P.T.

This is probably going to be the first and only post I do on a demo but P.T. is pretty special in a couple of unfortunate ways, the primary one being that we'll likely never see the full game. Yeah #FuckKonami and all that.

The assholes of course also completely wiped the demo from PSN. In fact, P.T. is the only reason I bought a first revision console. I normally wait a few models for the various improvements before buying a console. If it wasn't for P.T., I would probably own a PS4 Pro or maybe I'd be waiting for the PS5 since it's supposedly backwards compatible. But when I heard that the game was getting pulled, I went out and bought the damn console that day. It was actually already unavailable in the US region but fortunately, I managed to snag a copy on JP PSN.

Nice looking "free" demo, you just need a $399 console!

So, I had this thing sitting on my PS4 since then, and I played it here and there for brief periods of time over the years because yes, it's scary as fuck.

I guess it's not that bad playing in broad daylight but naw, I played with headphones alone in the dark of course. The sound effects are so good with headphones.

Silent Hill is an English series but I went with the Jhipster subtitles

Hideo Kojima is well known for fucking with you. My first experience was hours wasted trying to kill Psycho Mantis before resorting to looking up the 2nd player trick. My next WTF was the Metal Gear Rising PS3 theme. It had the typical cool wallpaper with Raiden when one day, my PS3 booted up to some moe shit. Ha ha funny Hideo, lucky my wife didn't see it. (That is if I had a wife.)

Anyway, I was playing one day, and paused the game as I was scared as fuck as usual and all of a sudden it started saying some satanic sounding shit from the pause menu! Holy fuck, that freaked me out.

I hate it when my lunch leaks. Nice idea to count how often on the wall!

Anyways, I've been playing P.T. for a while before I finally decided to finish it recently. I didn't get stuck until the part with all the paintings with rolling eyes and shit. Eventually, I had to look up the solution with the bathroom peeping hole. Also, the final bit with the three baby laughs...

I think I see something in the hole but I don't want to know what.

This demo is pretty short once you know what to do and it was definitely less scary on a 2nd playthrough but I took it nice and slow the first time. If anything, it's a great substitute for coffee if you want to stay awake.

Score: 3.5 fuck this game, how the hell am I going to go to sleep now?! out of 4

As a demo, I would rate this one as 5. I mean it was "free" (finger quotes), scary as hell, and really made everybody hyped for a new Silent Hill game. But I don't really have a rating system for demos. As a game, it would give this a solid 3.5 above average score for all the cool things it does even if you're really just roaming the same hallway repeatedly in a loop.

Hey, it's a million times better than roaming a whole house in Gone Home. Seriously, fuck that hipster game.

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely

Tantei Jinguji Saburou - Mikan no Rupo（探偵 神宮寺三郎 未完のルポ）

There was a story going around way back in the day about people waking up in a bathtub full of ice with a scar. I had no idea that organ theft was a thing before and it kind of freaked me out (as intended). Much later, I watched a movie called SPL 2 about organ theft. Well, I didn't actually watch it but I sure as hell watched the fight scenes a ton. (Max Zhang is so bad ass!)

Pretty much the only parts I watched

So why the hell am I talking about this in a post about a Jinguji game? I'd like to think I've played my fair share of detective ADV games. They may be about serial killers, criminal masterminds, or grand conspiracies. A bit of a spoiler warning here but this is probably the first "hard boiled" detective story I played about illegal immigration, unsafe working conditions, and harvesting umm "reusable assets". Sorry about the spoiler but honestly, how many of my 3 readers were actually planning on playing Mikan no Rupo? Don't worry, you're not missing out on much.

The game starts out with a pretty good opening sequence of a murder, pretty typical of this genre. This series came back after a long 6 year hiatus with quite a big leap in technology on the PS1 compared to its Famicom days. While most of the game is not voiced, there are few anime cutscenes with voiced dialogue. There are also a couple odd but brief 3D sections where you walk around talking to people. Finally, there's a pretty crude car chase minigame. Besides the brief dabble into I guess "cutting edge" PS1 technology, it's an ADV menu game just like the previous entries.

The copious smoking part at least is accurate

Odd coincidence but this game asks you to pick a character to play as, at different points during the game just like the last game I played, Jui. I'm not sure if I missed anything significant based on who I picked but just like Jui, I have no desire to play it again to see the differences.

