Corpse Party -THE ANTHOLOGY- サチコの恋愛遊戯♥Hysteric Birthday 2U

♪♪♪ Hysteric Birthday! Hysteric Birthday dear good god what have you done with Corpse Party 5pb! Hysteric Birthday TOOO U!!! ♪♪♪

Oh what can I say about Corpse Party -The Anthology- Sachiko no Ren'ai Yuugi♥Hysteric Birthday 2U that hasn't already been said? First of all, I have to say this game's title is a bit too short. 5pb marketing should really take a lesson from D3, the makers of 夏色ハイスクル★青春白書 ～転校初日のオレが幼馴染と再会したら報道部員にされていて激写少年の日々はスクープ大連発でイガイとモテモテなのに何故かマイメモリーはパンツ写真ばっかりという現実と向き合いながら考えるひと夏の島の学園生活と赤裸々な恋の行方。～.

Anyways, putting the short title aside, let's get right into the heart of things, shall we?

This game is scary alright, but not for the reasons you might think...

16 years since the doujin release of the original venerable Corpse Party on PC98 and this is where 5pb is gonna take the series eh? Those brutal deaths, the tense feeling of dread as you explore the decrepit halls of Tenjin Shougakkou, 16 years since the series inception all culminating into... cross-dressing BL...

......alrighty then.............

Remember when I said Book of Shadows really cut down on scary and upped the fan service? HA! Turns out 5pb was just getting started. Yeah, yeah, we all know this is a spinoff title but really, Book of Shadows was also pretty much a spinoff title EXCEPT for the last hidden chapter. And JUST like Book of Shadows, there is an extra chapter in Hysteric Birthday that is actually part of the main story and even introduces a couple new characters. Characters whom I suspect will show up in Blood Drive (still need to play that one). Interestingly, the new characters just pop up out of nowhere from the beginning making me think I must have missed some comic or other spin-off media. Nope, it was just the weird way they ordered things.

Of course, unlike Book of Shadows, this game doesn't even try to be scary or even serious as it's basically a weird horror-themed comedy filled with the awkward fan service you've come to love from 5pb but powered up. Seriously, like Super Saiyan level 3 power levels. I'm not even exaggerating here.

At least the game lets you know what you're getting into in the very first chapter

Really, this game couldn't be farther than what you'd expect from a Corpse Party game. The developers must have realized how broken the exploration menu system was from Book of Shadows. So instead of fixing it or better yet, going back to the top-down 2D style, they removed it completely, making this a 100% vanilla adventure game (what non-Jhipsters call visual novels). At least it's easier to play than Book of Shadows as it still has all the usual features you'd expect from adventure games such as auto mode, etc without the crappy room navigation.

To be honest, I actually enjoyed playing this game for what it was. It was weird sure, but you can't help but laugh out loud at various parts of the game because it's just so RIDICULOUS. Let me just throw in a phrase to give you a rough idea: "Death by butt suffocation". I'll leave the rest to your imagination for any future Jhipsters that may want to play this game. Frankly, I'm shocked that this game DIDN'T get localized. I'm sure if it came out today, Xseed would have gone for it. After all, they only localize games for gameplay and not fan service, right? YA RIGHT.

I guess sex sells... SHOCKER

Anyways, I had fun with this game. The music isn't as good as even Book of Shadows but it still had some gems, especially this throwback track from the original PC98 version.

16 years later and still just as good
By the way, the part of the game where this music plays was hilarious and was definitely the highlight for me as a wannabe retro hipster. I would say if you have a weird sense of humor and willing to try something different, Hysteric Birthday 2U is definitely not the worst adventure game you can pick. I certainly enjoyed it more than Book of Shadows and of course they did the usual sneaky trick of including the only relevant (canon?) chapter as an "extra" that requires playing through the entire game to unlock.

Score: 3 butt wrestling matches out of 5 (26 hours to complete)

People who are looking for the original Corpse Party experience best just check out Corpse Party 2 Dead Patient for PC. Unfortunately, only Chapter 1 has been released forever ago and I'm still waiting on that one. In the mean time, I can only hope 5pb finally gets down to business in Blood Drive. As much as I enjoyed Hysteric Birthday, I think I'm more than ready for a REAL Corpse Party game next time.

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

Dragon Quest（ドラゴンクエスト）

Starting all these classic RPG series from the first entry, I was beginning to wonder if they seemed bleh merely because I'm not hip and old-school enough to appreciate it. Perhaps I would have really enjoyed them if I had played them as a kid? But playing Dragon Quest made me feel a bit better because I've actually been having a lot of fun with it. Sure, I'm playing the Super Famicon version with vastly improved graphics and sound but then again, I played FF1 on the PSP and Mother on the GBA and those versions came out many years later than this version of DQ. You can see the differences in the various versions at hardcoregaming.

SFC? Pfft! I don't even care about the graphics.
In fact, I'm so hip, I refuse to play anything unless it's ported to a TI-81

Anyway, I don't know if the SFC version was re-balanced or what but boy is it the good ol' classic RPG fun I was hoping for. On paper, this game should be just as mediocre as the others. It has a fairly high encounter rate and battles consist of repeatedly pressing Attack as usual.

The menu system is the usual DQ clunky mess, but like Mother on GBA, the SFC version has the 便利 (convenient) L button that pretty much does exactly what you want whether it's opening doors or talking to people. Of course, FF fans will then ask, why even have the menu at all and I totally agree. At least it's also nice for one-handed playing and yes, this is yet another multitask game.

It's also kind of crazy that the ONLY place you can save is at the very first castle but the maps and dungeons were manageable and small enough to make exploration fun even with the random encounters unlike some other games (*cough* Mother *cough*). You also learn a spell that will instantly teleport you back to the castle just when you get tired of trudging back there. Perfect! And unlike that sorry excuse of a teleport in Mother, it works instantly without having to find a mile of clear runway (which BTW was practically impossible to do so fuck that lame PSI ability).

Even if the battle system is primitive, the level progression and the economy are so well balanced, I always felt like I wanted to play just a bit more as a bit more grinding would net me enough experience and gold to gain the appropriate levels and equipment to progress with the game. Playing DQ1 after Mother really made me appreciate the motivation factor of a good economy that wasn't broken (ie NOT instantly buy all the best equipment and accrue tens of thousands of useless dollars for the rest of the game).

It's a game I wanted to play because I wanted to beat it, not because I wanted to be done with it, if that makes sense. And just when I got tired of fighting slimes, it seemed like the game read my mind and the hero learns a spell to avoid random encounter from weak enemies at level 15. Perfect!!

While the story is also as primitive as they come, it has those nice Aikra Toriyama moments that I really enjoyed. Yeah, most of you kids know about Dragon Ball, but my first encounter with Toriyama was Dr. Slump and man, that comic is so pervy and full of toilet humor, no wonder all the prepubescent boys loved it. Anyways, personally, when I think Toriyama, this is what I see in my mind:

This fan translator sure has a sense of humor. That or he loves pu...

So it brings a smile to my face when you (literally) carry Princess Lola to the inn and the next morning, the innkeeper says, "you guys sure seemed to have fun last night".

Not sure what's so embarrassing about a fun night of scrabble and pillow fights.
Wait, what were YOU thinking?

Because that wasn't enough fan service, in the SFC version, a girl in the first town will follow you to the inn as well basically getting you laid within the first ten minutes of gameplay. These retro games don't have the resource to waste time teasing LOL. As a nice bonus, the game doesn't stop you from taking BOTH girls to the inn at the same time. Obviously, I'm not the first to discover this as a let's play on youtube went straight for the threesome. Haters don't hate, it's just the perks of being the hot, sexy, irresistible hero

Every boy in Japan probably did this in the 90s. I know I did right away.

Anyways, as a Jhipster, of course I have to point out that all of this was censored for Dragon Warrior because THINK OF THE POOR CHILDREN!! In fact, pafu pafu I guess was censored all the way up to DQ7? I am really curious to know if it was finally included in the Android and iOS releases of DQ1. Is the world finally ready to handle the sheer delights of the *censored* pafu pafu  (only 20 gold!) action in 2014? Unfortunately, I have an extremely rare condition that makes me barf at the very thought of playing an RPG with no physical buttons so only time will tell, I suppose.

Was DQ finally released uncensored for the phone 28 years later?
Or did the social justice warriors win again?

Score: 2.5 yes I'm retro hip too! wannabe out of 5

In the end, DQ1 is a very, very simple and short RPG. It has barely any story, only one party member, no airship, and the tiny world map is centered around the first castle, also the only place you can save in the entire dang game.

However, the game's perfect balance just makes it FUN, which despite everything is the most important part of a game. Despite other games that seem to know just how to be the most frustrating (*cough* Mother *cough*), DQ1 introduces the right spell at the right time to make the whole experience a smooth and enjoyable ride. I can definitely see why those Japanese kids went so crazy over this when it came out. The music in the SFC version is also pretty good. A real orchestra would have been even better but still very relaxing. Maybe in the next remake?

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

MOTHER

Mother is probably the best game I've ever played. I was such a fool to think games like Final Fantasy were grindy because this game makes other game's grindyness feel like a walk in the park. Playing this amazing game makes all other games seem so much better. It really does wonders to get you into the mindset of how amazing those other games are... by comparison.


To be fair, going into this game, I had fairly high expectations. I was hoping to walk around, meet some charming characters, experience a nice but simple story, and gain a sense of satisfaction from grinding some levels and beating a boss.

Instead, what I discovered was an amazing, huge open world, maybe something like Grand Theft Auto (kids, I'm talking GTA 1 and 2). The only tiny difference would be to remove all the buildings and anything remotely interesting and turn it into a sprawling expanse of nothing but mountains, trees, and rivers. Then sprinkle in some remote locations that are impossible to find and complement it with the most useless map EVAR. My dog took a piss on the dirt once and it was a better map than this crap.

You can't find your way around? What are you, stupid??
The green arrow CLEARLY shows where you are.

Now finish off the masterpiece with an encounter rate that is apparently suffering from bipolar and refusing to take the meds. You trying to go somewhere? BAM, encounter. Ok, try to take a half step. BAM, encounter. You trying to grind? Ok, cool, you can wander around the sprawling wasteland for miles with absolutely no encounters.

This poor kid has no idea that he lives in the middle of nowhere

Now the version I played was the improved GBA version based on the English version that was only now just released for the Wii U as Earthbound Beginnings. It has some nice extras not in the original Famicon version such as the various censorship for the delicate US audience. Putting sarcasm aside, the L button was a life saver for one-handed playing, which is always a nice bonus for multiasking. And if there was any game that required multitasking, boy, is this it!

I didn't even know about the dash button until well into the second half of the game. (I really need to get into the habit of reading the manual.) But still, I'd rather stick to the left hand and forego the dash to multitask another game.

Kids nowadays be like, "What's a manual?"

To be honest, this game wasn't really all that bad once you give up on trying to play it blind, getting hopelessly lost in the massive map, and random encountering up the wazoo. Load up a faq, find a REAL map, and just follow the instructions.

Actually, GTA is probably too small to be a good comparison. You're gonna have to zoom in to see the red dot.

But the grindiness near the end is just ridiculous. Just when you get totally fed up with constantly running out of space in your tiny inventory, you finally get double, then triple the inventory space as you add members to your party. Unfortunately, it also means your experience now gets halved and then cut into 1/3. Not to mention, the enemies actually start to get REALLY hard and to add insult to injury, hardly give out more experience than the weaker enemies.

Finally, when you get the Katana for Teddy, who actually has some cojones instead of the other party members that seem to love getting killed, you're ready to KICK SOME ASS!!!!!!


10 minutes later...


Teddy leaves your party for the rest of the game. WTF.

The last area seemed pretty much a grind nightmare without Teddy but fortunately, you get some help temporarily. I was able to stock up on heal items and just grinded that short section of the game for hours. Thank god for emulation save states. However, even at level 39, once your help leaves, I could barely handle 4 starmen. As a tip, make sure to get both Franklin badges cause then your cheap death ratio goes down from 100% to just 33%. (Did I already say thank god for save states?)

Fortunately, right around the point when you're totally fed up with this game, it ends. It's even kind enough to dump you right at the end without having to go through the last area with no help.

Look, maybe I'm not hardcore or retro enough to be able to appreciate this frustrating mess. Fine, I'll go load up Minecraft, Dota 2, or whatever the kids are playing nowadays. But man, I seriously doubt I would have had the grit to finish this game without the blessed miracles of save states. On the positive side, the GBA emulator on the PSP is fucking amazing.

Score: 1 rose-tinted nostalgia glasses out of 5 (plus a half-bottle of whiskey needed).

Oh yeah, and I guess there was some kind of story. I wouldn't expect too much in that department though. At this point, I'm really hoping Mother 2 lives up to the hype because buying Mother 1&2 CIB was NOT cheap.

Optional +.5 bonus for making Mother 2's graphics look practically next gen in comparison after you get used to Mother.

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

Million Arthur （拡散性ミリオンアーサー）

It seems every time I log into PSN, there's some crazy event going on for Kakusansei Million Arthur that just begs me to start it up again. I can't explain the stupid, STUPID part of our brains that makes you feel obsessed at the notion of missing out on some stupid digital cards because of some anime characters in skimpy clothes.

Don't fall for this SHIT!

This strategy is working so well for Square Enix that they now even have a 18+ version (smartphone only of course). The fact that the app is region-locked has absolutely NOTHING to do with the fact that I refuse to play it...... just saying.

I can't play this cause of region-loc... umm... I mean cause nudity is offensive

Anyhoos, there's some sort of story in this game but really WHO CARES? It's another "free" (emphasis on the quotes) game that requires you to play 5 minutes every 3 hours like one of those poor guys that has to go outside to smoke in the dead of winter. If you've never played a gacha game (gotcha SUCKER!), then I advise you to DON'T start. It's so sinister that one form of gacha called コンプガチャ was so addictive and ruining people's lives that it was eventually banned.

Sigh... I guess this is what gaming is about nowadays. Basically, just some crazy psychological experiment to see how companies can exploit some addictive part of our brains. Then dangle some "RARE" stuff that you MAY get if you spin the wheel enough times after you cough up as much money as possible. It's like some evil digital form of crack or I guess just plain gambling without all those pesky regulations and taxes. As proof, the 10,000 yen ticket for this game was ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR DIGITAL ITEMS ON PSN.

Yeah, I can boast that I didn't spend a single penny on this piece of crap but the disruption on my time and schedule is far more valuable then what a measly single $60 full priced game would have cost.

Even if you don't spend a single penny on this "game", Square Enix has a really nice gig going on because they also do TONS of cross promotions for other games and I'm sure that kind of marketing doesn't come free (more moola for Square Enix). If you're wondering where Square Enix is making all their money nowadays, here's your answer.

Please give me all your money for poor ol' squeenix-chan?
Pwetty plea$$$e, OK? Tee Hee!

Score: 0 FUCK OFF, I'M NOT DOWNLOADING THIS SHIT AGAIN points out of 5.

You may be asking, if I gave it a score of ZERO, then why did I 100% it??
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Shaddup

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（ファイナルファンタジー）

I "missed" out on the NES because I was blessed with a Sega Master System as a kid. All those hours playing awesome games like Zillion and Astro Warrior could have instead been spent on blowing cartridges and pressing reset like a million times. I still remember going to some kid's house and watching him trying to play his NES and I was like WTF? Also Kung Fu on the NES is so shitty that it makes Kung Fu Kid look like the best game of all time.

Anyways, what I'm TRYING to say is that's my excuse for missing out on Final Fantasy until I played the PSP version recently. I started this thing where I decided to play stuff in order. That way, by the time I catch up to the latest entry, it'll already be like 8 years old and cheap. (In other words, I'll never catch up but shhhh, I'm in denial about my backlog).

