Nathan vs Perler Beads Part 6: Persona 3

Long time, no Perler. After a long hiatus, I returned to the world of perlers (I've actually been making stuff, but this is the most significant update in recent years) to make the characters from one of my favorite JRPGs: Persona 3.

But you might wonder: how does one perler a PS2 sprite based game? Easy, find somebody who made fan sprites. Especially if that person is Paul Robertson, the guy who made the sprites for the Scott Pilgrim video game adaptation.

The whole crew, chibi-ized and pixelated

Now, it's worth pointing out that these things are pretty big, about a foot tall each were I to make them, and took several hundreds beads each. They also use a lot more colors than there are perlers, but luckily Perler introduced a bunch of new colors recently (specifically grays) that helped with the shading. Still, it took a lot of tweaking in order to get everything to work. 

Startin' out with the protag. 

Our sullen, emo protag.  Or, in my guy's case, a dude who talked back to everybody. 

Fuuka and Protag

Of course we do Fuuka next. She's the best lady of them all, duh.

The rest of the main crew. Yukari, Akihiko, and Mitsuru. I liked how the hair turned out in particular. 

So there isn't much more progress ones from here, because I kind of just did 'em all. But here's the grand finale.

The whole shebang, except Shinji, who I made after. Game for size reference. 

Pretty rad, right? Aegis' hair was hell, as was Koro's fur color. In the end, however, I like how they turned out.

Me, posing. Yes, I cut my hair. It's a tragic thing. 

And lastly, the whole batch on the walls.

All hangin' out on the walls. 

These guys, again, are way bigger than you probably think. At least four feet from bottom to top, so they cover the wall pretty well. Now nobody will ever go to the bathroom (the room to the right) because evil-Igor is staring ya down.

That's it from this time, but who knows what else I'll do next? I did Sonic and didn't take pictures. Keep an eye out!

Tetris

...it's freaking Tetris. Come on.

Five out of five stars. 

Lumines: Puzzle Fusion

The Short

Pros
- Excellent puzzle game fusing music with block puzzlers
- Incredibly addicting
- Great on a handheld
- Visuals and music are top notch
- Easy to learn, difficult to get chains in
- Seriously, what do you expect from the guy who made Rez and Space Channel 5?

Cons
- Serious lack of modes
- New songs/colors are unlocked by playing further through the game in a single sitting, meaning most people won't see them all
- Vs. Mode isn't really all that awesome
- Could have benefitted from more songs or a shuffle mode

Let there be colors

The Long

Not going to lie: I'm pretty bad at Lumines. Just thought I'd through that out there. Or, at least I think I'm bad at it. Over the last few games, I've developed some strategies that I think will help me play better in the future. Plus, over the last few games I actually got some chains and figured out how to best work them with the power-up clearing piece. Just...hang on a sec, I bet if I tried again...

Hmm, yeah. I'm still the worst Lumines player. But I did get to a new theme and song this time! I wonder which one is after that one? Let me just put the computer down for a moment, I'll try again...

Yeah, I suck at this game, don't know why I keep playing it. I just really like the music, I guess, and the fact that when a track ends all the colors and shapes change completely. It's pretty cool. Speaking of which, the newest color/shape fusion I unlocked was really strange. Let me just boot it up again to check for the review...

...

What was I doing again?

I guess I'll put a graphic or something. Hang on, almost cleared this side...

Lumines is a puzzle game from Tetsuya Mizuguchi, famed creator of the Dreamcast's bizarre Space Channel 5 and the PS2's Rez (infamous for the "trance-vibrator" attachment...) and was one of the earliest PSP games to be released. Since then it's showed up on XBLA and gathered a few sequels, but here I'm just reviewing the original, unaltered game. So...is Lumines to the PSP what Tetris was to the Game Boy?

Not quite on the same level, but it's certainly no fault of Lumines. In this block-dropping, music-beat based puzzler, Q? Software has created something awesome. And really, really hard to put down.

