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: