Retrospective JRPG Countdown: #8- Final Fantasy IV

My first exposure to RPGs came in the form of a Final Fantasy VIII demo that existed, bizarrely, on a demo disc a friend of mine obtained from Pizza Hut of all places. Yes. Pizza Hut. It's crazy, I know. I played it and was blown away not only by the visuals, story, and character designs...but even moreso that games like this existed. It was a surreal experience I'll talk about more in depth later, in a certain other game's entry.

Now, this demo only covered a very brief portion of FF8, and without the money (I was 11, for God's sake) to buy a full copy of the game, I was forced to turn to other places to satisfy my newfound RPG cravings. This is where wacky coincidences start to come into play.

Somewhere in the months before exposure to FF8, I came into possession of a shoebox full of SNES games a cousin of mine no longer wanted. He, in turn, had obtained them when another cousin, much older and wiser in the gaming world than us, had for some unknown reason given them away. The box contained a wondrous assortment of classics including Super Street Fighter II and Samurai Shodown. However, most important of all were the beautiful cartridges for Final Fantasy II and Final Fantasy III...those of course truly being the American versions of IV and VI, respectively.

Recognizing the franchise title with a mixture of bewilderment and frantic joy, I remember trying both games out in the same day. My older cousin had several advanced save files on both carts, and these I eagerly jumped to with absolutely no idea what the hell I was doing. I saw all sorts of colorful characters and beasts, and though I was initially moreso drawn to VI's higher quality visuals and varied cast, it was FF4 that eventually won the day in my heart, and I started a new game for it.

Right from the start, the game gripped me in that way that I think any nostalgic fan of the first ten Final Fantasy titles will perfectly understand. You're thrown right into the action following the protagonist, Dark Knight Cecil, as he flies about the sky commanding an airship, battling monsters, and for some unknown reason attacking what appears to be a harmless village and stealing what can no doubt be a magical crystal. All the while THIS music is playing.

That's all it took and I was sold, ready to follow Cecil and his badass-dragon-looking-buddy Kain on their adventure to take a package to a nearby village for some unknown reason. Now, of course, that is only the setup for what becomes a much more grandiose affair spanning three different worlds, but I was eleven and I had no idea what was coming.

If I had to pinpoint why FF4 captured my heart the way it did, I would want to say it's because while the game is alarmingly simple compared to future FFs, or even future ports of FF4, it is in a way the first Final Fantasy that I think really exemplifies what made the series so special for a time, albeit in its most simplistic form. Consider this my thesis statement or something.

First, take a look at FF4's hero, Cecil. Seen here in all his beautiful splendor as both a Dark Knight and a holy Paladin warrior.

Though he begins the game as a totally badass Dark Knight with menacing armor and an intimidating presence (for a 16-bit sprite) we quickly discover that Cecil may in fact be the first concrete instance of an effeminate Final Fantasy hero who is melancholic and taciturn all the while going about with enormous melee weapons stabbing freakish monsters in order to save the world. Before he even leaves the castle to go on his journey proper, Cecil is already bemoaning his actions as a Dark Knight and his inability to disobey what he feels are unjust orders, as they come from the King of Baron. We also see that he has an attractive female lead ready to throw herself at him, but he is, of course, not at all interested.

Now, I think this is important in the grand scheme of the series because it obviously establishes a pattern that, while often mocked today, was a huge departure from the norm for quite some time. Before Cecil, two out of three FF protagonists were faceless "Light Warriors" whose personalities were more or less defined by their Job Class and any imaginary roleplaying the player may have done. The only other named protagonist before Cecil is FF2's Firion, who as far as I can tell is a standard fantasy hero who tries to be courageous and chivalrous in his fight against an evil empire.

 

Even his Amano sketch is masculine.

Cecil's thoughtfulness and tortured moral stance help set him apart in a role that is generally occupied by hot-blooded, battle-hardened warriors or eager, plucky boy adventurers. He's seen some shit, and he's done some things he isn't proud of. His conflict between his conscience and his duty to the crown brings up some interesting questions, and really pulls us into the story. We want to follow Cecil and see where he takes this drama. We want to see him stand up for what he believes in and defy the king.

The rest of the cast is similarly colorful and memorable, each with their own small dramas that play out over the course of the rapidly escalating conflict between good and evil over the power of the ever-important crystals. These characters also each embody one of the FF series' classic jobs, from Monk to Mage to Dragoon, eschewing the job systems of earlier titles to give players a more simplistic, yet constantly changing, party of fighters.

