Atlus Forgets a Persona Protagonist

https://social.emucafe.org/naferrell/atlus-forgets-a-persona-protagonist-02-13-26/

https://social.emucafe.org/naferrell/tokyo-mirage-sessions-fe-encore-ch-2-impressions-11-22-25/

I recently finished chapter 2 of Tokyo Mirage Sessions FE: Encore for the Nintendo Switch. I previously published my thoughts on the prologue, chapter 1, and the first intermission. Continuing with the theme, I now cover chapter 2.

• The writing continues to be unimpressive when measured up against Fire Emblem: Three Houses, much less one of the modern Persona games. Here Tsubasa has a photo shoot. The shoot is cancelled when she fails to impress the photographer, who it turns out is at the center of the mirage-events in the chapter. The photographer has a past professional relationship with the terribly dressed Ms. Maiko. We resolve things by again helping Tsubasa become more confident. Tsubasa, I should mention, is now an honest-to-goodness idol after her mirage battling at the end of chapter 1 was (admittedly humorously) turned into material for a music video. I get the idea that each chapter will explore a different aspect of being an idol or entertainer (perhaps chapter one was finding a reason and chapter two the confidence to express yourself), but it is not quite delivering.
• I will admit some of the characters are growing on me a little. Kiria’s side story popped up in a tense moment in the main story. There, I learned that side stories can be pursued during the heat of the main story as if no main story as happening (feels a bit disconnected). Kiria is charming. If only she didn’t dress so weird.
• Speaking of fashion, I confirmed my suspicion in the climax of the chapter that this was one of the “censored” segments from the Japanese Mirage Sessions (Tsubasa models a weird outfit instead of a swimsuit). The script could have probably been adjusted to better explain Tsubasa’s discomfort modeling while fully clothed, but I wouldn’t have thought of it had I not read about the “censorship” years ago and I don’t think it moves the needle one way or another, so that will be about all I have to say on the subject going forward.
• The chapter two dungeon was a little bit better than the chapter one dungeon in three respects. Firstly, it felt less claustrophobic. Secondly, it did away with the awful “changing floors and bridging divides by traveling through maid dresses” mechanic. Thirdly, its design felt like it had something to do with the chapter. Unfortunately, it retained many of the flaws of the chapter one dungeon. As I complained in my chapter one review, it is hard to tell different floors in the dungeon, much less different sections of the dungeon, apart. This is fine for dungeons like the one in the prologue (which I described as “Temu Tartarus” (Persona 3 fans will understand)), where each floor has a clear beginning and end. It is not fine when each floor has multiple exits and one must progress and backtrack to unlock new paths. I lost a decent amount of time toward the end trying to find the exit.
• Kiria joins the player’s party at the end of chapter one. Having a fourth party member makes combat much more enjoyable. One issue in these dungeons (especially once you become lost) is seeing the same enemies over and over. Being able to swap active party members (only two plus Itsuki can be active at once) makes things flow better and opens up different ways to clear enemies. Moreover, it felt like everyone had a role to play in this dungeon (recall I complained that the enemies in dungeon one often left Touma with little to do).
• I continue to like the mechanic of inheriting skills from weapon mastery (one of the few elements of the game that feels more Fire Emblem than SMT/Persona).
• The boss battle was a good challenge. Despite playing on Hard, regular enemies never put me in a place of difficulty. But I did have to restart once in the boss battle after getting backed too far into a corner on my first attempt.
• But my toughest fight was Aya’s side quest. To clear her quest, I had to descend into the Prologue dungeon and fight an enemy. I took the quest when my party was around level 20. I faced off against 4-5 enemies clustered around level 25. I got close enough on my second attempt to try to power through, but I ended up needing seven tries at that low level to have things go my way. Unfortunately, the prize was not worth the effort and I would have been just as well served waiting until I picked up a few extra levels.
• The “savage” encounters are actually hard, hard enough that I haven’t cleared one since early in chapter one.
• I encountered my first rare shadows. Similarly to the rare “hand” enemies in Persona, they have very little HP, take very little damage, and are prone to running away. I did managed to defeat two of them.
• SP management continues to be a non-issue. The multiple check-points in the dungeon make it easy to leave and return to the same place. I often had reason to leave (beyond healing) in order to obtain new weapons for the party. I have not at any point thus far felt like I had to conserve SP.
• The difficulty contunues to feel balanced save for occasional spikes on “Savage” encounters or the Aya sidequest I noted. I have not felt under-leveled at any point while playing on Hard, and the ease with which the game hands out money and makes it possible to leave the dungeon to heal while generally maintaining your place contributes to the game being not difficult. I have felt no temptation to grind levels. When compared to its inspirations, I would say that it is slightly easier on the whole than the three modern Persona games on Hard. One point I will be watching is the difficulty curve. Persona 4 and 5 became easier in the late game because the growth of the party out-paced the growth in enemy difficulty (this was in my opinion a notable problem for Persona 4 Golden, the original Persona 3 FES had a better difficulty curve than Persona 4/Golden and Persona 5). I am inclined to think Mirage Sessions will be more steady, but we will see.
• I was introduced to a new character named Eleonora at the end of the chapter, so I suppose my party will be growing to five in chapter 3.

