Persona 3 FES: Make friends, climb towers, save the world all while in highschool

First off I know this game has been out for a while, heck I beat it already..but with it's re-release on the PSN, also liek the only good PS2 classic re-release in my opinion. I decided to pick it back up and do a clean run of it.

Persona 3 FES, is an expanded directors cut version of Persona 3.later the series would be remade on the PSP as P3P, right now it is on the PSN for $9.99. If you try to be slick and cool and use a memory card connection thing and tyr to import your data from any Previous PE3 saves, the game won't find them, unless you know of some way that I don't. This version of the game has re-worked social links, and a process of weapon fusion and most importantly it comes with 25-30 extra gaming called "The Answer", whic is a play on words considering the main part is called, "The Journey". I am currently about half way through my replay of the game.

 You are "Nameless Voiceless Main Character Number 805", and you just transferred into your new school as you enter your dorm you meet a strange little child who makes you sign a contract making your responsible for your action. In just a few days your attacked a night by these beings called "Shadows" in the middle of the fight you use a special weapon called an Envoker to call forth your Persona, or the manifestation of your heart, and then defeat said shadow.

You are introduced to Igor and Elizabeth, who occupy a place called the Velvet Room which only you can access. Igor informs you that you are special and can hold many different Personas, here you can fuse Personas that you capture from defeats shadows, accept requests from Elizabeth and even update a compendium of your Personas their levels and abilities at any time.

You main questing will take place is a huge tower called Tartarus where you need to climb, defeat little shadows and then bigger shadows, you are rewarded for reaching certain points quickly enough. Now the tower is about 250+ floors, on every floor is an one way teleporter that takes you back to the bottom of Tartarus, but  very 13 or so is a teleporter that connects you to the main floor and certain other levels allowing you to quickly get back to where you were, kinda... If you need to quickly refill your Hp/Sp or just to save, teleport to the 1st floor and heal without using any items. Also on the first floor is where you can change and equip your part members.

You will gain many different team memebers, most of them fellow student at your high school. Personally the two coolest ones are the dog Koromaru

and the Autonomous Shadow Combat Vehicle aka Aigis

Each team members persona is unique, learns specific skills, has different strengths/weakness..and even will evolve as the main story progresses. So picking a party is very crucial, the other main crucial point is there is a stamina limit while in Tartarus, after so long you will become tired and your abailty to fight will plummet, you will then be unable to go to Tartarus for several days wile you and your team rest up.

Now to the other half of the game, High School. Here you attend class meet people who will later be your Social Links, which are based of 13 main Tarot Arcana. As you foster friendship with these Link, you will gain experience bonuses whenever you fuse Persona, this is the best and easiest way to level them even more so than combat, this was confirmed by Elizabeth in the Velvet room. Now you can only spend time with One link during your one free part of the day which is 'After School" and during the whole day on Sundays, your only day off. In all seriousness, you will need a guide to full maximize your links, Persona 3 FES: Max Social Link FAQ by penguin_knight , this is basically the Social Link Bible that all Persona 3 FES players wear by, it will help you never miss a day. But you have to follow it very strictly, I printed it out and put it in a binder for easier looking at when I am playing. Some of these links can only be started by having high enough Courage, Academitics, and Charm whihc can be raised various ways, seriously the Max Link guide tells you all the easiest ways and in which order to level them up. It is also good to look ahead a few days to make sure you have the right Arcana matching Personas to help you get along better with your links.

Finally with all it greatness this game has 3 major flaws that just drive me insane, that sadly were fixe din later game sin the series and P3P:
1. Your team mates are AI run, and they choose their own skills when their skill tray is full on what to keep and what to not. You can choose "tactical behavior" for eahc character but you can't manully control them. So you learn to quickly not fully rely on them and to level and equip your self accordingly
2. When your buying new weapons and armor, you can't see what your teammates have equipped so need to just remember, so you might want to jot down note son anyone you think i lagging behind, and you can only equip them while in Tartarus.
3. As mentioned before the portals only take you to certain areas, so if you go down to refill or save you need to start your trek between portals all over again..or even worse if you die you lost your progress between the two. This was later fixed in persona 4, where if you left on floor5 of  adunegon, you can go right back to floor 5.

If you can work through some medium level headaches and adapt, you will find this games, or at least "The Journey" very enjoyable, you will get you 10$ bucks worth your 50+ hours of gameplay.  Next time I will visit "The Answer" which is not as interesting, well I might visit it, it is very spoiler filled. We will see.

Walking Dead Demo look at

So Telltale game sis back with another 5 episodes game, this time modeled after The Walking Dead.

You are Lee, and escaped Con, you help a girl in an abandoned house, then you help two guys move their car so you can escape. The demo only takes like 10mins to play, but gives you how the game will flow for the rest.

This game is basically a point and click adventure game, if you played Telltales Back to the Future game line you will know what I mean.  This time you point with the right analog stick and click with the X,O,square and triangle buttons. And move around with the left stick.