Speaking of fighters, and in turn fighting, FF4 is also the first game in the series to introduce Active Time Battle, or ATB. Before FF4, battles were standard turn-based affairs where you chose everyone's moves and then things happened all in a row. ATB changed all of this by forcing players to make decisions on the fly as characters got their turns in real time, indicated by a small gauge next to their name. Enemies would not cease their attacks and wait for you to make your moves, so take too long and it would easily be game over.

"Hey guys, aren't we all just...beautiful?"

And those game overs would come a lot, too, depending on the version, because FF4 can be brutally difficult at times. Tons of enemies in the game, from lowly Needle Rats to mighty Behemoths, brought deadly counterattacks to the table, enabling them to attack out-of-turn if struck with the wrong move. This is introduced as early as the first boss fight, the Mist Dragon, where striking the creature while it is in "Mist" form causes a deadly counter that hits the entire party.

Between the newly implemented ATB and the extensive counterattacks from enemies, battles in FF4 became a fast-paced and tactical affair where you were constantly confirming the next healing spell or attack before your party dropped dead, but also trying to figure out the exact attacks to use that wouldn't get you murdered inside of two turns. Though it can be severely frustrating later in the game when enemy strength and difficulty suddenly ramp up, the battles feel rewarding and exciting in practice, and once you discover how an enemy fights it does get easier. ATB would of course remain in the series right up until FFX, though the rampant counterattacks would see considerable scaling back in future games.

Of course, it's hard to talk about battles without mentioning the skill system, and in that respect FF4...well, it doesn't really have a system, per se. Characters learn new spells as they level up, and that's about it. I think Edge and Tellah learn spells through a few mandatory story events, but other than that it's just leveling and learning. Similarly, other than one sword that involves a sidequest, all of your equipment is obtained either through treasure chests in dungeons or through shops in town. The best weapons in the game are all simply in treasure chests in the final dungeon, or guarded by bosses in that same place.

Under today's circumstances I might consider this simplicity a problem, but for the time and for the way the game plays out it works and makes sense from a design standpoint. FF4 is constantly shuffling characters in and out of your party with the one constant being Cecil, whose only change is transforming into a Paladin just a few hours into the game. There's little point in extensively customizing these characters' skillsets when they're just going to leave again in a few game hours to be replaced by a completely different class of character. While you are eventually left with the same five characters no matter what (outside of future ports) I like that there isn't much customizing or game breaking to be done with them. Being forced to work with what you're given makes the player learn the strengths and weaknesses of their final team, and you can then find and use the best strategies to win those fast-paced, counter-heavy battles.

Other than its bishounen characters, Final Fantasy is often lauded for Nobuo Uematsu's masterful soundtracks, and of course 4 doesn't disappoint there. From the opening scene with the theme of the Red Wings right up until the final battle the score almost never fails to impress and immerse, using that new-fangled SNES technology to produce sounds that are significantly more pleasant than 8-bit NES tunes.

One of three.

What else? Oh, how about the game featuring three entire world maps, which we touched upon earlier? Sure, the Underworld and Moon aren't exactly huge and overflowing with places to go, but they really add a sense of grandeur to the story. Players are also gifted with numerous means of transportation from a hovercraft early in the game to a damned spaceship by the end. The world(s) are also brimming with sidequests to undertake, which reward determined players with powerful weapons and summon magic...which I totally forgot about earlier. The final trek to find and defeat Bahamut and earn his summon is especially epic, as players fight through a lunar cave and down countless Behemoths before fighting the big dragon himself.

The story itself is, again, simplistic in its beauty. On the surface its a quest for magical crystals while fending off attacks from the big mean people. Lying just underneath all that is a plethora of betrayals, dramatic last stands, and familial reveals that (like the three worlds) help to give the simple good vs. evil plot the gravitas it needs to keep players hooked. That said, it's hard to feel surprised when your ninth friend heroically sacrifices themselves to save you. Spoilers?

Things get a bit odd towards the end as super-advanced technology starts to crop up in an otherwise entirely medieval universe, but I guess this is handwaved by the reveal of Moon people...as weird as that sounds. There's also the reveal of a new Big Bad in the 11th hour, but I guess that too has become a hallmark of the FF series, and at least Zemus gave us a little more warning than FF9's Necron.