I missed this part because I picked Yoko instead

Score: 2 lung cancers out of 5. Don't worry kids, smoking was totally healthy back in the 90s! (Disclaimer: This is absolutely not true.)

I dunno, I thought the game was alright even though it did put me to sleep quite a number of times. I mean literally fall asleep as I deliriously tried not to drop my PSP before the sweet embrace of sleep rendered me unconscious. To put it mildly, it was not as exciting as SPL 2 fight scenes. I already dumped my 1500 yen budget re-release copy of the game.

I honestly don't remember this part, probably was unconscious

Still, the story had some moments of good human drama, and the main plot as I said certainly covered some interesting topics. It was also much better than the Famicom games I've played so far so hoping to see the series get even better over time. Especially since there still so damn many games left to play.

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely

Jui Dr. Touma Joutarou（呪医 Dr.杜馬丈太郎）

As things continue to be fucked up because the US is so "special", I continue my never ending quest to... what do YTers call it these days? Ah yes, "curate" my collection so that it best represents ME as a collector. As I might have mentioned before, I'm trying to go through my PSP and DS games to see if they're worth keeping and so here's yet another obscure ADV game: Jui Dr. Touma Joutarou.

Look, we're not hoarders just because our entire house is filled with games!

I know you guys all love my impromptu Japanese lessons (ya right), so I thought I'd mention that this isn't some cutesy vet hospital pet game for kids. Jui here is a made-up word using the Kanji for curse as in "curse doctor". You can clearly tell the difference given that Juui meaning "veterinarian" has a long u-vowel sound. DUH!!

Thanks for the furigana reading for "Dr.", that's REAL helpful (fuckers)

Anyways, the basic premise of the game is you're a former forensics medical specialist who for reasons explained in the game, is now an exorcist. You'll tackle a number of cases all taking place in one condominium along with your loli goth assistant: Kotobiki. I mean, it IS a Japanese game after all.

Whew! I almost thought this was an EA game for a sec there!

For better or worse, this game is not voiced at all meaning much reading of bigly words even for Jhipsters. There are a couple screens of spirits or whatnot that might be considered creepy but on a scare factor scale I would rate this as extremely mild.

Where's the national pandemic response playbook?!! This is horrifying!

Overall, it thought this game was entertaining enough. The gameplay was nothing special just as long as you remember to save before you do your spirit dive or whatever it is. You check out various parts of the room and hope you find what you're looking for before your spirit bar or something runs out. The final so-called puzzle in each case where you have to pick the right type of exorcism is meh... whatever as well (shrug).

Looking for dead baby spirits or your luggage? You decide!

One annoying aspect are the sections where you have to choose to play as Juutarou or Kotobiki when they split up to investigate. Of course, I picked Kotobiki every time but you miss some of the plot no matter which way you pick. I guess this was their lame way of adding some replay value but really, it's just a stupid annoyance. I ain't playing this game twice, fuck that noise.

Score: 3 No pixiv fan art or loli yuri doujin of Kotobiki? Fuck this game! out of 5

I don't really have much to say about this little "hidden" gem except it's terribly average and mediocre. It's nothing special but totally playable I suppose. One minor annoyance is the main story about Juutarou remains unresolved leaving room for maybe a sequel. But c'mon, there was no way this was going to be successful enough for a sequel. So I guess we'll never find out what happens with his main objective. Oh yeah, that's really gonna keep me up at night (not).

I would probably buy and play the sequel for $5 or so if it existed and that's about the most complimentary thing I can say. Final verdict is that this game is going to be leaving my collection and will not be part of what defines me as a person. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go back to building a bunker under my house to add more room for my game collection. #BunkerGamer 

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely

Sampaguita（サンパギータ）

I have not been in the mood to write about video games lately mainly because of how fucked up things are but oh well, what else is there to do these days? Go outside? Ya right.

So here we go, Sampaguita, the fall-themed 3rd entry in the Yarudora series. Once again, you play a random dude that happens to meet a girl that lost her memories for some reason or other. This time, it's a brown immigrant from the Philippines and thankfully in this fictional world, she doesn't get brutally beaten or killed for no reason by the police. (Did I mention I'm not in a great mood?)

You see any south east Asians... or any other suspicious colors...?

Overall, I think the Yarudora games are one of the more higher quality interactive anime series out there and this one is no exception. One big departure is that the male lead is voiced as well though you can turn it off if you're one of these weirdos that don't feel "immersed" when a character is voiced by well... obviously not you.

