.
Outside of these games, molcars spend their days wandering the paradise of Moltown and doing whatever they so desire. This is most often chewing on shrubs or squeaking in groups, but I am not one to judge the legitimacy of their actions.
Honestly, it’s just a minigame collection, so it makes sense nobody bothered to write about it. The minigame quality ranges from pretty barebones to actually kind of fun, but it never goes beyond that. I wasn’t joking when I said the molcars looked nice since the devs did a really good job of actually animating them in a way that matches the feel of the show, but other than that there’s nothing of note here. Shoutout to the guy who imported the special release edition of this game at full price and then sold it to me for like $15, though.
Also how am I worse at molcar Rocket League than real Rocket League?
We live in an age of unprecedented interconnectedness. News travels across the globe in a manner of minutes, and journeys that used to take months of careful planning and as much time to execute can now be made on a whim in an afternoon. Information is obtained, processed, and distributed without regard for national, continental, or linguistic barriers. And yet, one thing has eluded speakers of the English language for years. In December 2021, Bandai Namco Games released PUI PUI MOLCAR Let’s! MOLCAR PARTY in Japan and Southeast Asia. The game features a full English translation, but for some reason, there is almost no information on the game in English to be found online. I seek to fix that. I will brave the frontier that is PUI PUI MOLCAR Let’s MOLCAR PARTY and document my findings for the world to see. This will be my magnum opus. This will be the mark I leave on history.
For those unaware of the cultural phenomenon that is PUI PUI MOLCAR, it is a stop-motion animated series released in Japan in 2021 that follows a group of car/guinea pig hybrids as they navigate the stressful and oftentimes cruel world of being used as transportation for their human masters. This manifests in such gruesome and emotional ways as being left outside in the heat, being hijacked and used as a getaway car, or eating trash because it looked like food (Let’s! MOLCAR PARTY actually reveals that carrots, the primary food and fuel source for the molcar, are made from processed and recycled trash, which provides some much-needed context to the episode “Chewing Chewing Cleaning”). As any self-respecting game developer would, the geniuses at Bandai Namco Entertainment decided that the best way to present these complex and moving stories in video game form would be the long-standing tradition of a mini game collection. Such masterpieces as Game & Wario (2013) or Rayman: Raving Rabbids 2 (2007) no doubt influenced Bandai Namco’s decision to present the gripping story of Moltown and its inhabitants in this way.
The game itself is structured around the aforementioned Moltown, which the player is tasked with building up from zero. This is doubtless due to some kind of unmentioned tragedy leveling the town and its inhabitants, which leaves the surviving molcars with the burdensome task of rebuilding their civilization. The molcars, which are rendered in impressive detail, do this by partaking in a series of 10 sacred rituals known as “minigames” in order to win a currency known as PUI. As this PUI can be used to magically recreate buildings and to procure accessories for the surviving molcars, it is doubtless the concentrated form of divine favor, bestowed upon the molcars by whatever deity they worship. Once enough PUI is gathered, the molcars use it to restore one of 12 buildings to Moltown, which I will go through in order of their appearance.
1. The Mol Shop
The only building to have survived the destruction of Moltown, the Mol Shop is exactly what it advertises itself as, a shop. In the game itself, it only sells accessories that are used to customize your molcars, but it doubtless serves a much greater purpose in wider molcar society due to its proximity to the third building on this list.
2. The Photo Studio
The Photo Studio is a monument to eternity. The molcars use it to preserve images of themselves for future generations, and the player is tasked with arranging these images in order to best capture the essence of molcar society.
3. The Hangout Area
The Hangout Area is at the core of molcar society. This is where molcars go receive “pats” from their divine overlords. What exactly these “pats” are is unclear, but as molcars seem to be pleased by them, they are of no doubt important to their culture and belief systems.
4. The DJ Booth
The DJ Booth is where molcars go to participate in the first minigame, Mol Rhythm. Given a set of three directions, molcars are tasked with reproducing said directions to a beat. The minigame very much resembles a game that the western world knows as Simon Says, but that is a gross oversimplification of its artistic and cultural significance.
5. The Soccer Stadium
It is here that molcars go to compete against each other in a sport known as Mol Soccer. Two teams, consisting of one to three molcars each, are tasked with pushing an oversized ball into the opposing team’s goal. As molcars lack clear hands and require all four wheel-like feet to move, this is done by running and jumping into the ball. The actual sport is quite similar to the hit video game Rocket League (2015), which is most likely little more than coincidence.
6. Potato’s Driver’s House
This is where molcars go to throw their Surprise Parties. A Surprise Party is an event in which molcars gather and dance while attempting to not wake up the human occupants of a given building. The event takes on a form very similar to the schoolyard game known as “Red Light, Green Light” and being caught dancing when the human participant wakes is considered quite the cultural faux pas.
