spoiler (click to show/hide)
Extra Note before Note: I had originally wanted to delete the “note” section because it has very little to do with anything anymore, but I have since revised it a little bit, because I still wanted to get this point across, if it bothers you, please just go to the LTTP at the bottom of this post, which pertains to the game, Persona 3: FES….. If anyone bothers to read this wall of text, I seriously thank you for taking time out of your day to do so; it’s quite a lot to read.
Note: This thread took me longer to write up than I would have liked, due to some issues I have gone through and by having to play through the “special title” to create an LTTP. This is rather unfortunate because on March 4, 2015, NeoGAF lost one of the greatest members on the forum. This member was HolyBaikal and it greatly saddens me, to the point of tears, that Holy will never be able to respond to this thread. I can only hope that Holy still reads NeoGAF as I really want HolyBaikal to witness this. I should say this; I understand that HolyBaikal had a tendency for having a hard time understanding other view points, HolyBaikal had a hard time arguing with others and that HolyBaikal had a hard time with how, what I assume, many members on NeoGAF perceived HolyBaikal. I could feel that members of NeoGAF had a sigh of relief when such a member was banned, but I don’t get that type of response at all. I bring this up because I had read many of Holy’s past posts and all of Holy’s threads. I only had one conversation with Holy, and even then it consisted of only two PM’s. I was concerned and worried for Holy and expressed this, which to my surprise resulted in HolyBaikal responding to me. I wish that people would have taken the time to understand HolyBaikal a bit better, but that’s unreasonable to expect. To put it in a better way, HolyBaikal was a member of the forum for three years, which resulted in over 5,500 posts; I don’t know HolyBaikal that well (if at all) and this is only conjecture, but the large number of posts might indicate that NeoGAF was a large aspect to Holy and made it easier to connect and share with others. I’ve been a member of PCSX2 for 5 years and only have 300 posts, a member of NeoGAF for almost a year, with a little over 300 posts, yes I don’t post much, but that’s because I don’t have a reason to, unlike HolyBaikal. The difference is staggering. I want to say this before you read the thread. I understand why HolyBaikal was banned, I understand the logic and it makes perfect sense. The only problem I have is with the severity of the ban. I don’t know if it’s “illegal” to even wonder/wish this, but I would give up my membership for Holy to come back, although it would be sad since I couldn’t communicate with HolyBaikal. If anyone actually knows HolyBaikal, please refer them to this thread, Holy may appreciate reading parts of this thread. (Originally wrote -it may help with the ban; at least, I hope it would-) HolyBaikal, you will be severely missed and I would like to believe other members on this forum feel the same way. I wish the best for you. March 4th will forever be a sad day.
Real Thread Starts Now, thread was written three weeks ago.
Okay, so I don’t exactly know how I should start this and I’m having a hard time focusing my thoughts into coherent sentences and ideas. My grammar will be poor and the vocabulary I use is weak, if you expect an eloquently stitched piece, this isn’t it. The truth is, I may ramble about as I try and focus myself into writing/typing what I want to get across; this is something I’ve never done and I know that the denizens of NeoGAF will wonder why I’m bothering to do this at all. I’ve broken down several times trying to put words to my thoughts and emotions, but it’s hard. So to begin, I’d like to give a preface for the type of person I am and as such, this will set up the entire post.
Preface: It’s very simple really; I’d like to believe I’m a good person, one who is kind, nice and is able to accept multiple views on issues; one who will try and understand the logic of opposing views to become more rounded. This isn’t exactly special or required for people to know since those attributes can be discovered by talking to me or getting to know me better. I do think however that it’s important for everyone to understand how words affect me; I have always been described as a very emotional (sensitive) person, one who gets caught up in emotions for either very little-to-no reason at all or for reasons that make sense, as such certain things being said to me can trigger an emotional overflow or words said to me can leave a large impact. I originally wanted to share a story here, but decided not to because the wall of text is long enough as it is. You’ll just have to accept my words as true.