Damn accurate depiction of the real you, no I mean you, not me

Another interesting change was the addition of hints after you reached a bad ending that will successfully lead you to at least the first of the good endings. It won't help you reach all the other endings though cause it wouldn't be much of game at that point, now would it?

Based on a few Japanese reviews, this 3rd entry seemed to be viewed more favorably in the series due to the hard boiled story or whatever. Personally, I preferred the previous game's emotional drama even if it was more "galge". Maria's voice acting was very well done considering it was a Japanese person acting as a Filipino with supposedly 6 months of Japanese lessons.

Realistically, she should be like, "What the fuck you saying now?" half the time

Overall, I personally thought the story was not that super interesting. Well, I think the endings were pretty good, but the main events were nothing unexpected. I like the character design. I think someone from Ghost in the Shell was involved (dunno the details).

The story routes seemed a lot simpler this time around, most of the choices leading to the same overall plot with minor variations or just a bad end. It didn't have those side "what if" paths like Double Cast nor the complicated piecing together various events to figure out the truth in Kisetsu wo Dakishimete. Oh well, that just means I can move onto the next game even sooner!

Hey, are you going to buy me that animal crossing?

Score: 3 sitting here depressed that 40% of American STILL approve of Trump out of 5 (7 hours played, all endings)

As usual for this series, the music was pretty good but I don't think I'll be holding onto my PS1 copy of this game. I need to make room in my closet for that tiny Game Gear! (not)

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely

Atelier Elie: The Alchemist of Salburg 2（エリーのアトリエ 〜ザールブルグの錬金術士2〜）

This is gonna be a short post because I really don't have much to say about Atelier Elie. It's pretty much the same game as the previous entry except you are Elie (duh).

The little drama CD included with the game gives a bit of background on her story but Japanese only (sorry non-Jhipsters). This game, like the rest of the Salburg series has never been localized so this game gets the obligatory +0.5 Jhipster smug points.

Wow, this is SO interesting. Too bad it's Japanese only... Aww...

So Elie is a direct sequel on the same console with the same graphics, locations, and recurring characters. Yes, you get to give the weapon shop owner some hair growth tonic again. The only noteworthy addition to the gameplay are the new "blend" and "original" crafting methods. Finally, you can mix and match as you like for infinite possibilities! You want to use 2 nyuzu? How about 2.1 nyuzu? Or even 2.2? You might improve the quality from B to B+ and get a better reputation! Ugh, fuck that, google time.

You used 2.8 green neutralizers instead of 2.9?? You fool!!!

I will admit that I may have graded the first game a bit harshly as we "pro" reviewers tend to do with a game that doesn't hand-hold you with baby gamer tutorials. Now that I have a better understanding of how these games work, I do admit that it gets addictive trying to scrounge up the ingredients without getting killed, scraping up some cash to buy the rest of your equipment and reference books, and managing your fairy slaves ahem "helpers". But saying this game is fun is akin to saying, "Wow, I feel so much better after I tidied up my room!" I mean, who the fuck wants to "play" a game that basically consists of real work and trying to eke out a living to pay off your expenses? Oh...

Look at that tanuki's smug face as he exploits the working class...

Score: 2.5 At least Elie's character design matches today's social standards of ambiguous gender traits! out of 5

I mean the game is fun and all but only in small doses and in my case, several months of breaks in between. I also foolishly agreed to become Meister Rank which extends the game for another 2 years. Elie went back to her village in my ending and I have no desire to play again even though I missed out on recruiting Marie from the first game. I also made gold but the game didn't seem to care.

One of the many events I missed, oh well

In general, without following a guide, I feel like I probably missed out on a whole bunch of events just like the first game. I even almost missed the fact that you could take a carriage to another city because I didn't keep speaking to random people in the town at random times. Oh well, whatever, I'm over it. Ok, time to play Atelier Lilie!

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely

Final Fantasy XV（ファイナルファンタジーXV）

Well, here we are, Final Fantasy goddamn FIFTEEN, 29 years into the series. We are halfway to the point where Squeenix will probably need to avoid roman numerals for 30. That'll make searching on google about the game a bit... tricky to say the least. But I really do hope they make 16, 17, and so on instead of fucking with it like all the other companies eg "Final Fantasy One X1 Pro" or god forbid just "Final Fantasy".

