My 10 All-Time Favorite Videogame RPGs

It’s been a while since I last sought the time to write, and I don’t want to keep disappointing my few readers (whoever they are) with lame placeholder posts. So, after a month-long slump of productivity, I’m now going to churn out something not-so smart, but fun anyway.

This post is about my top 10 Videogame Role Playing Games (RPG). I’m not going to discuss what makes a videogame an RPG, so if you’re interested in that, read the wikipedia entry. If you want to know what videogames I am qualifying as RPG, go to rpgamer and you’ll find that all games I included in this list are archived there. Just so we don’t split hairs over the definition, okay?

Btw, this is in any order of preference, because I’m too fickle to decide which one I like over the other.

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Persona 4

Guys, dust off your PlayStation 2’s. Tomorrow, Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 is coming to town!

Forget your PSP and Xbox 360! All you need is a PS2 and a Persona 4 to tide you over in the entire holiday season. Who says PS2 is dead?

Persona 4 (P4 henceforth) is the spiritual successor of Persona 3 (P3) in more than just the namesake. If you don’t know what that means, I’ll draw the Final Fantasy games for analogy. Persona 2 and 3 have nothing much in common the same way as Final Fantasy V and VI are radically different games. P4, on the other hand, is to P3 what Final Fantasy VII is to VI (though I may say P4 > P3, while FFVII < FFVI); sure, the sequels have stories, characters and settings different to their prior games, but they play alike.

In most cases, I don’t like it when sequels of a game are not much different to their forerunners. P4 is an exception to me because P3 is a darn good game anyway, and I’ve never tire of it - even if it took me 90+ hours to finish P3 I clamored for more. If you’ve missed the P3 boat though, fret not, because you’re every bit as eligible to like P4 as those who are already veteran players of the series.

P4 draws itself apart from other role-playing games by being role-playing to the core. That may sound like juju-PR talk to some, but believe me, P4 (and P3) immerses you in ways that can only be wishful thinking for other games: what else lets you play a high school student who actually has to study, take exams, join clubs, befriend classmates and teachers, all while saving the world? And if you’re thinking, “Well gosh, that’s a lot of stuff. I bet it gets really crazy!” trust me, it does. Saving the world also gets frighteningly hard because the in-game battles will wipe you out if you just sit back and mash a button thinking the game will play itself this way. Without strategizing, and especially without exposing your opponents’ weaknesses, you won’t go far.

So go get Persona 4. It’s fun, challenging, and it tells a gripping tale too. Watch the opening video and gawk at the art style.

 EDIT: Okay, there was a mistake. I posted Persona 3: FES’s opening video. You can see that too if you like, because it also has a great art style. Here’s the real stuff:

And now here are some spoiler-free bullet points of stuff P4 improves from P3:

• Befriending people feels less of a chore now because your skills also increase while your relationships become stronger.
• Also, there are times when someone else will tag along with the person you’re hanging out with, making the interactions livelier.
•  The spells of the Shin Megami Tensei games always have names that nobody can memorize. They’re not called by simple names like “fire” or “ice”; they’re called “agi” or “bufu”. P4 is the first game of the series where, even when battling, you can read the spells’ description to know what they do. I’m really really really really really really really really glad that this game finally allows that. I don’t know why it took so long for the game’s developers to realize that it’s so hard to remember the spells - who the hell knows what Rakakuja does?
• Unlike P3, where you only have direct control of the main character, in P4 you have direct control of every member of your party.
• There are now five skills to develop: Understanding, Knowledge, Courage, Diligence, and Expression. Yikes!

Suckered In

Hunger have begun to come back to me few days after I whined about its absence. Although I still haven’t been as much of a pig as I used to - a pig who manages not to be that fat, oy - I’ve feasted on curry last wednesday and on pizza yesterday. And that felt fine.

I also had a visit on the bookstore yesterday, and I opened up to two other customers and I had a swell time speaking with them. I also found F Scott Fitzgerald’s Great Gatsby. Oh, rapture! This is after searching for it over every major branches of all bookstores of Philippines. So I am waiting to be inspired again, be at the peak of whatever little prowess I have with writing, and compose numerous posts about different topics.

Hopes of that are dashed thanks to the latest time-sucking, productivity-killing Web application.

Plurk. It’s the new twitter. In fact, legend has it that twitter is made for plurk’s downtimes. Plurk is everything twitter has been, but made a lot more, because every plurk - what you post when you write a message - becomes a mini-message board. It’s such a romp, that I’ve been spending hours just using it. God help me. 

So yeah, if you also have a plurk, do add me up. My url is here. Now all I need is to find the will to update my blog more often.

Jaded

Adobe Flash, Photoshop and Illustrator are all my perpetual sources of frustration, and I don’t think I’ve ever felt as exasperated with all 3 of them as I have this week.

They seem more determined to give me a crap art than a picturesque one. 