10 year lag in my case aka BDS (Backlog Denial Syndrome)

However, I'm not as crazy as to play every version of the same game so no indepth look at how this game has evolved over time or platform differences. Having said that, does the 2007 PSP release of this 25+ year-old game hold up to the test of time?

To be blunt. No.

At least they added a nice cool new intro in the PSP version. Of course, the game looks nothing like the intro and from what I understand, is pretty much the same game as the earlier versions with better sprites (correct me if I'm wrong).

SPOILER: Game looks nothing like the OP
This is another one of those "classic" turn-based RPGs where the gameplay mostly consists of walking a few steps, then holding down one button for a while for each random encounter. As usual, the only thing that requires even looking at the screen is to heal your party every once in a while. A perfect example of a multitask title for the gym, commute, or in my case, another (better) game.

I can imagine that if you're a kid with endless hours to kill, FF1 is a great game as it's filled with a wonderfully high encounter rate and is extremely coy about where you're supposed to go next (yeah yeah, retro, I know, but it still sucks). There's a dancer in the first town that tells you what to do next so even though it was a pain to go back there (no Chocobos yet), at least you could progress. But eventually, even she stops giving hints and just wants to dance (no thanks, sprites are not my thing). So unless you want to waste countless hours wandering around with that god awful encounter rate, gamefaqs here we come. You can even miss the class change without a guide, which is probably the coolest part of the game.

The craziest part of the game was when I spent probably HOURS trying to figure out how to navigate the lava in the volcano. Turns out, you're supposed to just WALK on the lava, take the HP hit, and just SUCK IT UP. Talk about some hardcore adventurers.

Too hot? YOU WIMP!! Lava is like only 1,000 C degrees!

The story was actually interesting in its simplistic and rudimentary way. It has everything you can imagine. Of course Elves and Dwarfs but then it busts out vampires, witches, a sunken palace, the works. I guess it's pretty good for its time. The last boss was certainly creative and unexpected. In today's standards though, its pretty bare. Not much more story than even a Ys game especially given that your generic 4 heroes have absolutely zero character development.

The music was good of course especially if you're an addict of that FF nostalgia juice but that sound before each random encounter was just irritating as hell as if to rub in your face: "Here's ANOTHER random encounter, SUCKA!"


I guess the only real saving grace of this game is that it's fairly short. The PSP version has a bunch of extra dungeons and whatnot you can do but unless there's some story involved (which I doubt given the light story of the main game), the tedious gameplay is simply not rewarding enough to merit torturing yourself any longer than necessary.

Score: 1.5 meh at least I got to workout at the gym while playing out of 5.

Optional +.5 bonus for its legacy and maybe it was great for its time? factor.

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

Moonlight Syndrome（ムーンライトシンドローム）

Moonlight Syndrome to summarize is a wonderful message from the late 90s to kids about the hazards of recreational drugs. I can only deduce that was the intended purpose as this game makes absolutely no sense and can only be the product of copious amounts of LSD or some other hallucinogen (perhaps Peyote?).

The opening clearly explains how the game was made

At the very least, I have to compliment the mind of Suda Goichi for even coming up with such crazy nonsense with or without the help of recreational narcotics. There's a lot of PS1 3D graphics compared to the original two games which used mostly still images.  And we all know those early PS1 polygons look pretty terrible even for its time. Whether it was by design or not, at least the horrendously dated and creepy graphics match the psychedelic tone of the game. Nevertheless, any charm and affinity you might have felt for Mika, Yukari, and Chisato is completely destroyed in this game. In other words, they are butt-fugly.

I've googled around some Japanese websites to see if this story had any inkling of sense and to loosely paraphrase a random J-blogger on the topic, "without going through the brain juice of the creator, it's impossible" to figure out this mess. The only positive thing I can say about the story is that there are zero branching paths so absolutely no reason to touch this game again after the first play-through. To me, the game's opening cut scene pretty much sums it up perfectly.

THE ORAL SEX OF A COURT OF JUSTICE

Yup, that just about sums this game up right there.

You think I'm being harsh? Pop in a few pills and see for yourself. This game is cheap at least, probably for a very good reason.

Am I just not smart enough to understand this game? See for yourself (Jhipsters only).
At least the music was not bad, for what it's worth.


Score: 1.5 acid trips out of 5

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

Corpse Party: Book of Shadows（コープスパーティー Book of Shadows）

Having heard that it was far inferior to the original Corpse Party game, I went into Book of Shadows with low expectations. It certainly didn't have the pedigree and history of the original game, polished and enhanced over the years with every new remake/port. However, the intro was very well done and I had my hopes up for at least a good game. Unfortunately, in the end, it turned out to be just as disappointing as everybody said even WITH the lowered expectations.

The intro was really good at least...
I knew going in that they had for some reason completely scrapped the overhead RPG Tsukūru style exploration (Jhipster name for RPG Maker) and turned it into a straight adventure game. But ah well, there are plenty of wonderful adventure games so it shouldn't be a problem if the story was good and therein lied the NEXT major problem.

Book of Shadows is really barely a sequel. It's more like a spinoff combined with a PREVIEW of a sequel that is unlocked only after you see every ending in the entire game. Fortunately, if you import a save file from the original Corpse Party, you only have to see the true ending of all chapters, and really, you have no reason whatsoever to play this game without having played the original.

