9 reviews liked by fifi_tbd


This review contains spoilers

OK but seriously, some thoughts on the entire Penacony arc:
I did not realize how much I liked this game up until 2.0. Before then, this was just kind of a game I played for 5 mins a day before heading back into the infinite torture oil rig.

2.0 itself is fantastic. It's charming, it's funny, it's mysterious, and gets really overwhelming towards the second half which I really dug. The plot gets surprisingly complex and difficult to predict. Even just the scenery is enough to get you interested; there is a very special magic to it all even when the writing falters, and that's something that's difficult to achieve for me. When Something Unto Death first appears, an antagonist unlike anything else in the game with that scary ass music and offputting design, it brings you out of the entire vibe so hard that I can't help but love it. It emphasizes that sudden overwhelming feeling of something unknowable that emerges from a sea of ideas and brings you out of your comfort zone, itself compounded by the plot having like seven different organizations going into it, themselves all motivated by some pretty deep and interesting lore. It is the most promising start to anything I've read in a while.

2.1 is actually just perfect. Despite it laser focusing on the one character so hard, everybody gets important if small character moments, and everything lands with impressive gravitas. I do have to point out that the lack of subtlety in the maze scene is a little funny; Aventurine quite literally talking to The Ghosts Of Christmas Past to get the rest of his backstory and psychology across is a little funny, and it is no short scene either, but I forgave the general tackiness because his character is genuinely complex and fascinating.
You come to feel for him because he is absolutely a victim of systemic injustices but he is also not a baby boy; despite everything, he makes basically every wrong choice he could have in his life, and this shows by the fact that nobody in the cast seems to be on perfectly good terms with him, even Dr Ratio. The way they turn these "attractive" anime boy traits that fujoshi often like, things like his stalkery demeanor, into genuine character flaws and observations is just so great. They completely turned me around on a character that really gave me the ick.

And oh lord, that boss and finale. It's exciting, it's sad, it's complicated, and it's inspiring. I've seen a lot of people completely misread this part of the story. Please don't get outwitted by a game that basically just says that you should live! It's not that complicated, and if you somehow came away out of that patch feeling like Aventurine was dead or going to die, you read the entire last monologue wrong!

2.2 is where the problems begin and I'm not sure they ever end.
It's like 2.1 in the sense that they focused on a single Sad Backstoryman but they really, really fucked up the balance on making the other characters have significant moments. Sunday basically ate his fucking sister, Robin, in the womb because jesus lord he leaves ZERO room for her to do or say much.

At one point, Robin literally gets shot in the fucking throat. We get to hear Sunday musing on it for like a half hour, but we never really... get to hear or see what Robin thinks of it. And yes, I hear you. I know that she doesn't need to turn to the camera and verbally explain her rather simple character, but the problem is, I don't know what to think when the game hits me with polar extreme levels of subtlety. Sometimes you have, again, The Ghosts Of Christmas Past, or Sunday explaining the goddamn dove three fucking times, and other times you have Robin's entire character being in a Youtube trailer and in-between the lines reading. I understand that there is something to her, but the game does not succeed on spreading that cake succesfully.

Oh, and while I'm extremely biased towards Firefly, my favorite character in anything ever, what they did in 2.2 to her was absolutely crazy. Listen, I'm not salty that she didn't suck on the camera like Aventurine and Sunday. I adore 2.1. She's in there for all of five seconds, and yet, in those few scenes that she's in she's treated with such gravitas. Her character comes across wonderfully. 2.2 has a few good scenes of her but they're all already information about her you could have gotten within ONE scene of 2.1. Yes, she has more lines, but she feels less important. She disappears from the story something like halfway through and isn't even given the right to appear in the emotional montage of all the characters at the end. They gave emotional precedence to fucking Sparkle over Firefly. Having played the entire thing in one sitting, I was completely floored and disappointed. And this wasn't helped by just waiting, waiting for her to show up, or for the game to at least acknowledge how core she is to the story, only to get hit by a random tacky HI3 reference from Acheron at a moment where it seriously feels like it should've been her. It felt like getting cold wine poured on my head for the third time that night. The reference isn't given any impact because it is deployed in the most literal way possible, with none of the tender subtext of the original scene and basically no reason to be here. I was genuinely shocked they referenced such a pivotal and iconic scene for what appears to me to be no reason.