Cindy will have a cameo in FF XXX in hologram form

I bought this over 2 years ago used for about $25 so I don't have any of the DLC. I usually try to wait for the inevitable GOTY version but I got suckered in early with the Assassin's Creed limited time quest. It was pretty fun and even had parkour gameplay that's not part of the regular game. I did miss the Moogle Chocobo Carnival event but whatever, who cares.

I'm guessing not available on Stadia (cause didn't buy that shit)

I still remember the FF13 Versus trailer oh so many years ago. I'm not even gonna google how long ago that shit was cause it'll just make me feel old as fuck (again). But yeah, what is there to talk about that hasn't already been said? Do I want to go into the whole Cup Noodle thing? Or talk about the movie/anime/DLC multimedia franchise approach to the story? I'm sure all the "pro" gamer sites have all that covered so let's just fucking talk about the game.

The GEICO collab ad campaign

You have to hand it to the Square part of Squeenix, if there's anything consistent about them, it's that they like to change things up. FF15 is unlike any game I've played before. It's a virtual road trip, instagraming, cooking game with your male buddies with no BL elements whatsoever.

Chicks love guys that can cook (if you look like Ignis that is)

I guess I can talk about the battle system which was ok I suppose. There were a few places where the monsters seemed to be over powered especially in the last chapter but I just learned to avoid them. The economy is also kind of broken as you can bungle your way through with Elixirs. Mostly I just spammed attack and it's a mainstream game so you'll get through it without a great deal of effort. Magic is completely useless this time around as you have to craft like 3 at a time, they hurt your own party more often than not, and the cool off period is incredibly long. But really, is FF15 a fantasy game about defeating evil, fighting bad guys, and watching a story unfold in an interactive entertainment medium? Nah.

Menudo with Curry and Nan??? Hmm, I have a hipster food truck idea...

Like I said, FF15 is all about taking photos with your pals, taking photos of your food, bugging Ignis about his can coffee while you cruise, and camping out with Coleman gear. I dunno if I would call it a fun game but it was certainly interesting and to a certain extent relaxing. Sometimes, I would let Ignis drive and I would kill time reading something on my phone in the real world. Other times, I would try to use fast travel but it's not fucking fast at all.

I'm sure this will be fixed on PS5 remastered GOTY re-milk edition

The photo algorithm they implemented seems pretty ingenious. For example, at the end, when you pick your favorite photo, I picked one with Iris and her bother was like, "uhh ok... should I be concerned?" So obviously, there's some logic in there to know that she was in the photo. It also made the ending just really funny. I giggled at least. Yeah, I have a weird sense of humor.

I will choose imouto everytime, anybody's imouto will do.

I put in about 70 hours for the Platinum, the last 10 or so spent mostly fishing and trying to make that special soup to kill the mountain. I'm not sure how many of the 70 hours were spent multitasking while cruising around, etc. For us Americans, if you're going crazy from all this winning while being trapped in the house, this might be the game for you. (#MAGA 2020! aka "let's fuck ourselves for another 4 years")

Who needs real life when you can catch 91 kilograms of fish from home?

Score: 4 Going outside? Pfft, over rated. out of 5 (70 hours for platinum, 48 hours to beat)

This game by all measures is a solid above-average 3.5 game. It was pretty fun, the graphics are amazing but the story is a bit weak. However, I'm going on a whim here and giving it a 4 great game score mostly because I appreciate that Squeenix is still around to make big budget Japanese RPGs. Sure, you can't pan to the bottom to see Iris's underwear in gallery mode but at least it's not trying to shove whatever social message is trending these days in your face. (I can't wait to pre-order Beyond Good and Evil 2 #sarcasm!)

I'm assuming there's a PC mod to get full 360' camera control

At the very least, despite the weak story being spread out over a film, anime, and I assume DLC, I really enjoyed the ending. There's nothing like a set of Coleman logo camping chairs to get you invested into the characters. (Please click on my Coleman affiliate links to support the site!)

Don't those Coleman chairs look so comfortable? Buy yours today!

More screenshots to compare resolution pixels with Stadia since I will be reviewing it once I become pro gamer reviewer and get free shit... one day.

29 years of technical advancements right here

Don't you just hate the idiots that try to compute at the pump?

The 2016 version of fan service, properly masculine and assertive. Oh how far we've fallen.

Ironically this collab mission is still playable while Terra Wars lasted all of 176 days.

Better IMO than Asscreed 3, I would stop playing AC but they keep giving me free copies!

