Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4

Released in 2008 by Atlus on the PS2, the latest main entry into the subseries of the Shin Megami Tensei games known as Persona. Persona 4 takes the template set up by Persona 3 and adds a few tweaks to the system incorporated with an all new story and cast. Persona 4 also seems to break the cycle of the series being redesigned from the ground up as the predecessors have, which may have angered a few hardcore SMT fans, but the rest of the gaming world seems deeply satisfied.

Gameplay:

Like Persona 3, Persona 4 is a mix between life simulation and dungeon crawling, and the game progresses day by day. The days are separated into morning, afternoon, and night; each with different actions being available. The mornings largely consist of you being in class, the game usually fast forwards through this, but occasionally you'll get quizzed on random trivia and if you get it right, you'll increase certain stats. In the afternoon, you get either a choice between progressing into the TV world to complete the various dungeons, or to hang out with various students (or get a job) to increase your social link levels (more on this later). At night, there isn't much to do but study to increase your knowledge, read a book to increase other stats, or go to sleep to go to the next day. Occasionally there'll be mandatory story events at night.

For the dungeon crawling, you are tasked with reaching the top of the tower and defeating the boss by the specific deadline, or risk having a game over. Unlike Persona 3, the dungeon layouts aren't randomly generated, and you also have the ability to go down to lower floors if the enemies are getting too tough for you. Dungeon navigation is done in full 3D, and you get to see your character, and your party members following you around. The monsters (called shadows) are visible on screen, so there's none of the annoyance of random encounters. You are unable to tell what kind of shadows you'll fight, as they are displayed by a generic shadow sprite. You are also able to swing your sword at the shadows to initiate the battles, if you successfully swing it, you can have an initiative at the beginning of battle. If you fail, or just touch the shadow, you just have a regular battle. The shadows are also able to chase after you, so if they catch you, they get the initiative. Though if you are above a certain level in each dungeon, you are able to scare off the shadows.

The battle system is largely your traditional turn based battle system, but most of your abilities focus on you summoning various Personas. Personas are what the series calls the various monsters you summon into battle. Many of them are based on various mythological characters from various cultures around the world. Each Persona has their own stats, abilities, and weaknesses, and the hero is the only one with the ability to have multiple Personas while the rest of your party only has their own special Persona. To gain more Personas, you get an event after certain battles to collect the cards with Personas on them. They briefly flash you the cards and you have to get the card right, the penalty will risk you leaving empty handed, and possibly losing all the experience you got from the battle. For your party, you have a choice between having the rest of your party under tactics to let the AI do the thinking for you, or for full manual. Luckily the AI in this game is fairly smart, and you can go through the game with tactics with no problems.

The big deal with the Personas is fusion. While the ones you gain from battles have their abilities, they are fairly weak and only know one or two moves. Your task is to go to the Velvet Room and fuse Personas together to gain stronger Personas with more, and stronger, moves. You are also able to save Personas into a compendium to recall them later if you want them back, but they cost money.

Your character has two different sets of stats: one for battle, and one for social. The battle stats are your basic RPG stats, but the social stats can help you along with the social aspect of the game. Allowing you to be able to talk to certain people, or to initiate certain story events.

The beauty of Persona 4 is how the social aspects of the game, and the dungeon crawling aspects are fairly dependent on each other. The social links are corresponded with a certain tarot card arcana, one social link for one arcana. The various Personas are also categorized by tarot card arcana. If you hang out with the social link people enough, the corresponding link will level up, this in turn gives your Persona an experience boost when you fuse to make them even stronger, and saves you grinding time. Each of your party members also have social links, so if you max out a party member's social link, their Persona evolves into a stronger one.

With the social links, you basically hang out with a person and help them through their dilemma. You get to watch various people work through their life problems, and you get a warm fuzzy feeling inside when you help them out. The girls' social links have a slightly different ending, if you max out a girl's social link, they will ask you out and you can start dating. The problem with this is if you have a bunch of girls around a certain social link level, they'll start to get jealous and leave you with a broken social link that you must then mend! If you do time everything right, you are able to have multiple girlfriends in the game, and end up dating all of the girls in your party (and then some) what a stud!

Story:

The protagonist has no default name, but if you watched the anime, or played Persona 4 Arena, he is known as Yu Narukami, and for the sake of this review, we shall also associate him as such.

You play as Yu Narukami as he has to spend a year of high school at a new school in the small town of Inaba. Your parents are going to be working for the entire year overseas and you must live with your uncle Dojima and your elementary school cousin, Nanako. As you enter the school, you soon befriend 3 students: the goofy Yosuke, tomboy Chie, and the elegant Yukiko, who are all friends.

Chie tells you of a rumor flying around school about something known as the Midnight Channel, where if you watch TV at midnight when it's raining, you'll see your destined lover on there. As the game goes on, you discover that the people on the channel show up missing, and appear dead a few days later, and you and your friends begin to notice something suspicious, as clearly you can't have a Shin Megami Tensei game without murder victims. You then discover that there's a hidden world inside the TV and there's a strange bear known as Teddie who tells you about a stranger throwing people inside and you find out that those people were the kidnapped victims.

Most of the game cycles around you seeing a person on the Midnight Channel, and jumping into the channel to prevent them from dying. All while trying to figure out who the culprit behind the murders and kidnapping. They also tend to mix in stories revolving around your high school experience which tends to follow some typical tropes from anime school shows like: summer vacation, school camping trip, school festival, swimsuit scene, etc. While the story may have a dark demeanor in it, there's also a mix of comedy into it to lighten the mood. While the game can feel a bit repetitive after awhile, the story events can be quite enjoyable and give very nice breaks away from the grinding. While there are plot twists in the story, you won't have to worry about M Night Shyamalan style twists like a few Final Fantasy games, and the story is a bit straightforward.

The game is largely voice acted, with only the social links not being voiced. There is only the English voice cast, so if you're a Japanese voice purist, then you will be disappointed. Though if you're okay with English voices, the voice cast is very well done and has some big names like Johnny Yong Bosche of Bleach and Code Geass fame and Ali Hillis from Final Fantasy XIII and Mass Effect.

