Reviews

Full Review: Shin Megami Tensei Persona 4

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Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4
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Way back in January, I wrote an Impression piece on Persona 3 FES, a game I later had to abandon because I got myself stuck in an unwinnable situation without sufficient save games to back my way out of it. At the time, I couldn't bring myself to restart from the beginning.

Instead, I started playing a different game - the next game in the series, Atlus Games' Shin Megami Tensei Persona 4.

I'm not going to write an Impression of P4; the game sucked me in so completely that I have already finished playing it. Not just finished - I finished with the true, good ending. Anyone who knows my game playing habits will understand what this means - I usually take a very long time to finish games. My average play time for Final Fantasy games is measured in years. Persona 4 took months, but for me, that's crazy-fast.

Persona 4 takes the franchise concept in an interesting direction. As in Persona 3, you play a nameless (you get to name him) protagonist, newly arrived in town. Your parents are working overseas for a year, so the protagonist is going to stay with his uncle and young cousin for the year.

Shortly after arriving, though, the town is left reeling by a series of gristly inexplicable murders. As you'd expect, of course, this is an open invitation for the protagonist (a Japanese highschool student) and his friends and classmates to get involved in the investigation. It's a bit of a tricky situation for him from time to time, as his uncle is a detective with the local police department, but all crime-fighting Japanese highschool students have SOME cross to bear, or it just wouldn't feel right.

The investigation is aided greatly by the protagonist's discovery that he has the ability to somehow enter the screen of a TV, crossing over into a strange fog-filled world on the other side. There he is able to use the power of "Persona", another personality inside himself that he can call upon to fight the Shadows that inhabit that strange, misty world.

Without going into too much of the plot, the story unfolds with mechanics that will be largely familiar to players with experience of Persona 3. There are some significant changes that improve the play experience though, chiefly the ability to take control of all of your characters in combat. Persona 3 allowed direct control only of the protagonist; his friends were always under AI control. Having full control allows you to take advantage of character abilities better and to more carefully manage the health and magic points of the party on long dungeon grinding sessions.

Dungeon grinding is another area where Persona 4 improves upon Persona 3 in a dramatic way. In P4, you always have the option to resume exploration of a dungeon you've left at the deepest level you've reached in it, which prevents the often tedious trek back up to where you left off that P3 players faced on a regular basis.

The most important thing for me in any RPG is the characters and the story, and this is where P4 really shines in my eyes. The story and the world are written in such a way that each character that joins your "investigation team" has a Persona, and has that persona because they were a potential victim of the murder spree. Without giving too much away, each character is forced to face his or her own inner demons - or more specifically, their inner Shadow - and once that Shadow is defeated, that person gains a new level of acceptance of who they are. This becomes manifest by their acquisition of a Persona, a figurative and literal gain in power that enables them to join the fight to discover the truth behind what's happening in the town.

This is a really brilliant move because it doesn't just encourage good character development, it requires it. All of the characters you play rise above the stale stereotypes you find too often in games and display a depth and complexity that was beyond refreshing. These are characters who live in the mind and imagination of the player, real people with conflicting desires, self-doubts, multi-faceted personalities and a great deal of growth throughout the course of the game. When the game was over and it was time for me and my protagonist to leave these friends behind, it was with true regret that I had to let them go.

Before you start thinking that Atlus is paying me to write this, I should probably mention that there ARE some things that bothered me about the game. Most serious was the obvious railroading that goes on. Given the time management aspect of the game that P4 shares with P3, it's completely understandable, but it seemed to stand out even more in P4 than it did in P3. Understandable or not, it did affect my ability to enjoy the game on a regular basis.

All in all, flaws or no flaws, Persona 4 is currently at the top of my list of favorite RPGs. The story and particularly the characters are beautifully executed, and kept me completely enthralled. More importantly, those characters are going to continue to live inside my head for a long time to come, and will likely tempt me back in for another play-through, since getting the ultimate good ending allows you to start a new game with some carry-over data to unlock new stuff.

I can't recommend this game enough. If you have any interest in JPRGs at all, it's a must-play. If you have any interest in RPGs in general at all, it's a must-play. If you don't have any interest in RPGs at all, give it a try anyway; it may well be enough to change your mind.

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Review: Fantastic Contraption

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Fantastic Contraption is many things. Part physics toy, part puzzle game, part sandbox, all wonderful and frustrating and delightful combined. The idea is not a new one; you have a set level with an object that must be moved, terrain it must be moved over or through, and a goal space it must reach. To accomplish the moving bit, you have some pre-set components you can use to build various contraptions

Review: Choose Your Own Adventure - The Abominable Snowman DVD

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By Gordon S. McLeod

As a longtime fan of the Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA) books and of interactive fiction in general, it was with great pleasure that I learned of the CYOA: The Abominable Snowman DVD about a month or so ago. (Note: This review was written years before being reposted in this blog.)