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely

SNATCHER（スナッチャー）

Snatcher was one of the games I definitely wanted to play before I compiled my GOTY list for 1988. It's a Hideo Kojima ADV game blah blah blade runner blah blah terminator, you get the idea.

Oh hi Deckar- ...err I mean Gillian

To put things in perspective, I played a couple console ADV games from that year and a little bit of ANGELUS from Enix on the PC-88. I have to say, besides those Enix games such as Wingman and JESUS, Snatcher is probably one of the best looking ADV games I've seen on the PC-88 so far. However, the biggest issue with the original version is that it ends on a cliffhanger at the end of Chapter 2.

For 1988, this is pretty darn awesome

The PC Engine CD version that was released 4 years later in 1992 is the definitive way to play this game for sure. There are a number of really great looking ADV games on that system and boy was it way ahead of its time. It had amazing graphics, CD audio music, and voiced dialogue! For quick reference, Myst didn't come out until late 1993. What did the competing consoles have around that time? Otogiriso on the Super Famicom? Pfft, get out of here.

In any case, this version has the complete story and is the last one that Hideo Kojima himself worked on. The later ports are just complete garbage especially the washed out and censored PS1 crap. I made the mistake of buying that before I knew better and threw it in the Gamestop dumpster as soon as I finished the best version.

This is pretty much what my wife looks like IRL

So yeah, non-Jhipsters can go ahead and buy the ridiculously expensive Sega CD version to flaunt in their various YT videos, sure, why not? Or I guess you can play it on the just released PC Engine Mini... as long as you don't mind playing it in Japanese. Oh, I haven't done a Jhipster smug pic in a while now!

Aww, no English? I'm sure they'll make it real soon just like that vaccine!

Putting aside the standard Jhipster agenda, I thought the game was, I dunno, pretty good I guess? Maybe a bit over-hyped. For one thing, it's one of the easiest ADV games I played. Pretty much anybody will be able to beat it in roughly over 5 hours with little effort. I'm not saying that's a negative. I'm just as happy to enjoy the story instead of being stuck for hours, say for example, trying to pick a flower that's FUCKING impossible to reach. I think the fact that people could actually finish the game might have helped it stand out.

Ugh, this just reminds me of all those Metal Gear games I still need to finish...

Of course, the cyberpunk setting is also cool. I mean, who doesn't like cyberpunk? The visuals and voice acting was great too. The last chapter did feel rushed though. I wonder if Kojima meant to make a much bigger game but just didn't have the resources? Oh, and of course, how can I not talk about Catherine, the 14 year old model. Err... excuse me, I mean 18, duh! Don't you know that ages are counted differently in Japan at a ratio of 1.285714285714286, you culturally ignorant philistine?! A 14 year old Japanese person is actually 18 here, and 15 years is 19.28571428571429. Geesh, you Americans are SO ignorant!

Why is that towel transparent? TIME TO GO ON TWITTER!

So for a quick Japanese lesson, which doesn't have future tense, Catherine says she's 14 this year. Does that mean she is 14 already or actually 13 and will turn 14 later in the year? No really guys, this is actually really important for states like Alabama. Well, at least it was until 2003, when they raised the minimum marriage age from 14 to 16. (Yeah Japan, why are YOU so backwards?)

Score: 3.5 Man, I'm so glad that a massive biological accident will never wipe out half the world's population in the REAL world, right guys? Um... MAGA? Tired of winning yet? Ah... fuck. out of 5

Anyways, I think if I was rich and Japanese and played this game in 1992, I would've been blown away. As it is, being late to the party as usual, I thought it was pretty good. Just not worth $700 or whatever for a censored version in my Jhipster opinion at least.

Now, that's some fucking sexy sax music

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely

Megami Ibunroku Persona（女神異聞録ペルソナ）

As I grow older by the day, I can't help but look at the pile of games that my sister keeps complaining about and try to gain some perspective. Like geesh, sis, you're barely even using your basement. And no, why should I go out and get my own place and a "real" job when my patreon and twitch revenue is earning plenty enough for all my essential needs (buying games, dew, and doritos). I don't know why you keep bothering me about rent and utilities. I don't even rent games and all my utilities are freeware!

Shut up, sis! I'm just about to get the Janus coin. Geez!!