I could never do this. 

In concept, Lumines is very simple. You are given a variety of cubes, each with a pattern of one or two colors. These can be generated in literally any combination available, keeping you on your toes. Once they show up you have free reign to spin them to your hearts desire as they fall (like Tetris), and if they fall with part of it falling over the side that part drops (unlike Tetris). Your goal is to get at least four of the same color in a square, which will fill in the squares. From that, you can extend the reach in groups of two or more at any angle, so long as you started with a nice 2x2 of the same color. Sounds simple? Well...uh...I guess? No?

The trick lies in the music. While you are playing a catchy tune (from a variety of genres including techno, trance, J-Pop, and others) beats in the background, and a bar pushes itself across the screen in time. As it crosses your finished blocks it blows 'em up, and the more it covers in a pass the more bonus points you get. 

Watch me Zen out in this game. 

This is where tricks come in. If you make a block right when the bar is passing, it might not blow up the whole box, which can screw you over. It also is good to build the chains right when it starts over again, but often you don't have time to preference as your blocks keep falling. It's a neat trick that makes the game feel a bit more frantic, which I appreciated. Especially since without it you probably could better time your placements, and with it I end up making huge useless piles of blocks that have no hope of getting destroyed.

Speaking of useless piles of blocks, the game does give you an out. There are specials attached to some blocks that, when made into a big collection, will delete every block of the same color that touches that collection (and can chain out). Again, the line-beat rule is in effect, so you can either use it super effectively or screw yourself. I appreciate that this power up (the only one, I might add) is in the game, because if not you'd get dug so deep you'd just be screwed forever. 

It's a Chain Reaction!

That, in a nutshell, are the core mechanics of the game, and as it stands it is very addicting. You're probably thinking it sounds super simple, huh? Yea? Well, Tetris was super simple. Bejeweled was super simple. So hush and go play five rounds in a row because you can't quit.

This original game does lack a lot of features the sequels would add, though. It has a bare bones list of modes, only including a Single Player, a sort of "remix" mode (that lets you pick from songs you've unlocked), a Vs CPU mode (which isn't honestly that great) and a vs Player mode if you are in the same room with somebody on the wireless. 

While I could again toss out the Tetris argument, it really does feel lacking, especially considering how you unlock new songs. The constant shift of songs (which also changes all the shapes while you are playing to different colors, etc.) is what makes the game entertaining, but the only way to unlock more is to grind through the Single Player mode to get to them. Fail, and you start all the way over, and they always go in the same order. A "remixed" mode, where it just shuffled through them all, would have been a fantastic addition. Instead, you'd better like the first five or so, because unless you get really good you'll probably just unlock those for your whole time with Lumines.

The color swaps can really catch you off guard. 

I love the way this game looks. It's got a sort of seizure-inducing, pulsing-beat vibe to it, and the fact the shapes and backgrounds change with the songs only intensifies the awesome. The bright colors really pop on the PSP's screen, and each of the shape combinations is unique and (weirdly enough) memorable. 

The music is also great, in a Rez slash Child of Eden slash Space Channel 5 way. Lots of crazy j-pop mixed with kickin beats and techno. There's something in here for everybody, though I will admit a few of the songs are a bit...grating. I wish I could just pick and choose the ones I wanted (again, have to unlock them), but hey, most are fantastic so we'll take it. 

Verses mode is...uh...it's ok? I guess?

Lumines is awesome. If you've never played it and you enjoy action-puzzle games, you should. It's beautiful, incredibly addicting, and has an awesome sense of style to it.

That being said, the lack of modes really makes this original release feel lackluster. To be completely honest, if you are looking to get into the series, ditch this one and jump on Lumines 2 instead. More modes, more songs (and I think it has all the ones from the original, too), and a better unlocking system. This game is still great and I'm totally hooked, but if you had to choose the sequel is the same game but better.

But still, quite an awesome puzzler. Grab the second one if you have a PSP, for sure.

