AJ 12/25/20 AJ 12/25/20

Persona 5 - Deeper into the Ship

We are not yet done with Shido and his ship or self-righteous bullshit. There are still more letters to get and more mini-bosses to go through before we can have the final showdown. As of now we have met some corrupt people who hide their darkness behind a thin veneer of respectability. Now we will see those who have shed the cloak and have their criminality on full display. Having Ryuji maxed out meant I did not have to engage with most of the enemies. Taking them by surprise caused me to win the encounter without an actual battle. This cut down the amount of time I had to spend in useless fights. I remember this was a feature in Earthbound as well. When Nes is of high enough level, the enemies run away from him. If he chases them down, the battle is won automatically instead of going through the motions of fight where I will not be hit but still waste time with the encounter set up. I can not think of another game I have played which implemented this strategy. I appreciate this quality of life improvement in Persona 5. When Joker hits them with surprise and wins the automatic encounter, he also gets one of the shadows. This means the game is already over a hundred hours long. There is no need to have extra padding to extend the time. The first time around, I did not have Ryuji maxed out, so had to go through all the encounters. Having the ability to avoid them has cut down my time by a significant number of hours.

Media is the fourth pillar of governance, and it is represented here by the TV station boss. This man owes a favor to Okamura and Haru is here to cash in. He offers condolences at her father’s death but immediately calls him a fool. He had televised Okamura’s death. This vulture of a human is giddy with excitement when he remembers how high his ratings were when he showed a man die live on tv. His shamelessness at broadcasting a snuff event is disgusting. Haru is devastated to hear this dumpster fire of a person talk about her father’s death with such glee. The rest of the team is close by. They realize what is happening and move in to teach this man a lesson. TV station boss is handed a beating, and in return he hands the team another letter of introduction. This guy gives us the first confirmation of Shido’s dealings with the criminal world. Kaneshiro, the low level Yakuza we had dealt with earlier was collecting money for Shido. All the drug money he amassed by blackmailing and coercing students goes towards electing this man the prime minister of the country. Same with Madarame and his counterfeit paintings business. He had been giving a cut to Shido. Looks like Masayoshi had his hand in every dirty pie in this country.

The IT company guy is the next target. Futaba has a personal grudge against this man. He was the one who used Medjed name to go after the Phantom Thieves. Since that was originally Futaba’s alter ego, she is especially pissed about it. She gets the confession from him and he is forced to right a nice letter of introduction for us as well. At this point these people are just comically evil. They pretty much just stop short of saying, “Isn’t crime just the best. Can’t wait to fool more stupid innocent people and do more crimes.” After the IT guy is beaten, he also confesses to taking all the data Futaba’s mom was working on. He then proceeded to delete all her research so only Shido had access to it.

As we get further, Shido’s connection to the Yakuza only becomes more apparent. His security boss is a literal Yakuza. He keeps showing up at the most inopportune moments and leaving the Thieves with shadows to fight. He is finally cornered, and Joker asks him for a letter. He would only give them one if Yousuke would draw a tattoo design for him. Yusuke draws a phoenix for him, which does not look too great. To everyone’s surprise the Yakuza Cleaner loves it. In fact, he loves it so much he tells Yusuke to come work for him. Since that is not going to happen, we will have to fight for this letter too. By now even the team members are annoyed they have to fight even after they have jumped through all the hoops. This is the last letter the team needed and after fighting five mini bosses, we are ready to go meet the real boss.

Not so fast. There is one more person we have to deal with. Goro Akechi got his marching orders from his boss. He is tasked to take out all the Phantom Thieves before the election, and he is here to fullfill his orders. I have talked about Akechi and his motivations already. He is an outcast just like everyone else in the Phantom Thieves. Joker tries to reason with him, but Akechi is too far gone by this time. Dealing with the horrors of the metaverse alone have broken his mind. Every single person who compares themselves with the Thieves has faulty logic. In his pre-battle anime speech, Akechi goes on to compare himself to the Thieves as well. His speech boils down to, “I have killed people, caused psychotic breakdowns leading to massive catastrophe. And you guys have slapped some people around. Aren’t we the same?” No bitch. Murdering is not the same as hitting somebody.

Akechi is powerful but not enough to beat the whole team. He does not handle losing well. Instead of going down, he brings out his black mask. Finally, the Thieves know something we have known for a long time. Akechi is the mysterious black mask who has been causing the mental shutdowns. Akechi is only the second person we know (Joker being the first) who can hold more than one Persona. As he says, if he had met the Thieves earlier, his trajectory in life might have been different.

