…not a cutie girlfriend, oh no, don’t you know! (yes, I love that song)

Ahem. Let’s get some ranting on (semi) recent news out of the way first, shall we?

Where is everyone else?

Arc Rise Fantasia is hitting the shelves tomorrow (though I hear it’s been at the stores for some time now) along with StarCraft 2. Good luck with that competition…

I won’t be one to pass judgement on the entire localization just based on a few videos, so I’ll say this. If you’re looking for that awesome RPG for the Wii, Arc Rise Fantasia is IT (until they decide to bring over Xenoblade). If you can’t stand the voices, they’ve included a Voice Off option. I can’t recommend it enough just based on how fun and challenging the battles are, but hey, the voices just might ruin everything so it’s up to you. Or maybe an undubbed version will come out soon. If there was any game that seems like would benefit greatly from an undub, its Arc Rise.

Alternatively, you can just pick up the import and play it in it’s full glory. You just might not be able to understand it.

PERSONA! Wait, what?

Next, Metal Gear Solid: Rising. Starring Raiden. Note the completely different tagline: Lightning Bolt Action. We’ve known these details since 2009, and yet people still complain about the series “taking a different direction”? Give it a rest, folks. We just got what was basically MGS5 last month – soak that in for a couple of years and I’m sure we’ll have 6 (5, whatever) in some form soon enough. Personally I’m more interested in the next Zone of the Enders, which is still far into the future according to Kojima.

More recently, Ar Tonelico 3 was finally officially announced for the US, but under the very atrocious name “Ar Tonelico Qoga”. This is something I really, really don’t understand. Yes, I get it. Qoga is Hymnos for “end”. One, how is Qoga in any way, shape or form better sounding/looking than 3? And two, thanks for spoiling it for me? Seriously – what the hell, NIS America. I’d love to see what kind of explanation they have for this one, because to me it seems like there was no reason at all for the rename other than to make the logo look dumb. This is almost having the same effect on me as hearing Arc Rise Fantasia’s dub for the first time.

Below is the best I could do without going insane to get the Japanese and American logos to match up, but it still illustrates my point well.

Really guys? Really? Look at all that awkward space you’ve created!

And for those of you who are thinking “Who gives a crap? At least we’re getting it localized!”, let me give you a hypothetical example. Let’s say Square Enix decided Final Fantasy XV was going to be the last Final Fantasy ever, and they release it as “Final Fantasy XV” in Japan. Then when it comes time for localization, the Square Enix USA team decides that hey, since it’s the last Final Fantasy, let’s go ahead and rename it “Final Final Fantasy”. Does that not sound ridiculous to you? Don’t make this a trend. /nerdrage

Anyways, let’s get on with the July overview. First up, Deathsmiles!

This picture is here just because I love Windia’s expressions.

I’ll mention this every time I talk about ‘em, but I really do suck at shooters. But that doesn’t mean I won’t enjoy the hell out of them. This game is everything I expected it to be. As of this post date, I’ve found the time to seriously get into this and it’s been paying off very well. I absolutely know I can 1CC this (if I avoid Death Mode at least), because I pretty much did it in a co-op game with Scin already (he died early that attempt). Efforts to 1CC with Death Mode activating haven’t been very great though…

Oh, I play as Rosa, by the way. I actually think I might have stuck with Casper if it wasn’t for this weird bug where I can’t see her shot on co-op/360 mode. Didn’t matter if it was her light or heavy shot, the beams just weren’t there – only the beginnings of them. But now I’m totally used to Rosa so it’s too late now!

I actually started Deathsmiles up on the first of the month and I was totally excited to get into it, but like I mentioned in a previous post…

“…some sorta RPG gets released and steals me away…”

In this case though, it’s something I’ve already played – except from a new perspective! I clocked in at about 100 hours, maxing out all of my Social Links and beating both Theodore and Margaret. I didn’t get a chance to do a second cycle in P4 so I could access Margaret, so it was nice to see I could fight her here now. Fighting Elizabeth was something I never did in the original either, but since I found out Theo was pretty much the same deal, I feel like I got to fight her too.

Speaking of the Theo fight, I guess it was too much to ask Fuuka’s VA to come back for a couple of lines.

Who, indeed…

Persona 3 Portable’s female protagonist (FeMC, MShe, Hamuko, Minako…let’s go with Minako) is definitely a different feel than Minato. She’s a lot more energetic and outspoken, and can be quite bold in the romance department. Overall, I think her choice selections are a lot more fun. Then again, I haven’t played the original in about three years… but I don’t think my memory is that bad in this case. Her unique Social Links were a lot of fun to see play out ( Saori & Rio (and yes, I finally made that into an emoticon).

There were two links in particular that were quite creepy though – Justice/Ken Amada, and the Hanged Man/Maiko. I know what you’re thinking… Maiko, creepy? It’s not her, it’s her dad. I think it was around the last rank up where Maiko’s dad recognizes you and chats with you for a bit about her, and then tries to ask you out. Ken is kind of the same, always wondering if you have a boyfriend or if he would be good enough for you. Crushes are sweet, but the way he went about it sometimes kinda disgusted me. It doesn’t help that I don’t like Ken regardless so maybe it wasn’t as bad as I thought.

Anyways, despite having already played the ‘essence’ of the game before, I still found it fun to play through with the new changes. I’d definitely pick P3P as the definitive version of the game (until you want to play FES, which is strangely missing). There’s a few people out there that disagree though, and that’s where my next little rant comes in.

I think the most common gripe I’m seeing is that people think it’s too easy, going as far as to call P3P the “inferior version” of Persona 3 and recommending the original over this. I definitely agree with them on the easy part. I played through on Maniac difficulty and aside from the insane Compendium costs, it felt no different than the first time I played through P3 or FES: The Answer.  A lot of people attribute this ease to the ability to directly control each party member now like P4, but I think they’re focusing on the wrong thing here. Instead, monster damage/HP should have probably been increased even more.

Why?  The original P3′s AI was ridiculously frustrating at times, creating a high artificial difficulty that just did not need to exist. Yes, obviously you can make the AI work, and you can also work through the AI’s mistakes – as anyone who beat the original can attest to, but did that magically make the game more fun? Not really. For any number of times the AI did something correct, there was always one time where the AI fucked up – and that’s all it takes to get you killed in Persona. The game still retains the random lethal crits and Hama/Mudo when the game knows you don’t have a Homunculus, etc., for those of you that love that sort of thing in place of frustrating AI decisions.

Don’t get me wrong though. I’m not against artificially inflating the difficulty of a game… when it’s the player’s choice. I do it all the time by attempting bosses underleveled, with no item usage, etc.. The original P3 shoved artificial difficulty down player’s throats; we didn’t know any better. Now, P3P offers you a choice: you can work with the AI which is on by default, or you can switch it off and let your own mistakes get you killed instead of the computer.

Oh, if you’re wondering who I used, take a guess.

It sure is, Aigis.

Be happy for Atlus, I’m sure they’re bringing in more newcomers to the world of Persona with P3P.

Coming up next month, it looks like some Castlevania: Harmony of Despair, the highly anticipated Ys Seven, Metroid: Other M, and Valkyria Chronicles 2. Oh boy…