The reason I bring this all up is because I made a post a while ago in a certain thread where I essentially bashed a large group of people and I have felt guilty ever since. It went against my ethos, it went against what I tried to build myself up as and it’s one of the major reasons why I felt the need to do this. To better describe the guilt, it became so bad that I started having issues going to bed and at times throughout the day, all I could think about was my ignorant and distorted view of people with the post I made. In the end I decided that I should attempt to understand/play a specific game that I became guilt-ridden by.
Before the LTTP I need to give a special thank you and apologize to a conglomerate of members.
I’d like to take this time to give a thank you to HolyBaikal. I needed to have a section of this thread dedicated to you and only you; I don’t want or mean to put pressure on you and I don’t want to force you to like me or anything. I’m doing this because I need to, because I can’t stop thinking about how to write this thread and how to thank you properly. HolyBaikal, you are the catalyst to all of this, it’s because of you that I felt the need to make a thread and continue with this all and the truth is you deserve much more than just a simple “Thank You”. Without ever having a conversation with one another, you touched me in ways that no one ever has. When I first stumbled upon your posts (When I was a shy Junior/lurker) I was surprised at many things, but the most important being the way you spoke/typed and the logic you used. I’ll be honest (the entire point of this thread) with you, the first time I read your posts I was confused and even slightly upset/agitated that someone could think the way you think, but fortunately for me, I no longer think this. It took a while for me to realize this, but after reading your past threads and posts I came to the conclusion that I was missing something vastly important in my own life. Well, saying I was missing it is wrong, I guess the best way to describe it would be is I never didn’t have it, but I believe I “locked” it up and “it” is kindness, cuteness and the moe of all life. A large “theme”/subject matter of your posts were about being nice, kind, cute and loving all that comes with it. I sit here drafting sentence after sentence as tears run down my face, what can I say to properly get my emotions across, how do I even say it? HolyBaikal, I want you to know that I appreciate you more than I have ever appreciated anyone in my life. So much so that I want you to know that I respect everything about you, I truly like your line/way of thinking (I’ve incorporated it into my thoughts), I love the way you speak on this forum, I love the stutters and dots (….) you use when you type, it’s unbelievably cute and I used to do something like that too; in the end though, I really…. …. …. l..-…l...-…like you and everything you are. It’s hard for me to say this because I get this feeling that NeoGAF will think I’m a mega-creep or a super loser for even confessing this, but I no longer care. You have changed me for the better and as I sit here thinking, I believe that every single person on NeoGAF, nay, the entire world would be better if they could have a little HolyBaikal in them. I feel so much better after accepting myself and realizing what I was missing. I know my thoughts are loose and incoherent and may not even make much sense, but in the end, HolyBaikal, you are the most amazing person I’ve ever come across and I want to see you continuing to make cute threads and heartfelt posts because everyone should read them. I hope you can live on for a thousand years, or more if you desire, I feel truly blessed to have “met” you. I envy you.
There is so much more I could say about HolyBaikal, but I should continue on with this thread or I’ll end up with 3 pages of text about Holy (I’ve already had to trim it). As I mentioned above, I came to the realization that I was missing something in my life and the first “objective” I set for myself was to play a game that featured at-least some of those criteria and as such here comes the first LTTP (Not the important one, it’s going to be short).
The game in question is Ar Tonelico: Melody of Elemia for the PlayStation 2. It’s the first game that I’ve ever played that had anything to do with NIS America, Banpresto and Gust Co. Ltd. It’s the first game I’ve ever played that I would categorize as being “Visual Novel”-lite. It was the first game I ever played where there were was a story that could be changed by whom you liked more and it’s the first game that I ever played back to back. Ar Tonelico is a great game, with a good story that’s quick to complete and has a fantastic cast (least I think it does). I played the game once in English and then in Japanese and I’d have to say that the Japanese voice actresses were extra cute and I loved listening to them, but I thought the English male voice actors were better. The music is especially good, I have to force myself to press start and load a game because the intro is really well done; aside from the intro, the entire soundtrack is pretty good. So many songs that matched the scenery or tone, and most of all, the songs with vocals were unbelievable. I would just idle around and listen to the music before bothering to continue the story, so good. The first time I played the game I had originally decided that Lyner would be better with Aurica, but for some reason I went with Misha instead, probably because the game almost expected you to do this. Unfortunately this became a problem because during Phase 2 when the group meets Aurica and Radolf at Seagull Port in Firefly Ally, Aurica falls to her knees and mumbles to herself “I’m broken”; I was gutted, I had tears swell up and I was determined to play the game anew with Aurica as the girl I want to have a long lasting relationship with. I loved the entire story so much so that I already have the next Ar Tonelico for the PS2 sitting next to me and the PS3 one is already on the way. I also have the entire Atelier Iris trilogy being shipped (On the basis that Atelier and Ar Tonelico are games people both like). I will have some questions at the end of this thread about some things I’d like to know.
Whilst I was playing Ar Tonelico: Melody of Elemia, I began to understand something that I had originally bashed a certain sect of people about. I began to understand the “waifu” mentality. This was a huge revelation for me; I used to watch anime when I was younger and I even had crushes on certain girls back in the day, but I seemed to have it stuck in my head that “waifu” was bad and “pathetic”. I want to apologize to everyone and anyone who has ever used the word “waifu” or even has a waifu as their avatar. The truth is I was actually jealous of all the waifu and anime love and I resorted to middle school tactics of just belittling people. I feel disgusted with myself as I type this out and I hope that NeoGAF members will accept the apology. I have expanded on the waifu love and have played some VN’s of ... well I’ll be blunt …. ecchi/hentai content. This is typically something I would keep to myself, but this thread is more than just me being sincere, it’s me being true to myself and I want NeoGAF to witness this with me. I have since played Girlish Grimoire: Littlewitch Romanesque and am working on A Kiss for the Petals. I will have some questions regarding VN’s at the end of the thread. Just to say, waifu and anime girls are pretty great; I have always secretly loved them, and it’s pretty easy to see why.
Now comes to the 2nd most important section of the thread and it has to do with a very special game titled Persona. Specifically, Persona 3: FES for the PlayStation 2. This is the LTTP that is important and will be expanded upon as like a real LTTP thread. I will begin by saying that before I ever knew about NeoGAF and before I knew about how popular Persona was, I had tried to get my younger brother to play the game so I can watch and see if I would like it, however he wasn’t as interested as I was and since that time, Persona sat in my subconscious decaying rapidly. It wasn’t until NeoGAF were I realized Persona had a massive following and between this and the decaying of Persona, I had written the series off as overhyped, crap and even bad. This is almost as bad as me writing the entire series because of the word waifu (I’m still really sorry about this) that people would use.
I guess I should begin with first impressions and go from there. The opening video/cinematic (however you call it) is immensely bad ass. I think I watched it 5 times before I even bothered to play the game. It oozed so much atmosphere and bad-assery that I just couldn’t bring myself to want to even start the game. I will say though, throughout my journey with this game, the music was something that I originally disliked, but as I sit here collecting my thoughts and putting them down, the music is top notch, 10/10; the game has some of the best soundtracks/music I’ve ever had the opportunity of listening to. It may contain some of my favorite OST’s ever, right up there with To Zanarkand and Eternity ~Memory of Lightwaves~. As I got used to the music, my head would start to bob with the beat, no joke it’s good. If the only thing I liked about the game was the music, I would be content, but fortunately, I loved the game entirely.
