Corpse Party

The Short

Pros
- Horrific, graphic Japanese horror game on PSP
- Extremely unsettling to the point of bringing on nausea
- Fantastic sound design
- Cutscene/drawn art assets are appropriately disturbing
- 16-bit graphics conflicting with the awful events create a great mind-bending dissonance
- By majority, the translation is top notch, particularly when describing some of the grotesque ways characters die
- Story takes a while to get revved up, but has some fantastic and unpredictable twists

Cons
- Actual core game (a fusion of adventure mixed with visual novel and 16-bit RPGs) is horrendous
- Many of the deaths/different endings happen for completely unrelated or predictable reasons
- In addition, the minimal save points and lack of an ability to skip cutscenes or text at a reliable rate exacerbates every time you screw up
- 16-bit graphics look like they were made in RPG Maker 2000, because they were. Sprites in particular are fuzzy and not great
- Game feels less "scary" and more "unsettling," and the ending is downright depressing
- Weird "Japanisms," such as random panty shots and voyeuristic fan service feels out of place and gross
- Speaking of which, is Japan really filled with 16-year-olds with DD sized breasts? I doubt it.

Corpse Parties: About as fun as they sound. 

A Warning: Corpse Party features some really screwed up stuff, and those easily disturbed should be warned that there will be some creepy images in this review. There will also be very minor spoilers, but not enough to ruin your experience (play the game unspoiled. It's better that way). If you still want a review, go all the way down to where I say "Let's Cut The Crap" in bold, and just read from there.

The Long

I love 16-bit horror games. The dissonance that plays out between the cutsy, overexaggurated sprites of my childhood and the grotesque, horrible things that happens to them is just enough to set my hair on end. It's like somebody went into my past and took the games I find so much nostalgic comfort in and turned it against me. And, despite the obvious limitations of adhering to a style, I find that the limitations only make the blood and gore that much more horrific.

Enter Corpse Party, one of the handful of games I actually went out and bought a PSP for (another one being Persona 3 Portable). At first glance, Corpse Party looks like everything I want in my horror. Japanese (who are inarguably the masters of creep-out horror), pixelated, with crazy things happening all the time in messed up ways. Sold.

So after blitzing through Corpse Party and getting every single ending for every single chapter, I must love the game, right? Well...let's get to that.

Hello there. 

The story in Corpse Party is actually its biggest strength. A group of eight high school students (as well as a middle school aged younger sister and their teacher) all recite and participate in a ritual called "Sachiko Ever After," seeing as one of the students is being transferred and this ritual is supposed to show how they'll all be together. Shortly after everything goes wrong, and the group is transported to Heavenly Host Elementary school, an old school that was destroyed and their current school was built over. Trapped (usually in groups of two) and alone, the various characters must uncover the mystery of how they got there, what happened at Heavenly Host, and if it's ever even going to be possible to get home.

A common theme throughout the game is helplessness and despair, one that really hits home early on. It is explained very early that the groups of characters are in different planes of existence while in the school, meaning their present might be another group's past, etc, and there is frequently some bizarre carry-over between these multiple dimensions. This allows for the story to do some very clever set-ups and awful things to screw with the player's (and characters') minds. Finding or seeing something that might originally be believed to be a cheap scare gains further depth on other playthroughs, as you discover exactly what happened. Piecing the bits together is deliciously satisfying as well as creepy, pushing you to continue forward to see what is going to happen all the way to the end.

If you are scared of ghosts, this is not the game for you. 

This is good, because it takes the story's main plot a while to actually kick in. The biggest plot reveal happens at the end of Chapter 4, and Chapter 5 feels like an elongated expository cutscene with how much stuff is just shoved into you to better explain the reveal (remember: this game only has five chapters total). Part of me wants to critique the pacing as being "weak" (and throwing a truckload of red herrings at you and the characters), but the other part of me feels this ties in well with the helplessness mentioned before. There is no obvious way out, and you and the characters are just trying to survive without going insane, starving to death, or whatever. This makes the fact that next to nothing is accomplished (in terms of the overarching plot, mind) in the first three chapters seem acceptable to me. It made me upset at how I was clearly not progressing in saving these characters, which is exactly what the game wanted. So, kudos to them for that, though I will admit I almost lost interested when I finished Chapter 3 and felt like I was going nowhere.

