After the reviews and so on, I could no longer resist - I’ve been itching to play a new RPG and finally picked it up (I traded in the damnable “Odin Sphere” for store credit). I’ve never played a Shin Megami Tensei game before, but I understand that their fans tend to be rabid.
The game is pretty great so far - it’s basically “Bully” if it were a horror RPG, with a little Buffy the Vampire Slayer thrown in. By day, you’re a student going to high school and making friends, joining clubs and sport teams, answering questions in class, talking to cute girls at the mall after school, etc. - and at midnight, your school turns into a gigantic dungeon that you and your crew explore, killing demons and monsters. Awesome!
I’m enjoying it a lot so far - though the actual “progress” in the game is dungeon crawling through a randomly-generated dungeon, the true story is woven by who you choose to talk to and spend time with during the daytime. There’s an overarching storyline, but it reminds me very much of one of those classic Sierra adventure games in the way that you can direct what happens by who you choose to talk to and deal with. The battle system is fun and QUICK, which is nice, though my inner control freak doesn’t like that your two accompanying characters are AI only (though they do tend to make the best decisions in battles). The game’s style is particularly nice - it seems superflat-informed rather than anime or manga in nature, and the menus follow. It almost reminds me of something like the case/poster designs FLCL or Cowboy Bebop.
I’ve got over 100 hours on my save file, and I haven’t finished the game, yet. I wanted to finish it two weeks ago, but I had to put it off for IRL stuff.
I wouldn’t say I’m ‘rabid’, but I love Megami Tensei/ Megami Tensei spinoff games, and P3 is one of my favorites.
The story was a little hard to swallow in the beginning, but around July-ish, it starts getting **‘really’ ** good.
Naw, just how hostile the game was toward casual players. It’s either grind grind grind for hundreds of hours or die horribly and instantly. When, 10 hours into the game, even the tiniest incidental enemies are killing you with three hits because you haven’t spent hours mindlessly leveling up, there’s something seriously unbalanced.
Back at the end of the PS1 era it was so, so easy to find RPGs used and on the cheap. I picked up Grandia for $35 CAD, which for an RPG was quite affordable.
I thought I’d do the same with the Shin Megami Tensei games. Oh how I was wrong. They are so rare now you won’t even pay the full retail price. sighs I really should go pick up Persona 3 now, but I think Atlus got the point and it won’t be so hard to find in the future.
It’s kind of reached a ridiculous point with ALL atlus/NIS games like that right now. Everyone’s so determined that this week’s game will be the next “cash cow” a la Disgaea or Valkyrie Profile (the mother of them all) that the used prices usually surpass $100 within weeks of the game’s discontinuation. They eventually float back down to earth once months go by and everyone realizes that nobody’s going to pay those prices for a goddess dating sim (“AR Tonelico”), but they’ll still hover around the $50 price point, permanently. It’s like a weird commodities market for games.
The thing is, when it happens with Squeenix (like with Xenogears and FF Tactics), they get on a reprint. When an Atlus or Game Arts game is gone, it’s gone! I remember I bought the original Phoenix Wright for the DS before I even had one (was planning to wait for the DS Lite) because it was super rare, but Capcom then did a second run.
I really want to play Valkyrie Profile - with the FF Tactics remake I might just have to buy a PSP for that and Silmeria.
My wife is obsessed with this game. I know almost nothing about it, but from watching her play. After you beat a shadow theres a blue screen that shows your exp, etc and a portrait of the main character. Does anyone else think that he looks like Bud Cort from Harold & Maude?
Am I the only one who’s surprised that the “video games are the devil” squads aren’t all kinds of up in arms over this game? I mean, it has demons (okay, they’re not actually demons, but you do have devil-type persona), ad nauseum “suicides,” and…
…a cross-dresser. Which, obviously, would be the last straw for them.
Yet, afaik…nothing. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining, but I’m very surprised.