Three out of five stars. 

WHAT IS GOING ON. 

Persona 3 Portable

The Short

Pros
- Evolution of Persona 3 on a handheld device
- Being able to take Persona on the go highlights the game's strengths
- Inclusion of a new female protagonist completely changes the game
- Female MC also comes with her own new soundtrack, which is much more appealing
- Can finally issue orders directly to your teammates, making the game considerably funner
- Many little added tweaks (like using the P4 battle system) further refine the game
- Personas giving skill cards also helps relieve some of the tension of fusing
- Load times are lightning quick
- Quite possibly the definitive version of Persona 3

Cons
- All animated cutscenes are gone, save a new intro
- You no longer have polygonal sprites representing you at school, etc. All interactions are replaced with visual-novel style text
- The thirty hour epilogue, The Answer, from Persona 3: FES is also omitted
- Game is still very long and time consuming, as well as text heavy. This is very much a JRPG

Welcome back to Tartrus

The Long

It already goes without saying I'm a huge fan of the Persona series, especially it's most two recent iterations. Persona 3: FES and Persona 4 are two of the best JRPGs in recent memory, and certainly brought me kicking and screaming back into enjoying the genre. The excellent fusion of turn-based RPG battles with a heavy emphasis on elemental weaknesses, along with the pseudo dating-sim and time managing elements made both these games very addicting, fun, and memorable. 

But the question remains: how do you get fans to replay a 100+ hour game? Easy: add a new main character, and make it so you can pick up and grind out a day at any time.

BOOM. Consider your drink MIXED. 

I don't think I need to say much about the previous two games in terms of design. As a super quick recap, this is how Persona 3 works:

The game is split between a social/dating simulator (slash visual novel) and turn-based RPG battles. The two systems interlink as you use Personas (essentially Pokemon) to battle for you. Unlocking better Personas is done by raising Social Links, which you do by engaging in the social simulator. The battles are fun (if they do get a bit repetitive), the writing for the Social Links is outstanding, and the game takes care to be certain you make connections with the characters you interact with. It's a strong fusion of two genres that somehow blends into a perfect, addictive whole.

Now that that's out of the way, here's why you should preference P3P over the previous releases.

First off, the game has been streamlined in ways that are mostly for the better (we'll talk about the negatives in a minute). Whereas before you had to walk everywhere in the city, now the quick-warp button from Persona 4 has returned to save the day. In addition, other minor bits of polish have been added. You don't have to watch the whole "I am thou, thou art I" every time a social link ranks up, it again being replaced by the quick, satisfying "swish" from Persona 4. Equipping your party is also much faster, as they all fit under the same menu now (vs having to talk to them individually to change gear). The game also loads insanely faster, making the game considerably snappier when going place to place (the loads are even better if you do the optional install). As a whole, this package is tight. 

You'll still see a lot of this, though. 

However, there are some absolutely major changes that should draw previous players back in. The biggest being the ability to manually control every character in your party. While this wasn't an option in P3 FES, it was in P4, and adding it to the old system completely changes the game (for the better). Now you don't have to rely completely on yourself to knock enemies over or have every element in the book because you don't know if your teammate will suddenly lose his mind and cast "heal" on himself instead of hitting the last enemy. Manual control makes the game considerably more enjoyable, and also makes picking your party more strategic. Simply put: it makes the 100+ floor grind through the main dungeon Tartrus considerably more tolerable.

The second is a massive berth of new Personas, items, weapons, side-quests, and abilities. There's more events to be had than before (though all those from FES carry over), more dialogue options, and tons of new stuff to do. Now you can rescue people who get trapped in Tartrus for a bonus, urging you to go back on different days. They've changed when/how you can study to better balance the game, but made social links a bit more lenient. The "girl jealousy" thing that really made juggling Social Links hard in FES has been removed, meaning you can be a total player without consequence. 