The thing you need to "click" on will be shown by white circlely dots..and then the choice of which button to press will pop up. During action sequences the pointer is kinda jittery so you have to deal with that, then press the correct button, the QTE's  but not as fancy. Also you will have to mash one button then once you have mashed it enough, react quickly and hit another buttons.

In a subtle link to Mass Effect games, all the choices you make will change the dialogue and I assume effect future decisions, hthats what the banner tellig me to buy the full version said.

My only real issues will Telltale games came back in this. You can not control the camera..so the camera is more of your enemy than the damned zombies are, hopefully its more friendly than it was in Back to the Future.

For 20$ for all 5 episodes, it is quiet a deal, something I will be picking up soon. I know it's on PSN, not sure if it's on XBLA..let me know so I can let others know..?

Dreaming in Digital

SO I am not sure if I have mentioned this before on here, but thanks to slow updates and awesome sales on the PSN, I am slowly replacing my PS1 and in one case a PS2 game selection, storing everything on my massive PS3 hard drive. There was a sale toward the end of March on all of the PS1 Final Fantasy games, so I scooped all of them up.  Now just this past Tuesday, there was a update for.

That's right, the Hit game Persona 3 FES, I had been wanting to play this game, but didnt feel like fighting with my PS2, so thanks to a ton of gift cards I had, I picked this game up for nothing, (it sold for 10$)

Now what do I do with all of these games, unless I can find them a good home..I sell them to Amazon, for credit to buy other games..circle of life and all.

Coming soon, my look at Persona 3 FES..and yes I'll talk about the big pink rhino in the room, AKA Mas Effect 3.

I am Alive, but are any of us

I Am Alive is an XBLA/PSN game for 15$. You follow the adventures of Generic guy 87, seriously thye never use his name, but he is recording his travels home to see his wife and daughter.

This game has 2 difficultly settings: Normal and survivor..the basic difference is the amount of resources and retry's you find laying around.

The premise of this game is the Guy is trying to get home to see is family after something called the "Event". The main way to get around in this game is Parcoring, thing inFamous but without the bitching powers that let you drop really far or easily make pole jumps. The big thing is that you have a stamina gauge, so climbing, running, opening chain locked fences..all take stamina, also there is this cloud of dust at the street level that takes your stamina as well. So your always on the watch to see if your gauge is going to crash..then you do.

Another huge mechanic is the inventory system, you will find resources that will recover health and stamina as you progress on but they are limited so you have to manage your resources correctly or your going to die. Another even more rare thing is ammo for your 3 weapons, well your 4th is a machete but that doesn't need ammo. You get a Bow, a Pistol and a shot gun. The Bow you get 1 arrow!!! Till the end of the game, but the arrow is made out of Adamantium and will never break, you get 5 shot gun shells thats it..the pistol you get ammo just laying around or off baddies you kill, still a rare find though. 

Also when it comes to your resources..remember to LOOK EVERYWHERE, seriously I found a can of soda on the side of window sill of an abandoned building...seriously look everywhere, you never know what you'll find..it could literally save your life.

Another thing that I enjoyed mostly expect when it backfired was the battle mechanic, you have no ammo so you have to psyche people out..surprise them..push them into holes..you just can shoot everyone..you dont get enough bullets for that.

The last big mechanic is the retrys, because I died..a lot. Normal mode make sure you always have at least 3 and you can get more by finding them laying around or doing other tasks, explained below. But if you just seem screwed you can restart the episode your on with ever piece of gear you had on you when you began, that is a nice feature..not penalizing people for screwing up.

To not spoil to much at least in the beginning, is while your going around this city you save a little girl who helps you meet up with some people who will get you out of town..well they lay round and you do all the work. Along the way you can give up your resources to help other survivors out and they will give you "retrys" and one guy will give you a shot gun, but you need to seek some of them other..others will just be in your path.

The game is short at about 7-10 hours depending on how much exploring you do and saving people, you can get all the Trophies/Achievements in 1 Survivor mode run, so the replay value is low, but its good if you need a break from some toehr games, or just want to kill some time one day. But with the low replay value despite it looking really pretty, 15$ I found was kinda costly, so I would wait for a price drop or something..or play it on someone elses system.

Now for some ranting spoilers..please be warned these are MASSIVELY HUGE SPOILERS, they will ruin the game..you have been warned..thank you.

First off, WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS EVENT!! The don't explain it..just that i causes Earth Quakes and massive dust clouds. Was it a Nuke war..did all the twinkies explode..what the fuck was it!!!!

Also seriously what the hell happened to Henry!!! Dude just vanished from his wheel chair at the very end, did he drown.. ride the merry go around, WHAT!!

Also you go through all this climbing and saving people..and doing the hard work..to die!!!! What the hell was thtat all about, and your kids not there what happened to her...

So many un-answered question..I hate games that do this.

Rebuilding your PS1 games on a PS3

So lately, I've been noticing that old PSX games that I have on disks are on the PSN. The Final Fantasies, Secret of Mana, Harvest Moon, plus other games that I never got time to play. So I went on Amazon and bought my self a PSX-PS3 memory card moving thing, and got all of my data from my old school gomes onto my PS3, soon I am going to start downing digital copy's of my games, since my disks sometimes don't want to play.


The prices are very reasonable: 6$-10$ for each PSX game, the memory moving thing was over priced since you only use it once, but it was a worth while investment, just need to make it past X-mas to see if I get an giftcards and to recover my funds.

Any PS1 game recommends..?

Dungeon Defenders RPG + Tower defense

Dungeon Defenders is a strange fusion of RPG elements with all the craziness that is tower defense games, now I only played the demo so I expect some of this to be different in the full version. Strangest thing is when I turned it on, PSN move instructions came up, after trying the demo..move controls would be horrible in this game.

In the Demo there are 2 classes: a mage and a warrior, in the full you also get a monk and a archer. Each class has a basic attack and it's on class specific attack. As you fight, you can level up and add poiints to your health, speed,attack power and so on, also you can get equipment that ups your stats and pets as well, which I know of DLC for PSN+ members that have special pets for you.

Combat in this game is straight forward if not complicated. You have to guard this huge crystal, so you get up defenses to help you do it, you hit a button select a defense, select the angle and build it..it does take a second or two to get used to the controls, now you need mana to do it which you'll get from dead enemies or in chests. After you set your defenses you then start the wave sand you run around attacking everything to support your own defenses.

My biggest problem with this game it despite having a "local" mode..if you are playing this by your self expect to get frustrated..die. Because you will frantically running around attacking everything since you can't place enough defenses to help you out. Now online mode might be different for full players, but there was only one room and it was filled by people um..not playing the game. SO I just left the room and turned the game off.

I can see where this game was going..and if you have some friends over or find a online room not filled with morons, this game could be tons of crazy insane fun..but buy your self..try the demo and you'll realize you should save your money.

Sideways:NewYork, making spary painting fun!! Not..really..

So I tried out Sideways Newyork the demo. This game is a fusion of MegaMan Side Scrolling jumping with all the Graffiti from Jet Set Radio mall with music by Skull Candy and some other  Rapping DJ, and if you didn't know it was done by Skull Candy you will be reminded since they logo them selves everywhere.

I couldn't grasp the story expect this Alternate Dimension is run by kidnapper Graffiti demon things, and you have to save some girl, which I would guess is your girlfriend.SO you gain spray painted powers as you move along, using the paint to make platforms and using them to defeat little bad guys coming along. Now as your going along you might get lost, but don't worry there are little tags that you collect and if you roam around and see none, then you have gone the wrong way, so don't worry as the stage flips about getting confused.

The music is very hip hop ish, as I would expect given the basis of the game, but the music gets very repeative with very little change in tempo or style, so if you like listening to the same song for 15mins as you spray paint, enjoy.

In the end, I have nothing really posistive to say about this game, could some people like it, of course..but not me, I am just happy it wa s ademo..because if I had guess and paided real money, I would of been super pissed..

The PSN part 2

So the PSN store is back up, but it is laggy as hell since, everyone is trying to use it at the same time.  I could careless about it being back up.but I guess it is a good thing that it is back..but whatever, at least I got to play the inFamous 2 demo before tuesday.

The Whole PSN thing

First off from what I read the PSN Store should be back up next week, or tomorrow...either way kinda badass.

Now my take on all of this, is that it was bound to happen with one of the 3 major consoles some time..it just hit Sony first, yes it could of happened to the Xbox guys...So seriously shut your fucking hole..I am tired of dealing with stupid Xbox fantastic blind that this could happen to us.

The whole thing breaks down to jail breaking the PS3 to do whatever you want with it..The only thing I saw of use was installing a different OS..but I like SOn'y OS so I don;t complain..but you could also from what I read, set all the PSN store prices to Zero..so yah I see why Sony sued the fuck out of this guy..

Then all the hacking happened and the store and the network went down..on a personal level..this did not bother me for:
1. I don't play co-op games..I don't team well with others
2. I don't use all the other services through the PS3: netflix, hulu, that music thing with a Q
3. I don't play DC Online

So once I found out my own personal info did not get stolen, I just went back to playing for a while..then slipped into a, "I want to watch Anime" kinda mood.

But props to Sony on their welcome back package here: Sony Thank You package, NA Version
Which is seriously a nice set of stuff, to bad I don't do the PSP games..and I already own Infamous, but I am going to snag Little Big Planet and I'm not sure what else.  The biggest thing is the Playstation plus download free for a month, I am going to suck the baby dry for all it's worth. The rest I could care less about since I don't use those services...

Anyway thats just my take on the whole thing..I hope it comes back tomorrow..that would be kinda cool.