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..?

The DLC debate

Ever since FF13-2 and Mass Effect 3 there has been a big DLC debate. People hating on release date DLC and those hating on when it comes out months after the initial release of the game.

The release date DLC argument- this style of DLC usually is needed for the main core of the game, and most of the time comes with a Collectors Edition of the game, so the argument is "why didn't you get the CE of the game?". The other side is, I shouldn't have to buy it to enjoy the game, that is the point of DLC. Mass Effect 3 did this with From Ashes, which irked a lot of people.

The months later argument: Well now add onto the came that I love, make me play even more flesh out the story line, post game content is awesome!. The argument is well if there are no DLC for 4-6 months people have put the game down..or sold it..or forgotten what happened in the game. Arkham City is doing this with the new Harley Quinn DLC coming out at the end of May.

The joint argument- that DLC should not have to cover the ending of the game FF13-2 and Mass Effect 3 are both guilty of this fact..yah here is the ending but for 15$ you can see the true ending. Mass Effect 2 did this vaguely, I mean Arrival did this..but the end of ME2 wrapped up nicely without Arrival, it just made the link between 2 to 3 better.

I choose to side with release date DLC, mostly because I am getting the collectors edition anyway, give it to me up front so I can enjoy the fullness of the game, DLC release months later I have moved onto another game or forgotten the plot  of it.

Now the balance is to keep releasing DLC once a month or every two weeks to keep people fresh and interested in the game, then release something huge like 4 months down the road, that I think is the perfect way to go.

What is your take on the DLC debate?

The MMO endgame problem

Now before you say, "Wait all you play is single players!!". I have played Stark trek Online, Maple Story and Trickster online. I have never played WoW or SWTOR, mostly cause those two charge.

Anyway, what I have noticing while playing STO, when I used to play Maple Story and all the news coming out of SWTOR, is what the hell do we do once we hit the level cap or beat the main story??

My experience with STO has been to hit the lvel cap of 50/51 really fast, I only casually play and I am 1 level short of the cap, I could only imagine if I played regularly. I also haven't done like ANY of the main story, there are like 6 "episodes" and I've maybe done part of 2 to finish 1 episode, the rest I have done has been space combat, the main reason why I played. I mean I could finish the Federation side, then be a Kilngton, then what would I do? It not like I can make a new character and have a totally new experience, so would I be bummed out about the money I spent on cool ships, yes but I'll move on.

Maple Story has a high level cap, but they keep adding stuff for low and high level characters, they also add new classes which create a slightly different experience..but not really same missions over and over..it just breaks down to how you beat the baddies into the ground.

I would have more to say on trickster online expect I moved to a windows 7 PC..and there program never caught up with the times..sad it was a very Anime-esuqe game.

SWTOR is the newest to suffer under this weight, from listening to people who play the game--since I don't . Is the lvel cap is hit very very quickly, and once you play through all the characters story mode, it falls under what do you do?? Since BW is rushing to make post game content, they are losing subscriptions right away, whatever they are going to do, they need to do it quick before they lose more subscribers.

Now WoW, talking to my friend Pixie-chan..has a level cap but is always adding massive new content, but I mean will they fall to the way side as well?? Will the Master of MMO's join the others it has stepped on to get here..?

So what do game company do, cancel out the level cap?? Make sure post-story endgame content is ready close to release date of the game?? Go free to play from the start and just charge for the cool stuff??

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.

Saving the Federation with your friends.

For a few months now Star Trek Online or just, STO has been free to play, so of course since I refuse to spend monthly for any game I picked it up a while ago and decided to take a look. You can download the game directly from their site or it is playable through Steam, I found the direct download to be a little less glitch filled.

So the first thing you do is build your captain..I had an idea going into this game, how cool would it be to have a bad ass highly over powered ship run just by hot big breasted women who pose sexually?? Is this a stupid man idea, yes--Has other people probably done this, yes. And my answer is as always, so..? So that is where I went. Also going into this game I wanted to fulfill a small wish of mine, to Pilot a Defiant class vessel..considering Ill be long dead if that ever happens, the Defiant is my favorite ship so I wanted to fly one.

So I got my piece of crap starter ship and went along my way, but here is my problem..I loathe the missions that take place on the ground, it's like.."Here is the bad ass awesome ship you can tweak to be exactly you want, and mod the shit out of it... Now beam down and wander around for a while with clunky combat system" SO because I mostly enjoy space battles, I am very behind in the "story" the down side is the story is where you get the best space gear..so I am going through it at a very slow pace..mostly to get to the gear I want to get to. Luckily if you just want to space fight there are enough different missions and experience to be gained without setting foot on a planet, which is more my style.

For a while I was balancing to different types of ships a cruiser which is more of an over all balanced which can broad side enemies and can hold more engineering consoles(tactical, engineering, and science are you console choices) the cruiser also has more HP..but a shitty turn rate given how big they are. And an escort which have more tactical console, fewer HP but can turn faster they can also equip high speed "cannon" type weapons, they are designed just to fight mostly. As I went up in my ranks I used the escort more and more untill now my cruiser just sits in dock collecting dust.

Now this game is totally free, they even give you ship and personal weapons and armor as you level up, there is also different ways to get different cash resources to buy your self the best gear..so you can play without spending a cent. But if you want better bridge crew, or more red shirts npc to send off and do missions.. or in my case if you want all your favorite ships from previous Star treks, your going to have o shell out some cash.  What bothers me is the exchange rate is more or less you spend $10 and you get 800 points...which is a ratio I don't like..but until later its not that much of a hassle..

SO would I recommend this to anyone else, of course!! If you love free games, Star trek, space fighting, or if your really into the whole MMO group bonding thing, which I am totally not. Then check this out!