I will also say the writers have some serious guts in how they treat their characters. By that I mean George R. R. Martin would cringe at some of the completely horrible things Corpse Party does to its group of high schoolers. Main characters will die frequently, but that isn't the worst of it. Those who die do so often in horrific, grotesque ways, but what really hurts is the aftermath it has on the living charters  As famed author Patrick Rothfuss said, "There's a lot worse things I can do to a character than kill them." Corpse Party has this and in spades. And while the deaths (for the "Wrong End" endings) are absolutely unsettling in nearly every way, at least then you can mark it as closure so you don't have to keep torturing these poor kids any longer (though even death isn't an escape, as revealed in an early portion of the game. This game really hates its characters).

If you want to tell yourself they're talking about hair, that's fine. I won't feel bad for you.
...it isn't hair. 

I must also make note on how well it uses text without visuals to make things unsettling. While several bad endings have some nice, full screen art to accompany the awful thing that has happened, most tend to avoid showing the exact moment of horror. Instead, the game uses vivid text descriptions and sound effect and then lets your imagination do the rest. This is an excellent use of both overcoming the obvious graphical limitations of the game, as well as that ancient horror tactic that what the viewer things is always far worse than anything you can display on screen. Corpse Party takes this to the extreme, to a point where I actually had to look away from the screen rather than read and listen to the descriptions of what was going on, and I actually felt sick during several instances. As a relatively spoiler free example: if the notion of a possessed girl, fully aware of her surroundings but unable to control her movements, being forced to swallow a pair of scissors complete with vivid textual descriptions of the damage is too much for you, you should not play Corpse Party.

All this being said, it does seem to end quite abruptly, and good grief is it depressing. While I love fiction that impacts me emotionally (usually through grief or stress), Corpse Party might go to far, especially for those who get heavily invested in characters. Very little positive happens here, all the way down to the downright Prozac-necessary ending, so unless you are really good at shaking stuff off, Corpse Party might hit you pretty hard. 

This game does not shy away from disturbing imagery. 

So now that I've praised the story, let's talk about where Corpse Party completely and utterly falls flat: it's absolutely abismal gameplay experience. 

Corpse Party is a fusion of two genres: adventure games and visual novels, and all this is wrapped in a 16-bit, JRPG graphical wrapper. Don't let the fact that characters have hit points and are are small sprites moving on a grid-based map fool you, there are no RPG elements in this game, and in fact the hit points only really apply in two situations I can think of during the game, and even then it boils down to one or two hits and you die. All other "attacks" that happen are on a strict fail/pass basis, rendering all that moot. 

The problem arises with how the adventure game elements come into play, or rather, how they completely suck. A regular chapter of Corpse Party consists of a few very simple objectives: find random items, use random items in ways that make sense, use random items in ways that make no sense, and answer dialogue options that tend to only matter about 20% of the time. While doing this you'll be wandering around the school, frequently in no actual danger at all (sorry to break the illusion, but this game has very distinct "Game Over" screens, meaning you can only screw up if the game lets you), trying to know where the hell to go next or what item you need. It's maddening. 

It's nothing. I'm sure everything will turn out ok, bro. 

Rather than try to explain it with hypotheticals, let me give you the story of my experience with Chapter 1, which very nearly caused me to quit the game completely. I knew going in this game tends to do stupid crap like give you bad endings if you fail to read every random newspaper article lying around or whatever, so I took great care in seeking out everything I could find. After sitting through several long cutscenes I finally got to a point of the game where my character was locked in a room and hunted by a monster. I knew what items where in the room to solve the puzzle, but the game wouldn't let me pick up one of the items before I tested that the other item I had didn't work. All while being chased by a monster who randomly threw up barriers in my way only after I'd stepped on the spot to try to escape. In a very small, grid-based, enclosed room. Great. 

Needless to say, I died several times, and every time I died I had to go back to a savepoint and watch the entire slow cutscene that preceded the chase scene because the game has no way to fast-skip stuff you've already seen (again, I'm going to blame this on the fact it's made in RPG Maker). So after about twenty minutes trapped in the same room, I finally figured out where the creature spawned the random, invisible blocks, and was able to figure out the arbitrary order the game wanted me to approach the room and get the items needed. It as a miserable experience, and any immersive horror I'd felt was yanked away as the game's busted up mechanics came to light.

Yes, run from the bad gameplay! RUN!

But that isn't even the worst of it. I finally got to the end and, to my surprise, got a "Wrong End." I couldn't understand: I'd explored everything! I'd gone back and checked every inch as I progressed! Well, it turns out I screwed up. After a cutscene where the game very clearly directs you to go forward, you are instead supposed to go back. And not only back, but into a completely random stairwell (which I'd checked before and found nothing) a distance behind. Now, after the cutscene was over, a key had magically appeared. And I'll point out, the cutscene I mentioned had nothing to do with the key or the doorway, no hits whatsoever. It was just there, now. 