Characters:

 These are the initial cast of characters, there are several more important characters that appear throughout the game, but for the sake of keeping this review shorter, and preventing spoilers, we'll stick to these guys.

Yu Narukami:

 The protagonist of the game, he's the typical silent protagonist in many RPG's and has no default name. You get to play as the new kid in town, and cope with your life at a new school. He's also the only character with the ability to summon multiple personas. His default Persona is Izanagi who carries a giant sword, and boasts electricity powers.

Yosuke Hanamura:

Yosuke is one of your first friends, and previously the new kid, as he moved to Inaba six months before you did. His father runs the local Junes department store, and he works there part time. He's the typical comic relief character that people like to hate on as he's kind of annoying. He has a brash personality, and acts before he thinks, usually getting him in trouble with Chie. To get around the fact that you don't have a default name, Yosuke calls you bro, which has caused fans to dub him as Brosuke. Yosuke's Persona is Jiraiya who has wind abilities.

Chie Satonaka:

Chie is the tomboy of the group, and can have a short temper, especially when it comes to Yosuke being well... Yosuke. She's been best friends with Yukiko since they were little, and is always there to protect her. Despite having a short temper with Yosuke, she's pretty friendly and outgoing, which is why she's the first to make friends with you. She's a big fan of kung fu movies, which shows in her fighting style, as she's the kicker. Despite the fact that she fights in her school uniform during much of the game, she wears modesty shorts under her skirt, so you won't get any sneak peaks at her panties, sorry guys. Her Persona is Tomoe who carries a big spear and is a big physical attacker, and also has a few ice moves up her sleeve.

Yukiko Amagi:

Chie's best friend, Yukiko is initially a shy and introverted girl. Her family is rich as the owners of the renowned Amagi Inn. Apparently every guy in the school has the hots for her, and always try asking her out, which causes Chie to scare the guys off, as Yukiko is too shy to talk to them. Despite having the best grades in class, a running gag is where she gets into laughing fits at really bad jokes, which makes Chie wonder about her sometimes. Her persona is Konohana Sakuya and specializes in healing and fire abilities, a very important person to have in your party.

Teddie:

Teddie is a mysterious bearlike creature who lives in the TV world. He helps you out in the game by giving you tips in battle. He has a penchant for having bear related puns, despite nobody, except Yukiko, finds them enjoyable.

Ryotaro Dojima:

Dojima is your uncle who offered to take you in while your parents are abroad. Dojima is a single parent and works as a detective. He has a very authoritative personality. Since he'll be stuck at work a lot, he's not at home most of the time, much to the dismay of his daughter Nanako.

Nanako Dojima:

Nanako is Dojima's daughter/your cousin. Due to her father being gone all the time because of his job, she's a lot more mature than other kids her age, as she manages to do things at home by herself, like fixing meals for the family. Initially shy towards you, she eventually opens up and shows a lot of affection towards you, like calling you big bro.

Visuals:

The art style is largely anime based, and Atlus also doesn't disappoint with the graphics which are quite good for a late PS2 title. Everything is rendered in 3D polygons, and the characters are full sized (none of that super deformed nonsense) and very closely resemble the anime graphic they show when they're talking. Even the anime graphic has different facial expressions when they're talking, to add to their feelings.While you are only able to rotate the camera while you're in a dungeon, or at school, you still feel like you're running around in a small town despite the limited exploration you can do. Occasionally there are full anime cutscenes, but they are fairly rare.

Music:

The game comes with a CD of the soundtrack, luckily it's a fantastic soundtrack. Persona 4 follows the steps of Persona 3 by having a more J-pop influenced soundtrack with vocals sung in English. Luckily, unlike 3, the Japanese vocalist has a much better English accent and you can understand what she is saying, whereas with Persona 3's vocalist, you'd think she's singing in Japanese until you look at the lyrics and it's supposed to be in English.

While some of the songs have a J-pop twist, it's not that fluffy and cute stuff that some people associate J-pop with, and there's several instrumental tracks to keep with the mood of the game when it starts to get dark.

Verdict:

As typical of a Shin Megami Tensei game, this is quite a monstrous game and will be quite lengthy. Luckily there's plenty to do in the game to break from the mundainty, and you will be kept on your toes over who the killer is. With its colorful cast and great story, Persona 4 is perfect for those who want to dedicate time to a lengthy RPG that doesn't crush under its own weight.

Music: 9/10.

Visuals (Or Graphics): 9/10.

Story: 9/10.

Content: 9/10.

Conclusion: 9/10

An Inside Look at the Final Fantasy Flamewars.

In 1987, Final Fantasy was conceived by a, then unknown, company known as Square. They were financially on their last legs and decided to create their final game and close their doors for good. They settled on the name Final Fantasy, a game that would reflect it as their final game, and how they wanted to create a fantasy. Ironically what was supposed to be their swan song 25 years later turned into a multi-million dollar franchise and spawned 14 sequels and countless spinoff titles. As one of video game's most beloved franchises in the past 25 years, Final Fantasy has shown that even after all these years, they still have fans that are dedicated to the series... a little too dedicated.

Final Fantasy has gained a bit of infamy over the years, not from the games themselves, but from how viciously broken their fanbase is. While it's not unheard of, or impossible to find a fan who likes most, if not all, of the games, the fanbase is famous for how ferociously they despise specific games within the main series. It's not to say that they are the only broken fanbase, not only in video games, but in entertainment in general. Zelda has its broken bit, as does Pokemon, and even the Fallout series has its broken base (despite only having about 4 games), it seems that Final Fantasy fans are the most hard headed and the most "violent" when it comes to their games. But why does it hit Final Fantasy harder than a series like Zelda which is about as old and itself has several entries.

It largely has to do with the fact that the Final Fantasy series tends to try and reinvent itself with every installation in the series. While series like The Legend of Zelda and Pokemon tend to have several familiarities with them, Final Fantasy feels like a new game every time you play a different one. Some of the early ones are a bit similar to each other, after FF6, they went for basically redesigning the game from scratch with only Moogles, Chocobos, spells, and sometimes the summons as the only familiar faces. It's gotten more diverse with its later games where they even go and redesign the battle system every game. This explains the strife between the different fans are so strong, you're almost defending different games.