I could probably go on for several more pages about this game, but I think I've already risked rambling so I'll try to wrap this up with a pretty, melancholic bow. FF4 is a game that I have no shortage of nostalgia for. It's the first FF I truly played (technically) and even today when I reach certain moments (You spoony bard!) or hear certain songs from it I get all tingly and a big smile pops to my face. It's comforting in that way. It's an old game, and it lacks some of the technical features that prove so popular in future entries, but it has a wonderful cast of thoughtful characters, a quality story with just the right twists and turns to stay fresh, exciting battles, and an expansive world to explore and conquer all while listening to music that is just a joy for the ears. It's everything a Final Fantasy game needs to be, in my opinion, and it ends on a perfect high note.

Retrospective JRPG Countdown: #9- Breath of Fire 4

It's probably for the best to be honest about this entry right from the start: when compiling the list of ten games I wanted to talk about in this series, I was stuck at nine and had completely forgotten Breath of Fire was even a series until a friend suggested I add Breath of Fire 4.

As soon as he mentioned it, my jaw hung wide and my brain burst with the embarrassment of having joined the ranks of those who overlook this oft-forgotten gem in an oft-forgotten series. Forgive me, Breath of Fire, you're perfectly lovely, I just have so many other things on my mind!

So I promptly added BoF4 to my list of ten, smiling proudly and almost immediately deciding that it would place 9th, just ahead of Persona but decidedly behind the forthcoming 8 games, all of which I had spent so much more time with and had such more concrete memories. I sat down yesterday to begin writing this entry and tried to think back on what I knew and loved about BoF4. The list, it turned out, was alarmingly short. Here it is.

1. The game had an awesome battle system.

2. The characters were very well designed.

3. There was a revised version of BoF3's "Master" system which allowed for stat tweaking.

4. I had received the game on a Friday during my 8th grade year just before Christmas, because I remember playing it for like two hours before I had several friends over for some sort of middle school Christmas party. Probably should've just told them to stay away and kept playing.

Gotta love anime style openings.

Ok, so maybe that list isn't all inclusive of my memories. Of course I remember smaller touches like certain boss battles, the ending, how cool it was to play as Fou-Lu...but other than that my memory was very, very vague. I couldn't remember the name of a single location in the game, I couldn't remember even the tiniest bit what the story was about other than that it eventually came down to "Stop Fou-Lu", and I couldn't remember any solid details about the battle system other than being able to swap out your active party members with "benched" characters at any time.

It kind of made me sad, because I knew that for at least one solid playthrough this game was incredible and pulled me in just like all the other great PSX RPGs I enjoyed back then. Burdened by this shame, I spent the entire afternoon today reading through everything regarding BoF4 on the Breath of Fire wiki. Because everything has its own wiki, and thus life is good. Some forgotten tidbits I learned:

A. Tatsuya Yoshikawa's artwork is incredible. So gorgeous. You can see it all over this entry in every picture I post. There were such incredible artists working at Capcom around the turn of the century. I would love to see a new BoF game for the PS3/360 that features in-game graphics like these drawings.
B. The battle system contained more awesome than I initially thought. In addition to the active swapping of party members (years before Final Fantasy X did the same) the game also featured a spell combo system wherein consecutive casting of spells and abilities would create additional effects. To quote wikipedia's explanation: "Casting two ice spells in sequence, for example, will produce a stronger ice attack, while a fire spell followed by a wind spell will create an explosion-based attack." That is just cool.
C. The cast of characters is definitely awesome, but much smaller than I remembered. You only get 6 party members. I must have been fusing BoF3 and 4 in my mind.
D. The universe of BoF is, in general, a lot cooler than I ever remembered it being. Perhaps even than I had realized or appreciated in my younger days. The inclusion of Ryu and Nina in every series entry gives the games a fun Legend of Zelda sense of connectivity, and a lot of the games' races and lore feel very original and exclusive to BoF, even if they're largely just beast-men and stock JRPG tropes like goddesses or whatever.

So, with this (and more) new information, I could probably write a really cool review on what made BoF4 so damn cool, but instead I want to step back and look at the two things I remember most about the game: cool characters and awesome battles. I think it could be argued that these are really the only things needed to have a truly successful JRPG. Yes, of course story and music and interesting level design are important, but I think characters and gameplay come first a lot of the time. Or maybe not, it could be different for you.