Second part of this fight is considerably harder. Akechi has been causing the psychotic breaks in the people and then solving those crimes do get fame and fortune. The cognitive Akechi shows up to kill the real Akechi. That is the last straw. Akechi is done with his daddy’s murderous ways. Well, he is not going down easy. Maybe Shido should have come up with a better way to deal with his strongest hitman. The dumbass cognition takes to long with his gloating and the real one shoots him. Akechi has a non-metaverse related change of heart. He decides to help the Thieves escape so they can change Shido’s heart. He drops a barrier between Thieves and the shadows while he fights the cognitive version of himself. Since they never show him die, I think he just escaped the metaverse and that is why they can never get his signal.

I think that wraps up enough bosses to allow us to finally fight Shido himself. Once we can secure the route to the treasure and send out the calling card we can finally rest and come back to fight the final battle.

05-22-2020

AJ 12/24/20 AJ 12/24/20

Chrono Trigger - Tyranno’s Lair

Crono and the friends go to the woods to witness the argument between Ayla and the village elder. The elder is angry with Ayla because her decision to take the reptites head on has put the survival of the tribe in jeopardy. While Ayla is adamant fighting the reptites is the only way to insure the long-term survival of humanity. She ends the conversation by declaring she will go bring the fight right to Azala’s doorstep. The Elder is free to go hide. She leaves to find a way to Tyranno’s lair.

Ayla has been a good friend of the whole party and has come through in their time of need time and time again. Now when she needs us the most, there is no way Crono will abandon her. Accompanied by his friends, Crono makes his way to the top of the mountain where Dactyl’s nest is. Ayla is getting ready to take flight on one of the Dactyls so she can get to Tyranno’s Lair. She does not want Crono and company to come with her since this is a dangerous journey. Marle declares that is all the more reason for them to go together. Ayla is overcome with emotion at this show of friendship and acquiesces to their demand. The whole party flies off. They land atop the mountain that has the entrance to the Lair. The party makes its way inside and sees some of the villagers imprisoned in a cell. Ayla frees them, but Kino is not among them. We will have to keep looking for him. This place is teeming with reptites and traps. The Lair shows how much more advanced the reptites are compared to the humans. They have elaborate mechanisms and stone forts while humans live in thatched huts and wear pelts. Kino is in one of the smaller cells. Ayla climbs in to find a way to free him. Once freed, he also wants to join the party. Ayla convinces him to go and bring the helpless villagers to safety. Kino has finally matured enough to know where he is needed the most. He can be trusted to lead his people now.

With the villagers in safe hands, our work is only partially done here. Until Azala has been dealt with permanently he will be a threat to Ayla’s people. It is time to finish him of once and for all. On the way, the party meets a familiar face. It is Nizbel again! This fight against Nizbel was considerably easier than the first one. I don’t know if it is supposed to be this way or if my party is over levelled. The trick to this fight is, Nizbel’s defense goes up every time he is attacked physically and goes down every time he gets hit with lightning. I alternated between Crono’s lightning and Ayla’s punching while Marle provided support. This combination made short work of Nizbel and Crono was ready to move on.

The puzzles in the Lair consist of switches and trapdoors. Some switched open up trapdoors, others open doors and the forward. The frustration comes with the increase in enemy encounters. There are significantly more enemy encounters in this area. Narratively it makes sense since this is where reptites are concentrated mostly, but that does not make it any less annoying. The most infuriating instances are those where two battles happen in succession without the team moving at all. I switched Marle out for Robo to give me another physical attack option. I lost out on double tech of Aura Whirl, but I figured two healers should be enough to keep me alive while getting three hitting options will bolster my attack.

After wading through waves of reptites, Crono and his companions find themselves in Azala’s throne room. He has been waiting for us. Azala realizes this is going to be the last fight and only the victor will emerge alive, but he does have one more trick up his sleeve. He opens the door behind and exits while telling the part to follow him. Sensing a trap, the party cautiously goes through the door to find themselves on top of a bridge. On the other end, Azala stands besides Tyranno looking at the sky where a crimson star shines. Azala is angered by this sight and taunts it come crash into the planet and paint everything red. He would much rather have the whole Earth be demolished by the falling start than let the humans have free reign over it.

