I didn't realize it's been over two years since I beat Persona 3:FES and wrote about it (just The Journey). Also, over a year since my last entry, though P3:FES is more relevant to this post because I'm in the second-to-last dungeon in Persona 4.

In some sense, it's not surprising though, because like most RPG fans, my RPG backlog increases at a rate faster than my completion of them, which is not difficult since my pace could at best be considered "glacial." Heck, P4 came out three years ago.

I tried playing other RPGs after P3 in order to get Persona out of my system after being worn out by the repetitive combat. P4 has been slightly better in that regards, because the characters don't experience fatigue. However, in terms of enjoyability I have to say that I liked P3 better.

• Characters - P4 has more "realistic" characters, but for a video game, I don't care for realism, but rather entertainment. P3's characters

...

Last night I finally finished the The Journey part of P3: FES, after getting it for my birthday -- last May. I really enjoyed the story and the characters, and some of the earlier boss battles were tense and exciting. Unfortunately, I'd say that more than 100 of my 150+ hours with P3 was spent repetitively dungeon "crawling" (i.e., sneaking up to shadows and dispatching them in 1 or 2 turns before they even attack). That aspect was definitely way too drawn out. Of course I could have played like an idiot and purposely not gone for Player Advantage every time, but the game absolutely punishes you for that by giving game over as soon as your only controllable character dies. If I'd known that (I was under the mistaken belief that dying just popped you back out to the lobby) I might have played the game on Easy, because that was a lot of unchallenging gameplay that I put up with to get through the story.

If it weren't for that easily masterable, totally boring aspect...

After picking up a DualShock 3 from CC, my PS3 controller situation was: 2 Sixaxis, 1 DualShock 3, 1 TAC PS2 adapter. The TAC adapter was for reusing an old Guitar Hero PS2 controller for bass in Rock Band, but it is also somewhat compatible with regular PS3 games. Some PS3 games are picky about the type of controller (as far as I can tell, LittleBigPlanet requires Sixaxis functionality), but I decided to try out Marvel: Ultimate Alliance with all 4 controllers when my friends came over last night. Yes it's an old game, but outside of Calling All Cars and Rock Band (which we didn't play because it was late), no game I have really jumped out as suitable for 4 players.


At first it didn't work, and we were bummed. But then I decided to swap out the PS2 DualShock 2 for another one, remembering that for some weird reason one of my GH controllers worked fine with the controller and the other would kind of stop recognizing button presses after a few notes. Lo and behold,...

I intend to flesh this idea out in an entry later but wanted to throw it out there: episodic RPGs. Is this madness or perhaps a good way to try to advance the genre past its main criticisms?

The thought of an RPG broken down into bite-size (10/15/20 hour?) chunks occurred to me when thinking about how common it is to struggle to complete them because they take too much of a time investment, the mid-portion is usually over-inflated to achieve some magic number of hours of gameplay, and once you put it down it can be hard to pick back up, etc.

If you love the hell out of a game and want to complete it 100%, then that should still be doable. On the plus side, if a game were designed for additional content, then popular games might get them quickly -- a better alternative to waiting years for a sequel that usually changes up things to the extent that it no longer feels like a continuation but a separate game.

I realize games like Oblivion have significant...

In my last entry I mentioned how I got TWEWY as a Christmas present and played the hell out of it, finishing it this past Sunday. It's a hell of a game that was nearly impossible to put down, despite there being in-game benefits for taking breaks. The combination of too much frenetic scratching/slashing/poking and the godawful ergonomics of the DS has taken its toll on my elbow.

Do I regret playing way too much TWEWY over a short period of time? That's a tough question to answer. If the pain doesn't go away in a few days I may start to worry. For now I am sort of leaning towards "it hurts but it was worth it." Stupid maybe, but compared to other hobbies where people absolutely run the risk of destroying their bodies or others...

Still, I won't be jumping into any more stylus-based action games in the future without exercising a great deal more moderation. If I can.

Well 2008 was a very good year for gaming for me and my now fiancee. It was a full year of owning a 60GB PS3 for PS3/PS2/PSN gaming, plus a majority of a year owning a PSP and DS Lite. Since I'll be busy trying to finish grad school, I won't be gaming nearly as much this year. So I had to get my fill over my winter vacation, which ended yesterday and which I'll consider as a "bonus" week to 2008.

Our co-op 2008 gaming highlights:
Rock Band 1 and 2, PixelJunk Monsters, LittleBigPlanet
Tales of the Abyss
Sam and Max Season 2
Personal Trainer: Cooking (seriously! Not a game but software that totally broadened our cooking)

My personal highlights:
Crisis Core: FFVII, Patapon, Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness (story, not grindtastic gameplay), Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth
The World Ends with You (I got this for Christmas and beat it yesterday)
Persona 3: FES (which I wasn't able to...