Last time, spent a few hours bashing my head against a stupidly unfair slot machine boss, aced midterms, and made an animal friend. This time, the plot resumes.
Category: Video Games
Persona 4: May 22nd – June 5th (Downtime)
In the morning, Nanako is staring at a potted seedling. The students were given vegetables to plant in school, but Dojima has been completely unhelpful. I perform his parenting duties for him and tell her to plant them in the grave giant mound by the house. Ah, so finally we get the promised gardening sim.
Persona 4: June 6th – June 18th (The Campout)
Kanji finally comes back to school.
Persona 4: June 19th – June 26th (Shadow Rise)
NANAKO: Welcome back, big bro. How was the school camp?
COMPLETELY FINE I DIDN’T SEXUALLY HARASS ANYONE GOOD NIGHT
Persona 4: June 27th – July 9th (Downtime)
Last time I beat a whole dungeon in one go, without even using the fox! Either I’m getting better or the game is getting easier.
Persona 4: July 10th – July 23rd (Summer Finals)
On the evening of the 9th, John sleeps like a baby after confirming no one’s on the Midnight Channel and congratulating himself on a job well done.
On the morning of the 10th, there’s another murder. A copycat, perhaps, given they didn’t appear on the Midnight Channel?
Persona 4: July 24th – August 1st (Shadow Mitsuo)
On the evening of the 23rd the news does another report on the murders. How polite of them to wait until after finals.
Persona 4: August 2nd – August 19th (Downtime)
My teammates are available for hangouts even though school’s out! Nice, it was really annoying how you got locked off from them in P3.
Persona 4: August 20th – August 31st (Summer Festival)
Scheduling note: Farla is busy with Pokemon reviewing month, so Persona 4 will have to go on hiatus for a little while after this.
Finally, it’s time for the summer festival.
Crystal Project
Crystal Project was a game recommended to me as an RPG with Metroidvania elements, similar to Wine & Roses and Teenage Costume Squad. I’ve long thought a commercial-length version of those games would be the best thing ever, so I jumped at the chance to try this.
Unfortunately, the game is just a standard open-world RPG and not the kind of tactical-Metroidvania experience I was hoping for. It has Metroidvania elements, but they’re entirely based on traditional Metroidvania principles of overcoming physical barriers, not tactical ones. I wasn’t blindsided because the game’s description was pretty clear about this, but it was still disappointing. It managed to be good for what it was, but falls into many of the usual problems with both jRPGs and open-world games.
Persona 4: September 1st – September 17th (Shadow Naoto)
Last time, we had our obligatory beach episode that still managed to be less bad than the campout, and Nanako desperately needs a restraining order against Teddie.
Anyway, the case is closed so I’m sure the next term will be completely uneventful!
Persona 4: September 18th – October 4th (Downtime)
When I get home, Adachi is there and also drunk.
ADACHI: They found Naoto-kun! Oh, uh, do you know who Naoto-kun is? He just up and vanished without a word, but it looks like he’s back now.
This sure must be awkward if you wait until the last minute to save her.
Persona 4: October 5th – October 20th (Fall Midterms)
On the 5th we learn about how different countries tend to center themselves in world maps, and the teacher asks where Japan is found in non-Japanese maps.
YOSUKE: I don’t even know what he’s talking about… Do you know the answer, John?
Have you never looked at a map, Yosuke?
Naoto comes back to school on the 6th.
Persona 4: October 21st – October 30th (Culture Festival)
That evening, I get a letter from the killer demanding I don’t rescue people anymore, then I get… an anime cutscene of someone alone in a room furiously scribbling names and ranting about how he’s going to “protect” people from the world? That doesn’t track at all, the culprit clearly knows he’s killing people. Or is this another fakeout? The cutscene was voiced, but it didn’t sound like Adachi.
Prayer of the Faithless
Prayer of the Faithless is an RPG Maker game I followed way back when it was just a demo on RMN, and I followed its development quite avidly because the developer was very open about their development process and said a lot of interesting things about designing complex mechanics and resource management gameplay. When it released on Steam in 2022 I meant to get it, but I was broke at the time, so it languished in my wishlist. But Farla picked it up for me for Christmas, so now I can finally play it!
I should note the game is a sequel to Soul Sunder, which I meant to review at some point but apparently never did! Oh well. It’s not necessary to understand this game’s plot, but I recommend playing it anyway because it’s good.