What I actually meant by perspective is whether I would even live long enough to finish my games. I kind of thought about making a bucket list of sorts for all the best games I should probably play instead of oh, I don't know, fucking NIGHTRUTH? (Though to be fair, that one was so bad, it was hilarious.) I decided one of the series I definitely want to finish before I kick the bucket is Persona. Though I ended up beating P3 and P4 before I started playing things in order, I'm happy to announce that I just finished the first Persona game. For some reason, they removed the Megami Ibunroku part from the title in the PSP version.

What? A Japanese game title with less than 10 words? Blasphemy!

I know I've ranted about this before but notice that the Japanese cover makes no mention of SMT. Even the original PS1 title "Megami Ibunroku" has no "Shin" anywhere. So yeah, this is the only Persona title labeled as a spin-off to the Megaten series and boy, does it sure play like one.

YAMR (Yet another Megaten RPG)

First of all, while you do talk to people and walk around rooms in a top-down isometric view, the dungeon exploration is all 1st person, just like the various Megaten games that came before it. You can also equip both swords and guns. However, the big difference is the battle system where you have to place your members on a grid via a formation.

I'm a millennial so girls fight in the front (or at least those who identify as a "girl")

I don't think anybody likes this battle system? If an enemy isn't in your attack range, you just sit around and wait for your better placed allies to finish them off. Sure, you can set up various formations in advance but 1) it's too much hassle, and 2) you lose a turn to change formation so fuck that noise. Also, you can only put like 3 people in the front because for some reason, each person has to be a couple squares away from everybody else. You really only need to set up 2 formations, the second is so that when you get fucking back attacked, you have a second one to switch to. It's REALLY annoying.

Overall, the gameplay was just a mess with pretty much everything you could imagine thrown in. First of all, there's a stupid amount of elements that were (wisely) cut from later games such as "gravity", "nuclear heat", "revelation", "shock", and others I don't really even understand such as 「降魔」(descend demons?) and 「破魔」(break demon?). Oh, that's where hama comes from! Thank god at least that analyze happens automatically after defeating the enemy.

Unfortunately, my 奇跡 ("miracle")  element(??) skills were lacking against these guys

As for recruiting demons, literally the only thing you care about is increasing their interest level to get their spell card. Each character has a bunch of dialogue options so you have to choose the right character AND the right dialogue choice. Fuck that, google time. Also, everybody has 2 levels, your actual level and another one for the level of persona you can use. Both levels are almost always around the same so the second one is completely pointless (hence removed in later games). You also need to increase a Persona's rank by using their skills repeatedly to unlock new skills. Thank god their rank at least carries over even if you reassign to another party member.

The stats distribution is super weird too since the Persona's stats override yours. If you spread your points evenly across, they'll be wasted if your Persona's stat is higher. I dumped every point into TEC and AGI as they increase more of your base attributes.  Anyways, you get the idea. It's a big hot mess.

Oddly SP is fixed for each Persona so there is no reason to ever use a weaker skill

In addition, at least in the PSP version, the economy is totally broken. I read that they lowered the difficulty in this version and added a bunch more save points but I played on EXPERT mode so I assume that the difficulty is on par?  But boy, the last boss was pretty easy when you can buy 99 restore full HP items. It was so ridiculous that I ended up with almost 3 million yen with nothing to spend it on.

I'm no game designer but revive + full HP for 6000 yen seems a TAD unbalanced...

Still, even though the gameplay was a mess, I had fun with the game. At the very least, it was a relief to finish off the last boss on my first try after the grueling hell that was P3 FES on hard. Once you get used to the game, off you go, just good ol' regular dungeon exploring, leveling up, and googling demon negotiation and whatnot. I sure wished I read the manual however because the PSP version has a skip option for battles that I only discovered by accident during the final dungeon. Probably would've saved a lot of hours that way.

As usual, I liked the Persona aesthetics

As for the story, I guess I liked it well enough. There's no voice acting except for just one guy, which was kind of odd. As fit for the first game in the series, the theme centers on the various personas and masks we put on as members of society.

Hey, is that a Uzaki-chan poster? Why is the white underwear transparent??

Another interesting aspect of this game is the whole Snow Queen Quest thing. Basically, it's a completely different branch of the game that you can end up in during the first couple hours of the game. I did not play this scenario yet, something to do I guess on a rainy day... if I'm still alive by then.

One more game done! How many years I got left?