The battle ensues against this backdrop. It was not as tough as I anticipated. Lightening and physical attacks were enough for Azala. Once he fell, all three party members used the strongest Techs to make sure Tyranno did not give them too much trouble. Azala sees inevitability of defeat and wants Ayla to remember him as a brave fiend who fought to the bitter end. He predicts a terrible Ice Age is about to come. The crimson star is Lavos that came from outer space. Magus never made it, he only summoned it from its slumber. It had been dormant underground, storing energy until it would come out in the future and wreak havoc upon the world.

Lavos comes crashing down on the Lair and destroys it completely. Crono and friends are at loss of words. They have been wrong about Lavos twice now. Before they make another misinformed decision, it is a good idea to investigate where Lavos landed. With that in mind, our heroes head back into the ruins of the Lair.

12-12-2020

AJ 12/23/20 AJ 12/23/20

Witcher - Press Start

CDPR, the developer behind the Witcher series is in hot water these days. Most of it has been there own doing. The botched launch of the most anticipated game of this year is only one of their problems. All of the gaming community has not united in hating a company this much since the last time EA shuttered a beloved studio (which probably wasn’t really all that long ago). Before Cyberpunk wasted away all the good will CD Project Red had worked to build, there was Witcher. In fact, Witcher 3 has been so beloved a game, people were willing to give a pass to the company for some less than savory practices.

Cyberpunk has been a mess. A game that was announced eight years ago, the hype built up to a fever pitch this year. It was delayed until the end of the year to fix some of the issues. Now that it is out, it is unplayable for most of the players. The launch has been such a mess, Sony has decided to refund unconditionally and pull the game from the store. With all the stories of bugs coming out, I have decided to hold off on playing it for a while. I think I will wait to pick it up some time next year if the developers iron out all the issues and bring the game in a state where it is stable enough to play. As for now I am more interested in the other series by CD Project Red.

As evident by the three in the title, there were two more Witcher games before the last one took the world by storm. Even though they did not get the same kind of fame as Wild Hunt, first two games in the series are still well regarded in their own right. The first Witcher came out in 2007. At the time, I did not have access to a pc that could handle it. The only exposure I had to this game was in the form of Penny Arcade comic making fun of the name. It would be much later in 2014 when I did have a pc, that I decided to get it after hearing its praises from multiple sources.

I bounced off the game very quickly. What was once considered top of the line game with amazing graphics had grown old. The battle mechanics were just brutal. There were too many other games for me to play so I did not stick around long enough to get used to the gameplay. My foray into the Witcher world was definitely not long enough to experience the amazing story in any meaningful way. The next year, Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was released. Once again, my pc was not powerful enough to handle it. It was not for another four years before I would get to play it. Still without a decent pc, I decided to just bite the bullet and get it for Playstation 4.

Witcher 3 is an amazing game. It will definitely be in contention for any greatest of all time list. At the beginning the 70 hours seemed daunting, but the game is so tightly paced, I did not even notice them go by. With COVID in full effect, I got a chance to make a decent pc. Witcher 3 was one of the first game I ended up buying once my build was complete. The first two games were still sitting in my Steam library, still unplayed. There was never going to be a better time than now to start Geralt’s story from the beginning. The Netflix show gave me the final push to take a shot at playing through the whole series.

So here I am today getting started on the trilogy. My aim is to play through all three games. I haven’t even checked if the progress carries over to the next game in the series (I think it does but not really sure). I want to write about it as I play through it. If the series is any thing like the third game, it will give me a lot to think about. I had found myself wanting to talk to someone about the events in the game. Some choices still weigh heavy on my conscience. There are other choices I will not change however many times I am faced with them.

Even though my wife is seldom interested in video games, she found the Witcher Netflix series to be interesting. With her already interested in the series, she may like to see the story of the games unfold even if she won’t play the game itself. The narrative is something I am looking forward to the most. I am willing to overlook any mechanical problems as long as the story is even half as good as Wild Hunt. Since my main aim is to enjoy the story, I am not going to be playing on harder difficulties. I don’t want to miss any thing here, and I definitely don’t want the battle mechanics to be the hurdle that stops me again.

I don’t know if Enhanced Edition has improved the look of the game significantly or I have become more lenient about graphics after playing on the consoles for a while, but Witcher holds up remarkably well. The graphics still look pretty great. The opening cinematic shows one of the famous adventures of Geralt, his fight with the Striga. This was also one of the episodes in the Netflix tv show. As the legend goes, the Witcher was hired by the King of Temeria to put an end to the creature murdering his people in the dead of night.