7. The Arcade
The Arcade is where PUI PUI Turf Battles are held. Four molcars are dropped onto a floor equipped with lit panels and are made to brutally fight over territory. Any panel a molcar steps on is changed to that molcar’s assigned color and awarded to them as their own turf, but other molcars can just as easily claim it as their own by stepping on the aforementioned panel. This leads to PUI PUI Turf Battles being quick, messy affairs where molcars scramble to protect their own territory while still expanding it. This nature of territorial conflict is no doubt a harsh critique of human nations and their tendency to go to war over tracts of land.
8. The Dump Site
This is where molcars take their collected trash and convert it into edible carrots in a minigame known as City Cleaning. In it, molcars are tasked with gathering bags of trash that are littered about Moltown’s streets and returning them to the dump site. When they arrive, the trash is emptied out into a machine and miraculously converted into carrots, thus preserving the ecosystem and contributing to molcar society. If only mankind could find such a use for our own refuse, but that is little more than wishful thinking,
9. The Villain’s Hideout
This is where molcars go to partake in Mol Missions. A Mol Mission is an event in which molcars run away from a giant, mechanized shark capable of launching damaging lasers in multiple directions. This is perhaps the most mysterious of the events, and there is little I can say to expand upon it further.
10. Molfes Land
This is where molcars go to participate in the event known as Molfes. Molfes very much resembles our own Fall Guys (2020), as molcars are tasked with running through an obstacle course in the allotted time. It is a relatively simple minigame, but serves as a testament to the physical prowess of these creatures.
11. The Desert
The desert is where molcars go to brave the Mol Of The Dead event. As to why the desert is considered a building, I do not know, but as that is how the molcars treat it, I will follow their example. Mol Of The Dead sees molcars run through an apocalyptic wasteland as they scrounge for supplies and avoid the zombie hordes that call the wastes home. The event, at its most basic level, resembles Pac Man (1980).
12. The Racing Arena.
This is where molcars go to participate in PUI PUI Racing. This event consists of two laps around a short, carrot shaped track. The first molcar to complete both laps is deemed the champion, leaving the remaining molcars to compete over the lower places.
13. The Bank
The site of the final minigame, the bank is where molcars go to play Hide and Mol-seek. In a game that resembles our own “Cops and Robbers”, two teams of molcars are let loose in Moltown. The robbers team is tasked with evading capture while the cops team is tasked with capturing the robbers. The two scamper through the streets, coming into close contact with each other, but often avoiding direct confrontations. If Moltown is able to turn crime into such a simple game, I wonder about the frequency of legitimate crimes.
Outside of these games, molcars spend their days wandering the paradise of Moltown and doing whatever they so desire. This is most often chewing on shrubs or squeaking in groups, but I am not one to judge the legitimacy of their actions.
Honestly, it’s just a minigame collection, so it makes sense nobody bothered to write about it. The minigame quality ranges from pretty barebones to actually kind of fun, but it never goes beyond that. I wasn’t joking when I said the molcars looked nice since the devs did a really good job of actually animating them in a way that matches the feel of the show, but other than that there’s nothing of note here. Shoutout to the guy who imported the special release edition of this game at full price and then sold it to me for like $15, though.
Also how am I worse at molcar Rocket League than real Rocket League?
sora and riku would find each other in any world
A miku picross sounds like a no brainer good game but the lack of options in this thing completely ruins my enjoyment of it, the biggest one being that you can't turn the assists off! If you fill in a spot that isn't correct, wether you got it wrong or you accidentally moved the sticks too far in a direction you didn't want to, "FUCK YOU" says Miku as she stares sadly at you for even thinking that was right, filling in the entire row for you unasked and denying you the no assist tick for the puzzle not because you didn't turn them off but purely because you triggered them.
Now I play Hatusune Miku Logic Paint S in abject fear, making sure to never make one mistake under Hatsune Miku's all seeing eye lest the entire puzzle is ruined. Hatesune Miku doesn't believe in second chances. Tread carefully. It might be your last mistake.
On the plus side though, it has really cute unlockable art!
Now I play Hatusune Miku Logic Paint S in abject fear, making sure to never make one mistake under Hatsune Miku's all seeing eye lest the entire puzzle is ruined. Hatesune Miku doesn't believe in second chances. Tread carefully. It might be your last mistake.
On the plus side though, it has really cute unlockable art!
Final Fantasy XVI
2023
Finally, the PS5 has one game...and it's a damn good fucking game. Just having completed the game an hour ago, I must say, I am speechless and will write a full essay once I have beaten the harder game mode, as I will need some time to digest this mountainous journey. For now though, it is an easy recommendation for anybody who owns a PS5. Of course, there's still hiccups here and there, but none of those hiccups take away from my rating. The amounts of times this game took my breath away and left my jaw on the floor is unreal. Not even halfway through the game, you would encounter enemies that may as well be the final boss for other action RPGs.
