Learning True History

Like any medium, games have the potential to educate.  Unlike a textbook, movie or documentary, however, games have the unique property of being an interactive medium, allowing for a whole new level of engagement.  When most people think of educational games, they think of the classic educational games, particularly from the 90s, with games like the Liberty’s Kids game, the Carmen Sandiego games, Zoombinis or the Cluefinders series.  Nowadays most of us have moved on to more traditional hardcore games, but the truth is that even those games have something to teach us.  More than you may realize, in fact.  Historical revisionism is a pervasive issue in textbooks.  They are full of lies and disgusting sanitization, but games give us nothing but the truth.  The following are just a few things games have taught us about true world history over the years.

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.

Castlevania Dracula X Chronicles Review

I love game remakes.  Classic games of old can be made even better using modern resources and dated aspects can be ironed out for a much better experience, usually more in line with improved later installments, in the case of franchises.

Left: Cheesy.  Right: Scary.

I also love compilation re-releases for the simple fact that you're getting more than one game for the price of one and having them all in one package makes getting previous installments of certain games less of a hassle for newcomers.

With this, the Samurai Shodown Anthology and Orochi Saga Collection, I have 17 SNK games accross 3 disks.

Castlevania Dracula X Chronicles for the PSP is a combination of both by having three games: A 3D remake of Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, the original version of it, and the extremely beloved Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, all from happier times before Konami lobotomized themselves.  Like how Samurai Shodown 6 was first released in America through the Samurai Shodown Anthology, this is the first international release of Rondo of Blood and the only one until a Virtual Console port a few years later.

Dissidia Final Fantasy: Duodecim Review

I don't consider myself a fan of the Final Fantasy franchise.  Yes, the final boss of Final Fantasy 6 is one of my favorite final battles in gaming history, but apart from it and playing halfway through the Nintendo DS remake of Final Fantasy 4, I haven't played any of the main titles.  I've only seen the other Final Fantasy games and before now the only other ones I've played are both the Theatrhythm games on the 3DS.

After getting a Playstation Vita last year, I added one more Final Fantasy game to my library; the PSP game Theatrhythm was spun off of and what is probably the most well-known title the system ever had: Dissidia Final Fantasy: Duodecim.

Fighting Game Camps: Mortal Kombat: Part 3 (For real this time.)

Continued from part 2.

Music

My brief single sentence describing the music in the April Fools version of this post wasn’t entirely off the mark.  Mortal Kombat’s music is extremely downplayed to the point that you may not even notice there’s music at all.  Where other fighting games have their music bombastic or energizing, Mortal Kombat goes for ambience.  In fact, in Mortal Kombat 9, there’s an ambience meter in the sound options menu.

It’s more akin to tribal drumming than the fanfare of other games.  There’s a lot of fast, looping drum beats, techno synth and long notes without any particular melodies.