Score: 3 What? No Christmas date? No summer beach swimsuit break? This is NOT a Persona game! out of 5 (48 hours to beat)

This is not exactly a title I would wholeheartedly recommend but meh, it was still pretty fun overall. Obviously, I would have loved to use the skip option from the start but whatever. It was a serviceable RPG and the story is... not bad. At the very least, it's interesting to see how far the series has come from its humble roots. I liked the music as usual but man, I have to say the battle theme was a bit too much Persona to hear ALL THE TIME. However, the new PSP ending credits song was #BAE.

I liked it about the first 200 times but... might want to tone it down

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely

Tantei Kibukawa Ryousuke Jiken Tan - Kamen Genei Satsujin Jiken（探偵・癸生川凌介事件譚 仮面幻影殺人事件）

It's been getting more difficult to make these posts more interesting as gaming news seems slow these days. Then I figured since Tantei Kibukawa is a game written by a game scenario writer about the same game scenario writer playing an online MMO to find a murderer in the game in the game so that he can make a game based on the murder that happened in the game in the game, why don't I make this blog post about how I'm writing this blog post to be meta. Unfortunately, I couldn't really tie my meta blog post into talking about the game so I gave up on it.

"passwords" is not a typo here, you need more than one to log onto the PC in the PC... in the PC

Of course,  I'm sure you realized by now that the previous paragraph is about how I failed to write a meta blog post about a meta game with a meta intro. Yes, I just pulled a "if god can do anything, he can make a rock to heavy for him to lift" paradox. Mic drop!

Reminds me of the good ol' days when the gov did shit... (CDC? Who needs that?)

Anyways, I know I've been going on and on about getting rid of my more mediocre games in order to make more room in my (sister's) basement. Of course, you never know if a game is good or bad until you play it. That's just common sense unless of course, you're a paid game "journalist".

I assumed that Tantei Kibukawa on the DS would just be another mediocre mystery ADV game with horrible visuals. I mean, if you go by just the game cover, it looks... unique. However, I can agree with many of the reviews on Amazon Japan that the graphics grow on you to the point where characters such as Izuna and Rio actually look cute over time.

I would date her, but then again who wouldn't I date? Real girls, that's who. (Self proclaimed voluntary incel aka vincel #yaRight)

Not only are the graphics actually endearing, the story is also surprisingly pretty darn good. You know, I play obscure games with the faint hope that some of them would be a hidden gem but it's pretty rare unless you think hidden means "is not FF or Pokemon" like some YTers. And dare I say it, this game is kind of a hidden gem. Or at least good enough that I would be interested in playing more but oh, sorry, this is the only port among a whole series of games that are now completely unplayable without resorting to buying somebody's old Japanese flip phone with the game installed. So much for game preservation... You would think at least the series author would still have a copy around but well, here's a recent tweet from him.

永劫会の動くガラケーを手に入れたぞ！ pic.twitter.com/BHpJakndeq

— 生王正生 (@ikrmmso) January 5, 2020

In terms of gameplay, it's nothing more than your typical menu based detective ADV game. I did however get stuck just a couple times as you need to poke at some parts of the background to progress (that amazing DS innovation!) You also get a chance to exercise your deduction skills by answering Izuna's questions correctly. The only penalty for getting those questions wrong is you get a lower rating from her at the end. A better rating just unlocks some more memos to read about other cases, which are of course trapped on garake phones.

Whoa, a hand icon? DS is the only console that can handle this kind of gameplay!

I was hopeful that there was going to be some interesting gameplay when you're asked to select your character class in the MMO. It went into quite a lot of detail on the differences between choosing to be a policeman, reporter, etc. I don't know if that was too much to implement but you never really play the MMO as they describe it.

Score: 3 eh, I'm sure nobody will miss the other 18 or so games out of the series (shrug) out of 5 (12 hours to beat)

As usual, unlike the "pro" reviews, I feel no need to provide even a basic summary of the plot with my shitty writing and leave it as an exercise to the reader to check it out for him/her/etc self. I would say that if you like ADV games, this is definitely one worth giving a shot. (Sorry, Jhipsters only. I assume too obscure for fan translation.)

Now, my only issue is trying to decide whether to dump this game to make more room or keep it around as a "hidden" gem in my DS collection. Sigh, decisions, decisions. It may seem insignificant but I live in a modern, advanced society. It's not like I have to worry about life and death situations such as plagues from the old barbaric medieval times...

P.S. For future reference (if we're all still alive), I'm talking about fucking COVID-19.

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely