What is it with me not fated to watch my favorite artists live in concert? In November last year, bodacious Beyonce (yes, yes, I like her. Ya got a problem with that?!) held a concert in Jakarta. And just a couple of days ago, BJORK herself held a concert in Jakarta too!! Lucky bastards. I'm officially smoldering with envy. Beyonce... sure I could live without, but Bjork? I never thought Bjork would held a concert in Indonesia. E...ver. It's like I won the national lottery (with a 1:100 million+ odds), but had lost the ticket when I accidentally washed it in the laundry! I swear to God, if I was in Indonesia, I would've flown there in a second, braving the flying deathtrap that is Indonesian airplanes (Jatayu, I'm looking at you. Oh wait, Jatayu is dead. Huh, no great loss there, eh?), and returned back to Medan, happy and fulfilled, but oh, about Rp. 4 million poorer. BUT!! It's 4 million well-spent, I assure you...!! What are the chances that you get to see your fave international artist live in concert, especially when that artist have never had the history of performing live in your country before? Sigh. Siiigh. Siiiiiiigh. And when I return to Indonesia, I guess she would held a concert in Texas, eh? I'm telling you, such elusiveness is killing me ever so softly.
Ah well. For closing, I'll just put up a list of games that I'm dying to play right now...
- Loom: yes, THAT 1990 Lucasarts' Loom. I've been reading that the soundtrack to this game is incredible. Considering I played it without sound like, 10 years ago (gasp!) just makes me more intrigued. Actually, I have the game in my laptop right now, but it's still soundless. Hmm... I'll have to find a way to make this work. Oh btw, this game's story has got to be one of the most breathtaking and epic of all games that I've ever played in my life. Hmm (#2)... maybe it's time I put this up in my hall-of-fame list.
- Fatal Frame IV: this one's self-explanatory, considering I made a post on this a couple posts back. It's not out yet, so let's wait until then, shall we?
- Virtua Fighter 5: the game that brought tears to my eyes when I saw its vids in Youtube. My favorite fighting game series. EVER.
- Tekken 6: don't laugh. Oh alright, it's not VF5, but it's still makes for a nice, short, mindless diversion. Yes, I know it's not out yet, so smoke it, people.
What? The Odin Sphere post? I completely forgot about that. Well, here's a preview: it's trash (weeell... almost).
Monday, February 25, 2008
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Persona 3.
My poor wee neglected child! Oh, my blog! I've ignored you for 2+ months... because I have nothing profound to say and my internet contract died at the start of December. But have no fear! I'm with you now. And what better way to liven up your barren life of recording my endless gripes and complaints on life than notching up yet another pointless gripe and complain!! My beloved, unconditional-love-ing blog. It's 10:47 PM. You know when I update you that means I have an assignment in less than 24 hour to turn in, and that I haven't finished it, and in a lame excuse to procrastinate, I've decided to turn to you and puked my insides into your lap, and then ignore you again until the next assignment comes! You are truly wonderful, child, but really, I wish you could talk back...
And that's how bored my life is. Curhat to a free-hosted, self-made blog that doesn't talk back, converse, care, or a give the slightest hint of saying, "uh-huh, that's nice" in the most bored, jaded way that was as least humanly possible to your life's problems. Boy, do I have problems!
Let's get to what the title of my blog is about. It's a JRPG. Japanese Role-Playing Game. A PS2 videogame that got the honor of being my time-filler for my winter holiday last month. Now, if you're not interested already with the subject matter, let me remind you that you can at any time press that ever-waiting red X in the corner of your browser to close this window. The game, Persona 3, was my first entry into the series, which had quite a long-run before and is one of the spin-off of the Shin Megami Tensei series. This game just got the "RPG of the year" award from Gamespot, owing to it's unique gameplay which was a combination of pseudo-The Sims and traditional Japanese RPG. And because of its great, "intense" story from start to finish.
To some extent, I agree this is a good game. It's certainly very unique and fresh in terms of gameplay. Despite giving you countless areas to explore, the game give you very small areas for exploration. What areas you can explore at the beginning of the game are what you get until the endgame. But it gave you tons of things to do, mainly, socializing (shudders). To power up your character you need to make friends, which in turn allows you to strengthen your personas (basically summoned monsters). But that's about it for me. I don't see what makes alot of people say that the story is really good. I mean, it's about... oh wait. Better put this up first:
****WARNING!! WARNING!! SPOILERS BEGIN HERE!!****
Okay, to make a long story short, the story in this game is very, very anime/manga/JRPG cliche. I've played JRPG, read manga and watch anime quite enough to identify cliches when I see one. You have a group of people trying to stop the world from destruction. Check. You have pansy villains who think that the world can be saved by annihilating everything and make a fresh start. Check. You have villains who seemed really evil but turn out to have their own boo-hoo-sob-oh-so-sad-and-tragic story. Check. You have the too-cool-for-you, calm, quiet protagonist. The clownish, blundering guy. The cute, popular girl. The genius, mature, French-speaking, calm, too-cool-for-you-dude-so-forget-about-her chick. The cool, popular senpai guy who's all the rage among the girls at school. The shy, timid, socially awkward, smart petite girl. The elementary-school kid who act so cool and mature but screams "EMO" (as in, alaaah, itu looh, lagu2 rock yg sok nge-rock tapi liriknya cengeng semua!). The mature, yet-another-too-cool-for-you, talks-a-little, wise guy with tormented past and have "EMO" written all over his face. The seemingly soul-less automaton who ponders the meaning of life and finds it. Check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check. All the stereotype stock characters in the JRPG book is there, along with all the cliches and twists you can find in other JRPG of its ilk. Its no surprise then that I was not surprised (heh) at all when the story reveals its supposedly nasty/shocking denouement. In fact, I was sorely disappointed. I expected something much more fresh and different.