This key opens another random door that has no indication of unlocking. What does this do? Grants another brief cutscene that more or less has nothing to do with the bad ending I got. I should also point out this happens very early on in the game (and I didn't have a save before it, because the game has extremely limited save spots), so I had to watch the entire beginning of the chapter again and replay the whole thing with no text skip. 

Ahem. Anyway, after all this, what happened? I got a slightly elongated sequence near the end, and then the actual ending only changed very, very slightly. Without any spoilers, the big awful thing still happened, it just didn't have the additional secondary awful thing that happened during my "Bad End" where I failed to watch the completely unrelated cutscene in the completely unrelated room. Awesome game design, guys. 

It seems you're all tied up at the moment. 

While I will admit this sort of blatant bad game design does soften up a bit in later chapters, it never goes away completely. There's a scene where you emerge from a door to find an enemy, the second one in the whole game. Previously, you couldn't run out of the door to escape (see my rant above); you just had to learn how to run. After dying countless times to this guy (who also spawns invisible walls) I found out you are supposed to go back into the door, and when you go out a second time he spawns further away (with no walls) and you can get away. Again, no explanation.

And don't even get me started about the items that "save you" from one death, but if that happens it might as well game over, because you have to keep that item to the end of the level to get the good ending (and progress to the next chapter). So why even have it? Just let me die; I end up having to reload a save if it gets used anyway. 

This total lack of direction is where Corpse Party failed me, so much so I gave up and used a spoiler-free guide for the last three chapters. I am not ashamed in saying that, and I think I had a much better experience because of it. It was getting to a point that the game wasn't scary anymore, because all I could see was the broken mechanics, and I was constantly backtracking over the whole huge school after every cutscene to be certain I didn't miss something and screwed up like I did in Chapter 1. And don't even get me started on the things you can look at that seem to do nothing, but if you trigger that unrelated, unhinted at "switch" then you're just doomed to get a bad ending. Seriously? How is this ok?

Me, before I got a guide. 

After I got a guide, I should point out, I actually enjoyed the game a lot more. While the ambient creepiness sort of diminished because I was following instructions, it was gone anyway after I realized there were only very specific ways you could die (despite numerous ways you could "fail"), so I don't count it as too big a loss. I recommend playing through Chapter 1 without a guide to experience how the game could have been, and after failing go to a guide and never go back. Trust me. You'll like it better this way.

Let me really quickly bring up another thing that kept ruining the game for me before talking about the graphics and sound: what I like to call "Japanisms." Now, I don't mind Japanese games. I have some friends who adore how the culture influences their games, and others that straight up hate it. I tend to just love the weirdness and not like the other less permissible bits, but Corpse Party is filled with plenty of the latter. Like...seriously? Is it really mandatory that we see panty shots of characters in key scenes that are supposed to be disturbing or plot-crucial? Is it necessary that all the girls have the chests of porn stars (except the 14-year-old, who acts like she's 5 to fill the "little sister" role, and even she ends up taking off her underwear at one point in the game. Don't ask)? Do we really need a bath scene flashback? Now, I get the whole "it comes with the culture" argument the otaku will counter this with, but for me it really tore me out of the game and made me feel really uncomfortable. To be fair, it only happened maybe five times in total, but every time it did the game totally lost me (especially the time it happened during an extremely climactic story flashback scene. Like...seriously?). 

You stay classy, Japan. 

The graphics are a mixed bag. As I've mentioned before, I dig pixelated horror games, but something about Corpse Party's extremely low-rent presentation really bothered me. The game, despite being remade from its original RPG Maker 2k PC release, still looked fuzzy and super low-def on the PSP screen. The backgrounds were ok (though they get recycled frequently thanks to the game's "multiple dimensions, same place" trick) and actually pretty good looking at times, but the character sprites were fuzzy and jittery in their animations (probably a weakness of RPG Maker). All the UI stuff, from menus to the weird "HP" levels and everything looked straight out of old RPG Maker games (this coming from the guy who made stuff on RPG Maker) and as such it feels like an extremely low-rent indie game. They also are in sharp contrast with the cutscenes, which were added to the game after the PC release, but often the sprites don't match the in-game characters (or the scene/gore will be much more graphic in the pixelated version but quite toned down for the drawn cutscene). While I usually think this sort of thing works, Corpse Party doesn't look good. And considering how much wandering you'll do, that's a bad thing.

Music, on the other hand, is excellent. The game uses silence quite well, and despite the soundtrack perhaps feeling a bit too "upbeat," I'm pretty sure they did that to lure you into a false sense of security. I liked all the songs (and the fact they all variate on a similar theme, which is clever) and they were certainly catchy and memorable. The sound effects, as mentioned above, are a downright standout, and the Japanese voice acting is also quite good despite it being done by a small team. Sound design gets an A, at least. 

I still can't listen to this song without feeling uneasy. 

Let's Cut the Crap and get on to what's really important, the big, elephant in the room question: Is Corpse Party scary? And to that I say...maybe?

I can say this: it is certainly unnerving, disturbing, depressing, and it sticks with you long after you finish. I am a hardened horror buff and I fully intended to blitz this game over the course of five nights (since playing at night is the best way to play horror games), but after the second chapter I found I started feeling uneasy playing the game, even with a guide. I played Chapter 3 during the day, and after that actually had to take a break for almost a week before continuing and beating Chapter 4. Chapter 4 left me so unhinged I didn't finish the game for another week and a half, neglecting the bad ends (which are by far the most messed up parts of the game) and just wanting to get it over with. I later went back and got the rest of Chapter 5's ends (and did most of the "extra chapters," which tell the story of other groups of students trapped in the same school), but I didn't have the heart (or guts) to go back again. So on that front? Yeah, it worked. 

I don't feel Corpse Party has the atmosphere it thinks it has, however. Games like Silent Hill and Amnesia prey on you during the quiet times, the slow times when you are walking around, alone and in the dark and in complete silence, long shadows creeping you out and the atmosphere of not what is there, but what might be there causing your own head to play games with you. Corpse Party, either because its awful gameplay shatters any illusion of immersion, or simply because of the way it is designed, doesn't really have this atmosphere of dread. What it does have, however, is horrible things happening in completely, mercilessly horrible ways to otherwise good people, and the implications of many of these things are more than enough to disturb. So is it scary? I can't say (it's an arbitrary thing anyway). But I will say I will not be playing it again, and not because of the gameplay, but because of what it did to my head. 

Nobody is safe. Not even you. 

As it stands, Corpse Party is a very specific game created for a very specific group of people. Some people absolutely love it, and are willing to overlook it's massive gameplay flaws in leu of the visual-novel style horror story awaiting. Others, like myself, will only barely stomach the game (and almost give up on it) and still somehow push through with a guide or otherwise and find the great horror game that is buried underneath all the garbage. And many will play the first chapter, realize this isn't the game for them, and never play it again.

At $20, that makes Corpse Party a hard sell if you are on the fence. When it was on sale for $10 that seemed much more reasonable for a risky plunge, but still be aware of what you are getting into. I'm a massive fan of this genre, and Corpse Party pushed my gaming patience to its absolute limit. Which makes me sad because, again, I think there's a fantastic scary story buried under here. It's just buried a little too deep for most. 

That being said, it accomplished exactly what it was designed to do: unnerved me completely and left an unforgettable impression. If that alone seems enticing enough, then grab your PSP, jump over to Gamefaqs (the one guide that says it isn't spoiler free actually is, so you should be ok. It's also a better guide, FYI), and get yourself on over to Heavenly Host Elementary. However, if more than once during this review you've said "this is not for me," you should probably avoid it.

Three out of five stars, though again: if you aren't into these kind of things (and don't have the patience of a saint), then knock one or two stars off the score.

Ain't no party like a Corpse Party

Various follow-ups

First off as a rather fast follow up on the last post:

• New version of Alien Arena out, boasting a 300% increase in render speed
• Small, bugfix release of War§ow out now

Otherwise, as previously mentioned, Garage Games has now also released their 2D game framework under the MIT license:



Their 3D game engine also saw some nice updates lately, however sadly their crowd funding push to port Torque3D to Linux fell (not totally unsurprisingly) short of their 30,000$ mark (with about 10,000$ pledged).

Quick FPS updates

I will keep it short today: Unvanquished Alpha12 released:

New rim-lighting options on alien scum

New releases of Red Eclipse and Alien Arena still pending, but really close (tm), not much news from War§ow either except that they are looking for a .deb package manager.

Xonotic's development seems to have slowed down a bit, but here is a nice road map of what is to come, and some current fragging fun can be seen here.

Oh and the developers of the Octaforge engine estimated that the first release might be this month :)

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.