Perhaps the next biggest change worth noting is the addition of new Skill Cards. Before, you'd spend hours in the fusion room, trying to mix your Personas in a way that they inherited necessary moves to create the Ultimate Persona Dude (or Lady). That process has been made a bit easier, now, as every Persona comes equipped with a skill card. Upon reaching a certain level you get a one-use card that will teach the move in question. If you are skilled enough to Max out Social Links early, the XP bonus from that can guarantee a card each fusion, making creating the biggest, baddest Persona much easier (As well as use the cards to override crappy moves). IT's a good system that keeps the strategic gambling element of the game (something later removed in Persona 4 Golden) while allowing for more leniency.

Lastly, the way your characters get "tired" has been changed, probably to accommodate for the game's new emphasis on portability. It's not a huge switch but it makes grinding more enjoyable, and while charging to heal vs the regular free one is nice, they made the price so cheap it almost seems pointless. Still, worth noting. 

But now let's talk about the elephant in the room in terms of new content: a completely new protagonist.

This lady. 

Obviously the biggest hang-up for Atlas when re-releasing this game was that 1. These are kind of niche games and 2. People had already replayed it once for FES, and they take like 100+ hours to beat. Adding this female character, however, was genius, because it completely changes the game. 

Now let me get one thing straight: the core story involving SEES, the Dark Hour, Shadows, and all that jazz remains the same. There's some very minor plot hiccups, but overall the story remains the same. The gameplay, as well, at least in battles and Fusions is still exactly the same (minus what I said above). The significant changes, however, happen in the little things, especially the Social Links.

Social Links have been completely rearranged. Several characters have been axed completely (Maya from the MMO you could play on Sundays is gone, as is the shy bookish girl with the man phobia who looks weirdly like my wife) and replaced with new ones. A big boost here is that you can finally social link with everybody on your team, not just the ones from the opposite gender. As a girl the other ladies in SEES change how they react to you and become good friends instead (Fuuka's arch is still about her wanting to cook, but now you cook with her, which is a nice touch), and the boys (who had little depth in P3 and FES) are considerably more fleshed out as you can meet with and date them. You can also social link with Koromaru. Yeah. The dog. It's pretty great. 

Theo can also replace Elizabeth, and he's just as funny to take out. 

But what really sold me was how much better the writing is for the female character, in both choices and links. The new Hermit link (an older student who serves as librarian and is a doormat for abuse) is downright heartbreaking, and the new Chariot (sports team) link has a fun cross over with a male link from P3 that has been removed. When playing as a guy most of your responses were pretty bland, but the female protag is actually pretty sharp-tongued (which is how I tend to play all my games when given a choice) and it makes her seem both more playful and considerably easier to relate to. Nothing like mouthing right back to stupid Junpei when he gives you lip. Though "Operation Babe Hunt" from the male protag's POV will be sorely missed (easily one of the funniest parts of the game), female protag gets to visit the school from P4 and see a cameo of one of the characters from that game several years before the events of P4, which is a great shoutout.

Overall, Atlas could have easily just phoned this one in. Changed a few genders of characters, kept all the same dialogue, etc. But instead they went all out. Existing social links have new schedules, repeats (like the old man and dying boy) are similar but still change a fair amount, and overall everything feels better written and refined.

Plus, you can give a dog a tux. SOLD. 

So...where are those negatives I was going to bring up? Well, it's really just one, but it might be a big one for some people. Ok, two, but the second isn't that great of a loss. Let's address the big one first: the lack of polygonal characters.

Now, you keep the same sprites, etc. when grinding in Tartrus. Don't worry, that hasn't been changed. However, where previously you would run around the world an interact with people (giving you a sense of "being" in this school, etc.), now it's been replaced by a static image of the various school hallways and other areas, and you move a curser over the screen to pick who to talk to, etc. 

