Getting Into Gaming

[Koury]

Quick minor Portal update.

She has made the correct party escort position submission decision. I expect her to be finished soon.

[Triaxx]

Actually,

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that Glados is supposed to be a woman, suspended upside down.

[RagingKrikkit]

That's not a spoiler, that's a disturbing design element.

[Maxios]

And foreshadowing at the sequel.

[Eakin]

If you're looking for a good PS2 RPG I would actually suggest Persona 4 over Kingdom Hearts or FF12. Although it starts a bit slow.

[Triscuitable]

If you're looking for a good PS2 RPG I would actually suggest Persona 4 over Kingdom Hearts or FF12. Although it starts a bit slow.

Play Persona 4 before you play Persona 3, or you may refuse to play 4 out of it not being as good. I think Persona 2 is the best, with Nyarlothotep and Hitler as bosses, and an overall insane plot that still makes sense.

[Terraoblivion]

Play Persona 4 before you play Persona 3, or you may refuse to play 4 out of it not being as good.

Persona 4 has awesome plot and characters in its own right and a lot of improvements outside the main plot, where it's pretty much an open question which is better. While the graphics are mostly the same, there are a lot of little touches making it look far more slick and stylish than either of the two PS2 versions of Persona 3, just like I think the music is substantially better. I feel in a good mood and immediately start singing along whenever I hear https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7EmdTZv6j0 or Reach Out to the Truth and I just don't do the same with Persona 3 music. I also personally found myself more engaged in the s. links in Persona 4 than I did with the ones in 3. And especially the gameplay is far better with most of the annoying aspects of 3 removed.

This is all pretty small, marginal improvements and both games are amazing and should be played. I just don't think Persona 3 is clearly better than 4, though it did have a couple major tearjerker scenes, 4 had Kanji and Naoto's stories. Playing either would be good and maybe playing both if you liked the first one you tried.

[Edge]

I'll throw my support in for both Persona 3 and Persona 4 due to the excellence of their characterisation. Just be aware that they're both very long games, relatively grindy, and can be quite difficult when it comes to boss fights if you don't know their gimmicks.

[Zevox]

Play Persona 4 before you play Persona 3, or you may refuse to play 4 out of it not being as good.

Odd statement. Up until Persona 3 Portable, my conclusion was that P4 was slightly better due to certain mechanical changes, principally the ability to control your companions directly in combat rather than just through general orders. P3P added that and a couple of other P4 improvements though, so from there they went back to being basically equal in my eyes. Because I sure as hell can't pick between them on the basis of the characters and stories.

Anyway though, I already recommended them back in my first post, but yeah, Persona 3 and 4 are all kinds of awesome and you should totally play them .

Zevox

[Domochevsky]

Play Persona 4 before you play Persona 3, or you may refuse to play 4 out of it not being as good. I think Persona 2 is the best, with Nyarlothotep and Hitler as bosses, and an overall insane plot that still makes sense.

It's the opposite actually, i find.
You should play P3 first and then P4, as P4 is better in every aspect. (Both mechanically and story-wise, being also a lot more upbeat in how it carries itself. P3 plays it more serious. And like TO said, the SLinks are more engaging as well. Especially for Kanji and Naoto. )

No matter how you slice it though, both games are on the recommended list, out of pure narrative and characterization. Gameplay-wise they're also interesting.

Topic unrelated but Persona 3 related:

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I find Aigis highly overrated. She seems to be pretty popular in japan, but i get nothing out of her. >_> So focusing The Answer of FES on her and her sister with even more grindy dungeons was a choice i just couldn't finish.

[Eakin]

Odd statement. Up until Persona 3 Portable, my conclusion was that P4 was slightly better due to certain mechanical changes, principally the ability to control your companions directly in combat rather than just through general orders. P3P added that and a couple of other P4 improvements though, so from there they went back to being basically equal in my eyes. Because I sure as hell can't pick between them on the basis of the characters and stories.

Anyway though, I already recommended them back in my first post, but yeah, Persona 3 and 4 are all kinds of awesome and you should totally play them .

Zevox

I played the first PS2 version of Persona 3, so I don't know what improvements from Persona 4 were retroactively applied to the remakes. But Persona 4, gameplay wise, was a huge step up from Persona 3 even if most of the changes were fairly minor tweaks. I think the story was better in 4 as well, murder mystery is a pretty underrepresented genre in RPGs

Still if I had to pick between the Kingdom Hearts series and the FF series on the PS2 I would take Final Fantasy in a heartbeat (no pun intended). But I liked both 10 and 12 so I may be in the minority.