I’ll begin with the story (but probably ramble as I have trouble putting my thoughts down). When we first meet our Main Character, we also meet a small little boy named Pharos and after that, Yukari Takeba. With one simple question/answer the potential to know her can be outrageous. Asking if she saw a little boy around will freak her out, at first I thought it was because she was mass-paranoid, but it’s funny because she’s actually afraid of ghosts, so asking someone who has phasmophobia if she saw some little kid, in what I imagine is a serious tone, would be quite frightful. I’m not going to delve onto the first impressions for all characters, but I will say that the first time I got to know Junpei Iori, I disliked him. I later opened up to him and his struggle to be “something”, but it took a while. The main story took a while to pick up pace and it’s because of this slow pace that I loved the game. I’ve read some threads/opinions where people hated the slow pace and wish the game could have started with a bang right off the bat, but I rather appreciate the slow roasting story buildup. The fact that S.E.E.S was always in the dark until the very end was something I enjoyed; it felt like I was actually a part of the group. The story itself is good; fighting the 12 shadows, the twist that the 12 shadows were actually the objective to a more sinister plot from Shuji Ikutsuki, the doctoring of videos from Ikutsuki, the Strega group and their inability to accept that the Dark Hour and Tartarus/Tower of Demise can be fought against, how the Kirijo group really messed up 10 years ago, all good. The biggest issue I have though is, did the Strega group want Nyx to descend from the beginning, or was it because the S.E.E.S group killed the 12 shadows that they decided to give up? That’s something I’m unsure about, but I know that if the Strega group attempted to talk to S.E.E.S things would have been very different. Speaking about the characters, I really enjoyed the Chidori Yoshino and Junpei love blossom. I felt so bad when Chidori died by giving her “life-force” to Junpei, but it was really sad when she came to after being transmogrified and forgot almost all her memories; fortunately for Junpei, she did remember an important part of the memory which basically contained Junpei and only Junpei. Aside from Junpei, the whole Ken Amada/Shinjiro Aragaki/Akihiko Sanada plot was interesting and unexpected (at first). As a character, Ken played the young, but incredibly mature/smart cliché, which was boring/lame, but getting to understand him more through his mini-plot was refreshing. The way Ken and Akihiko grow may have happened quickly, but I feel like it could most definitely be real and I appreciate that aspect of it all. Yukari and her mini-plot with her father was something I could almost relate to and of all the smaller issues, might be the most genuine. I’m glad that in the end, her father attempted to reach Yukari to tell her the truth; it was an incredibly nice touch. Mitsuru Kirijo is a bit of a different case. I never got the feeling that Mitsuru wanted to protect her father or anything like that (regardless of the fact she says that protecting him was her only objective). I think Mitsuru is the only character that could have done with more expanding, but in the end, the way everything closed worked out okay. Getting back to the story, there are some twists that I didn’t see coming. For instance, I never could have imagined that Aigis sealed Death into the Main Character, and I never thought about how killing 12 shadows will resurrect the hidden 13th, aka Death. I also didn’t see the plot with how the Kirijo group forced 100 kids to take medical crap to forcefully awaken Personas; that was quite a huge shock actually and I felt sad that Chidori, Jin and Takaya had to go through with it. In the end though, Takaya and Jin were a bit crazy and I didn’t feel bad for having to end them. The ending of the game was well done too. After the fight with Nyx’s Avatar and then Nyx itself, we jump ahead to March 3rd and are forced to witness everyone forget everything that happened for the past year; everyone except Aigis, which became obvious as to how she looked at Yukari, Junpei and the Main Character from the tree. Once I realized that everyone forgot about what happened; I was broken. Everything I did was lost, no one aside from Aigis remembered, and I felt so sad. Heck, the feelings that were going through me may as well have been depression. As I talked to the people that I maxed out my S.Links with, getting to see what they’re up to now and how they feel for me, it only hit me harder that I was done, game over. As I was forced to sleep for 3 days because I was tired, I was able to experience something beautiful; Aigis knocks on my door, asking me questions about the others, the Main Character (ME!!!) still remembered everything. Then the Graduation Ceremony comes and an amazing cinematic/cut scene occurs. As Mitsuru is speaking, the members of S.E.E.S begin to remember everything, and as I watched this, tears started rolling down my face, my yearlong (In-game of course) venture into this game and world was not for naught, but was a success. I was going to comment about how I hated the ending because I thought everyone forgot everything, but after seeing the end, it’s one of the best endings I’ve ever experienced. Whoever thought of doing that trick is straight up sly and sneaky, but totally smart. The ending tugged at my heart and to see the culmination of everything happening at once; I really enjoyed how the game ended, even if it did make me cry. (I’d like to believe that I, the Main Character, did not die in Aigis’s lap, in-fact, I’m going to go on believing that I’m just tired, because I sealed away something that shouldn’t have even been defeated in the first place, if you think otherwise, stop, don’t ruin the moment for me. The Main Character will wake up, and everyone will continue living their lives with peace and happiness, because that’s how the ending came across to me =))
So to sum the story up, I personally think it’s one of the best stories I’ve ever played through before. The dialogue, the voice acting, the twists, the characters, everything came together so perfectly that in my opinion, I wouldn’t change a single aspect of it (Still high off of the ending).