The weird thing is, the stuff about Misha, Gallagher, the Nameless, Penacony's history, etc in the patch itself are all absolutely fantastic! But the actual plot of the arc really does not live up to the mystique and magic that it promises because, put plainly, Sunday just isn't that good and he isn't helped by the fact that, again, the fucking dove. It really gives you time to realize how simplistic and downright edgy the entire concept is because through the three times that they bring this up, they don't add anything new or twist it in any way that might make us understand the siblings a little more or find their conflict interesting

The other day I was thinking, just as a random napkin suggestion, if they couldn't have made Robin explain the dove for the second time, and then have them argue with each other for the final time, instead of just center everything on Sunday himself? Because as it is now, Robin feels merely like an opposition and plot device to Sunday to fuel his monologues. I understand that there's more to her character but the game really failed to get that across in how she's treated.

Generally speaking, as pure antagonists go I ended up liking Aventurine way more in his patch because not only do his troubles feel indicative of the world at large and hinting at the overarching plot, he feels genuinely human. Sunday's stuff is all mostly out of his hands because he's being groomed into the entire thing, which I understand is the point but isn't halfway as interesting because Sunday feels like he's getting babied by the story itself. He simply isn't as interesting or as conflicting.
I admire what they were going for here; Sunday isn't like the average antagonist of these "lotus eater" stories, who are often completely right in their ideology but wrong because the plot demands that they be wrong so that the protagonists can win. In this case, Sunday is utilizing dangerous, downright ableist ideology that was drilled into him by his superiors. Sunday is wrong from an ideological standpoint as well as a plot standpoint. They specifically make this clear by making Firefly, disabled and victim of similar injustices, call him out on his shit, which just makes it more jarring that she's not in the latter half of the patch but ok.

When the characters refute Sunday's ideas, it feels like it means something. It's not just the protagonists going "nuh uh", which I admire, but the character himself just...isn't that endearing. The story was straight up more interesting when we thought Something Unto Death was the villain.

2.3 is really good. There's not much to say about this one. This game is utterly fantastic at small, tender, witty character interactions and this patch is probably the strongest writing the game has seen when it comes to these things. I've seen a lot of people be upset at this one, but I can assure you that the problems you have are just snowballed from 2.2, and those are plot points that should have been resolved last patch but weren't because we REALLY needed to repeat the charmony dove thing. This was always meant to be a victory lap and that's exactly what it was. Also everything with Firefly here is really good.

Overall, I really liked it but am somewhat sad that they fucked it up right when it was most important. I hope that they'll learn to balance the great character interactions with the attempts at JRPG plots.
Also, please don't make more Sad Backstorymen for now. Half of the entire story was about them. Give me something else next time.

Also I got my hands on E2S1 Firefly and E1 Ruan Mei without doing any whaling. Woohoo.

I am not good with words so the best way to summarize my thoughts on this patch is "weak ejaculation"

This review contains spoilers

Penacony, oh Penacony. You nearly touched down on the finish line, just to plummet into the depths of hell.

I’ll be upfront: Penacony 2.0’s If One Dreams at Midnight resulted in me taking a five month break from the game.

Five months later, I chewed through the patches 2.1-2.3. While 2.1 was a noticeable improvement, it pales in comparison for me at 2.2. 2.2 was near perfection, and while Robin’s seemingly not much thought into introduction to the character proper (we get told everything about her through her brother, Sunday… what?) The mysteries of Penacony’s Trailblazers, the opening left by Aventurine to expose the rot underneath the idealistic paradise, the return of Firefly, the intrigue of Sunday’s goals, the narrative was ramping up, ready to take the spot as my favorite…

Then the bossfight happens. And it’s a complete wash. While I had my concerns, I pushed them into the back of my head.

A lot was seemingly unexplained as it barreled to the departure of Penacony, and then it’s revealed it was a fakeout ending.

While I was aware of certain elements not being explained, I am utterly embarrassed this got me. I honestly thought the game wasn’t going to explain Aventurine’s return at all and send us on our merry way.

Thus commences a brief rally of the troops, then an unceremonious appearance of the last boss.

Look, this fight was fine, I still think the Supreme Guardian fight is the pinnacle of Honkai: Star Rail with appropriate buildup, the “moment,” and the music.

Yesyes, there is a song by Robin playing, but I couldn't care less for it. At least you got to rail (heh) a train into the boss.

So, with all that said, despite my gripes with the abysmal 2.0, and the slight trip by 2.2 with the actual ending, I was ready for the curtain closing final act.

2.3 was easily the worst dogshit Hoyo has ever fed me and I cannot believe this is how they chose to end Penacony.

Three main plot points are happening: the IPC’s pursuit of Penacony, resulting in a thirty percent cut of shares, but five percent of it going to the Astral Express, Firefly’s conclusion, and Sparkle emerging out of the depths of 2.1 hell to announce that she has placed fumo plush “””bombs””” around the Radiant Feldspar.

The IPC pursuit of Penacony suffers from the worst “it happened offscreen” I think I’ve seen in awhile. Himeko shows up and just as the discussion is about to start, it cuts away. What?

I was genuinely intrigued at how awful Jade is, but the game decides to yank me away.

The last two, the fumo bombs and Firefly go hand and hand, resulting in one of the worst cinematics where Firefly decides on her third death to save the Radiant Feldspar, but then Sparkle goes, “nah, jk, its all fake,” pushes you off for Firefly to catch you, and everyone cheers.

I was baffled, annoyed, and beyond frustrated at how many jokes were cracked during the whole thing, and then the game threw me a moment that it absolutely did not earn and the only way I can describe it was complete and utter cringe.

The actual goodbyes to the old trailblazers were well written and probably the best send off this godforsaken arc is going to get.

My one saving grace about this entire arc is I don’t have to worry about it in two to three months. A new story will begin and I will push this so far out of my mind. I don’t have a year to dwell on it nor three years to rummage through my thoughts on a saga ending expansion. It, quite literally, as I’ve been saying in most of my live-service Backloggd reviews, is part of the journey.

This was overly harsh, but the moments that were outstanding were some of the best the series has gotten (Sunday, Gallagher, and Aventurine steal the spotlight).

If I’ve coped with Destiny’s storytelling reaching the peak of mediocre to solid, I can hope the next adventure aboard the Astral Express is better.

i paid 180 dollars to play splatoon 3 times

Persona 2: Innocent Sin was a difficult game to get into I'll admit. I tried one playthrough before but I got extremely annoyed with the dated gameplay and awful dungeon design, on top of how rapid random encounters were. I decided to give it another go this year as part of my Persona/SMT binge, and I will say that it did not disappoint. This game has some lows, but there are some unbelievable highs that make it a solid game for me.

I'll start by saying that I still prefer the P3/P4/P5 formula, those games just feel much more fun in a gameplay sense and a story sense, whereas this game only feels fun in a story sense. I'm sure people enjoyed the gameplay of this game but it isn't my cup of tea.

The story is great. I will say the mid-game where they drop a bunch of random words on you did confuse me, it didn't really take away any enjoyment I had for the game. I love the game conceptually about how rumours come true, and some dungeons and their gimmicks reflecting that. The characters are probably the strongest aspect of this game because I don't dislike any of them, though it feels like they did throw one specific character aside during the endgame. The characters just all have such distinct personalities and each have great development over the course of the story. The dynamics between the party is also fantastic and I love the bickering between Eikichi and Lisa, it's great. Solid story and great characters make this a game worth playing.

The gameplay.. There's just something that doesn't do it for me. Yeah, there's persona negotiations, but most of the time you make them angry and you get nothing for it. The amount of arcana cards you need to create personas was a huge turn off from me, so I avoided that aspect entirely. Now my major flaws with the game, the encounter rate and dungeon design. The dungeon design is held back by the encounter rate being so damn high. I'm just trying to make my way through arguably the most annoying dungeon in game aka the forest, and I get stopped every five steps due to an encounter. To top it all of, that dungeon is also way too confusing with the layout and me having to whip out a guide because that dungeon itself is the one that started to burn me out of the game. Not all dungeons were terrible, the one in the museum where you're timed to get to the rooftop is great, and I enjoyed exploring the schools and the big plot-twist dungeon too. I do think the dungeon design was severely lacking in this game, and resulted in me only caring about the story and the characters.

The music is great. I think I might have the battle music stuck in my head because of how boppy it is. Lisa and Maya's themes slap so hard and live rent free in my head.

Overall, this game is great overall, but I feel kind of let down. People have been hyping up this game, and yeah I get it, but it just doesn't have that much of an impact on me than the other three persona games after this (excluding Eternal Punishment). However, I am fully invested in Persona 2 and can't wait to begin Eternal Punishment to see where the story goes from here!

What a fun game hope it doesn't get a sequel!

Wow I hope this game that I paid for with real money doesn't get deleted and replaced with a bad free to play :D

SPOILER ART

stanley's computer didn't work because it has riot vanguard installed

I played Royal but to do that you DO have to sit through the entirety of base P5 and after also watching the entire Joseph Anderson stream of it I can finally say that Persona 5 really is the most 7/10 JRPG ever made.