Besides the last hidden chapter, the entirety of this game are various side stories that add some more detail about certain events and a bit of history on certain characters. For example, you can learn about characters from other schools that you only met briefly in the first game, which is nice. But then you have total fan service chapters like the one about going to "visit" the sick teacher at her home. Basically this whole game feels like some poor victim of Japanese cross-media franchise marketing tactics from 5pb, very far from its original doujin roots. But then you realize that they were just getting started because the next game dials up the fan service EVEN MORE.

I thought this was supposed to be a horror game...?

Now, I'm a fan of fan service but I still want a good, scary experience if I'm playing a horror game. In the first game, you had to run your ass off, trying to avoid ghosts while ghastly traps were popping up everywhere. In this game, it's like, "QUICK! Pick the right spot in this image!" Not exactly suspenseful and worse, not scary AT ALL. It really is a shame because the menu system of moving from room to room is tedious and slow. And there's this weird pointless penalty for investigating things as your screen slowly becomes more and more obscured until presumably you die (this was never really an issue for me).

The one major improvement is FINALLY the ability to skip through the text but that's not gonna matter much if you don't feel like replaying the game in the first place. Books of Shadows is not a TERRIBLE game. It still has those nice, shocking Corpse Party moments but it just pales in comparison to the first. At least the OST is still good and it was pretty easy to get through since it has full audio (even the narration!) and auto mode. (No reading for Jhipsters required)

Score: 2.5 uncomfortable horror fan service out of 5 (24 hours to complete)

I would say 2 if not for BEST GIRL Seiko. Lesbians are always automatic .5 bonus in my scoring.

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

Persona 4 Golden（ペルソナ4 ザ・ゴールデン）

I don't want to sound like a hipster (not Jhipster, but the annoying real hipsters that think a shitty indie game is awesome cause it's "innovative") but I'm glad I was able to first experience the Persona series completely blind from the 3rd entry around 2007, which is kinda impossible to do now given all the praise, hype, and media attention the franchise has gotten in recent years.

I picked up Persona 3 at a store completely on a whim because well, the screenshots and the anime art style looked cool. This was back when I was a typical Final Fantasy mainstreamer and was just starting to branch out into the vast world of a Jhipster gamer. I had no idea what to expect but it was definitely different and interesting. Vicariously living the life of a Japanese high school kid through an RPG? Heck YES! I never did finish Persona 3 and in fact didn't play much of anything while working 10 hour days as a Japanese salaryman. But I did finally finish Persona 4 Golden recently very much late to the party so let's talk about that instead and not revisit those alcohol-hazed, overworked days, OK?

Why did I go to school in New Jersey instead of this? WHY GOD? WHY?!!!!!!

To sum up Persona 4 (and Persona 3), it is a real-life simulator combined with an RPG. If you've ever fantasized about being a Japanese high school student surrounded by 2D JK (and who hasn't???) but still want to enjoy a fun RPG in the process, this is the game for you. The game tries to make you balance your regular ol' high school life such as making friends, studying, part-time job etc. with the secret life of busting up monsters in various dungeons. Every day, you have to decide whether to hang out with a certain character to increase his/her community score or a plethora of other activities that are available based on the calendar.

Now, if this was real life, I would probably have spent every day playing video games at home and wishing I had the courage to talk to all the cool kids but this is not "Moon: Remix RPG Adventure" (review pending) so sadly there is no option to play video games in the game. Now, you can decide to sit around and do nothing but those communities are vital to leveling up personas and unlocking various abilities for your friends when it comes time to fight some monsters. You really need to make the most of your precious time but there is one major flaw to time management: you can stay in the dungeon for as long as you want.

Apparently, I totally went about my high school life the wrong way...
(screenshot not from the game)

In Persona 3, people eventually get tired in the dungeon and if you're playing in hard mode, it pretty much means instant death in most cases as well as losing the next day or even more due to fatigue or sickness. However, in this game, the only real incentive to leave the dungeon is if your SP runs out. But you can easily overcome that early on by buying SP items from the vending machine and later on by maxing out the fox community and paying him some cold hard yen.

If you're like me and you really want to fully experience all the various side stories, you end up with a lopsided pattern of hours of high school life followed by a LONG stretch in a dungeon.  I'm not necessarily a fan of the fatigue system as it is quite annoying as well but I just wish that it was better balanced somehow, perhaps not having such a tight schedule to max out your communities. Would it kill the developers to leave some days you can just totally waste? I mean, in real life, we waste time all the time, right?

Now you can make the argument to just chill and miss out on some communities but it's pretty much impossible for the completionist to not max out all communities (yay trophy whore!) and experience every bit of story the game offers. And personally, the side stories are THE highlight of the game. You would be REALLY missing out if you just rushed through the main plot.

Dem FEEEEEEELSSSSSS!

In fact, I would say that the true allure of this game is in the totally believable characters with their real-world problems in a slightly exotic but still familiar (albeit very Japanese) setting. This game covers every conceivable human themes from death, loss, fame, divorce, social pressures, kids, etc. that you're bound to find something to tug at your heart strings. People die all the time in games sure, but how many games have you spending time with a family member day after day after the character's death? For me, the climax of the game was actually in the first BAD ending which is probably one of the best "bad" endings I've ever seen especially if you've maxed out the relevant communities.


