I must have played Suikoden II a dozen times, and I've never even attempted the Clive sidequest. Back when I was a regular poster at a couple of Suikoden II forums I floated that I was considering trying it out, and another member told me that they sincerely considered the Excalibur II sidequest from Final Fantasy IX…

My high school experience coincided with the last gasp of local multiplayer being an expected component of games, so back then my butties and I had a lot of, in retrospect, pretty odd go-to games. Where most local multiplayer fans were still playing things like Smash Bros or Mario Kart, we mostly played Power Stone 2,…

I'm glad this trailer revealed some new cast members. Before this, we had only ever seen, I think, four? MC, blonde dood, blonde girl, and the cat? For a while there I thought they were just going with a really pared-down cast for this instalment, which would have been interesting, but I'm actually sorta relieved now…

If memory serves, Persona 4 Golden added a new Valentine's Day event where you get the screws put to you if you're dating multiple girls. There aren't any actual gameplay ramifications I don't think (nobody's S-Link gets reversed or anything like that), but you're forced to choose which relationship to continue (if…

What I'm hoping is that the game really capitalizes on its ultra-metropolis setting. P3 and 4 both had a pretty tiny number of areas you could actually explore, which kinda made sense. P3 was set in a medium-sized city, and you were a dipshit high school student with a stupid haircut, so it made sense that you'd spend…

I defy anyone who has played Persona 4 to tell me Yosuke didn't want to bang the main character. When you max out his S-Link he brings you down to the riverbed and is like "I've got all these feelings inside, like I just want to… fight you??? Yeah, that must be what I want to do! Let's fight!!"

I know about 50 people have defended the game's grind/gameplay balance already, but I just wanted to point one extra thing out: there are really no trash enemy mobs in this game. Unlike your traditional JRPGs, which have a high number of low intensity random battles, the Persona games have a lower number of high…

I really like your final point here. I'm reminded of Dragon Age II's friendship/rivalry system, which allowed for the possibility of having a strong negative relationship with your party members. A future Persona S-Link formed between your character and an antagonistic character in their life, like a bully, rival…

Accidentally saving over an endgame Final Fantasy VII save when I was like 12. That file was the only time I'd ever truly committed to level grinding. I was going to power level my every character up to 99, I was farming permanent stat increase items, and I had found a really efficient way to quickly learn every…

Second. When Sony tapped thatgamecompany to make them three exclusive titles, they were still pushing the Sixaxis hard. This was back when that lawsuit about force feedback technology was still being settled, and Sony, at the height of their PS3-era hubris, was ludicrously claiming that rumble technology was a thing…

To be the standout cast member on any show is always an indication of a performer's talent, but to be the standout member of a cast as insanely good as Veep's puts Sam Richardson on a completely different level. It got to the point where whenever a scene started that featured him, I began laughing early in…

Oh man that Zero Time Dilemma cover is fiiiiiirrrrrrreeeee! Man, this series was always kinda visually generic, I wonder what made them adopt such an interesting look for this instalment? I mean, I'm in to it no question, but it seems like a massive change from the all-anime-all-the-time look of 999 and VLR.

I think up here in sunny Toronto we're finally over the hill when it comes to snow. We had two bad storms of the stuff recently, though—in fact, we got more snow in April than in any other month this year. It's been a long winter and a cold spring, and I'm ready for it to be over.

If I can be so bold as to comment on my own article, this weekend I'll also probably dip my toe back into Love Is Strange, the Life Is Strange-inspired VN I started a couple weeks back.

Does The Answer really take that long? I've played Persona 3 twice now, but the only time I even dipped my toe into The Answer, I got about three or four hours deep, realized it was way more difficult and featured almost none of the social sim stuff, and instantly gave up. I've often considered going back and giving…

Either Journey or, even better, Flower. Journey would be neat, but getting it to work in VR would presumably mean moving to a first person perspective, which would change the experience a lot. You'd no longer be able to see your character making that interesting visual pairing with your partner, and you'd lose sight…

Promise not to laugh?

I suddenly feel intense and terrible dread.

This is what throws me so bad about Bravely Default, that its highs are so high and its lows are so low. The combat and skill system is, I honestly believe, one of the best such systems ever implemented in a game. Its job system reminds me a lot of a more accessible version of Final Fantasy Tactics, which is just…

No Catmancer in the demo =(