Several of the boss fights left me in hysterics. Raw emotion took over me as I witnessed some of the best boss fights I've seen since Asura's Wrath. This is it. These are the battles my younger self would daydream about in 6th grade English class. Wearing an earbud hidden from teacher's view, I would blast away "epic orchestral battle music" as my imagination renders series of frantic colors and flashes. Two blurred, hazy characters dueling to the death in an arena ruined by their onslaught of magical strikes. These battles had no meaning. Those characters had no faces nor names. Yet, it still captivated me all the same.
Final Fantasy XVI are those daydreams brought to life. A video game that felt like its hand-tailored just for me. From combat to the music to the story. Felt like everything I ever wanted a video game to be and one I wish to see more of. I do want to become a game developer one day. I do want to create stories of my own and host battles of galactic proportions. Even if I don't though, I'm glad to live in a world where Final Fantasy exists.
Several of the boss fights left me in hysterics. Raw emotion took over me as I witnessed some of the best boss fights I've seen since Asura's Wrath. This is it. These are the battles my younger self would daydream about in 6th grade English class. Wearing an earbud hidden from teacher's view, I would blast away "epic orchestral battle music" as my imagination renders series of frantic colors and flashes. Two blurred, hazy characters dueling to the death in an arena ruined by their onslaught of magical strikes. These battles had no meaning. Those characters had no faces nor names. Yet, it still captivated me all the same.
Final Fantasy XVI are those daydreams brought to life. A video game that felt like its hand-tailored just for me. From combat to the music to the story. Felt like everything I ever wanted a video game to be and one I wish to see more of. I do want to become a game developer one day. I do want to create stories of my own and host battles of galactic proportions. Even if I don't though, I'm glad to live in a world where Final Fantasy exists.
No words. Everything I wanted and even more. Thank you Monolithsoft. Beyond excited for what lies ahead.
I saw this game being sold for $12 at a Burlington.
Shin Megami Tensei V
2021
I’ve been waiting for SMTV ever since it was announced back in Nintendo’s 2017 Switch Presentation. Ever since then, hype has been building up in anticipation for what I believed would be the best JRPG on the Nintendo Switch. Does it live up to that hype? Sadly, it does not. Is it a good game? Yes, of course. As good as the last mainline SMT games? Well, that’s up to you.
SMTV has so many wonderful ideas but yet it fails to execute them in a way that feels impactful. The plot itself seemed great at first, but every single twist or revelation made in the story felt as if it wasn’t built up at all. “Whatever,” “I guess that happened,” I said to almost every development in the plot that seemed like it wanted to do more. SMTV should’ve focused more on the plot. I’m not saying to add social links and more Persona elements, of course not. SMTIV was able to deliver a more impactful story from the beginning due to how relevant the plot was. SMTV felt scattered. It felt incomplete. A story that couldn’t have been told to its fullest potential. That is my main gripe with the game though.
Aside from performance issues on the Switch, everything else is great. Gameplay feels fast and attacks look cinematic and colorful. Soundtrack bangs as per usual standard. No particular song stands out though. The dungeons though…they remain uninspired. The “open-world” felt cluttered. Navigating around is a nightmare with how useless the map is. The final dungeon was laughable. Progressing through this game was overall sluggish. Yet, I was still in love with the concepts and designs of Da’at. Negotiation with demons has never been better. The atmosphere of the game really sells it to me. Despite all the bashing I’ve given this game, I still feel like it would be on the Top 10 of Switch JRPGs. Is it worth playing through? Yes. On PC. If a port were ever to be released. But if you can ignore the performance issues, then this game is a solid 3/5.
SMTV has so many wonderful ideas but yet it fails to execute them in a way that feels impactful. The plot itself seemed great at first, but every single twist or revelation made in the story felt as if it wasn’t built up at all. “Whatever,” “I guess that happened,” I said to almost every development in the plot that seemed like it wanted to do more. SMTV should’ve focused more on the plot. I’m not saying to add social links and more Persona elements, of course not. SMTIV was able to deliver a more impactful story from the beginning due to how relevant the plot was. SMTV felt scattered. It felt incomplete. A story that couldn’t have been told to its fullest potential. That is my main gripe with the game though.
Aside from performance issues on the Switch, everything else is great. Gameplay feels fast and attacks look cinematic and colorful. Soundtrack bangs as per usual standard. No particular song stands out though. The dungeons though…they remain uninspired. The “open-world” felt cluttered. Navigating around is a nightmare with how useless the map is. The final dungeon was laughable. Progressing through this game was overall sluggish. Yet, I was still in love with the concepts and designs of Da’at. Negotiation with demons has never been better. The atmosphere of the game really sells it to me. Despite all the bashing I’ve given this game, I still feel like it would be on the Top 10 of Switch JRPGs. Is it worth playing through? Yes. On PC. If a port were ever to be released. But if you can ignore the performance issues, then this game is a solid 3/5.