Dem FEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLSSSS!!!!!!!
Unfortunately, the game continues to drag on for a good 20+ hours and it gets a bit preachy and repetitive about the whole persona and being true to yourself theme near the end. I GET IT. The GAME is called PERSONA! However, I'm not gonna be one of those "professional" reviewers that say stupid, asinine shit like "are games too long nowadays?" The game continues to be fun and there are TONS of nice content, even more in the Golden version which added the whole month of February and a nice new dungeon that has some cool twists (how about a boss that repels EVERYTHING??). I feel like it's great value for my hard earned dollars. Oh, and there's some sort of murder mystery thrown in there somewhere? HAHA.

Counting hours lost by dying, probably 120ish hours.
Hard mode OF COURSE. Yeah, this game is a TAD bit long.

This game fulfills my fantasy of living as a Japanese high school kid as well as any game could do without VR (OMG Morpheus Summer Lesson HYPE). Yeah, it's not exactly realistic to have like 10 girlfriends in a small town but hey, it IS a Japanese game. Overall, the OST is great, TONS of high quality story content, fun dungeon crawling, anime cut scenes, and everything is incredibly polished. Besides a few gripes in terms of time management and the fact that everybody acts like you're the most eloquent guy ever despite being completely mute, this game does deserve most of the praise that it has received. Is it the best game of ALL TIME? Not really, I mean it does feels a tad overrated but if you ignore the masses that gush over this game like it was krispy kreme with powdered cocaine, it is still undeniably a great game.

As a Jhipster, I also have to make the obligatory comment about the English localization. The English dub while acceptable doesn't really seem to convey the same aura of camaraderie and just overall "funness" of your fake riajuu high school life. In particular, the TOTALLY HOT AND BEST GIRL Rise loses 75% of her charm without her loli-ero-kawaii voice (yes, that is a thing). Keep in mind my score is always for the Japanese original Jhipster version. Based on what I've seen of the English dub, I would score that one 3/5. Hmph!

Score: 4 when in god's name is this game going to END? out of 5 (～120 hours played)
(optional +.5 for loli-ero-kawaii Risechi)

Nuff said
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

Ace Attorney Investigations 2（逆転検事２）

I was interested in many things before I discovered the way of the Jhipster and one of my favorite authors growing up was Agatha Christie (MUCH better than Hardy Boys, in fact let's pretend that chapter in my childhood never happened). I still remember the delightful shock and utter disbelief during my impressionable youth when I finished The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. It may not seem so special now but you have to remember that she was one of the FIRST to come up with such brilliant plot devices. Yes, it's all been done before and SHE was the one made it mainstream.

It only took over a decade for me to experience the same kind of sensation: the goosebumps, the chills, and utter jaw-dropping moment. It was with a little DS title from Capcom called Gyakuten Kenji 2, otherwise known to non-Jhipsters as the never localized sequel to Ace Attorney Investigations.

The game itself is not voiced (popopo) and music not orchestral but it totally should be.
To start off, if you haven't played the original Ace Attorney trilogy, what are you waiting for? It's available on the DS, the 3DS (region-locked barf), and on the phone. You pretty much have no excuse... unless you're saving the Japanese version for your eventual evolution to Jhipster-dom. You don't have to play the entire original trilogy but this game builds on the story of at least the first Ace Attorney and (obviously) Ace Attorney Investigations so you'll want to play those first to prepare yourself for the masterpiece that is Gyakuten Kenji 2.

While Ace Attorney 4 and 5 were fun games, they kinda broke Naruhodo's sense of consistency and just overall togetherness as a character. It's kind of obvious that his continued presence was more of a marketing choice over the objections of the original writer Shu Takumi who considered Naruhodo's story complete with the original trilogy. I mean it was kinda cool he came in all bad-ass in AA4 but then... back to normal in AA5??

However, Gyakuten Kenji  2 feels like a perfect expansion of the Ace Attorney universe as it fits perfectly into the story of the first game. So much so, it's hard to believe that it wasn't written by Shu Takumi. You meet so many of the same beloved characters from the original trilogy and amazingly not in any forced way. It's so natural, it's like you're seeing an old friend at the grocery store instead of an awkward school reunion.

Missle is BACK! (just the left one though unfortunately)

Gyakuten Kenji 2 is not just a fun trip down fan service lane, it's also one of the best mystery stories I've ever read and certainly the best on a video game platform. Now, I'm not a mystery expert besides having read pretty much every Hercule Poirot and most of Agatha Christie's other books as well (Marple is meh IMO). However, while I loved the original Ace Attorney trilogy, using supernatural plot devices in a mystery totally counts as cheating in my book. It's not really an issue most of the time as it has no part in the actual crime but merely as a device to help educate the player. However, it gets really bad by the 3rd game and while I like the game itself, the rampant cheating was definitely a let-down.

The first Gyakuten Kenji was also not a bad game but not exactly the best in its class. The villians kinda show up as you progress in the game and there is no "holy shit" moment nor is there a deeply complex overall story like the original trilogy. However, I consider Gyakuten Kenji as more of a setup to the glory of the sequel, as it establishes arguably the cutest and best Watson in the entire series: Ichijou Mikumo (though admittedly it's hard to choose among so many cuties). While Itonokogiri is a fine character and works as a Watson, it's just not an Ace Attorney game unless Watson is a cute and infectiously cheerful girl (with what I imagine to be just a TINY, TINY bit of sexual tension?).

Mikumo taking a selfie in 2011 before it was "cool". So hipster.