[Ogremindes]

Play Persona 4 before you play Persona 3, or you may refuse to play 4 out of it not being as good. I think Persona 2 is the best, with Nyarlothotep and Hitler as bosses, and an overall insane plot that still makes sense.

I like P3 (particularly the FES version) better than P4. I also think P4 is the better game. P4 is far better balanced (and I don't mean easier), tells its story far more effectively, and gets rid of that stupid tiredness system (what, pray tell, was consuming HP and SP representing if you also need to be tired?).

I like the story, setting and general feel of P3 better. I also liked the lack of direct control of my allies (while direct control was optional in P4 and P3P I wasn't about to gimp myself by not using it).

[MeatShield#236]

Just throwing my support for Persona 3 and 4, though I've already recommended them earlier. I'm in the "4 was better the 3" camp, though I do think Mass Destruction is better than Reach out to the Truth.

[Terraoblivion]

If you guys like the visual and musical style of the Persona games and can get your hands on a DS I'd also recommend The World Ends With You. The game has some of the most impressive visual and musical design in the medium and some of the songs are quite amazing to just listen to. Calling, Three Minutes Clapping, Someday, Deja Vu, Long Dream, Hybrid and Give Me All Your Love are just my favorites, there are a lot more songs in this game and they're almost all great. They all also fit the atmosphere, style and plot of the game and don't seem gratuitous or shoehorned in like a lot of vocal tracks in video games often do. The story is similarly really good if not groundbreakingly innovative and the gameplay is unique and bizarre, but quite engaging once you get used to it.

Does require getting your hands on a DS, though.

[RagingKrikkit]

And foreshadowing at the sequel.

Curiously enough

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According to the developer commentary, that idea came out of them reusing the voice actress out of budget concerns.

[Triscuitable]

I forgot to specify that I do not care for Persona 3 or 4. I enjoyed Persona 3 more because of it's gimmick of the bizarre headshot-summons over Persona 4's "let's go into a television". Is Persona 4 better, gameplay-wise? Yes.
Story wise? Both feel like rehashes of Persona 2, though I'm not sure how many people here played Persona 2.

You should also consider throwing a visual novel into the mix. I recommend Katawa Shoujo. It's a great jumping-off point for the genre, is a very emotional story, and has some very good writing. It's also freeware, so you have no excuse: try it.

I also recommend (again) Fate/stay night and Tsukihime. Both are exciting visual novels about a war between heroes of fantasy and history over the Holy Grail (summoned into RPG-style classes as catalysts), and a young man with the power to see the "lines of death" (patterns that hold everything, from beds to people together), and all the homicidal vampires, demons, and the same lovable character style in F/sn, respectively.

F/sn and Tsukihime are in the same 'verse, as well.

[Terraoblivion]

I also recommend (again) Fate/stay night and Tsukihime. Both are exciting visual novels about a war between heroes of fantasy and history over the Holy Grail (summoned into RPG-style classes as catalysts), and a young man with the power to see the "lines of death" (patterns that hold everything, from beds to people together), and all the homicidal vampires, demons, and the same lovable character style in F/sn, respectively.

F/sn and Tsukihime are in the same 'verse, as well.

Let's hold off on recommending porn, okay. Especially the abominable horror that is Nasu's attempts at writing sex scenes. Also, F/SN especially suffers under the rather major problem that Shirou is one of the single most annoying characters ever made during the first route. Also things get bizarre and all kinds of wrong during Heaven's Feel. Especially with the rape worms.

[Triscuitable]

If you think anything made by Type Moon is porn, The Mage King will throw you into the slaughter, explain they put those scenes in because sex sells better than a fantasy visual novel, and then call you ignorant.

In that order.

I take it you haven't actually played it, and just read a summary, correct? Fate/stay night and Tsukihime have English patches that patch out the sex scenes with much more SFW scenes from the PS2 port.

Also, Shirou's character? Only one person's opinion. I think his character is interestingly flawed with a burden he does not realize he took.

Back to the godawful abominations of writing that are the h-scenes, everyone agrees they are awful. Everyone. I am no exception. The rest of the game is superb, however. And don't call Katawa Shoujo cripple porn, because that didn't turn out well last time.