However, I think a lot of the time story in games is considered with far, far, FAR too much importance. Yes, even in a story-driven genre like a role-playing game. BoF4 has a relatively simple story. For a JRPG, anyway. Nina finds Ryu, they go on adventures and run from "the Empire" for a long time. Fou-Lu awakens and gets in fights with "the Empire". Things happen, people are killed, the Empire are dicks, Fou-Lu goes insane and wants to kill the world. Ryu and friends have to stop him. In the grand scope, the story is incredibly simple, almost to the point of genre cliches. But still, it's all the game needed. Through several little moments and character interactions the game is able to fill the tale with just the right amount of pathos to make Fou-Lu a believable and understandable antagonist, which in turn gives Ryu's story and struggle the weight and purpose it needs.

Back to what I was saying about characters and gameplay. It's because the game has such cool, memorable characters and such enjoyable combat that the minimalist story is able to perform its role without losing the player. In games, a great story only goes so far. Due to the length of a game like an RPG, the time between major events has to be enjoyable. This only happens with a fun combat/leveling system and characters who you enjoy controlling and having as your representatives in the world...which as I've said BoF4 certainly has, though like the story they also keep to a sense of simplicity with small, charming traits.

This is one of the main complaints reviewers back in 2000 (holy shit 13 years ago!) often filed against the Breath of Fire series as a whole. They were games that followed formulas. Paradigms. They stuck to tradition and didn't take risks. Writers would often unfavorably compare them to Final Fantasy like you might liken the girl next door to a supermodel. This is a complaint that I feel came up against plenty of games back in those days (it still does, I guess, but I feel reviewers have less power today). The same game as last time. Didn't innovate. Too formulaic.

I have to wonder just what kind of risks people felt Breath of Fire should have taken. Let's look at the battle system for a minute. BoF4 starts with a very simple, traditional turn-based battle engine. You select the actions of your entire team and then they perform those actions while the enemy performs their own. Fastest characters and enemies go first. Characters can attack, defend, cast magic spells, etc. If this was all the battle system had going for it of course it would be far too traditional and boring, so enter the Combo System and the game's unique take on Front Row/Back Row formation dynamics.

Like we saw above, Combos allowed for added effects on spells and abilities if cast in a certain order. This helps add a fun dynamic for offensive strategy and experimentation that goes beyond the usual "spam weakness" we see in other games (HEY PERSONA 3!) Similarly, the ability to swap any of your 3 active Front Row characters with a benched character on the Back Row makes for some fun combat formations and substitutions that almost feel like coaching a sports team...or even maybe a ghetto form of something like Pokemon. Not only are you switching in new characters who are able to utilize their different attacks to give you an advantage, you're also effectively benching weak/tired characters for a turn or two, and they will gain back HP and AP while resting; safe from future enemy attacks.

That's the kind of system that works in games. It's familiar and simple on the surface, but belies hidden depth and nuances. Plus, it's really really fun.

Final thing I wanna bring up is the game's sort of...design sense, I guess. Previous BoF games tended to borrow their settings from more western or European influences with typical medieval villages, castles, etc. Of course the all-important dragons are also more western in appearance. The art styles of in-game graphics were also more cartoony. Brighter, with more intense colors.

BoF4 instead opts for a very thorough "Eastern" feel throughout. A number of characters and locations seem to be influenced by Chinese or Korean style and mythology, while a significant portion of the soundtrack carries some very Indian or Middle-Eastern vibes. These choices really help the world to stand out for me; as a unified presentation of this sort goes quite a ways when it comes to world building. The character and enemy sprites are also more simplistic in the way they're drawn, with slightly more muted color palettes. These are small details, but they help to somehow provide a stronger package in my opinion.

Here, sample some tunes.

It's been well over a decade since BoF4 was released, and Capcom doesn't seem at all willing to produce any new sequels for the franchise. To me, this is a terrible shame. Had they stuck to what worked the first four games and just continued to refine what was a working formula, I think by now they could have had a slew of successful sequels under their belts. Unfortunately, they decided things needed to be changed so they went and made Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter instead. And we all know how that turned out.

Terrible sales and eleven years later we still don't have a sequel. Huh.

"Just drink it off. It's what I do."

Retrospective JRPG Countdown: #10- Persona 3 Portable

The first time I played Persona 3 (Portable, mind you) we were not fast friends. My sister and I were visiting our aunt for the weekend, and the three of us had gone out to dinner with a post-food trip to the mall planned. While the two women ran off to I don't even know where (a craft store? clothes..shop?) I spied what I think was a Babbage's (whaaat!?) or at least a similar store that had been installed in the hollowed, decaying remains of what had once been a Babbage's. Harkening back to my youth when I had often visited such stores in search of things like imported Pokemon toys, I decided that I absolutely had to step inside and have a look around.

It was about what I expected. The standard supply of game-store games lined the walls, with advertisements here and there for all the hot major releases. I must have had some extra cash lining my pockets, because I was definitely in the mood to buy a game...an affliction I often come across when presented with any multimedia store while on a trip. I had my PSP with me back at my aunt's house, so that was the logical way to go...I wouldn't get much immediate use out of a PS3 game, would I? I scanned through the PSP shelves (which were naturally somewhat sparse, because PSP games aren't real) and eventually my wandering eyes came to rest on the beautiful art of the Persona 3 Portable box. 

 Not the boxart, but still cool looking.

My friend and most trusted RPG advisor Daniel had constantly badgered me over the years to get into the Shin Megami Tensei (SMT) series, forever proclaiming their wonders from on high, but I had never really given any of the games serious consideration...much less an actual chance. Having been weaned on the Playstation Final Fantasy games, and groomed on SNES classics like Chrono Trigger, the Mana series, and *swoon* Tales of Phantasia, I found the lack of graphical flair and any discernible art style to be off-putting in most SMT games. Plus, I once watched a high school friend play SMT: Nocturne some years earlier and thought it looked like the most soul-crushingly boring game I had ever seen. That's not even mentioning that the Protagonist (the Demi-fiend?) is just stupid looking. The hell are with those shoes?

                                                               Seriously, what a goon.

Anyway, I had recently been told how great Persona 3 was, and between that, the beautiful box art, and the stellar opening theme, I decided to give the game a purchase and subsequent try.

It really is a cool song.

That night I returned to my Aunt's and popped the game into my PSP, eager to experience and explore a new world of JRPG wonder. Instead I found myself navigating what felt like endless menus and engaging in non-stop simulation game conversations before I was finally allowed to hit Tartarus, the main (and only) dungeon of the game. Long story short I think I made it to the second block of Tartarus before one way or another dying, getting frustrated, and deciding I didn't quite enjoy the game at all.

It would take me years before I was finally willing to give the game another chance. Just this past January I found myself desiring to play through a PSP RPG yet again, and having just completed the PSP port of Final Fantasy IV I had run out of options until my copy of FF1 arrived in the mail. Thinking back to that catchy opening song from Persona 3, I thought it wouldn't hurt to kill a few hours and start a new save file.

I'm so glad I did. For all of its flaws and undesirable quirks, Persona 3 Portable was a wonderful game to play and defeat, and has almost single-handedly revived my interest in the entire JRPG subgenre. It's highly unlikely I would even be working on this series of blogs had I not become so engrossed in this game and its little universe.

Very little.

P3(P) isn't for everyone. The parent SMT series isn't, either. But if it was I don't know that it would feel half as special as it ends up being. The game more or less thrusts you into the starring role of your own personal "Ordinary High School Student" anime where you get to relive all the best parts of teenage education while beating the piss out of some variety of monster and saving the world in your spare time. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. That's what Persona 3 (and 4, as far as I've seen) are doing, and it does it very well.

This simulation of sorts winds up fully immersing the player into the game in a way few other games I've played seem able to do. At first, managing the Protagonist's schedule and free time can feel foreign and a little bit daunting. It did for me, anyway. On my first playthrough I felt overwhelmed by all the locations to go, people to talk to, and things to level up. There are social stats (Academics, Courage, and Intelligence), Social Links, Personas, actual characters....I guess that's all. But my first playthrough I had almost no clue what any of this stuff was for. I didn't know what to do or when to do it. This ended with me going to the Wild Duck Burger every day after school in a mad attempt to level my Courage for some reason.

On my second attempt at the game I took things easy, paid attention to what was being told to me, and went back to my RPG roots of exploring and experimenting. Before long I was joining clubs and making friends everywhere I went. And it was fun! When half of the game consists of interacting with almost ordinary characters in this familiar, real-world environment, it gives the game a massive opportunity to flesh out these relationships in a way most other JRPGs don't.