To change focus, I’d like to talk about the simulation aspect of Persona 3. I know that in one of my earlier comments, I said that the high-school sim part of the game turned me off, but man was I so wrong. I originally put 13 hours into the game and had to restart because I prioritized the simulation aspect of the game instead of having a good hybrid of simulation and combat. I love the high-school sim, dating sim parts of Persona 3. I don’t know why I thought I wouldn’t like it, but I enjoyed it a lot. I liked almost all of the S.Links too, everyone except for Nozomi Suemitsu (Gourmet King, Moon Arcana). I disliked everything about him and his cult. Aside from him, I loved talking and getting to know everyone else. For the girls, they’re all great. I liked how all of them were very different and fun to be around. I won’t get into a waifu war, I’m the type of person that wants to please all, so it’s nigh on impossible for me to choose a favorite. I will say though that Aigis is amazing; of all the girls I meet Aigis is the one who isn’t shy to want to stand by my side, or protect me for the rest of my life. She also looks incredibly and has a very enthralling victory “dance”, her hips are hypnotizing =). Yukari, Mitsuru, Chihiro, Yuko and Fuuka are all pretty spectacular, and I’ll just leave it at that. To continue with the simulation stuff, I really connected with Maya, the Hermit. I was, at one time in my life, addicted to World of Warcraft. One day while I was leveling, I stopped by Undercity to gather some materials and what-not when I encountered an Undead Female using the crying emote. I was taken aback by this and decided to chat with her (As I mentioned, I’m the type of person that likes to please all), as I chatted with her I got to know her better. Within a couple months, I transferred servers with her (away from my friends, hahah (lame I know)) and had a relationship blossom. I will never forget her and all the fun I had with her, even though I never met her in real life (we did things without meeting one another), she was incredible. Miss you and love you Jacklyn. Aside from Maya, I also connected with Yukari and her issues with her mother, something that I’m going through now for reasons incredibly similar to Yukari’s (No death though). The game did a good job of having very believable and realistic situations for people to be going through. I’ve never played a game where I connected to characters on so many levels; it truly is refreshing to play a game like this.
I’d also like to talk about the combat of the game. At first I really hated not having control over my own party members. It felt so limited and arbitrary, but as I leveled up, I got used to it and realized that the A.I isn’t that bad at selected the right actions to do. Aside from the combat, Persona 3: FES is one of very few games where grinding is hard to do. It’s as if the game is saying “you, ya you, stop grinding, now”, all the damn time. I like to grind, I find it peaceful and rehabilitating, but I gather in Persona games, that’s something you can’t actually do all the time. Aside from that, this is probably the first game I’ve ever played with dungeon crawling aspects. I found it fun continuing the adventure through “floors” and seeing new levels and enemies. My favorite block is either the Harabah, the disco/colored lights was fun to see or Yabbashah with the crazy stairs on the walls, the 3D that occurs because of this is pretty cool for walls to have. I enjoyed leveling up the characters and most of all, loved the Persona fusion system. I have never played Pokémon before and Pokémon is the only game I know that is similar to how Persona’s battle system works. I thought at first that it would be daunting to get to know all the weaknesses and strengths of enemies or my own Persona, but as I spent time with the game, it all began to come naturally. It’s truly an enjoyable experience.
Oops, I almost forgot about the art-style/general aesthetics of the game. I really love how the game was rendered. I like how the shadows of the characters disappeared around mid-waist. I love the art that was drawn for the characters, Persona and even the Main Character after defeating an enemy. The entire game has this style which I can only call “badass”. It’s just so entirely badass, the entire game, the art, the music, the story, the everything.
I plan on replaying the game again, probably without using New Game+, since I believe if you use New Game+, you can’t get Orpheus Telos (If I’m wrong, please correct me). I don’t believe I will play the game for a little while, since it’s very long, but I did enjoy my time with it. Persona 3: FES is one of the best games I have ever played. It can go toe-to-toe with many games from all sorts of genres and in the end; I’m glad to have bought and played this game. Thank you to all the NeoGAF members who constantly tell others to just try the game, I have heeded this advice and it was entirely worth it. Persona 3: FES will be one of the best gaming memories for a long time, so seriously, thank you all.