As for the characters, I don't feel I really connect with them at all. The second emo guy I mentioned joined your party eventually, for like, oh, 2% of the total game time. And then he was dead. Shot by the baddie. And before he croaked he suddenly turned Yoda and spouted wise nonsense to the emo kid, saying yet more cliche lines like, "Don't throw your life away! You're still young! You got your whole life ahead of you!" Oh, that's it! Why do this type of character always yap their trap a hell lot more when they're within seconds of dying compared to when they're alive? He's been an emo guy all throughout the game and he suddenly got the license to lecture other people on how to live life when he died? Oh please. What surprised me even more was the other characters' reactions. They suddenly went all teary-eyed then sit together and start reminiscing on how nice and wise the emo guy (RIP) was. How come? These people have only known him for like, a couple of days and he suddenly became the martyr of the entire group? At one point, one of the character even said something like, "Let's do our best! I bet our late emo friend is watching us from heaven!"
Where's a spittoon when I need one?
And then there's a dog who joins your party. The most useless, plot-significant-less character have never been conceived. Aside from one cutscene and fighting in battles, this dog didn't serve any purpose in the story at all. Why is he even in the game completely mystifies me. He's so insignificant that I'm going to stop talking about him now.
For the "disturbing" factor, on a scale from 1-10, I'd give this game, oooh... a 3. This game is VERY tame in terms of violence and gore. There's nothing disturbing about the story or images in the game (mayhaps, because I'm already a disturbed person?). And I was disappointed with the one catch that hooked me into buying the game in the first place: shooting yourself in the head to summon your persona. It turns out you're not using a real gun at all, but a device which likeness and activation method is similar to a gun. It's just what it is: a gimmick. An interesting gimmick, but a gimmick nonetheless. It's just the game's fancy way of having the character wave his/her hand to cast a spell. So what this means is that, everytime you want to use special skills or magic, you need to shoot your head again. And again. And again. And again. Eventually, overuse leads to this method losing it's intensity on me and I just sort of became jaded towards it. I was expecting something more spectacular, like... oh, I don't know! I was expecting they were using a real gun and went through some gruesome transformations into a monster. But in the end, I still think it's pretty cool though. Watching the main character's head recoiling backwards after shooting himself in the head looks pretty convincing and cool-looking. Now, let me digress for a moment to contemplate why I like this shoot-yourself-in-the-head business... Am I attracted to imageries that give notions of suicide and self-destruction...? Whoa, now THAT's disturbing!
****SPOILERS END HERE!! GET BACK TO YOUR LIFE, PEOPLE!!****
Final thoughts: Persona 3 is my first entry into the series. While partly I'm disappointed with the game being not as fresh as I had hoped, its certainly different and unique gameplay interest me enough to check out the other games (later), and give me, no matter how slight, hope that JRPG is not really dead. It's in serious decline nowadays. There's too much safe approach and not enough innovation. The only thing that distinguish one JRPG from the other is its combat system. Everything else is just make believe.
(gasp!)
I just found out the topic for my next post! It's about another PS2 game I recently beat. It's called... Odin Sphere. Ohhho just you see!
I can't wait for the next assignment to come...!!
And that's how bored my life is. Curhat to a free-hosted, self-made blog that doesn't talk back, converse, care, or a give the slightest hint of saying, "uh-huh, that's nice" in the most bored, jaded way that was as least humanly possible to your life's problems. Boy, do I have problems!
Let's get to what the title of my blog is about. It's a JRPG. Japanese Role-Playing Game. A PS2 videogame that got the honor of being my time-filler for my winter holiday last month. Now, if you're not interested already with the subject matter, let me remind you that you can at any time press that ever-waiting red X in the corner of your browser to close this window. The game, Persona 3, was my first entry into the series, which had quite a long-run before and is one of the spin-off of the Shin Megami Tensei series. This game just got the "RPG of the year" award from Gamespot, owing to it's unique gameplay which was a combination of pseudo-The Sims and traditional Japanese RPG. And because of its great, "intense" story from start to finish.
