Inaba — a quiet town in rural Japan. A normal teenager arrives at the station to begin his year-long stay in the countryside, only to be welcomed by the news of a dead TV announcer. Shortly after, another body appears, mysteriously hung from the top of a telephone pole. The cause of death is unknown, with no leads on the suspect… As the peaceful community is thrown into turmoil, the urban youth and his classmates wander into a strange, surreal place covered by a thick fog…

AHH IT’S PERSONA 4 ON THE VITA!!!!!!!111!one!

Alright, now that that’s out of my system, let me tell you about the original game. Overall Metacritic score of 90, several “Editor’s Choice” and “Best Of” awards, Persona 4 was my favorite of the Persona series to date. I spent over 100 hours immersed in the story and combat, destroying demons in the various levels, and collecting/customizing my demons. As with all Atlus games I’ve played, the story is brilliant, engaging and twists about at the end. Updated from Persona 3, creating bonds with the memorable characters had bonuses outside of unlocking the highest tier of demon fusion.

Persona 4: Golden for PlayStation Vita is an enhanced port of Persona 4. If you read my First Impressions on Devil Survivor: Overclock, you know that an enhanced port from Atlus offers more than just updated visuals. This enhanced port does have remastered visuals that take advantage of the PS Vita’s 5″ OLED display, but it also has more voiced dialogue, additional dungeon features, new demons to collect, new story events, an all-new character and even new cutscenes. Even music has been added curtsey of Shoji Meguro plus more that has yet to be released.

This game is nutty with your characters entering the TV realm to defeat shadow selves and save victims who have been dragged into the TV. In the realm these people are confronted by their deepest fears manifested as their shadow selves. Using Personas – which are the demons I was speaking of before – you defeat the shadow selves and other demons to save those who were thrown into the TV realm to die.

The original game was amazing and I cannot wait to experience the enhanced options for Persona 4: Golden. Especially the voice acting and additional character as both were amazing the first time around. If you haven’t ever played a Persona game, don’t worry because the story lines are not tied together. This game is also a great introduction to the Shin Megami Tensei and Persona series in general, so go out and reserve your copy today! Atlus games aren’t ever released in bulk.

]]> http://specintomisdirect.wordpress.com/2012/05/29/in-before-its-out-persona-4-golden/feed/ 0 janaelle Persona_4_wallpaper_by_Jeff2psyco P4 Fangirls http://specintomisdirect.wordpress.com/2012/03/16/in-before-its-out-game-of-thrones-rpg/ http://specintomisdirect.wordpress.com/2012/03/16/in-before-its-out-game-of-thrones-rpg/#comments Fri, 16 Mar 2012 14:38:23 +0000 janaelle http://specintomisdirect.wordpress.com/?p=125 ]]>

Anyone who knows me, knows I’m an Atlus fan girl. I have loved everything of theirs that I’ve ever gotten my hands on for its rich stories and realistic characters – even the ones who never speak. Yet, when it comes to the Game of Thrones phenomenon, I’ve been disinterested – after reading the first two books, the third stalled out and I never finished it, so the T.V. show never seemed like something I would enjoy.

Then I heard there was going to be a Game of Thrones RPG for the Xbox and the PS3. My first thought was someone was trying to cash in on the name for the sake of making some money. And then I heard that someone is Atlus. This caught my attention with an immediate reaction of, “Oh God, I have to have it!” I settled down after a few days and decided to do some research into just what I was going to be paying for; I was not impressed. The videos showed half-assed graphics and declared one of those “Play as four different characters” games which always suggests to me that they couldn’t come up with a good enough story to run with only one set of characters. At the time, they had only released two of the story zones and I was sorely disappointed.

Today, Atlus sent me an email telling me to take a first look at the combat for their Game of Thrones RPG. What the hell, I thought and pulled up the video. As the video wound down I was both surprised this was the same game and again excited to get my hands on it. Hopping back to their main site, I checked out the two areas that had been previously locked and discovered that yes, the graphics look vaguely like the original trailer but have been vastly improved (thank god). Pretty graphics have never been a draw to a video game for me, though, so it’s not why I’m once more looking forward to this game.

With this game, it’s the combat system. Similar to Neverwinter Nights (1 and 2), Dragon Age (1 and 2), Game of Thrones will be using the “Active Pause System” during combat. This is not a pause system. Instead of stopping time, players will be slowing it down. Instead of taking as much time as needed to plan a tactic, players will be forced to think quicker and use abilities faster and there will be consequences for not getting your shit together in a timely manner. This is a twist on an old system of combat that will add a well needed sense of urgency to each and every battle, not to mention it looks much more streamlined than the Neverwinter Nights wheel system:

No clunky drop through menus to slow you down, all of your character’s abilities are right there at your finger tips. No hunting for the perfect ability while that soldier is trying to cut your head off. The game is also meant to be paused repeatedly and switching between characters is instantaneous, unlike in Dragon Age where some game bugs can get you crashing if you switch between characters once too often.

While combat didn’t look as polished as I’d like (the swords don’t quite look like they hit their targets when they swing), over all it looked engaging, pretty, and most importantly – challenging. The additions of each character having three “class” options (Atlus is calling them Fighting Styles) to choose from will leave players with many customizable options on how to kill everything in their path. The Multi-Class customization options also make it so you’re still not stream lined into just one kind of fighting style. Heavy armor and dual wielding? Possible. Parts of what you give up when you choose one class are still open to being picked up as gamers fill out their Multi-Class tree. In the end, you will be killing people your way, something more akin to an Elder Scrolls game.

Since Atlus is well known for making engaging stories and this game was written with help from R.R. Martin, I’m expecting four engaging stories that make me want to read the books again, or at the least pick up the T.V. series. Then again, this is a movie/book-to-game port, so it could be an atrocious story that was never meant to be told via Video Game media – that has yet to be seen, but I have faith in Atlus to deliver.

For anyone interested here is the original Game of Thrones (RPG) trailer and the combat system preview: