Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight Review

I was very late to play Persona 4: Dancing All Night.  I remember the hype back when it came out, but I didn’t pay it much mind.  Compared to the likes of The Rhythm of Fighters and especially Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call, Dancing All Night’s song list looks really paltry.  It limits itself to one game and its spin-offs and a good fraction of the songs are remixes, limiting its actual track list even further.  I knew there was a story to it, but I didn’t think it could be anything more than a joke scenario or half-baked excuse to get everyone dancing, like Senran Kagura Dekamori.

Once I actually got around to playing it, I loved it.  The whole game radiated energy and fun.  The dancing, music and accompanying visuals made for an explosion of color and lights like it was party time all the time, right down to the menus.  Simply buying stuff had Tanaka’s notoriously catchy and in-your-face theme play while Patrick Seitz yells at you and the menu music was always on point.  You could dress up everyone in all sorts of outfits for added flair and all the songs had a variety of partners with their own little duo dances during the mid-sections.

The story was better than I expected too.  The dancing was worked into an established theme that fit with the Persona universe and it had a lot of detail put into what was happening.  It was great seeing returning characters like Nanako and Kojima contribute to the plot and the new characters were very sweet and endearing.  It was a solid and highly polished package and I wish I played it sooner.

As you can expect, that got me excited for the new dancing games based on Persona 3 and 5, but mostly 3 because I played it many years ago and in recent years have come off the arena games and Persona Q, familiarizing myself with the cast even more.  I’m currently in the process of playing every Persona game in order and I’m still on 2: Innocent Sin so I haven’t played Persona 5.  As far as I’m aware, the main character has a bunch of crystal skulls and fights Batman, Viewtiful Joe, Klonoa and Hitler.

My excitement took a hit after it was announced that the Playstation Vita version of the game would not be available for retail and would only be available for download.  We all know what I think about that.

I would get more mad, but Atlus has been in my good graces, unlike Bandai Namco.  Atlus has always been very good about releasing Vita games physically.  The Vanillaware trilogy, all the Persona games and even lesser games like Conception 2 have all been on cartridges.  Atlus is like Bandai Namco’s good counterpart that actually cares and doesn’t want to be garbage.  I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that this is an honest mistake on somebody’s part there.  With Vita cartridges ending production in 2019, someone may have missed a deadline or something.

They try to offset this major shortcoming with bonuses and pricing.  Vita owners buying it on the first week get Vita-exclusive costumes, but those costumes were available on the physical version in Japan so that’s not really a bonus.  It’s just implementing something to patch up their mistake.  Early purchases also give both versions of each game one of the DLC songs with their own dancer, both of which were not pre-order bonuses in Japan and are a $5 value.  Added onto that is the Vita version being $40 instead of the usual 50 for physical Vita games.  With all of that, there’s a bit more value in these games than other new Vita games.  Whether it makes up for not being able to own a copy depends on the overall value of the game and that’s what we’re here to look at.

Since I haven’t played Persona 5 and know barely anything about it, I’m sticking to Dancing in Moonlight for this review so I know more than half of what I’m writing about.

Top 10 Stupidest Resident Evil Moments

Resident Evil has a reputation for being badly written and stupid, something I don't think it deserves.  The games have more strong emotional moments, badass moments and detailed lore than people give it credit for. Heroes, villains and the monsters in between them are well-established and have some good relationship building and continuity.  I can unironically say that a big part of why I like the Resident Evil games is for the story.

But I cannot pretend that Resident Evil doesn't have its bouts of stupidity, as if the concept of viruses being astoudingly mutagenic weren't outlandish enough.  Bad writing, bad delivery, bizarre concepts or awkward handling of situations are where its reputation comes from and regardless of whether it's exaggerated by the general public, it is still a part of what makes Resident Evil what it is.  As a sort of demonstration and celebration, this is my top 10 stupidest Resident Evil moments.

Magic the Gathering: Arena of the Planeswalkers Review

This won't be nearly as long or as detailed as my other reviews, but I feel that this is a game worth sharing.  Like most stereotypical nerd types, my interests in games cover both video games and tabletop games.  I’m not a big fan of resource management games like Scythe, Settlers of Katan or Terraforming Mars.  I favor the direct approach, with games all about taking your skills directly to the other players in games of wit and excitement.  Games like Arcadia Quest, Zombicide, the Resident Evil Deck Building Game, Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards and Tragedy Looper.  Among all the board games I play, one that is consistently my favorite is Magic the Gathering: Arena of the Planeswalkers.

Reasons to Play the First Persona

Nobody seems to pay much mind to the original Persona.  For most people the Persona games started with Persona 3.  That’s the game that gets the crossovers with Persona 4, its own dancing game and constant merchandise.  Occasionally someone might mention Persona 2, if only to bring up Trump being in it, but it’s a true rarity that someone brings up the game that started it all and when it is it’s usually to complain or compare it to how much better the other games are.  With a reputation like that it’s perfectly reasonable to assume the first Persona is total shite on a bike, but to my surprise, I very much enjoyed it and am baffled as to how it gets such a bad reputation.  There are a lot of reasons to play the original Persona even with the later, better games available.

To be clear, I am referring to the PSP remake of the game because that is the one you’ll play unless you go out of your way to prove that statement wrong, but you’ll be cutting yourself down a few hundred dollars.  Not only is the original PS1 version rare, but not even Atlus wants people to play that version.  The original game is notorious for its localization trying to change characters and settings to be American, resulting in some pretty ugly aesthetics on top of already very dated FMV sequences and poor voice acting (what little there was).  It also cut out an entirely separate chapter from the original Japanese version so it’s about on the level of Devil Kings with how embarassing it is.  Unlike Devil Kings, however, the translated script is mostly accurate aside from name changes so it wasn’t a total bust, but Atlus is not proud of it and thus has not released the original PS1 version on PSN.

Some dialogue came off a little unnatural, however.

The PSP remake, on the other hand, is on PSN for 20 dollars for your Vita and PSP.  The remake cleans up the graphics a bit, has a new interface, tweaks some of the worse combat faults (like debuff stacking), adds a brand new soundtrack more in line with the later games, adds new FMV scenes that actually look good and, most prominently, completely redoes the sloppy localization and keeps in all the content.  That is the version you will play.  As for why you would want to play it, I can count the ways.

Stella Glow Review

I have certain expectations when a game is widely recommended and the company behind it couldn’t be bothered to show people that it exists.  Even though there doesn’t seem to be a logical correlation, in my experience that means it’s a dominating force exemplifying its genre of gaming, as seen with the Senran Kagura games, Xenoblade, The King of Fighters 11 and Sengoku Basara.  With that mindset and a very nice demo showcasing the entirety of the opening stages, I may have gone into Stella Glow with expectations just a little too high and I found that whether or not it’s something worth playing is tricky enough of a question to be worth a review.

Yu-Gi-Oh: Duel Links Review

Before I named myself the Shonen Otaku, I grew up on a lot of the shonen anime for the younger audience in the 90s and 2000s with 4Kids and Saban dubs.  The Pokemon anime in particular took the world by storm and while I was definitely a big fan of that for a while, the series that stuck with me the most was the original Yu-Gi-Oh, or at least the original for America, since season 0 wasn’t dubbed.

I loved the fun dubbed dialogue, the monsters battling each other through the finesse of a card game (even though rules were loose in the anime), the way each character’s deck reflected their personalities and the high stakes with the magic and sci-fi elements that kept me wanting to see what happened next.  Even today I can watch it and enjoy it and I highly recommend giving it a watch either on the official Yu-Gi-Oh website or Netflix.

Why Kids Should be Watching Mr. Pickles

TV shows for kids these days are not of the quality they once were.  I don’t mean TVY-7 shows for slightly older kids like Adventure Time, Steven Universe , Avatar: The Last Airbender or the Amazing World of Gumball.  Those are all thriving and practically in a golden age.  Shows for the younger audiences, on the other hand, are not doing so well in my eyes.  Most shows for the younger audiences are cheap computer generated fluff like Sofia the First, Blaze and the Monster Machines and Doc McStuffins.  Although that last one has Choji Akimichi’s actor Robbie Rist, who seems to like it so maybe there’s something I’m not seeing there.

In an age where kids are being given expensive glass electronics to keep them quiet, it’s nice to have a show that harkens back to the good old days, before the internet took over in the first place and when hand-drawn animation was the norm.  That show is Mr. Pickles.

10 Praises I Have for Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice

Warning!  This article is one giant spoiler for every Ace Attorney game out, but mostly the newest one!  It is practically a discussion of nothing but spoilers.  If you have not played through Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice, do not read this!  I repeat!  Do not read this!

Years ago I wrote an article about Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies and how it disappointed me.  Though fun, it wasn’t nearly as good as the games before it and had a lot of issues holding it back.  Since then I’ve played the latest game, Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice.

Talk about a total 180.  Spirit of Justice does everything right that Dual Destinies did wrong and may be one of the best games in the franchise.  My big praises for Spirit of Justice can be broken down to these key points:

Trump Plays Civilization 5: Day 5

Germany has been taking everything I hold dear from me!  They are sorry pieces of shit!  They took Manhattan!  I was supposed to be the only one with Manhattan and they took it from me!  They have the balls to ask for peace by giving it back after taking what is rightfully mine!  Fuck you mustache man!  I will take back what is rightfully mine even if I have to kill you and every single one of your people!

It’s because of Germany I have to keep my armies near every one of my cities!  Every single turn ungrateful assholes come out of my cities to destroy all I have built and need to be put down!  And then Washington completely betrayed me!

The King of Fighters: Destiny (Web Series) Review

When The King of Fighters: Destiny web series was announced to complement the upcoming mobile game of the same name, I was very skeptical.  Web series don’t have a reputation for having the highest production values, 3D animation is hard to do right and it comes from a Chinese animation studio that was not a big name as far as I can tell.  I was prepared for the worst, but at the same time KOF material outside of the games have been enjoyable even at their worst, with the exception of the movie we need to try to change the title of and forbid from ever discussing.

Several months later the series has now ended its first season and animation studio Idragon has two more planned as well as a movie.  They have some serious confidence in this series and with the overall positive reception, it’s not unwarranted.

Since it’s a web series you can see for free on Steam or Youtube, the question isn’t if it’s worth your money, but rather if it’s worth your time.  That’s not as much time as it may look.  Listings show episodes as being 20 minutes long, but the truth is more than half of that is the overly long opening prologue about Orochi, the rather bad opening theme and an excruciatingly long credit roll.  Each episode is only 7 to 9 minutes long if you skip all that.  With enough editing they could make it into a movie.