Just as a note: I did not play “The Answer” yet. I’ve heard some bad things about it and would rather not spoil the amazing-ness that I have with Persona 3’s The Journey. I’m also probably forgetting a lot of things that I’d like to say about this game, but that’s natural, the game takes a long period of time to beat and many things happen within the time-frame given. I really do mean it though, I’m incredibly happy to have played Persona 3: FES and can’t wait for more.
Now…. Onto my questions that occurred from this thread. I probably won’t go in order of which questions appeared first, but rather, the questions that I still remember from when I originally started writing/typing this post/thread up.
Game Systems I own, to help with answers. PS1, PS2, PS3, PSP, Xbox 360, PC.
So first off: This is about NIS America, Banpresto and Gust Co. Ltd. I’m pretty new to the games that these companies make and sure I could go look at a wiki article about the games they’ve released and read reviews from some people about them, but I’m curious to get some of NeoGAF members’ opinions on them. As I mentioned above, I already know about the Atelier game series and the Ar Tonelico series, but what other games do any of those companies make that I may be interested in? The story doesn’t have to be amazing, nor the combat, for these types of games, something moe and cute will suffice. Speaking of cute/moe games, they don’t need to be from either of those companies, I believe Compile Heart makes cute games too, right? I’d just like a list of games that may I may like.
2nd Question: Since I mentioned VN’s for a brief moment, I can safely say I know absolutely nothing about them. If you know VN’s, or believe I should take my question to the VN thread, please say so. I’d like to play some VN’s with light hearted stories, coming of age stories, or the..uhh… the word escapes me, it’s when you help someone grow, those type of stories too. I’m not looking for horror, action, blood/gore stuff, easy going light themes. Ecchi/Hentai content is not required, I repeat, not required.
3rd Question: This is for Persona know-it-alls. Since I’ve taken incredibly well to my first Persona experience, I’d like to know if playing the older Persona games is worth it? For it to be “worth it”, the story would have to be some-what good (considering the time-period the games are made) or the combat be amazing. I’ve heard that the first Persona game isn’t worth it at all, but the 2nd might be. Speaking of Shin Megami Tensei games, are the other series worth delving into as well? The Devil games or whatever they may be called. How do they differ from Persona and are they received better or worse than the Persona series? Another question, I’m not going to play Persona 4 just yet, but I’d like to know if Persona 4: Golden is absolutely necessary to have the best experience possible. As you can see, I don’t own a Vita or Vita-TV, which means it would be quite a costly venture for one game. Is there a chance that Persona 4: Golden could get a PS3 port or should I eradicate such thoughts?
4th Question: I haven’t checked yet, but I’m going to guess that Amazon is a good place to get a Persona 3 OST, right? If not, where else would I be able to obtain a copy, if such a thing exists.
5th Question: I’ve forgotten anything else I was going to ask, kind of unfortunate it took so long to play through Ar Tonelico twice and Persona 3: FES, plus other issues throughout the month, but I guess that’s life.
Woohoo, I remembered. Taking a somber approach here, I know a lot of my thread had to do with HolyBaikal and I know what I was going to ask. I was originally going to find a super cute picture to make my avatar, as to come to accept that I actually like this stuff, but with HolyBaikal being banned, I wanted to ask NeoGAF if it would be okay to have my avatar be the girl that Holy had before. I believe it was Iris from Pokémon? It’s an odd question, one in which I’ll probably get some flak from, but I wanted to ask anyways. I’d like to “never forget” Holy, even if it means getting an avatar I wasn’t planning on having originally. If it’s extra weird, super creepy, I understand entirely; I’ll get an avatar that’s entirely different from what I wanted to get anyhow, since Persona is pretty amazing to me now.
If you managed to read the entire thread, or even a portion of it, thank you. I’ve never done anything like this before; I will probably never do anything like this again (including LTTP’s). I feel as though the wall of text will place a mark on my head as a crazy dude who thinks too much, talks too much and is a bit on the creepy side.