From an immersion standpoint, I can see why this is a bad idea. But from a gameplay standpoint (especially having played the game before and running around the school already) it's much appreciated. Days go a lot faster, it's easier to see who is available to social link with, and since I don't have to run for fifteen seconds to talk to somebody, I actually talk to NPCs now. So that's both a minus and a plus.

The biggest downer, however, is in removing these they also removed all sprite cutscene emotions, etc. that would go on in the background as they interacted. They now have been replaced by visual-novel style text and character portraits, with text and sound effects explaining what is going on during the more actiony scenes. This is probably the game's biggest loss, as those small emotions from the characters really portrayed a lot about their characters. They can convey some of it through narrative text, sure, but it is a much weaker way of conveying it. It also makes the game more text heavy, so if you hate reading...this really isn't the game for you.

Winning some, losing some. 

The other notable thing missing is the 30 hour epilogue The Journey from Persona 3: FES. And by that I mean "I didn't miss it at all." I understand why it's gone, because it links directly into the male protag's story and (while the female protag isn't canon at all) it would be weird to try and rewrite it for a girl. Also, it was awful. That's the point I'm trying to make. It was battles with no social links (the best part of the game) and it was super-hard. I don't miss it. Some people might, which is why I brought it up. I don't. 

Chillin' with Yukari. 

Graphically, I think this game looks much better than the previous iterations. While I did notice a bit of detail (artifacts, effects) had been toned down for some battles, the rest of the game looks loads better at the PSP's high resolution. The menus all change colors to a pink-red theme when you are a girl (vs the sky blue vs dark blue theme for the dude) which was a neat touch, and the battle sprites look better than ever. Widescreen is also appreciated, and overall I'd say it's the best looking of the bunch in every regard.

Music is also much better. While untouched from the male protag's side, it's all been remixed for the female. Everything from school to shops to battles has new, softer themes, all of which I actually liked a lot better. Don't get me wrong, some people like that battle song Mass Destruction, but there's only so may "BABYBABYBABYBABYBABY"s I can take before wanting to plug my ears. Point being: new songs are better, end of story. 

I honestly might even like the female battle song better than P4's "Reach out to the Truth." Ok, maybe not, but it's still good.

This is the definitive version of Persona 3, hands down. From the redesigned battles (which also take nods from P4 in how the "knocked down" system, which I neglected to mention before) to the new characters, music, and writing, this is the whole package. But the absolute best draw is the portability. Grinding through a 100 hour game I've technically beaten before is much easier when I can take it with me, or pick it up and play for a few in-game days and then go back to what I was doing. That, ultimately, might be the game's best new feature.

...nah, I'm lying, it's the female main character. But it's still great. If they'd just kept the sprite animations for cutscenes, this would absolutely be 100% the best Persona 3 experience you can get. Without them, it's still probably the best in this day and age, but that one omission is pretty glaring.

Regardless, I loved playing through it more than I did the first time, even when I knew the whole story. And that's saying something. For me, this is the PSP's killer app, and if you have a PSP you owe it to yourself to pick it up.

Five out of five stars. 

And it still has the Persona that looks like a dick. M rating: Justified. 

Various voxel engine ramblings

I have outed myself previously as not a big Minecraft fan, so take everything in this post with a grain of salt (as I obviously don't really understand that genre).

Anyways... recently this sub-reddit for open-source games was pointed out in our forums, and while it isn't really as lively as others (for example the Linux gaming one) it pointed out an new project called Iceball:

Pre-alpha Iceball screenshot

Seemingly made by people not happy with the recent commercialization of Ace of Spades, it's an all FOSS remake, those early development you can follow here (or on their Github page).

Now maybe the graphics are lacking on purpose (see disclaimer above), but I couldn't help to think: why for f***'s sake did they have to reinvent the wheel with their own engine instead of using for example Terasology:



Or Minetest, or the Ardorcraft API for that matter???

Ahh well, at least it made me aware that Terasology is still very much under development, and with its focus on DungeonKeeper & Dwarf-Fortress elements, it might actually become a game I would play (and doesn't make my eyes bleed :p ).

