Tag: Opinion

Persona 3 Reload First Impressions

This is going to be far from a full review,but after spending about 20 hours with it I think it’s a good time to talk about how I feel about this one.

First,I loved the original and still count Persona 3 FEZ as one of the best JRPGs of all time. Reload obviously had a lot to live up to.

Now for starters the graphics look great. Not the best obviously but for a remaster of a game so old I didn’t expect some sort of ground breaking graphics simply an upgrade and it is a massive one.

Classroom shenanigans return

The gameplay is of course where this game shines,and the day to day activities of increasing social links or stats like courage, intelligence or charm. This is a very addictive loop,if you allow yourself to connect with the characters themselves. The old couple in the book store aren’t very interesting to me but my friend loves them because they remind them of their grandparents. On the other hand, getting to know the classmate dating a teacher is great to me not because I relate to him but simply because of how nonchalant the whole thing seems to be.

Always find the weak spot

Combat is fluid, tho not always very difficult unless you are playing on the harder difficulty setting where hitting weak spots and using Buffs/Debuffs along with negative status effects becomes very important. One of the first bosses was stomping me into the ground until I managed to poison them. A few rounds later they were dead.

This is where things get interesting tho, many people rush through the tower simply to get back to the story. Others ignore much of the side story stuff for the tower. I love that because it means the game has something for most people,or like me I will lose close to 100 hours trying to do it all. With the game on gamepass, there isn’t a good reason not to try this one out. Best wishes,and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Twisted Metal season 1

So I know I am a little late here but I FINALLY got around to watching the Twisted Metal show on Peacock. I have to be honest much of what they chose to do I didn’t really expect but I still loved it.

The story is about John Doe, who drives his car Evelyn on delivery jobs. This is known as being a Milk Man. Interestingly in the Games John Doe drives the car Roadkill, but this show takes place prior to the Twisted Metal tournament. The object of season one is to get from New San Francisco to New Chicago and back.

On his journey he will meet a ton of people and groups,some from the game tho many of them have interesting takes to them. For example Mr. Slam earned his name not because he drives a piece of heavy machinery and slams people but because slams his massive dick into fruit as a show for the people in his bar.

There is also an original character named Quiet,and she makes a nice counter character to John because he never shuts up. I really enjoy Stephanie Beatriz alongside Anthony Mackie as they have great chemistry.

Another character that surprised me with how well he was done was Sweet Tooth. Physically he is played by wrestler Samoa Joe and this is done great,his mannerisms truly come off as insane. Will Arnett does an equally great job in the voice. And I truly enjoy that he isn’t psycho just to be psycho,if you pay attention his actions actually make a weird sort of sense.

All in all the 10 episodes are all worth watching and with Season 2 just confirmed to be in the works, it’s a great time to check this out if you haven’t already. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Loot River PS5 Review

Loot River from Supershot and Straka.studio is a new rougelike that combines the fun and difficulty of one more run and Tetris. I originally played this on Xbox Gamepass. They were awesome enough to toss me a copy of the PS5 release full of new updates, such as the level editor.

Sometimes it’s best to move and lure enemies

The game style is pretty nice, you start each run at level 1 and collect different currency that can be used to unlock different weapons to be used on runs. The game is also quite honest that you need to spend these before you die, because if you don’t you lose it all. Luckily the game is quite forgiving and let’s you spend part of it to unlock weapons at a time and you don’t need to save it all up at once.

The combat is simple to get into,and you can easily take advantage of the Tetris like aspect to move in,hit an enemy and move out or even simply lure a weaker enemy onto your raft. This is good because like many that are simple to get into,mastering it is a monumental task.

You do have to ask tho if this is worth undertaking,and the answer is yes. While the story leaves much to be desired in my opinion,the fun I had playing the game was well worth it. The sound is nice,and the accessibility options were fantastic. If you want to see all the possible ways a section can move,there’s an opinion for that. Want to make countering easier, there is an option for that. Want to make the game as hard as possible,they have you set. The base difficulty however all on its own is fair but challenging.

Bosses are a challenge,but in the best way.

Graphically the game won’t be winning any awards,but I can’t think of a better way to attempt this great idea of a hybrid game. And while it won’t win any awards it does look good,and the sound really lends to the gritty feel of certain levels. Without a doubt this game is a 8/10. For the $25 dollar price point it is worth picking this up for rouge like fans. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Born of Bread PS5 Review

Dear villagers recently released,and hooked me up with a review copy of the adventure RPG ,Born of Bread. To say I had high hopes for this game would be an understatement. If you have ever seen or played Paper Mario, you know what to expect graphically or even from the gameplay.

To those that don’t want to know anymore but want to know if the game is any good, just go pick this game up. It’s amazing,and worth every penny of it. For those that want more details (spoiler free) keep reading.

If you are familiar with the paper graphics of games like Paper Mario,that’s what you will get here. This game is beautiful. You will not be disappointed here.

The gameplay is also typical RPG here. It’s all turn based, with button timing for hits and defense as attacks happen. Some of them are as simple as hitting the button when it gets into the green zone, others are more of the guitar hero button commands of hit this button when they pass this section. It functions very well and there is enough variety to keep it interesting without becoming repetitive.

The story, is also fantastic. You start with a chief that attempts to make a special loaf of bread for the queen,and he turns out to be a real boy. This happens as an evil is released into the world and it comes to you to stop them,mostly because you wanted to save your “father” (he is more like a creator) from the queen that wrongly arrested him for blowing up part of the castle.

Leveling up is simple, you get experience,level up and you can choose one of three things to increase.

Health is self explanatory,and will is essentially your ability to use special attacks. Resolve is special abilities that are specific to a certain person and have very specific purposes such as healing or increasing your defense.

You can also choose a sort of points card that will lead to the ability to carry more items or equip more accessories for battle so to speak. Both are important and you can’t really choose wrong.

There is also a sort of hidden game of collecting sleeping lizards,and every 2 you find can be returned to a specific person and you will get SP that can be used to learn new attacks for your friends and completing a row will also give them a boost in their HP.

The game is a master class in how to recreate a gaming experience that people love while making it your own. You can see the creators loved the Paper Mario series, but they didn’t try to replicate it step by step. This leads me to my one real complaint. Each friend has an ability to use on the map to solve puzzles, but switching between characters requires going into the menu to do so,and when you have to do this multiple times it gets annoying. However if this is the biggest complaint for a game, that isn’t a bad thing and that is my only real complaint. The game is a great 9/10 and worth anyone buying. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Getting Started

Hey everyone, I know I’ve been a bit absent recently. The last few months I have been in school working towards getting my real estate license. This involved taking some classes in my state and having to pass a national and state exam.

Now I passed both in my first attempt,which I’m told isn’t always the case. (go me) The next step is finding what’s called a broker. Lucky for me this wasn’t an issue for me,and I actually lucked into one. I texted a friend from high school that’s an agent and asked her about my upcoming test,just for some advice. Next thing I know I have a broker and I am getting some amazing advice from the people at Keller Williams (KW) Not just one, everyone in the office from the receptionist Emily to their Tech person (also named Emily) to just random other agents.

Now comes the hardest part. Anything in life cost money. So while I try to save up the money at work I have also started a Gofund me in hopes others can help with some of the start up cost for licencing,MLS fees and so on and so forth. So please if you can share this if that’s all you can do or even just give $1 if that’s all you can do. Thanks in advance,and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

https://gofund.me/8c75819c

New Monster Friday: The Loch Ness Monster

Once again we are back with Monster Friday, and this time we are going to talk about The Loch Ness Monster, Nessie. Now before we go any further, I should acknowledge scientist have many times debunked Nessie’s very existence in a variety of ways. In fact aside from the Vox article above here is a clip from the Today Show. This isn’t to say I believe these articles simply they exist and can be used to start your debunking search.

The modern Loch Ness Monster story goes back over 80 years to what is known as “the surgeons photo.” It was published on 1934 when a doctor by the name of R. Kenneth Wilson sold a photo to the Daily Mail that became the face of Nessie for decades to come. It is 100% fake, and you can read an excellent article from PBS for all the small details, but essentially a man named Ian Wetherell convinced Dr. Wilson to help take the photograph and sell it as his own, and since he as a respected doctor nobody would really question it.

Surgeons Photo

One fake photo doesn’t prove the creature doesn’t exist however, even Alastair Boyd the man that managed to find everything that proved this photo was a hoax firmly believes in Nessie.

Possibly an Eel or snake

As for what Nessie is, many think of her as a plesiosaur, others as a giant eel or snake. In 2018 scientist conducted DNA surveys of Loch Ness and didn’t find any sign dinosaurs or giant sea creatures. Eels however are still a possibility as several species do live in the loch.

Seriously why did anyone think this wase real

If you enjoyed this weeks monster, please feel free to check out Friday Monster- Kraken or Monster Friday -Trotterhead/Trotterkopf for more of our Friday monster fun, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

My Thoughts on Remasters

Remasters are a surprisingly touchy subject for some people. Go into any comment section for any upcoming remaster, Tales of Symphonia, Baton Kaitos hell even the long awaited but amazing looking (yes I am bias as hell) Suikoden. You will quickly see comments about stop remastering and remaking games and make original things and IPs etc.

  Don’t get me wrong this isn’t an exclusive thing, plenty of people love them. There is nothing wrong with any of this,I actually agree we need to make new IP’s. We also need to keep games we love or even in the case of Baton Kaitos and I don’t understand why people enjoy it.

We have seen over 5 million games created,many simply cannot be played anymore.There are assorted reasons for this, arcade machines created by now defunct companies that you can’t get parts for, just as an example. Another example is they were online only games and the servers are simply shut down.

Remasters not only give a new generation a chance to play these games but also keep them alive instead of being lost to time. Just as importantly they give companies the chance to earn money to make new products with and even gauge interest in reviving old IPs. What better way to test the waters and see if a series needs to come back than see if people are still interested in the older games? Bring them back and if they sell well it may be safe to move forward with a sequel.

I understand both sides of the argument,but for me there is room for both new games and Remasters. In fact, I’d argue it doesn’t make sense from both a financial and a historical sense to ignore old titles people are still interested in. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

That 90’s Show Netflix Review

That 90’s show recently released on Netflix and as a huge fan of That 70’s show (and probably one of the 6 people on earth that enjoyed That 80’s Show) I was quite excited to see it. Admittedly I did not have much hope for it. The main cast was basically making cameos, Leia, Erik and Donna’s daughter, was essentially crashing with Red and Kitty and the new group of friends did not seem promising. In fact I watched it just to see Red and Kitty.

In fact I will die on the hill that Red and Kitty Foreman are the best part of That 90’s show,and possibly That 70’s show. This 10 episode run though was far better than I expected. They didn’t try to recapture the magic in a bottle from the original series, in fact if you pay attention it is very clear the original Point Place crew did not remain friends. I won’t go into details, but Kelsos son and Leia meet for the first time as the summer starts.

As the summer starts however and Leia is visiting you can tell there are some issues between Leia and Erik, not too different from Red and Erik despite the fact Erik is actually trying. She meets Gwen, the girl that lives next door where Donna used to live. They hit it off and after a couple days Leia wants to spend the summer, something Kitty is excited for,much to Reds dismay.

I won’t go on from here because I don’t want to spoil anything but we do get to see a new side of Red with this group of kids. A softer side in a way. This isn’t to say he isn’t the hard ass we know and love,but there are moments where you can see Red’s job as father figure is done and he embraces his role as grandfather. The show isn’t perfect, but in a lot of ways it gave me exactly what I wanted. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.