[Terraoblivion]

I have tried reading F/SN. Twice. Both times I gave up due to wanting to murder Shirou for being obnoxious, oblivious, sexist, self-righteous, stupid and basically having no redeeming features at all. It's hardly an uncommon view, from what I've seen discussed it's the dominant judgement of Shirou as he's portrayed in Fate and the usual defense is that he gets better in later routes. It is true that I never did reach Heaven's Feel, I did, however, see the setup for Sakura's situation in Fate/Zero and of all the uncomfortable, misogynistic crap in that show it was some of the worst.

Also, when you get down to it, it's still porn. Sure the porn isn't what Nasu wanted to write, but that doesn't change it is there and will inevitably color your perception of the characters and their interactions. His awfulness at writing it is kinda secondary. It also leads to that strange harem contrivance where all women are inexplicably obsessed with sleeping with the same guy, which has a meaningful impact on the quality of the story because of how clearly it's a male sexual fantasy.

I would comment further on Katawa Shoujo but all I really know about it is that it is supposedly good and, at least as far as I know, it doesn't actually contain porn. I will say that I'd probably consider VNs more along with books than video games, though. Most of what you do is read and occasionally make a decision in most of them.

[GolemsVoice]

Has anybody recommended Fallout, the series? Or has that claim already been dismissed?

[Terraoblivion]

It has come up and I recommended against the two old ones. They look hideous and have teethgrindingly annoying interfaces, making them not exactly welcoming experiences for newcomers. Personally I also found the constant movie references, celebrity mockery and toilet humor of Fallout 2 extremely grating, but it was the first two things that made me recommend not playing the games. Just trying out New Vegas would be a much better idea for getting to know Fallout.

[Triaxx]

I'm sorry, but graphics are a pretty bad reason not to recommend a game. As for the interface, certainly, it can be hard to work with, but frankly there are 'modern' games that control worse. For what it was and at the time it was being made, the controls and interfaces were awesome.

As for the references and toilet humor, that's part of what made the game, was that it didn't try to take itself too seriously. It was a game, and it didn't try to be some fantastic piece of art or some hugely epic story. And yet it's a game that's still fantastic for it's world.

True there are those that argue that the references pull it out of the original feeling of the fifties being unchanged, but at the same time, it makes it different from it's predecessor, and yet at the same time, something more.

Now, considering that, Fallout 3 is a direct successor to Fallout 1, while New Vegas is a more direct successor to Fallout 2. One is a survival RPG, and the other is an Action RPG.

[Triaxx]

I'm sorry, but graphics are a pretty bad reason not to recommend a game. As for the interface, certainly, it can be hard to work with, but frankly there are 'modern' games that control worse. For what it was and at the time it was being made, the controls and interfaces were awesome.

As for the references and toilet humor, that's part of what made the game, was that it didn't try to take itself too seriously. It was a game, and it didn't try to be some fantastic piece of art or some hugely epic story. And yet it's a game that's still fantastic for it's world.

True there are those that argue that the references pull it out of the original feeling of the fifties being unchanged, but at the same time, it makes it different from it's predecessor, and yet at the same time, something more.

Now, considering that, Fallout 3 is a direct successor to Fallout 1, while New Vegas is a more direct successor to Fallout 2. One is a survival RPG, and the other is an Action RPG.

[Terraoblivion]

The first Fallout didn't take itself all that seriously either, though more so than the second one, and it didn't have a quest where you cover a town in **** or all of Gordon Gecko's "greed is good" speech printed verbatim. It doesn't have vapid Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman expies list an endless number of porn with titles based on their movies. I don't have a problem with humor in games, I mean look at how Okami is one of my favorite games ever, but the humor in Fallout 2 was bad. Like Epic Movie bad at times. A lot of it was even the exact same kind of humor that consists of replacing jokes with references.

Also, the interface in Fallout 2 is clunky, but it doesn't cause headaches like the first one, that's true. It still presents a barrier to entry, especially for newer players who are used to far more fluent controls. Similarly, the graphics are not just technically poor, they're poorly designed outside the opening cinematic and the visual design of menus. Brown people on brown backgrounds who share something like ten appearances between them isn't good design. Not just that, SHeRUBI did reject a game for looking awful already, so clearly it matters to her even if it doesn't for you.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

I'm sorry, but graphics are a pretty bad reason not to recommend a game. As for the interface, certainly, it can be hard to work with, but frankly there are 'modern' games that control worse. For what it was and at the time it was being made, the controls and interfaces were awesome.