Another problem with the series, is that until recently, the series was spread over several consoles. While luckily after several ports/remakes (and the Playstation classics on the PSN), the first 9 games are available on the PSP/Vita and most of them are available on the PS3 (excluding 3, and 12). With this, you can play most of the games with ease. Prior to this, it was spread over several consoles, and many people don't have the space, or money to keep all of their previous consoles, much less own multiple consoles. So to play much of the series was a bit of a hassle. With the series spread over several consoles, many fans are really only exposed to a small handful of the series. So with this in mind, it explains why many of the fans defend one or a couple of the games in the series as they're really the only ones they know. So this brings the endless question, are you really a fan of a series if you're only familiar with one or two games? That's something that really has no answer, and thus fuels the never ending flamewars.

The fanbase is largely divided into three main camps: Final Fantasy 1-6, Final Fantasy 7, and Final Fantasy 10. Liking anything else means you. Are. Wrong. If you are a Final Fantasy fan, it's wise to take note which camp is near you to prevent yourself from having a massive headache. Though despite these main camps, there are still several possibilities to still be wrong. As we have the polarizing Final Fantasy 8 and the even bigger breaker, Final Fantasy 13. Let's dive into these main camps to see why they're so dedicated to each one.

The Final Fantasy 1-6 camp is somewhat hypocritical in and of itself. The big part is that many of these people haven't actually played all 6 of them.So while they feel justified to lump them all together, it seems very silly to try and defend games that you haven't even played. Out of these 6, Final Fantasy 1, 4, and 6 are the most well-known and are all 3 landmarks in RPG's. 2, 3, and 5 are the least played of the 6, and you could say the least played in the entire series. This is largely to do with the fact that the original versions of these games weren't released outside of Japan until several years after their release, especially with FF3 being released 16 years after its original release in Japan. With that information aside, we can go back to how many of these campers either haven't played all 6 of the games, or actually only like 2, maybe 3 games at most in this group. So when you sit down and think about this, it makes the entire camp seem like a complete joke.

Why are they defending this group as a whole if they're either not familiar with all of them or don't even like all of them? Nostalgia is a big factor in this group, and also "defending the classics". We must also take note that the series, and RPG's as a whole, were mostly a niche in gaming culture at the time of their release, with many American localization teams thinking that RPG's themselves were money pits because nobody wants to play a long game, which seems silly today, because today we have the Elder Scrolls, MMO’s and sandbox games that go on forever. Since the series was a bit "underground" on the 8 bit and 16 bit days, they feel that the series was ruined by popularity when they moved to the PlayStation and became a massive hit. This ideology fits the same bill with certain music fans that after a band hits the big time, they are no longer a good band. The same goes with video games.

Now for group 2, the Final Fantasy 7 camp. As the most well known and most popular in the series, and the game that brought not only Final Fantasy to the mainstream, but also RPG’s in general, so it's unavoidable that this game alone has its own camp of dedicated fans. For most gamers that missed out on the game as late comers to the series, they probably won't get the big deal with this game. Nostalgia also plays a massive role in this camp, because for many dedicated FF7 fans, this was their introduction to the series, and without this game, they feel that they would not be interested in the series. For many fans, their first experience with a franchise tends to make the biggest impact on them, and anything after that will never live up to the expectations as their first experience. Sort of like how a drug user's best high will almost always be his first time.

From a modern standpoint, this game looks and feels very uninspiring, and will definitely confuse people with why this game is a big deal. Its graphics feel very archaic, even for a Playstation game, and the story itself is riddled with JRPG clichés. Sadly this is an aspect that many will miss out on if they didn't play the game when it was new. Originally praised as the first 3D Final Fantasy, it was also one of the earliest 3D RPG's on the PS1.It was also highly influential with its setting and story, and in its wake has been followed with several games that have more or less "ripped off" aspects of the game. So if you're a modern gamer and compare it to recent titles, this game brings nothing new to the table. But if you if you think about all these firsts that the game brought to the table, it’s easy to see why this game is held in high regards. It’s like the Nirvana album, Nevermind, of the RPG’s. Comparing it to today’s music, the album brings nothing new to you, they sound like every other gritty rock band on the radio today, but if you rewind to 1991 when it came out, this was a radical departure from the radio back then. In the 80’s Hair Metal and New Wave were all the rage, and nobody outside of a college campus had any clue with what the hell Alternative was. Fast forward today, apparently everything is alternative. Well back to Final Fantasy…

Since FF7 started a second generation of Final Fantasy fans, it started the original, and the deepest split in the fanbase. This sort of "generation war" suffers either from whose nostalgia is the strongest, or how the FF7 fans are noobs because the game made the series popular and brought what was once a well-kept secret into the eyes of the public.

Now for the final camp, Final Fantasy 10. This camp shares some of the same problems with the FF7 camp, though the large difference is that it’s not as highly influential. Like FF7, FF10 was also many people's entry into the series. Just like many FF7 fans first console was the original Playstation, FF10 fan's first console was the Playstation 2. Despite this, the game is still heralded as one of the best RPG's, if not one of the best PS2 games and heralded many firsts in the series. Even though the game is 10 years old now and is starting to show its age, it still holds its own visually to many gamers whereas Final Fantasy 7's deformed sprites and awkward navigation shies newcomers away.

As ushering a new generation of Final Fantasy fans, FF10 is hated by the PS1 generation and the S/NES gen as those fans being "tainted by the evils of modern video games". The FF10 fans are only into fancy graphics and voice acting and can't handle the "purity of the classics". And also in a slight hint of hypocrisy, the second gen view the third gen into ruining their well-kept secret, since they feel that the PS1 games are allegedly obscure and FF10 is too popular because it has the first direct sequel in the franchise's history. All ignoring the fact that Final Fantasy 7 sold more copies than 10. Another criticism is over Square's merger with rival company Enix. The older fans claim this game is ruined because the original company is no more. The biggest irony of this claim is the fact that the merger happened in 2003 and FF10 was released in 2001 and every non-greatest hits copy of the game's packaging says Squaresoft and even the title screen lists Squaresoft in every version of the game. Clearly a company that has yet to exist can't "ruin" a game, but many people ignore these facts.  A lot of people make the same claim saying Square Enix ruined the series with 10-2, even though Squaresoft developed the game, not Square Enix. Though this situation is kind of a trick question, as the game was released in North America after the merger, and only the original Japanese release says Squaresoft.