It’s been years since I read any of the books, but the memories rushed back quickly enough. I used to spend hours going through the various possible twists and turns the stories could take, dreading the early ending that death inevitably resulted in, doing my best to find the longest paths through the books.

When finally I saw the new DVD on a store shelf the other day, I snapped it up, eager to see what they’d done with the franchise. DVD is a video medium perfectly suited to this type of storytelling; indeed, this isn’t the first title that has tried this kind of storytelling in DVD format. A number of old laserdisc-based arcade games like Dragon’s Lair, Space Ace and their sequels have appeared on DVD, fully playable. There’s also the recent release of Final Destination 3, which has an interesting “create your own movie” mode where you select the fates of the various characters as you watch in much the same way that you play this disc.

So on to the meat of the review, shall we? Choose Your Own Adventure: The Abominable Snowman DVD boasts 11 possible stories, which disappointed me at first. Familiar as I was with the books, I expected more – but when I sat down to play this disc, it surprised me.

The experience is much like watching a good quality kid’s cartoon; the story goes on for some time before you’re called on to make a choice. There’s plenty to watch and pay attention to, and when the choice points do come up, they feel fittingly weighty and important.

If there’s one problem with the storytelling, it’s that it borrows a little too heavily from the children’s cartoon legacy that its format takes from. Unlike the books, which had you running the risk of dying at every turn, you don’t seem to be able to die at all in this DVD. This is a shame, as that constant looming specter of death was thrilling as a kid, and I miss it in this release.

The controls are also something of a problem; it took me well over an hour to master the choice controls. As I’m an avid video gamer, I’m used to learning new control systems, so this bothered me. I had a few unfortunate instances where I did not get the choice I wanted. I was not quick enough with the remote and failed to get the choice indicator that should appear while you’re selecting. I doubt they’ll be revising their stance on player death in future releases, but I do hope they’ll take a look at the controls a little more closely and refine them a bit for future discs.

The branches of the stories are distinct and imaginative. It’s been long enough that I can’t compare the endings to the ones in the print version, but experiencing them anew, I was pretty satisfied with the types of ends you could reach. You will find yourself journeying through various geographic areas with differing looks and feels, and you will meet various characters in different ways from story to story. The potential for repeat viewing on this disc is hard to beat.

The vocal cast is excellent, lead by William H. Macy and Frankie Muniz, with notable appearances by Lacey Chabert, Felicity Huffman and Mark Hamill. The animation and vocals are better than you’d expect to find in a cartoon TV show, resembling more what you’d find in many animated movies.

So now we reach the end of the review. You have two choices before you.

If you dismiss the Choose Your Own Adventure DVD from your mind, turn to another random web page. If you find it fascinating and want to experience more, turn instead to your favorite DVD retailer or rental service.

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Review: The Bard's Tale

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The Bard's Tale PC box
Image via Wikipedia

By Gordon S. McLeod

This review was written as a game journalism assignment during my time as a student at the International Academy of Design & Technology, and was subsequently published at http://www.elecplay.com/, the home of Electric Playground online. The complete review can be found in its original location, here.

Embark on a deathly serious quest for coin and cleavage with a character voiced by The Man in Black from The Princess Bride. And hey, there's a pretty solid ARPG in there too. What's not to like?

The Bard's Tale seems, much like its titular hero, to have gained a bit of a reputation for itself. Maybe I've just been talking to the wrong people, but it seems to me that people see it as just a funny, silly game not to be taken too seriously. "Haha, boobies! And hey, it has that guy from The Princess Bride!" This is a shame, as it's one of the better games I've played in a long time and gamers would do well to look at it a bit closer before writing it off.

First off is the pedigree this game carries. Some younger gamers may not realize this, but this is actually the fifth Bard's Tale game. Way back in the C64 days of computing, the first four Bard's Tale games satiated the appetites of gamers just learning the joys of computer RPGs. The new Bard's Tale is the creation of the same man, Brian Fargo, who went on to work on a number of other CRPG titles like Baldur's Gate and Fallout.

That's not to say that this new game's reputation is completely unfounded. It doesn't even pretend to take itself too seriously. The humour is frequently on the lewd and crude side, and the game's packaging itself seems to encourage that perception by billing it as a "quest for coin and cleavage," so sure, many people will view it that way. But for those who care to venture deeper, there’s a lot more in store.

To read the rest, please visit Electric Playground.

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