Speaking of which... the guy behind AgentKeeper released yet another nice video and graphics are constantly further improved as seen here.

DevCorner: Blender Game Engine

While Blender3D is one of the premier FOSS projects out there, its integral part the Blender Game Engine (BGE) is often belittled as not a serious game engine.

While the criticism is certainly not completely unfounded  and the integration of limited "non-programming" game code creation (via logic bricks) gives it a bit of a "RPG maker" image, it really is a quite interesting platform to work on it seems.
Ok, probably as of now the BGE is really more of a rapid game prototyping engine, but previous experience during the Yo, Frankie! project has actually shown that at least compared to some other well known FOSS engines, it is a serious contender (that Blender Foundation project originally started on Crystal Space, and after many problems was implemented in the BGE in a few weeks only).



So what makes it so interesting? Well for one there is the full integration with a creation tool (obviously Blender3D) so that getting your content into the game is only a matter of making it. No exporters or anything needed... it just works. Then of course there is the fully scriptability via Python, also integrated tightly. Basically you never have to exit Blender, and testing your game can be done right in the editor with one click (no compiling etc. necessary). Oh and did I mention the great physics capabilities via Bullet, also build right in?

In addition your created game will be immediately available on any platform the Blender Game player has been ported (all major desktop operating systems, with an Android port under development and a browser plugin, too). In addition you can choose to publish your game as a single .blend file, giving the users a direct access to all the source files of the game; a wet dream of any true FOSS game developer!
The tight integration with the GPLed Blender Player, has been a major source of discontent with the predominately propitiatory game developing users of the BGE however. Thus there now exists also a few options to encrypt your game and/or run it on an external engine that can be kept close source (but I will not go further into that here). 

You can find a lot of (sometimes really awesome looking: 1, 2, 3) game projects on the Blenderartists.org forum. Now as I said, most of it is sadly closed source with propitiatory artworks, but I also have the feeling that some simply don't know or care about the legal implications of their "freeware" game (which sadly shows that even many people who use a great FOSS tool, mostly care about the "free as in beer" aspect of it). 

One of the more interesting projects right now (which might or might not become a full FOSS game) can be seen in this video:



It shows the most recent work by Martinesh, who is basically BGE's resident game art guru. Two years ago we already featured previous awesome work by him, but sadly that Air Race project is by now canceled.
What he is now working on is however rather a show-case for the really nice new graphical features in the BGE which he and others are developing in the so called "candy" development branch (on his blog there are also more details and nice videos from some time ago).

Another cool recent project it the rewrite of the the logic bricks visual programming idea via nodal logic blocks called Hive.

While not completely integrated into Blender yet, you can already try it via an external editor (the created python code works fine inside Blender). There are also some tutorials and a documentation for it.
Since my programming skills also lack somewhat, I find that an interesting tool... however most likely it is rather a nice way to do some level scripting, than actually programming the real guts of a game with it.

So where can you get started with developing your own game using the BGE? Well, the blenderartists.org sub-forums are always helpful, with some nice beginners video tutorials linked here, here, here and here ;)
There are even some books available (this one in particular is quite recent, which is a plus given the fast development of Blender3D) and there is of course the official Blender documentation.
Oh and a good source of content is (besides our friends opengameart.org of course) Blender Swap (nice interview with one of the creators here).

If you have further questions please comment below or ask over at blenderartists.org!

Updates from AgentKeeper

I mentioned this nice new project that appeared on our forums some time ago already, and while the promised source-code isn't available as of yet, a new and quite good looking video was recently posted:



Now as you can see, it shares quite a lot of graphics with OpenDungeons, which is not completely dead either, but there is at least some discussion to "jump ship" as AgentKeeper is progressing much quicker (with it being a University supported project).
You can follow AgentKeepers progress here if you fancy some nice dungeon management simulator ;)

P.S.: Stay tuned for an new version of Red Eclipse early next week.