So what about some of the other games? Why are they hated? Why are 8 and 13 so polarizing? Also what's the deal with FF3 being hated despite being a missing entry? While I can't go in depth on some of this, I can do a simple breakdown with why the Final Fantasy fans rage massively hard over these games.

Let's start with Final Fantasy 3:

Final Fantasy 3

As mentioned earlier, this game was relatively unknown to most of the fans. Only the most hardcore of fans played the fan-translated roms on NES emulators, while others patiently waited for Square (later Square Enix) to release the game outside of Japan. So in 2006, their prayers were finally answered. Many of the fans were expecting a mass epic and thought Japan never released it to the rest of the world for this very reason. Many were sadly disappointed to find out that this game was incredibly archaic in story, and gameplay, and felt rather betrayed. They ignore the fact that this game was released on the NES and it's quite silly to expect a very deep and rich story when later games like FF4 and 6 were the ones who pushed the envelope in storytelling, not an NES title. Another major flack FF3 got was that it was released on the DS, not the PS2 because Final Fantasy is only on Playstation.

Final Fantasy 8

Once the most polarizing game in the series, Final Fantasy 8, while largely praised by its graphics from the fans introduced by FF7, the gameplay itself gained some flack. It had a lot of radical gameplay changes for every Final Fantasy fan. Its junction system (look it up yourself) is confusing to many newcomers to the game. It also added an unorthodox way of gaining money, and the fact that the monsters level up with you. To counter this, one must use the Junction System to hoard magic to increase your stats. Your stats increase every 10 spells you use, so if you use too many spells, it actually affects your stats. The story, depending on who you're talking to, is either heralded as a rich tale, or loathed as convoluted and too "lovey dovey". While the confusing gameplay changes are legitimate reasons for not liking a game, there are still many fans who hate FF8 because they were expecting it to be a sequel to FF7, but discovered it was a completely different game and have never forgiven it ever since.

Final Fantasy 9

Squaresoft felt that FF7 and FF8 were getting too futuristic and scifi, and created FF9 as a sort of throwback to the more fantasy aspects of the older games. Sadly for Square, this did not bode well with fans. One big criticism is that the game was given a more cartoony storybook-like artstyle to match with its fantasy setting. Many fans felt that their "mature series" was becoming too kiddy and Square are trying to appeal to children because "mature gamers play mature games, and don’t want to play Disney shit". All of them tend to ignore the fact that FF9 probably has one of the most mature storylines in the franchise. This game also doesn’t get enough attention as FF7 or 8 as it was released late in the PS1’s lifespan, and came out a month after the launch of the PS2.

Final Fantasy 11

MMORPG, enough said. More points because you have to pay monthly for it.

Final Fantasy 12

While heralded by professional critics upon its initial release, FF12 has gained a backlash from its fans. Similar to FF8, 12 gained some heat from fans for changing a lot of gameplay aspects. From its gambit system, not earning money from battles, and the MMORPG inspired battle system, it has its fair share of legitimate reasons why people dislike the game. Though a lot of fans hate it because it's "too medieval" and Final Fantasy games aren't supposed to be medieval (ignoring that the majority of the series has a medieval setting).

Final Fantasy 13

The whole game breaker. FF13 has two main grudges against it: the fact that it was released on the latest video game console generation (so basically why FF7 and FFX are hated by older fans), and how the gameplay is unorthodox from other FF games. The only universal agreement with this game is that the graphics rule.

The first criticism is in its story; some praise it to ungodly levels, and other feel that it has no story. No matter what anyone tells you, the game does have a story, and is fairly straightforward through most of the game and does very little to stray away from that. Arguably one of the most straightforward stories in the series as it's not riddled with multiple plot twists. The reason why people probably feel it has no story, is that instead of being story driven like the others, it’s largely a character driven story and copes with how the various playable characters cope with themselves. It even features some very mature situations: like how Lightning is coping with raising her little sister without her parents help, and Sazh coping with his missing son.

The main criticism is in the gameplay. First off with how about it’s linear for much of the game. Some people want their RPG's to have a lot of exploration in them, while this is a legitimate reason to dislike the game, the problem is that a lot of those people praise FF10 which is just as linear. The second criticism is the battle system. Like the story, the battle system is either praised to godly proportions, or hated with a passion. The battle system does take several hours of gameplay to finally open up and show what it’s really about, but prior to that, you don’t really do much in battle. Another aspect of the gameplay is that you automatically heal after battle and you have unlimited magic. Many feel that Square Enix is trying too hard to cater to "those filthy casuals", but ignore that the battle system itself makes things tricky and the game itself is no walk in the park as they have level caps and force you into using strategy in boss battles more than the previous games that mostly require you to just grind your level higher.

Final Fantasy 14

As the second MMORPG with paid services, FF14 suffers the same fate as FF11, though this time it's different. Out of all the 13 previous games, FF14 is the only one that's universally considered to suck, and this is not from idiot fan opinions. Riddled with glitches, design flaws, and broken gameplay, the consensus was that the game felt unfinished. Luckily Square Enix noticed its universal hatred and decided to completely redo the entire game and to reveal it as FF14: A Realm Reborn. A Realm Reborn was finally released and has gained very positive reviews, but it suffers from the same fate as FF11 with being a paid MMORPG.

As a series that spans generations of gamers, its fanbase incorporates several types of fans. With its ongoing flamewars between its various factions, there are still many sane fans that either love their preferred game, or most/all of the games. Though we could all think that if everyone had the same opinion, the world would be a fairly boring place.

Dragon Quest VI - Realms of Revelation

The third and final installment of the Zenethian trilogy, Dragon Quest VI was originally released on the SNES in 1995 and became renowned not only for the quality of the game, but for pushing the limits of the SNES with its graphics and scale of the game world. This is one of the largest SNES games in storage size. This was part of the main why it never made a foreign release, and also due to Enix closing their doors on their North American sector. Though in 2010 it was remade for the first time on the DS, and released in the US and Europe a year later, to complete any hardcore DQ fan's collection with finally having all 9 games released, as this was the last Dragon Quest game that never saw the light of day outside of Japan.