Despite its flaws, I am warming up to Mirage Sessions. The combat is fun and showy and while the writing is not great, I the cast is generally likable (although Tsubasa can be a little grating, which is unfortunate since she is the most important character other than the player). I look forward to seeing what happens in chapter 3 and finding myself lost in another dungeon.

#fireEmblem #jrpg #nintendoSwitch #personaSeries #tokyoMirageSessions #videoGames

https://social.emucafe.org/naferrell/tokyo-mirage-sessions-fe-ch-1-impressions-11-11-25/

I finished chapter one of Tokyo Mirage Sessions: FE just over three weeks after completing the prologue. I published a short “impressions” post after finishing the prologue (see Tokyo Mirage Sessions FE: Prologue Impressions). Now I will do the same for chapter 1.

• I continue to be unimpressed with the writing. It is not Fire Emblem: Three Houses caliber, much less Personas 3-5. The game likes to tell us how close Itsuki and Tsubasa are, but they have no “chemistry” whatsoever despite supposedly being childhood friends (separate and apart from Tsubasa’s barely-concealed attraction to Itsuki). But I suppose that they’re practically Chie and Yukiko from Persona 4 compared to Touma (he’s just “there”). It struck me at the end of the chapter that the pop star Kiria Kurono seems to interact more naturally with Itsuki than Tsubasa or Touma despite having only met him 2-3 times (we need to do something about her outfits, however).
• Barry Goodman is a keeper though. I want to protect him.
• The overworld looks “not great” and navigation is atrocious. I do not like this game’s camera. Everything in Shibuya looks “the same.” The original Persona 3 workd on PlayStation 2 was much easier to get around. Not the best. Hoping we see some better-designed areas going forward (I’ll probably get used to Shibuya).
• The Kiria concert FMV was good. We have come a long way from Persona 3 and 4.
• My impressions of the first dungeon are mixed. Traveling through the arms of maid dresses to get from point A to point B was certainly a choice. I found navigation intuitive up to the mini boss, setting aside the fact that the default camera did not make the DOOR to the mini boss visible when I activated the first check-point warp panel. I found navigation difficult in the sections before the mini boss and the final chapter boss. “Maid dress” navigation is not intuitive, especially when all of the floors look almost the same as one another. This sameness is not an issue in games like Personas 3 and 4 where you know that each floor has a single exit. It is when you are asking me to solve weird navigation puzzles. Mirage Sessions’ dungeon exists in a strange place between Personas 3-4 and 5, and chapter 1 was not better for it.
• I noticed there were some inaccessible areas on the penultimate floor. I have a bad feeling about this.
• I continue to enjoy the combat system. Triggering combos is fun and the animations are sufficiently “showy” for the game’s performance theme. I also have a better understanding of how the passive abilities work than I did in the prologue. For example, I now see that whether a character can join a combo depends on the type of move used to start the combo and whether the character in question has a passive to join that type of combo. (I wish Itsuki could join Tsubasa’s zan attack with his sword instead of zio…).
• With that being said, the first dungeon did not allow for much combat creativity. I am playing on Hard (as noted in my prologue review). While the only serious challenges came in the form of savage shadow encounters (one of which may have led to my only death, I can neither confirm nor deny), there is almost always a single “correct” move, and on Hard I felt limited to playing a specific way to cut through battles efficiently and not accumulate too much chip damage.
• Being able to save at any time is a nice quality of life feature but it does remove some dramatic tension from the dungeon.
