[Rud31]

Man I am excited about Persona Q maybe it will be the Etrian Odyssey I can finally enjoy. The grind is just too much in EO proper. Just hours and hours of grinding so that you can move to the next floor and hit another brick wall. It wasn't just that grinding took a long time, it was that the reward for grinding was so small. Level 6 to Level 7 felt like a maybe 5% jump. It was way way to incremental and I would get burnt out on not being able to move forward because moving forward would wipe my party, and my other option was sit there and grind for another two hours.

I got things to do man!

There are a bunch of trailers out for this right now. Guess the VA for Margaret from P4AU is also in this. I do not like her take on Margaret. Completely bored lifeless reading from the page lines. The VA for P4G/P4 was trying to hide her fascination. I feel it the new VA is probably acting according to direction, but that direction is so off.

I think this is the last new release I'm buying this year. If I hate it will be happy to sell it to an SBer that would be interested.
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My Hawt Blog Vita Games

THERE ARE DEFINITELY WORSE VIDEO GAME PODCASTS

[Ni Go Zero Ichi]

I find the voice direction for Atlus games (usually done by Valerie Arem, whose husband and work partner Keith I believe does recordings for Call of Duty) to be kinda iffy in general, and when it's good it's usually thanks to the actors themselves or the script localization, rather than the direction.

A lot of the voice work in their games suffers from that thing where it's way too obvious that the actors are reading the script to themselves in an empty room, rather than conversing (or pretending to converse) with another human being. In any dialogue-heavy Atlus game you can practically make a drinking game out of the number of times an actor delivers a line where their tone or emphasis makes it obvious that they were not shown the line (let alone the entire conversation) preceding their own.

There are a lot of other little voice direction missteps (i.e. inconsistent pronunciation of non-English names/terms) that could probably be pointed out if anyone were to bother taking notes. (I'm playing through P4G right now so if anyone's curious I can try and do this.)
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Just another savage day on Planet Earth.

[Ni Go Zero Ichi]

Also the only Persona games I've played are P3P and P4G, so now I'm kind of curious to know which characters have actually kept the same VAs between all the various remakes and spinoffs of each game?
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Just another savage day on Planet Earth.

[Rud31]

for P4: Chie and Teddie have a different VA for P4 than everything else.
Igor I think just recently changed in P4AU.
same for Margaret.

Not 100% on any of P3.
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My Hawt Blog Vita Games

THERE ARE DEFINITELY WORSE VIDEO GAME PODCASTS

[Ronnoc]

[A New Duck]

I really want to play this, and I really want to spend less $40 or less on it.

Will probably be the last new game I buy until Persona 5 (as of now the last new game I bought was Dark Souls II).
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3DS/PokéMagic Friendz Code: 1289-8272-6032

[BenoitRen]

[Deets]

I got the JP version of this back in June or whenever it came out, played about 6 or 7 hours to finish the first strata, sat through an incredibly long series of cutscenes in which the P4/P3 characters interacted with each other in various sorta amusing ways, and haven't touched it since. It's Etrian Odyssey + Persona characters/demon fusing and... I dunno, I thought I'd find it more interesting than I do, but the combat feels pokier than EO's, even with battle animations turned off, and the whole thing feels weirdly laborious. I've definitely looked at the icon on the home screen and thought "yeah, maybe I should get back to that," but it hasn't happened yet. Maybe once you guys start playing it I'll get super fired up again

[Adilegian]

This almost makes me want to get a 3DS. I haven't read anything suggesting so, but has anyone heard about the possibility of a console port?
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[Ni Go Zero Ichi]

Seems very unlikely since one of the core mechanics is mapping out dungeons on the touchscreen.

Adi you should have a 3DS anyway! You can finally tell us exactly how MGS3D compares to every other version of the game, and SMT IV is a really great introduction to the "core" SMT franchise if you've mostly been playing Persona. There are some little eShop curiosities I bet you'd like too.
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Just another savage day on Planet Earth.

[Tokyo Rude]

Smt4 has a 5 hour story in an 80 hour game.

[CONSUME_PRODUCTS]

great isn't it

[Ni Go Zero Ichi]

Oh Rudie sometimes your taste in games is incomprehensible to me
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Just another savage day on Planet Earth.

[misadventurous]

sounds like a proper shin megaten to me

[Rud31]

[Ronnoc]

Rudie spitting truth itt

[misadventurous]

the early part of etrian odyssey games is really, really nasty and probably the hardest to deal with. but in both eo1 and 3 (the ones ive played) it smoothed out by the end of the first stratum. gets way too easy, honestly. its all about how you build your party and using their skills a lot. and farmers! chop/take/mine are the keys to financial success.

rudie i am totally with you on rpgs being too long/nocturne not appealing to everyone. i followed nocturne to the end but it's because im a weird and enjoyed shit like looking up fusion charts and getting all my skills on my demons just right. i also felt like it was aesthetically compelling enough to drag me all the way through. i guess what im saying is that smt4 might appeal to me, even if it didnt appeal to you.

persona q has a nice title/box font. very scooby doo. also stylish menus, as per the persona standard.
i dont know if i want to play a persona/etrian crossover that lacks much of what i liked about either of those though.

[CONSUME_PRODUCTS]

yeah aesthetically nocturne is possibly my favourite vidcon & i really dig how oppressive & atmospheric it is

i'm curious re: persona q because i feel exactly the same as rudie re: etrian & feel like persona 3/4 have way too many hours of non-union voice actors and honourifics but if they met in the middle...

[Ni Go Zero Ichi]

It should be noted that a massive portion of the "story" in SMT IV is contained in optional NPC dialogues/sidequests. If Rudie's just talking about the main plotline then that makes sense, but if you're actually interested in experiencing the full extent of the game's plot and backstory there's a fairly huge volume of content that you actually have to go looking for. I'll admit though that it can be a bit drawn out, especially in the early going - which might be why I've found the prospect of starting a New Game+ especially daunting. But I haven't played a single Atlus game which this criticism couldn't be leveled at.

I agree about not really caring for games that are super long - like a 60-80 hour minimum is some standard that all RPGs are now seemingly expected to meet - but this bothers me a lot less when it comes to handhelds. That's exactly why I seriously doubt I'll ever play a SMT game on a home console.
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Just another savage day on Planet Earth.

[Dark Age Iron Savior]

people like different things, wasting of time is relative. I don't think I could deal with the abstracted socializing of P3/4 despite really wanting know more about the music/gameplay design, but I'm pretty sure I'd sit through a billion pointless random battles to see whatever inane ten word comment a random demon NPC has to say on the other side of a dungeon in a mainstream SMT game.

Rudie I don't suppose you've had a chance to try Etrian Odyssey Untold? What with the fleshed out Story Mode and the tweaked gameplay.

[BenoitRen]

The second floor of Etrian Odyssey games can be brutal, but you still should be able to hold out for a couple battles before retreating and trying again. After that the subsequent walls aren't quite so high, provided you explore and do the quests, which let you build up EXP, monster drops, and money. Then you get the best equipment available and try to go deeper. It really is as simple as that, and I haven't had much of a problem.
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