I’m not saying that I’m an expert in any of the 3, but I’d like to think that I’m capable of doing many things with each, let alone combined. And since I do have a good control of the Pen Tool (you’ll find that an achievement if you’ve ever tried using that bastard) I think I have what it takes to create lively illustrations. However, I have my biases for what I think are lively illustrations – I lean toward a mix of funky professional street art with a tinge of Chinese painting, plus a stylistic use of lights and a conscientious reduction of palettes. What really gets my goat is how limited the 3 programs are when creating artworks like that, or heck, anything that feels more hand-drawn than digital. Just this morning, I tried drawing a samurai (draw, samurai! Get it? Hilarious!!!) by using Illustrator. I wanted him to look like a Chinese painting. Instead, he ended up looking more like an engraving done by an 8-year-old. Naturally, I trashed that work, and settled with making a digital looking stuff, which, as I later realized, required the least effort… 

Wait, what?! Is that why these so-called “digital arts” are in the rage, and is it just me, or are they becoming the most generic sight ever? I’m weary of seeing the humdrum and formulaic thing adorning the billboards. How many times are we going to see the same circles, stripes, vertigos, twirls, ink splats, angel wings, gothic crosses, tribal tattoos and boxes to “retro” and “grunge” everything up? So, I’ve done all these today, and learned how easy they are to make. Could it be that these techniques are abused speak less of their artistic merits and more of current designers’ attitudes? So what about creating a more painterly-looking art, or, heck, just something with more personality and originality? Why don’t I see them? Have our designers run out of ideas, or are their skills in Illustrator mediocre? Or is it likely that excessive use of Illustrator may lead to the loss of ideas? 

Gee, that isn’t much of a stretch. You know what Illustrator need? A command that will inspire people! CTRL+I to get Inspired, or CTRL+H to get High, or CTRL+FN+G to Find God.

Apollo Justice

I’m just done playing the demo of Apollo Justice, and already… already…

*tries to form coherent thoughts. Fails.* 

O-M-G.

See, I raved last year about Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (quick FYI - It’s a lawyer game series). I played part 1-3 so many times I have memorized a few lines of their characters. You know, just like watching your favorite movie multiple times.

So Apollo Justice is supposed to be part 4 of the series, except a new protagonist - Apollo Justice - supplants the predecessor’s. But don’t worry, for the kindred souls who have played Phoenix Wright and loved him, you’ll still see him in this game.

Except, will you look at him? What happened?!

No, please DO NOT ATTEMPT TO ANSWER THAT QUESTION! I MUST FIND OUT MYSELF! February 19 couldn’t come sooner!

Anyway, you can play the demo here and judge (heh) accordingly. The bottom screen is supposed to be the DS’s touch screen, so you click your mouse on that screen in order to do anything.

Adobe Flash CS3 Impressions

Resurrection - Common

Allow me to tell you beforehand that I'm no expert of Macromedia (now Adobe) Flash; I've only started using this application three days ago, so I don't claim my experiences as basis for facts. Also, if you don't know what Flash is, please google/wiki it up.

People wondering why Flash's name has changed from Macromedia to Adobe, here's what happened: On December 2005, Adobe acquired Macromedia, therefore the rename; also, every Macromedia products are now included in the latest Creative Suite (currently CS3).

I've worked with Flash 8 and Flash CS3, and as expected, I saw a few significant changes, some good, some bad. Take the interface. I don't know if this is a result of the merger, but most of the tools in the Flash now appear in the same way as those from other Adobe softwares (such as Photoshop or Illustrator). The new look is clearly done to streamline all CS3's applications, but it may confuse those who's become very efficient with the previous interfaces (although I imagine that there are ways of switching to classic views, so it's probably just a matter of personal idiosyncrasies/preferences).

I'm most happy with the changes done to Flash's pen tool. There's no other way of saying this, but the pen tool from Flash 8 sucks. Basically, pen tool is used to create Bezier curves. The problem is that Flash 8's pen tool is ONLY capable of creating curves, so that pretty much discards conventional wisdom of what a real pen does. Speaking for myself, I like using Illustrator's/Photoshop's pen tool to create digital vector arts. But given the limited capabilities, I can only create irregular curves with Flash 8's pen; I cannot create irregular shapes with unpredictable changes in contours.

Now for the good news: Flash's CS3's pen tool has been modified to work the same way as Illustrator's, and that greatly eases drawing of irregular shapes. This is quite hard to explain without visual aids, but imagine this: I want to draw a number "2". In the previous version, I can't do that with the pen tool alone: I have to draw a reversed "S", then adjust the base into a horizontal line by using the subselection tool (a very complicated process, if I may add). With Flash CS3, by adjusting the two magnetic points (they're points that force curves, which can be modified or removed with CS3's pen) irregular shapes can be done easily with just the pen. While it may not be quite as efficient as Photoshop's pen tool (i.e. the line is immediately drawn, unlike in Photoshop where the pen only makes a path and what's done with it is exactly up to the user), the upgrade saves a lot of time and trouble. As someone who loves to draw vector arts* , it's a blessing.

In fact, with the help of the new pen tool, I have drawn a vector art of Lucy Van Pelt: 

*I've drawn Van Gogh's Starry Night with just the pen tool.