• I noted in my Prologue review that Mirage Sessions is much more “Persona” than “Fire Emblem.” This remains the case, but I appreciated seeing the Fire Emblem mechanic of gaining skills through weapon mastery. However, I did find it irritating having to leave the dungeon and go back to the studio every time a weapon upgrade became available. This is somewhat “important” in cases where a character has mastered every weapon in his or Tsubasa’s possession since there is an element of “waste” for gaining experience with a mastered weapon when a new weapon is available.
• Speaking of wasted experience, Touma seemed a little bit off in the first dungeon. Firstly, he is a lance-user like Tsubsa, so I had two lances, one sword, but no axe (where are the gauntlets!?). Secondly, his fire attacks were not much “in demand” in the first dungeon. There was only one enemy which really demanded them and this enemy came late in the dungeon (setting aside the fire having some use against the chapter boss’ minions). Moreover, I was stuck with his default weapon, long since mastered, for a few levels until a new weapon became available. Conversely, Itsuki and Tsubasa consistently got access to new weapons when they “needed” them.
• The ease with which I could leave the dungeon and heal took some drama out of SP management and allowed me to play aggressively and efficiently. I see that SP heals with certain actions such as defending (an action with limited utility thus far). I will need to learn this mechanic going forward.
• The difficulty feels “balanced” on Hard as in there was no point (save for some Savage encounters) where I felt “out-gunned.” I was introduced to a training dungeon in the middle of the chapter but unless it has quests, I doubt I will have any need to visit it.
• The chapter “concluded” one story point in a way that I did not expect (in that I had expected it to linger) and introduced a new party member and new supporting character. Having already complained about the dialogue, I will note the end of chapter dialogue was a little better than what came before and perhaps some new characters will add some variety to the (thus far) weak main trio.
• I am mildly interested to see how the game works with the theme of having Itsuki learn different aspects of show business, which was foreshadowed at the end of the chapter. I assume this will give each upcoming chapter a different theme.
• I played just into the start of the “intermission” period, which promises more character interactions and side quests. I did not do anything in the intermission yet other than obtain skills for my new team member and a new weapon for Itsuki, so that will have to wait for my next review.

Until I complete the first intermission!

#fireEmblem #jrpg #nintendoSwitch #personaSeries #tokyoMirageSessions

🎭 Persona 4 Revival wurde offiziell angekündigt! ATLUS bringt das legendäre JRPG mit überarbeiteter Grafik & altbekanntem Tiefgang zurück

#Persona4Revival #PersonaSeries #JRPG #Atlus

https://dailygame.at/die-rueckkehr-nach-inaba-persona-4-revival-offiziell-angekuendigt/

A new article in Automation West described an online debate over whether Persona 4 needs (another) remake. I have documented in the pages of The New Leaf Journal that I am a fan of Persona 4 and of the modern Persona series as a whole. However, count me as being on the side of “some [who] would like Atlus to focus on new projects, such as the hotly anticipated Persona 6.” Persona 4 received an excellent and much needed deluxe (so to speak) version in Persona 4 Golden and that game is readily accessible thanks to its availability on Steam and other platforms. I do not think that modern visuals or game play tweaks (which may only make Persona 4’s unfortunate declining difficulty curve worse) are worth the effort. Persona 3’s reboot (which I have yet to play) is justified in large part thanks to the game’s best version, Persona 3 FES, not being so easily available (especially with the upcoming Answer DLC). Instead of re-making Persona 4, Atlus can apply some lessons from Persona 4, namely its best-in-series social links and character writing, to a whole new game. (I suppose it can learn from the proper difficulty curve in Persona 3 FES).

https://social.emucafe.org/naferrell/does-persona-4-need-another-remake/

#persona3 #persona4 #personaSeries

I know what I’m going to be doing this weekend 😂

#gaming #gamingcommunity #persona3reload #steamdeck #pcgaming #steamgaming #personaseries