To some extent, I agree this is a good game. It's certainly very unique and fresh in terms of gameplay. Despite giving you countless areas to explore, the game give you very small areas for exploration. What areas you can explore at the beginning of the game are what you get until the endgame. But it gave you tons of things to do, mainly, socializing (shudders). To power up your character you need to make friends, which in turn allows you to strengthen your personas (basically summoned monsters). But that's about it for me. I don't see what makes alot of people say that the story is really good. I mean, it's about... oh wait. Better put this up first:
****WARNING!! WARNING!! SPOILERS BEGIN HERE!!****
Okay, to make a long story short, the story in this game is very, very anime/manga/JRPG cliche. I've played JRPG, read manga and watch anime quite enough to identify cliches when I see one. You have a group of people trying to stop the world from destruction. Check. You have pansy villains who think that the world can be saved by annihilating everything and make a fresh start. Check. You have villains who seemed really evil but turn out to have their own boo-hoo-sob-oh-so-sad-and-tragic story. Check. You have the too-cool-for-you, calm, quiet protagonist. The clownish, blundering guy. The cute, popular girl. The genius, mature, French-speaking, calm, too-cool-for-you-dude-so-forget-about-her chick. The cool, popular senpai guy who's all the rage among the girls at school. The shy, timid, socially awkward, smart petite girl. The elementary-school kid who act so cool and mature but screams "EMO" (as in, alaaah, itu looh, lagu2 rock yg sok nge-rock tapi liriknya cengeng semua!). The mature, yet-another-too-cool-for-you, talks-a-little, wise guy with tormented past and have "EMO" written all over his face. The seemingly soul-less automaton who ponders the meaning of life and finds it. Check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check. All the stereotype stock characters in the JRPG book is there, along with all the cliches and twists you can find in other JRPG of its ilk. Its no surprise then that I was not surprised (heh) at all when the story reveals its supposedly nasty/shocking denouement. In fact, I was sorely disappointed. I expected something much more fresh and different.
As for the characters, I don't feel I really connect with them at all. The second emo guy I mentioned joined your party eventually, for like, oh, 2% of the total game time. And then he was dead. Shot by the baddie. And before he croaked he suddenly turned Yoda and spouted wise nonsense to the emo kid, saying yet more cliche lines like, "Don't throw your life away! You're still young! You got your whole life ahead of you!" Oh, that's it! Why do this type of character always yap their trap a hell lot more when they're within seconds of dying compared to when they're alive? He's been an emo guy all throughout the game and he suddenly got the license to lecture other people on how to live life when he died? Oh please. What surprised me even more was the other characters' reactions. They suddenly went all teary-eyed then sit together and start reminiscing on how nice and wise the emo guy (RIP) was. How come? These people have only known him for like, a couple of days and he suddenly became the martyr of the entire group? At one point, one of the character even said something like, "Let's do our best! I bet our late emo friend is watching us from heaven!"
Where's a spittoon when I need one?
And then there's a dog who joins your party. The most useless, plot-significant-less character have never been conceived. Aside from one cutscene and fighting in battles, this dog didn't serve any purpose in the story at all. Why is he even in the game completely mystifies me. He's so insignificant that I'm going to stop talking about him now.
For the "disturbing" factor, on a scale from 1-10, I'd give this game, oooh... a 3. This game is VERY tame in terms of violence and gore. There's nothing disturbing about the story or images in the game (mayhaps, because I'm already a disturbed person?). And I was disappointed with the one catch that hooked me into buying the game in the first place: shooting yourself in the head to summon your persona. It turns out you're not using a real gun at all, but a device which likeness and activation method is similar to a gun. It's just what it is: a gimmick. An interesting gimmick, but a gimmick nonetheless. It's just the game's fancy way of having the character wave his/her hand to cast a spell. So what this means is that, everytime you want to use special skills or magic, you need to shoot your head again. And again. And again. And again. Eventually, overuse leads to this method losing it's intensity on me and I just sort of became jaded towards it. I was expecting something more spectacular, like... oh, I don't know! I was expecting they were using a real gun and went through some gruesome transformations into a monster. But in the end, I still think it's pretty cool though. Watching the main character's head recoiling backwards after shooting himself in the head looks pretty convincing and cool-looking. Now, let me digress for a moment to contemplate why I like this shoot-yourself-in-the-head business... Am I attracted to imageries that give notions of suicide and self-destruction...? Whoa, now THAT's disturbing!
****SPOILERS END HERE!! GET BACK TO YOUR LIFE, PEOPLE!!****
Final thoughts: Persona 3 is my first entry into the series. While partly I'm disappointed with the game being not as fresh as I had hoped, its certainly different and unique gameplay interest me enough to check out the other games (later), and give me, no matter how slight, hope that JRPG is not really dead. It's in serious decline nowadays. There's too much safe approach and not enough innovation. The only thing that distinguish one JRPG from the other is its combat system. Everything else is just make believe.
(gasp!)
I just found out the topic for my next post! It's about another PS2 game I recently beat. It's called... Odin Sphere. Ohhho just you see!
I can't wait for the next assignment to come...!!
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