Wow, this looks really great. I love that it's a game about a child that captures some amount of the whimsy a child's perspective can provide. Persona 4 got a lot of mileage out of it's small town Japan setting, so seeing another game set in such a place is very promising.

The game only "forces" the player to do anything if the player is hell bent on seeing/doing every bit of content in the game within a single file. Which is kind of a thing a lot of JRPG players do! But it's not like FF X-2 or something where it's holding back narrative resolution unless the player jumps through very…

I got into Persona 3 when I was in high school. I'm not anymore, but I'm proof that it can happen. It was pretty fun to have an alter-ego that did the things in school that I didn't. I was in student council IRL, so I passed on that in P3. But I didn't do sports at all IRL, so I did those when available.

I for one think that it's great that the game throws so many options at the player that it's not realistically possible to do everything. That's what high school's like. So the player prioritizes.

I'd like to single out a particular line of the review: "She can't make the game's demon roster, pieced together from a decade of art from various creators, feel like a cohesive thing."

The main SMT games have this issue where they have a core group of characters that is each intended to represent a particular perspective on how the world should be (since the protagonist in invariably invested with the power to rebuild the world as he sees fit). So that's not a problem in itself necessarily... but…

Nope, it is not like a Persona game. No social links, no calendar, no real world setting. You said you played P3 FES? It's like the FES chapter. Dungeons, dungeons, and more dungeons.

Insulting to who? Who should be offended that Dynasty Warriors, a franchise releasing it's eighth installment across multiple platforms, got Kotaku picture and headline references over SMT IV, an old school hard JRPG releasing on a single handheld platform?

Wobbeles is a dirty filthy fiend with his 1 grab = instant death infinites. His loss was sealed by bad karma accrued every time he took a character and reduced them to nothing with zero opportunity to escape or react or respond.

Eh, they managed to keep themselves in check for two whole years. They tried :P

Why are you posting this under an article about Animal Crossing and escapism in games? Allow me to direct you to the Talk Amongst Yourselves portion of the website.

It's gonna be one of those three for sure. Big names, familiar genres, and multiplatform releases.

Megatokyo is super interesting just because I can't think of another creative work that so fully sold out. In the beginning, it was about two Americans trapped in Japan and that premise was used to mock all sorts of anime/manga/video game cliches. Having a character be a mech pilot who's probation officer for the…

And increasingly I feel like the J-Gamers/Otaku market is happy to buy anything specifically targeted at them regardless of quality. There were two or three Vita games announced for localization this past weekend and I couldn't shake the thought "wait, what are you guys in the comments so excited about? These look…

I will define "relatable dialogue" for you. It's words that a person can imagine him or herself saying given the circumstances of the character. This rules out waxing philosophical about hope and fate and friendship and happiness. People don't tend to do that. What they say concerns the immediate obstacles and…

Well this is kinda abrupt. Announcing Tales of Xillia 2 for localization before Tales of Xillia even releases? That's some confidence there. I do hope it doesn't get Namco-Bandai burned. They're being super aggressive with their international localizations lately. I mean, Project X Zone? Really? That game (by…

FF 12 is the one you want. It's pretty great. Still has the slow start issue that so many other FF games struggle with, but avoids most all of the things you hate. It also has a bit of romance. One romance that's terrible, and one that's really good.

Don't worry, most of the market agrees with you. That's why we're getting 3 FF XIII games and FF XII is forgotten.

You mean this movie won't have cute teenage girls with giant eyes?

I am amused. Aren't you? It's like people waiting on Persona 5 are the seagulls from Finding Nemo. Any possibly tangentially related story on the web gets them all going "Persona. Persona! Persona?". It's goofy. I can't think of another publisher that gets similar treatment from internet enthusiasts.