So far all I've done is talk about basically every OTHER game in the series because I really don't want to give away too many details on just what makes this game so great. But if you've played Ace Attorney Investigation, the sequel has pretty much the same gameplay elements except they added logic chess where you have to pick the correct dialogue responses on a time limit. The ability to walk around the scene and investigate is just so much better than just picking out spots on an image that I'm kinda shocked that Ace Attorney 5 didn't incorporate any of the superior gameplay elements from the Investigation series. I am not that hopeful for anything like this in the next Ace Attorney title.

I dunno why you can't walk around in later AA games??

The music is as good as you can hope for the DS. There is a wonderful orchestral arrangement of the sound track that was released later that I have listened to for like a million times now. It's 2015, can't we get this kind of music in the game itself??

You know some law shit is gonna go DOWN when you hear this
Score: 5 just fucking play this game NOW!! out of 5

Gyakuten Kenji 2 is one of my favorite games of all time and personally, the best game in the entire Ace Attorney series so far (Great Ace Attorney coming out next month). The gameplay retains all the fun of Ace Attorney Investigation but adds just an incredible story on top of it. Without getting into any spoilers, the character progression is top-notch, the villains brilliantly sinister and complex, the mysteries just mind-blowing, and the climax just one of the best moments in gaming. It really is crazy that this is the ONLY AA game that has yet to be localized to English. Non-Jhipsters can buy the Japanese version and play the fan translated rom on a flashcart or something.

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

serial experiments lain

Lain is one of my favorite animes of all time so it's pretty much impossible to approach this game with any semblance of objectivity (though really, objective reviews are pretty much bunk anyway). If you've been living under a mainstream rock, serial experiments lain is exactly what it is called. It is a series (aka serial) of media experiments with the goal of pushing the boundaries of each respective medium centered around the character of lain. And when it comes to the game version of lain, BOY does it push the envelopes. If you didn't like the anime (WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU?!!!) then you might as well stop reading here.

I really tried to come up with a genre for this game and could only think of "mind-fuck". The only other game that I could think of that kinda fits in this genre is Spec Ops: The Line. (I know, I know, not a Japanese game, JHipster FAIL, SORRY). If you have not played Spec Ops, you need to get on that right now as it's one of my favorite games from last gen. But given that Spec Ops is a 3rd person shooter, you're probably gonna say I'm crazy to put lain in the same "genre" when you boot it up.




If you were to call this a game, even in Jhipster standards used to reading hours and hours of text in adventure games, I would have to call this one of the worst "games" of all time. This "game" is nothing but a series of audio and anime clips trapped in one of the most laggiest and painfully slow interfaces of all time. I don't know if I would have the patience to sit in front of a TV and slog through the awful interface for hours on end. But no worries, this game is ultra-rare and impossible to find anyway so forget about playing the actual PS1 disc. I played this game on the PSP before I finally caved and bought it with the equity on my house. I now live in a cardboard box so I never did get to play this on the PS1 but anyways let's not get into my personal life story.

You know what makes ME sad? Looking at my wallet.

Only an idiot or insane Jhipster would expend the capital necessary to obtain this ridiculously expensive and awful game. But the STORY man, it's SOOOOOOO CRAZY! The plot in this game has no connection to the anime and lain is a little older and she's SOOOOO CUTE!

The only problem is that she's kinda crazy and the plot centers around lain and her psychiatrist Toukou. Toukou doesn't really come off as a very experienced and adept psychiatrist and she quickly loses the upper hand in dealing with lain. And of course, once lain gets her hands on a computer... let me just phrase it this way: WHEN ARE PEOPLE GONNA LEARN TO KEEP LAIN OFFLINE???


The story in this game is a perfect companion to the anime in that it's much more intimate and serves as a kind of microcosm contrast to the vast global changes in the anime. There is no Protocol 7 and while computers do play a role, the story is more focused on the private lives of the two main characters and their mental state. What I really loved about the plot is that you get to peek into what appears to be a girl and a woman's perfectly normal and mundane lives via their records and diaries. But little by little, abnormalities crop up that gradually build up into what I can only described as incredibly disturbing and real.

The divorced(?) father that a child sorely misses. A distant boyfriend and a relationship that goes sour. Having difficulty fitting in at school socially. A boss you don't like and rumors at the workplace. All these little things in life that don't go well but seems TOTALLY plausible somehow begin to gradually escalate into some really CRAZY stuff that is just seriously disturbing. But the craziest part of the game comes after you beat it.

SPOILERS!!!!! You may want to skip the rest and stop reading here if you plan to play the game yourself or use a translation guide.

When you start the game, it acts like you're logging into a computer and asks for your name. Now you may have completely forgotten about that after slogging through that awful interface and listening for hours to lain and Toukou discussing all sorts of philosophical ideas such as existence, memory, and consciousness; not to mention a healthy heaping of discourse on the nature and various types of mental diseases. After hearing about how your existence is defined by recognition from others (I am observed, therefore I am) and the difference between memory vs just a record/data, you get the sense that the game is trying to bring itself to life... in YOUR BRAIN.

And THEN, because you don't need a physical body to exist (cause LOGIC!), lain dumps her data onto the wired and well, let me just say that the ESRB would NOT be happy with what comes next.

PEGI & ESRB would NOT be cool with this today.

AND THEN, after THAT, when you're already feeling a bit crazy and depressed (the game's logo is "make me sad" and it's not fucking kidding), the data version of lain and Toukou SAY YOUR NAME with cute little innocuous message like, "Come join me [YOUR NAME]."