Usually, all of your interactions with party members are limited to the direct events of the game's story and the battles being fought. This is all well and good, and plenty of spectacular casts have been built on less, but getting to see these characters in their everyday lives added a whole new layer of affection for me. These little hand-drawn portraits weren't just my comrades in arms (or the tools through which I murdered countless Shadows), they were my friends. I lived with them, went to school with them, ate countless meals with them, saw movies with them. We even ended up getting a fucking DOG! And those were just the dorm mates/party members! You make dozens more friends in and out of school, and help each of them work through some challenging hurdle in their lives; whether its your Track teammate with his busted knee or your goofy girl-crazy classmate who has his heart broken by a teacher. Social Links were quite possibly my favorite thing about the game, even if I failed to max them all out. For shame, I know.

 Yeah, my friends and I all own guns that we occasionally point at our heads.

Sadly, not everything about the characters was perfect for me (but is it ever?) A lot of character traits in your party members feel lifted directly from a book on anime tropes, and the extent to which the Protagonist is an all-perfect chosen one Messiah started to grate on me here and there. Sure, it's cool that I have a special power, and I know I'm making him be a nice, cool, funny guy...but does every single female I meet have to throw themselves at me before the game is over? Even the ones I've barely been nice to?

Likewise, the immersion into this everyday school life kind of hurt the overall story for me. When 29 days of the month are nothing but "Go to school, hang out with your friends, and fight monsters at night" it makes that remaining one day with real storyline (THE FULL MOOOOON) require a bit more than "A big monster attacks" to feel meaningful. It wasn't until after I defeated all of the full moon Shadows that the story started to pick up...which is about 6 or 7 months of school and Tartarus exploring, at least.

Then again, once things did kick into serious business high gear everything had a very cool air about it. Scaling Tartarus while racing against time to save the world really helped add a bit of weight to the randomized dungeon crawling, and the final month of the game is really just awesome all-around. It's hard to accurately explain how hype I was when January 31st rolled around. And that ending. So perfectly bittersweet.

Plus, it hurts a story when every scene of moving character models is replaced by portraits and dialogue boxes. I really want to go back and play the PS2 version just to see all the action for a change.

Speaking of the dungeon crawling, let's talk about the battle system and all that jazz, since it's technically what should matter most. To be frank, I think all of the gameplay systems surrounding battle and personas and equipment are both deceptively complex and shockingly simple at the same time. A big emphasis is put on fusing Personas to create new, stronger Personas, but I could probably count on my fingers and toes the number of times I went into any super serious Fusion Sessions. Most of the time I would just pop in to see if I could make any new combinations with what I had available, then leave. I think this is mostly because of how battles themselves work, especially since you can directly control the whole party in P3P (unlike the original P3).

Winning a battle, EVERY battle, for me came down to finding an opponent's weakness and spamming the living hell out of it until All-Out-Attacks finished things. If there was no discernible weakness it became super buff and debuff hour, and that was about it. For almost 70 hours. In ways this approach to combat is both amazing and terrible. Having to actually study the opponent, find what attacks work best, and then being appropriately awarded for doing so is wonderful. It makes combat feel a bit more cerebral and rewarding than just pressing attack until the beast rolls over dead. At the same time, though, things become a bit of a chore when you've engaged your 68th Shadow group with the same composition. Fire off a Mazio, trigger an AoA, collect your XP and gold, move on and do it again. There were times I almost wished the game had an option to let me skip normal battles while still collecting the XP, since there was no discernible way I could lose if I made the right move calls. And no, the "Rush" button didn't count.

While the idea of defeat is fresh in my mind, there were only maybe four times I actually lost in the whole game, and all of them were incredibly "cheap", usually the results of instant kill spells that somehow hit or sudden damage bursts I had no way of mitigating. Oh yeah, and I killed the last boss with an Armageddon item I didn't even remember I had until that turn. 9999 damage in a game where I scarcely broke 1000? Holy shit.

In the end though, P3P had a fun combat engine, and the skill system didn't require more thought and planning than it should have. Still, I can't imagine how annoying it must be to play when you have no real control over your allies. Yikes.

Persona 3 Portable is a flawed game. Heavily flawed. I don't know that I can stress that enough. But at the same time there's so much to love about it. In a strange way I think that makes it so much like the friendships it practically begs you to make...both in game and in your real life. Even with all the headaches or boring afternoons it might give you, it can still know how to show you a really good time. And I think that's a pretty cool parallel to draw, so we'll just end this there.