Dragon Quest VI is known for its exploration of two large worlds, the real world and the dream world; similar to the Dark and Light worlds from Zelda's Link to the Past. Both of these worlds are full sized and essentially double the scale of your adventure. Though this grand adventure, you are followed in your quest for your past by a growing cast of characters who are also on a search for their lost memories of their past.

Story:

You play the game as the hero, which has no default name, as you awakens from an alleged nightmare by your little sister. You are then instructed by the village elder the annual festival is coming up and you must go and collect the crown that the elder has ordered from a nearby town. Upon entering the town, you discover the crown maker is missing and you go off to find him, only to discover he is hanging on the edge above a giant hole. In the process of saving him, you fall into the hole and find yourself in a strange world where nobody can see you, but you quickly find a way back through a mysterious well. Afterwards you return and finish your task of getting the crown and return home. During the festival the mountain spirit appears and tells you that you must leave the village once again, as you are the only one to defeat the evil that plagues this world. And so your quest begins.

Gameplay:

As with the other Dragon Quest games, the gameplay in VI is your incredibly traditional JRPG with random encounters and a simple turn based battle system, all done in first person. As you gain more party members, you can employ tactics to your battle to let the AI do the work for you. While largely untouched from the previous entrees, they do introduce a diverse class system to create some variety to aid your strategies in battle. While the class system was first introduced and only used in DQ3, 6 has made many improvements to it. Unlike in 3, your class levels up separately, and at a faster rate. This is because once you max out the level of two classes, you can unlock a hybrid class to gain much stronger abilities. The slight downfall for some people is that only certain combinations unlock hybrid classes. A plus side to the class system is that once you change your class, all of your abilities transfer over, thus increasing your movepool which comes in handy the farther you get in the game. One aspect of the class system some might find tedious, is that you can only change your classes by going to Alltrades Abbey and talking to Jack of Alltrades (good God, what a terrible pun, is that supposed to be funny?), and there is only one in the game. So every time you want to change your classes, you must trek back to it. Luckily by this point you have the Return spell which you can warp travel.

The character and monsters are once again designed by Akira Toriyama. The game also has the typical DQ trope of having a few reoccurring monsters and doing the color swapping after certain points in the game, so nothing new for veteran DQ fans, but may be seen as a bit lazy for newbies to the series.

Koichi Sugiyama once again composes the music for this game. While personally some of the town and overworld music may not be as great as DQ5, there are still some fantastic tracks. The music for the towns are bright and cheerful and vary with the dark and gloomy dungeon sounds, then there's the epic Flight of Pegasus  that sounds just as mystical fully orchestrated  A staple of the DQ series is that there is a fully orchestrated OST available for the fans of the soundtrack, and even the opening title sequence of the Dragon Quest theme is performed by an orchestra.

So if you were a fan of SNES classics like Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI, and looking for a great lengthy RPG to your DS collection, Dragon Quest VI will gladly satisfy your RPG needs. While the story may not be as dramatic of an experience as DQ5, the darker, grittier nature of DQ6 will still not disappoint you.

Music: 8/10.

Visuals: 7/10.

Story: 9/10.

Content: 8/10.

Conclusion: 8/10

And that concludes the Zenethian Trilogy of Dragon Quest games.

Dragon Quest V - Hand of the Heavenly Bride

Part 2 of the very loosely connected Zenethian trilogy (read the DQ4 review to know why) in the Dragon Quest series, and the first of the two "lost epics" to be released outside of Japan (with the other one being DQ6). Dragon Quest V is a game that has quite a legacy in its home country but is largely unknown to the rest of the world. For over a decade, it has delved in relative obscurity and was only known to the hardest of the hardcore fans who either had to learn Japanese to play the game, run through the game without knowing Japanese, or downloaded fan translated patched roms, but as of 2008, Dragon Quest V was remade on the DS and got its long awaited worldwide release, so we finally get to see what the fuss over the game is about.

Released in 1992 on the SNES (Super Famicon for the purists) DQ5 was the first game in the series to be released on the new console. It was later remade as a PS2 game featuring 3D graphics, and a live orchestra soundtrack, and remade again for the DS. Some might feel that we got short-handed with the DS version, but either way it's still makes a solid DS game.

Story:

Despite being released about 15 years too late, the game is still praised in its unique storytelling, which spans several generations of the hero's life. In typical Dragon Quest fashion, you play as the silent protagonist who has no default name. In the early parts of the game, you play at a young 6 year old boy who is on a journey around the world with his father Pankraz. The early stages involve you exploring a cave by yourself, ghost-busting with your old friend Bianca, save the Fairy Kingdom and playing with the bratty Prince Harry.

Though through a series of events, the game fast-forwards several years until your adult age. With this, things change a bit and you are now able to enlist monsters into your party to aid you in your journey. Also in this section, you even go through the dramatic event of getting married. This is where the DS version changes up from the original version. In the other two versions, you had two choices for wives, this one adds a third. You can select between your childhood friend Bianca, Nera, the daughter of a rich entrepreneur, or Nera's older sister Deborah, who is special to this version of the game.

This section is very unique, as it's supposedly the first video game to depict a pregnancy. Regardless of who you pick, she joins you in your party as a fighter, though this is where the similarity ends. One of the more petty results, is that your children's hair color matches the hair color of the mother. The more important reason, is the overall stats and skills of the three women. Bianca is the heavy magic user, Nera is more of the healer, and Deborah is the physical attacker. There's ongoing flamewars over which girl you should pick, but the two biggest camps is for Bianca or Nera. Deborah gets the low end of the flamewar as she's not an original character, so you can see how she's kind of thrown in. The Bianca haters are against her, because the game sort of guilt trips you into marrying your childhood friend, but it's not like there's any real consequences of not picking her, but we all know how dumb fans can be...

The last section takes place 8 years after the last section, and this is where your children become important characters. They also don't have default names, and you name them yourself. The son is the physical attacker, and your daughter is the magic user.

Throughout the course of the game, you go through a revolving door of party members. So the only static character in the game is you. Later on in the game, your monster party does stay static (well depending on how often you switch around monsters you recruit), but all the human characters do pop in and out various times in the game. This is definitely a plus for those who are big on switching around their members to prevent getting bored, but the ones who go OCD and want their party to be static, this is a big no-no for you.

Gameplay:

For the main gameplay, it's your typical Dragon Quest game which means it's very traditional. So there isn't much that needs to be talked about. What we do need to talk about that's unique for this game in the series, is the monster recruiting.

Allegedly the game that inspired Pokémon, Dragon Quest V introduced the ability to recruit monsters into your party. Despite Megami Tensei doing it in 1987, Dragon Quest is a bigger hit, and was a much more "family friendly" adventure. Unlike Pokémon where there's a strategy to recruiting, and you can recruit any monster, Dragon Quest V just has a limited number, and they randomly join you when you defeat them. Basically you just fight them and if you're lucky enough, they'll ask to join your party.

Monsters, like your human party members, level up, and can equip weapons and armor. Each monster is unique to what it can equip and what types of moves it can know. If your party gets full, the monsters get sent to a "Monster Gramps", which is an old man who takes care of your other monsters. Think of him like the PC's in Pokémon.

Graphics:

For the graphics, there isn't much to say that hasn't already been said, as it uses the exact same engine as Dragon Quest IV's DS remake. This is definitely kind of a lazy thing to do when you're releasing separate games, though it's possible they did this because the developers were producing them at the same time, but they should do some changing up like they did in the DS version of Dragon Quest VI (more on that in a different review). So if you want to read about the graphics, look at the DQ4 review.

Here are the comparisons between DQ4 and 5:

DQ4

DQ5

Music:

 Once again series veteran Koichi Sugiyama has composed the soundtrack, as he has every other DQ game, and he once again hasn't failed us (will he ever?). There's a multitude of wonderful tracks on here that change for the given mood. While not as awe inspiring as the soundtrack of the PS2 version, but that's kind of hard to compare when you're using a real orchestra, but this is nicer quality than the SNES version. We do get a full orchestra for the Dragon Quest fanfare at the opening sequence. There's several heartwarming tracks, and several beautiful tracks. If you're a big fan of the soundtrack, it's highly recommended to check out the Symphonic Suite renditions of the soundtrack, as that's all the orchestrated versions of the songs.

Verdict:

Dragon Quest V, despite getting a 15+ year late release, it's still a timeless classic that any RPG fan should sink their claws into at least once. With its unique and engaging storyline, it's difficult to put the DS down to see what happens next.

Music: 9/10.

Visuals: 6/10.

Story: 10/10.

Content: 8/10.

Conclusion: 9/10

Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen

The Dragon Quest series is a household  name in Japan, but in the US, hardly anyone that isn't an RPG fanatic know of this series. This game is the first in the loosely connected Zenethian trilogy of Dragon Quest games. When I mean loosely, I mean very loosely, as the only real connection between these games is that there is a castle Zenethia, and the dark world of Nadiria as the demon world. Other than that, they really have fuckall to do with each other.

The original version of this game was released in 1992 in the US as Dragon Warrior IV. While a very late release for the NES in the US, its impact in the realm of RPG's with its innovative storytelling, and the final boss Psaro with its multiple form boss fight. The game was remade for the PS1 using Dragon Quest VII's engine, and was planned for a US release as entailed in the back of the DQ7 manual, but it never came to be. The game was again remade for the DS, but is more like an enhanced  port, rather than a full on remake, as it's just an updated engine.

Story:

The first part of the loosely connected Zenethian Trilogy in the series, IV decides to split up the game into 5 chapters, with the first four chapters focusing on a different character, or group of characters, that all come together to join you in the final chapter where you finally get to play as the hero you named before you started your adventure. Each chapter has a miniature story that you go through that, like the characters, all come together in the final chapter.

You have:

Chapter 1 - Ragnar: a soldier in the castle town of Burland. He discovers that the children of a nearby village have been disappearing and he must go and rescue them.

Chapter 2 - Alena: Alena is the tomboyish Tsarevna (princess) of the Russian speaking land of Zamoksva, she sneaks out of the castle to go on an adventure to test her strength. She is followed by her tutor Borya and her priestly friend Kiryl.

Chapter 3 - Torneko: Torneko is a merchant from a small town with a dream to run a thriving business with his family in the castle town of Endor. Out of all the chapters, this one is quite strange as it's not as very action oriented as the rest of the game. You spend a large chunk of the game either running stores, and even running around raising money to have items for your store.

Chapter 4 - Maya and Meena: Maya and Meena are two dancers who go out on a quest to exact revenge on the man who killed their father.

Chapter 5 - Hero: You, the Hero's, peaceful hometown has just been attacked by monsters and during this, your dying friend reveals that you are really the Legendary Hero and you must follow your destiny to rid the world of evil.

The PS1 and DS remakes also contain a prologue and a Chapter 6. The prologue consists as an intro for the hero, and Chapter 6 is the aftermath of defeating the evil Psaro the Manslayer.

Unlike many of the Final Fantasy games, Dragon Quest as a series isn't necessarily renowned for its rich storytelling, the series largely focuses mostly on the quest. That's not to say the story is bad, it's just not a story driven game. You should also keep in mind that this was originally an NES game, so the storytelling can feel archaic to those who aren't familiar with the style of retro RPGs.

Gameplay:

For the gameplay, it's largely the same from the NES original, but there are a couple of archaic features that have been updated from the original. They added in auto-target, which is where if two party members target the same monster and one kills it before the other, the second one will attack a different monster. In the original, the second character would just miss, which would mean a lost turn. They also gave you a bag which gives you a limitless inventory. Also in the original, in Chapter 5, your party members were on auto-pilot, which they removed so you can choose to manually control your party.

For the unaltered gameplay, it's your typical JRPG, so there isn't much to explain that people don't already know since the series is known for its very traditional gameplay, which is something the series is largely the standard model other RPG's based themselves off of. Everything down to the exploration and battle system is very standard. For the very standard turn based battle system, you can either manually control your characters, or pick between different tactics where your everyone but the leader is on auto-pilot. This is all done in a first person view, so all you see is the monsters and the portraits of your character above your stats. So if you were looking for a unique gameplay experience, then you'll probably be very disappointed.

Graphics:

The graphics may be loads better than the NES version, but if you're expecting fancy graphics for the DS, then you should look away. The game looks like a souped up SNES game, but it's detailed enough to make you not really worry about it. Despite looking like a fancy SNES game, the towns and dungeons are in a somewhat 3D environment. While still keeping a top down view, you can rotate the camera a full 360 degrees around in villages and in certain dungeons. With this, you can notice that the buildings and trees are actually made of polygons that add more depth to your environment. While the PS1 version has a more isometric town with 2D sprites with the houses looking more three dimensional, the DS version looks more smooth and the houses blend with the sprites better than the PS1 version.

The game utilizes both screens in an interesting fashion. Much of the game takes place on the lower screen, but when you're in towns and in large dungeons, the visuals extend into the top screen, giving you more to see. This is a pretty neat feature, and adds more depth to your world, allowing you to see how large the castles and such are. In the overworld, the top screen shows you the world map. It's interesting how accustomed you get to this when you decide to play the NES version, and you're having to search for a map to figure out where you're supposed to go.

A complaint that some people have with the game is that there is a lot of cookie cutter graphics that they have throughout the game. They have sprites for the same generic townspeople, down to the trees and houses in the towns. Despite the fact that each town has a unique layout to it, some people are not satisfied that the various towns themselves feel too copy and pasted. Though if you're familiar with the franchise, this isn't anything new, but if you're a newbie to the series, this is something to consider.

The artwork is where Dragon Quest is known for. Returning to the series, the famed manga artist Akira Toriyama of Dragon Ball fame once again has come to design the characters in your party and the monsters. While he designed them for the NES game, the DS game does more justice to his art. The monster sprites in battle, while two dimensional, are animated and the animation for the spells are nice enough to get the job done. Another minor complaint newbies to the series will find is that as you get farther in the game, they'll start color swapping some of the monsters. If you're a veteran to the series, or to other RPG's from that era, it's not that unusual (even Final Fantasy is still guilty of it), but it feels a bit lazy for modern gamers, so you should keep in mind that this is a game from 1992.

Music:

For the music, series composer Koichi Sugiyama returns to compose the music. While a massive step up from the simple NES soundtrack, it still sounds massively similar to the PS1 version, but the opening Dragon Quest theme is performed by a real orchestra which is always better than a midi track. The interesting aspect of the soundtrack is that they have different overworld themes for each chapter, and they even change it in the middle of the 5th chapter when you gather all of your party members from the first four chapters. The music itself is very well composed and sounds fantastic when performed live in a full orchestra, so if you really enjoyed the soundtrack, each DQ game has a full orchestral album. The town music itself is very bright and cheerful and you'll end up humming the theme when you're visiting in and out of town. While there are several tracks on the OST, it's not as diverse as modern RPG's, so you're going to end up hearing the same town music in pretty much every town that doesn't have a castle and the same cave music over and over. So if you're looking for a diverse soundtrack, this might be a concern for you if you easily get sick of hearing the same songs over and over.

Dragon Quest IV is a fantastic game and is highly recommended for those into the classics, but if you're a fan of modern RPG's, this game as a whole will probably feel too archaic for you. So if you're not a hardcore RPG fan, or looking to bask in classic gaming, Dragon Quest IV is not the game for you.

Music: 8/10.

Visuals: 6/10.

Story: 7/10.

Content: 7/10.

Conclusion: 7/10

Atelier Totori: The Adventurer of Arland

Developed by Gust in 2010, and published by Gust a year later in the rest of the world, Atelier Totori is the 12th installment in the long running Atelier series. It is also the second game in the Arland trilogy on the PS3, and is the sequel to the game Atelier Rorona.

Some of you are probably scratching your heads thinking "what the fuck is the Atelier series and how are there 12 games already?". Don't worry, it has a small fanbase and isn't very popular, so chances are most of you haven't played the PS2 games.

The Atelier series is a departure from other RPG's where there's a large focus on using alchemy to synthesize items instead of promoting itself as an epic tale.

Story:

Taking place 5 years after the first game, Atelier Rorona, you play as the titular character Totori who, as the subtitle suggests, has a dream to become an adventurer and discover the whereabouts of her mother, who has been missing for years. As you soon find out, Totori is an alchemy student of the previous game's heroine Rorona, who is going around the countryside looking for her old teacher. 

You gain your adventuring license about 30 mins into the game, and most of the game consists of you wandering around the world doing either fetch quests or monster hunting for the Adventurer's Guild, with bits of the story here and there to progress the plot. Unlike the previous game, this game has a story that feels like it actually matters more. The previous game followed sort of a Harvest Moon type of deal where Rorona has X many days to make the alchemy lab prosper, or risk shutting down, while this one makes you continue because you're curious about what happened to Totori's mother.

For such a non story heavy game, there's a fairly decently sized cast full of colorful characters, with a handful returning from the previous game. The game also has a very large emphasis on kawaii, which you'll soon discover with its heavy focus on mostly female cast members, and many of the male characters are either uninteresting, or unimportant. So unlike games like Dark Souls and Skyrim where it's all testosterone filled badassery, this game focuses heavily on kawaii instead. Despite having cutesy shojo style artwork, you'll soon discover that the kawaii nature of this game is heavily catered towards guys, especially with its very questionable dialog that appears from time to time. While some of the dialog is just silly stuff discussing who has a cuter butt, there's some pretty heavy lesbian subtext, especially with the character Melvia who you'll find out molests Massages Totori and her friend Mimi, and a few other questionable deeds. So it's strange seeing molestation jokes about groping 14 year old girls, but it's totally acceptable when they're getting molested by another girl because yuri is totally hot. So it's reassuring to know that it's only considered child molestation if it's an older man touching a 14 year old girl.

While it's not to say this game is not girl friendly (there's a large female fanbase), and not dangerous for your little sister to play. It does get a bit too silly at times, especially when the town creeper Peter makes you go out and find 8 beautiful women for the town festival and later reveals it as a dubious plot to host a swimsuit contest. There are a few instances where it comes off like some weird otaku wrote a few PG scenes of his favorite yuri pairing.

The game has voice acting, and the female voice actors (excluding Pamela) are pretty good and even has a few known anime voice actresses like the famous Wendee Lee, Cristina Vee, and Cassandra Morris. The male actors range from decent to meh. The game does have the option for the Japanese audio, but you'll probably end up changing the voices back to English because all of the female characters almost all sound the same and have the high pitched kawaii voice, so the really high pitched voices can start to get grating after awhile. As you can see, Japanese voices don't always make things better, unless you're one of those weaboos who demand everything is Japanese, but fuck those guys anyway.

Characters:

Totooria Helmold: 

Known as Totori for short, she's the protagonist of the game. She's 13 in the Japanese version, and 14 in the North American releases, because somehow that one year makes a huge difference when it comes to molestation jokes. Anyway, she follows the moe archetype of the clumsy girl, and she's very optimistic. She's one of those super girly girls, and likes cute things.There's times where it feels like she has more sense than her friends because Melvia is crazy, and Rorona can be like a big kid.

Cecilia Helmold:

Known as Ceci for short (pronounced Setsi), she's Totori's overprotective older sister. Since their mother's been missing since Totori's childhood, Ceci doubles up as the motherly figure in Totori's life, as she's the housekeeper, cook, and the one who bitches at Totori for fucking up everything. She's an NPC, but if you really like her, she's available as a paid DLC character where you can have her in your party. The town creeper Peter is in love with her, but he's too much of a loser to confess to her.

Gino Knab:

Totori's childhood friend, and the first person to join you in your party. He also shares Totori's dream of being an adventurer. Since he's Totori's childhood friend, there's a lot of shipping going on between the two of them, because we all know he wants her V.

Melvia Siebel:

The next person to join your party is Melvia, or Mel for short. She's the sexy, yet skilled, adventurer who is renowned for her monster strength, and she's legal age. She's a highly recommended person to have in your party based on her strength and her ass-kicking skills. She's also the pervert of the game, as she's groped all of the female party members, which is why Mimi gave her the nickname, Molester Woman. Rorona calls her Mellie because she thinks it's cute.

Mimi Houllier von Shwarzlang:

Winner of the most ridiculous name award, Mimi is the required tsundere character in the game. She's those mouthy girls who loves bragging that she's from a rich family. She's the same age as Totori and also aims to be a renowned adventurer. She claims she joins Totori's party because she needs someone with alchemy skills in her party, but they really do a half-assed job of explaining that. She seems to be really good friends with Totori, but because she's a tsundere, she'll never admit that. She's surprisingly polite to Ceci, and has grown up very well in Atelier Meruru. She fights with spears and has pretty decent strength.

Rorolina Frixel:

Known as Rorona for short, she's the formerly underaged protagonist of the first game, and is Totori's alchemy teacher. She's best friends with Cory at the Adventurer's guild, and like Totori, she's pretty clumsy. She joins your party later on in the game, and you get to use her workshop when you're in Arland. She creates the homunculus Chim to help you  with alchemy, and loves pie. She fights with bombs, which is very helpful as it can attack multiple enemies at once.

Those are the more important characters, there's many more, but that just ruins the fun of the game.

Gameplay:

Much of the game consists of you doing various fetch quests or going on hunts. As the game progresses, you have two bases of operation. Your house in Alanya Village, and Rorona's in the capitol Arland. At your bases, you have the option of saving your game, using alchemy to synthesize various items, or go to sleep to regain health and MP used to synthesize. Also the towns your bases are in are also the only two places to pick up the job requests, and to report them to gain gold and extra synthesis ingredients. Arland is the only place where you can update your job license, and to order weapons and armor.

With your adventuring license, you can gain points by doing the various jobs, or by exploring various regions in the overworld. So it's best to periodically visit Cordelia in the Adventurer's Guild and see if you rack up enough points. With the weapons and armor, you must collect the required ingredients first, and then Hagel will forge the weapons and armor for you.

Another feature of this game is that there's a time limit. The game progresses in days, and synthesizing and traveling across the overworld takes up days. So anyone completely unfamiliar with the series will probably not be able to manage their time well enough to beat the final boss in their first playthrough, but luckily the way the game is, you can transfer your equipment over in a new game plus.

Monster battles are largely standard turn base battles. The only thing that's a little different is that monsters appear in lines, so certain attacks can attack monsters in either a horizontal or vertical line, while Rorona's bombs can attack a large sum of monsters at once.

Graphically the cell shaded anime graphics are pretty nice. There are a few annoying instances: like how the game isn't fully 3D. It's sort of like Final Fantasy X where everything is 3D, but it's all a fixed camera angle, you'd think that a game on the PS3 is fully capable of being completely 3D with rotating cameras. Another thing is that all the story and dialog is done in visual novel style. Where they show just an image of the character that's talking, and change their expression to match the emotion. It seems a bit lazy that they can't fully animate the character models when they're talking.

Music:

Not much to say about the music, but it's alright. It's decent and matches the kawaii nature of the game, but outside of that, there's not many standout tracks, though I do have to say the theme song during the title opening is fucking atrocious. Though if you really enjoy the game, you can buy the OST off of the PSN in the DLC section.

Verdict:

Atelier Totori is one of those games that one shouldn't really take seriously, as it doesn't doesn't present itself as a serious game. So while it's not an RPG that prides itself as an epic tale, it's like a nice breather where you just spend time collecting items to synthesize or fighting monsters. So while not a memorable game, it's one of those games that are a nice way to kill time. So if you're okay with kawaii and blatantly obvious yuri, then you should be able to stomach this game.

So in a nutshell, Atelier Totori is not for those who are serious gamers, but if you just want a relatively simple game as a breather, then Atelier Totori is for you.

Music: 7/10.

Visuals (Or Graphics): 7/10.

Story: 7/10.

Content: 8/10.

Conclusion: 7/10