The GAME IS BASICALLY ASKING YOU TO OFF YOURSELF!

I guess the developers recorded hundreds of syllables so that it can say your name. It's not Siri technology so thankfully, it doesn't sound very well integrated but holy smokes, it can be shocking when the game is like, "I'm so lonely, come join me [YOUR NAME]".

I'm not even going to go into the brief shower scene that would probably make this game borderline illegal today (ok I just did). But seriously, given the themes of mental illness, depression, suicide, and the way the game tries to TALK TO YOU combined with all the press, social networks, public relations, and gaming "journalism" (barf) nowadays, I think we're past the era where something like this can ever be made again. If Mortal Kombat X is rated mature, this game should be rated "mature with ACTUAL mature, ADULT themes not just blood and gore for the unsupervised and totally immature kids".

Score: 4 hallucinations out of 5

As a game, I would score serial experiments lain a 1 but the slow progression of mental breakdowns and the seriously disturbing way the game tries to break its own boundaries easily deserves a 5. Mathematically, that would average to a 3 but I just love the concept and creativity behind lain as a serial experiment so much, that I just have to give this a 4. For others, this game will be just as wonderful or just simply impossible to play (putting language barrier JHipster smugness aside).

The minus 1 point is also for being SO FUCKING EXPENSIVE.

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

Xenogears（ゼノギアス）

Xenogears? What the? Isn't this like SUPER mainstream? Hey look, the true Jhipster doesn't shy away from stuff just because it's mainstream ok? Only a pompous Jhipster-wannabe would avoid a game just because it's not super niche to the max.

Also to start with, the Japanese in this game is hardcore like for reals. To give you an example, in English, you don't have to really care WHAT a Jasper is (an opaque, impure variety of silica). But in Japanese, when you see 碧玉, you're like WTF, how am I supposed to read that? So until you look up the word in a dictionary, learn a new word that has ABSOLUTELY no practical value, you just have this annoying word in the dialogue that you CAN'T READ. Shitan in particular seems to take every opportunity to use words that have like 20 other synonyms that are WAY more common and instead decides to pick the most obscure version (trying to sound smart and shit I guess).

So Margaret knows the location of the ??? How the fuck you read that??

I first played this game on the PS1 sometime in the late 90s in English before my transformation into Jhipster and never did finish it. I think the lame platforming in the Babel Tower was what did me in. The sensation of frustration and anger definitely seemed familiar, at least. Fortunately, this time around I was able to finish the game thanks to the convenience of Vita portability. I was however annoyed that I had to rebuy the PSN version despite owning the disc due to a freezing bug if you don't have the original PS1 hardware. Anyway, playing through this game again almost 2 decades later, my guess is pacing is why I couldn't finish it as a young lad with oodles of free time. It is really the only major flaw in this game.

Typical Merican gamers who hate to read will often complain how the game ran out of budget and was reduced to just narration in disc 2 but personally, I think the real problem was disc ONE. The first disc was so poorly paced that if the game's story fully played out in the style of the first disc, the entire game would probably take like 200+ hours to finish. The whole chapter in Kislev was incredibly drawn out and WAY too much time was spent on Rico, a character that plays no part in the larger story and could've easily been a minor character. In fact, he really has no reason to tag around as he himself asked to be dropped off at Kislev (and was promptly ignored).

NOOOOOOOO! READING!!! GAH!!! MY MERICAN EYES!!!!!!!!

Once you finally near the end of disc one, the story begins to pick up and what you end up with is a nice peeling of reveals like the story is one giant onion of surprises. Of course, it's a bit rushed but at this point, the pick up in pace is a welcome change after the SLOW progression of disc one.

While the ending is not particularly impressive if you're a long time sci-fi nerd (umm Dune Messiah anyone??), I can see how those new to sci-fi and only used to fantasy RPGs would be suitably impressed. For me, the highlight was more in the personal story of Fei and his connections to the events in the story. Overall, I do have to agree that the story was excellent and probably way ahead of its time at least on video game consoles. I was also happy to see Zoharu in there and it made me want to go play Xenosaga again. I'm gonna pretend that those games are connected.

The game itself was fun to play as well. It was fun to build up those death blows and there was not too much grinding. Some of the boss battles required some very specific strategies in typical Square style so it wasn't a matter of just mashing attack. Overall, I had a good time with the game except for the camera that was just a LITTLE too close and those stupid, stupid, lame platforming bits.

The music was also tastefully done as the game didn't feel the need to constantly bombard you with BGM for every second of the game (Compile Heart, I'm looking at you). Instead you hear music at appropriate moments to enhance the experience, used I would daresay even sparingly. While personally, the OST wasn't exactly memorable, it was definitely excellent overall with some nice gems.

This song kindly lets you know some EPIC SHIT is about to go down

Score: 3.5 No seriously Rico, why are you STILL here? out of 5 (63 hours to finish)

I was tempted to give this game a 3 because of the problem with pacing, which really is the biggest issue to what could have easily been a wonderful game. However, I have to admit that the story was excellent and the game itself was fun to play. I also have a soft spot for the 90s anime cutscenes (though very few) so 3.5 it is then as an ALMOST great game. This is really just my personal score and you're looking at a guy that couldn't even finish it the first time around after all.

Nintendo, HAAAAAALP! Why won't Sony censor dem naughty pixels??

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