Graphics are a perfectly legitimate reason to not recommend a game. VERY legitimate. Most people who haven't been gaming for a long time like good graphics, and find old graphics a pain on the eyes. I know I do. There are very few games whose old graphics I can stand. I could never play the earlier Fallout games because the graphics are just. that. bad.

As for the controls, them being good FOR THE TIME would be all well and good, if we were telling her to play these games THEN. We're telling her to play them NOW, and if the controls and interface are awful now, then there are very few games that are worth trying.

That's gaming elitism, at it's heart, really, the looking down on what's percieved the "modern" emphasis on graphics, even though I'm fairly certain that almost EVERY new generation of games made a point of how awesome the graphics were.

I wouldn't even recommend X-com because of this, or Dwarf Fortress, or Aurora.

[Triaxx]

First of all, if she rejects them on graphics, that's something different. So what if the controls are difficult? Either Koury has played it before and can explain the controls, or hasn't, and they can learn them together. Either way, it's a great game that at least deserves a shot.

It's not even elitism. I'm just arguing that graphics are a poor barrier to great games. The list shows that already since both Oblivion and Skyrim are on the list. If graphics were that much of an issue, Oblivion wouldn't make it because Skyrim is so much better looking. But they're both great games and the list shows that.

I wouldn't suggest X-Com or Dwarf Fortress either, not until after Final Fantasy Tactics.

[Terraoblivion]

It's not that the controls are hard to figure out, it's that they're annoying to use. They're slow, imprecise and if your hand trembles a bit you need to repeat. It's just not a convenient or accessible game to control.

Also, graphics aren't some external part overlaid a game, they're part of the game. Apart from the obvious fact that they convey relevant information, they also set mood and feel of the game along with the sound. For some genres especially they're essential, horror games really need effective audiovisual cues to achieve the desired effect for example and almost all the classic examples of artsy games tend to focus more on audio, visuals and, often implicit, narrative than strictly on the strengths of gameplay. You can't just reject it as valid in general because you personally don't give it particularly high priority, it matters for a lot of people whether new or experienced gamers. I've been playing video games since the late 80s and I quite frankly care more about what games made me feel than subtle nuances of gameplay and visual design is a major part of that.

Personally I've never really understood how much people love Fallout either. The first one had really nice atmosphere and a decent length for a game with as relatively one-note a setting as it had. The second one improved the gameplay a lot, but it added weird, incongruous elements and teethgrindingly, uncomfortably bad humor all over along with quite aggressive sexism while not really making the setting deeper or more complex. I honestly can't see what Fallout has over the infinity engine games from the same period other than a more fanatic fanbase and that is generally not considered a strength of a product.

[Maxios]

Graphics are a perfectly legitimate reason to not recommend a game. VERY legitimate. Most people who haven't been gaming for a long time like good graphics, and find old graphics a pain on the eyes. I know I do. There are very few games whose old graphics I can stand. I could never play the earlier Fallout games because the graphics are just. that. bad.

As for the controls, them being good FOR THE TIME would be all well and good, if we were telling her to play these games THEN. We're telling her to play them NOW, and if the controls and interface are awful now, then there are very few games that are worth trying.

That's gaming elitism, at it's heart, really, the looking down on what's percieved the "modern" emphasis on graphics, even though I'm fairly certain that almost EVERY new generation of games made a point of how awesome the graphics were.

I wouldn't even recommend X-com because of this, or Dwarf Fortress, or Aurora.

That's just sad. As long as the game is good, I don't care how crappy the graphics are.

^: How was F2 sexist? I mean, I can see what you mean about the humor being stupid at parts, but I don't remember any sexism.

[Terraoblivion]

Mostly in two ways that tie together. One is that except for Tandi and maybe one or two other characters there are no women who are even semi-important. The game is almost a complete sausage fest, without any real indication that it was meant to explore institutionalized sexism or anything. The other is that the most famous faux Frank Miller quote, "whores, whores, whores" is depressingly accurate for the setting. Apart from the number of brothers that solely offer female prostitutes there is tons of optional content for female player characters to prostitute themselves to male characters. In fact, I think that prostitution or being the cliché movie nymphomaniac applies to a majority of all women you can run into in the game. Together these things just end up presenting a world where men are in charge and women predominantly around for sex. The sexism of that should be pretty obvious.

[Triscuitable]

Sit down, children, and let me tell you a story.

Pixels don't age.
Polygons do.

The end.