Geralt quickly figured out the killer was a Striga. In a fit of jealously, one of the nobles in the King’s court decided to cast a curse on the Queen. Something went wrong and the Queen died in childbirth. Even though the Princess survived her birth, she could not escape the curse. She became a horrific monster that come out at night and fed on whomever was unlucky to wander into her path. Instead of outright killing her, the Witcher chose to keep the Striga occupied for the whole of the night in a bid to break the curse. Even though Geralt had become stoic as a side effect of his transformation, deep down he was still a compassionate person. He could look at the monster that was Striga and still see the Princess who was the victim. To him it was not just important to stop the killing, but also save the woman who had been suffering all this time. The morning came and Princess changed back into her human form. The Witcher had succeeded, but not without suffering some grave injuries.

The tales of Geralt of Rivia were famous for a long time, not the least because of the songs of his talented bard friend. But once Geralt disappeared during one of his wanderings, he tales also faded into obscurity. Soon there weren’t many left who remembered the white haired Witcher who saved the King’s daughter from a dangerous curse. That is until Geralt showed up close to his adopted home of Khair Morhen. Injured and unable to remember anything, he was rescued by his companions and brought back to the keep, to be nursed back to health.

12/20/2020

AJ 12/22/20 AJ 12/22/20

Chrono Trigger - A Simple Misunderstanding

Slash is the first of three generals of Magus

These generals do not have the decency to show up where Crono is. Looks like the party will have to go looking for them. On one end of the Keep is Slash. I survived this fight by the skin of my teeth. The first form was not too hard but the second one gave me a real beatdown. I constantly healed to keep my party from falling apart. By the end though only Crono was left standing. Thankfully Haste Marle had cast was still in effect. For the last few hits, I used a mid-potion one turn and attacked on the other. Just as I thought Crono was going to fall as well, Slash died. Still, it was a real butt clencher of a battle at the end.

One Lieutenant gone, two more to go. I bet we can find the other one at the other end of the Keep. When the party gets there, we see another fiend sitting on the throne. Frog assumes this is Flea even though the fiend never says a word. He falls too easily for a general, but he does take out all the MP from Crono with his parting shot. The bat that has been following us around comes to the center and starts transforming. This is the real Flea, and he has been keeping tabs on the party all this time. Flea is a gender fluid magician but he does call himself a boy so I think we will be ok using the male pronouns. Our friends are a little confused by his gender, but they do not dwell on it for too long.

If someone was going to get hit by MP buster, Crono is probably the best one to lose out all his magical power. Flea is a much easier fight than Slash. With Frog and Crono doing physical damage and Marle casting Haste and Aura, I made short work of him.

With both these guys defeated, only Ozzie stands between us and Magus. And Crono has been itching to teach Ozzie a lesson. He has been a real troll but finally Ozzie has run out of tricks. With his back against the wall, Ozzie chooses to summon himself a block of ice and hides inside it. There is no way to hit him now and he can not stop laughing about it. Crono stops his futile attacks on the ice cocoon and starts cutting the ropes that hold the trapdoors closed. Not understanding what is going on, Ozzie keeps laughing because Crono is “too stupid to aim at him properly”. He stops his cackling when the trapdoor opens underneath him and screams all the way down. I bet he felt the weight of the whole cocoon he had summoned to hide under once he hit the ground.

There is no time left, Magus is almost done summoning Lavos. Frog and friends run to put a stop to his efforts. Frog interferes him just in time. Magus still remembers Frog. I guess you don’t forget the first time you turn someone into a giant amphibian. This is the most boss heavy portion of the game. There are two seriously tough fights, one moderately tough fight and one joke one. The fight with Magus is about as hard as the one against Slash. There is added difficulty of keeping track of what he is weak against. He keeps changing his affinity after each attack, which makes him weak against one element while every other element heals him. For the first few turns I would miss what he was weak to and accidentally kept healing him. He does some serious damage to the party as well, so it is imperative to have a strong healer in the party. Attacking him with Masamune lowers his defense so it is a good idea to attack him with Frog every few turns. These hits do not change his elemental affinity, which I learned the hard way.

Before Magus can be defeated, Lavos wakes up. Turns out Crono had misunderstood his intentions. Magus has also witnessedthe destruction Lavos will rain down on the world. Instead of letting him come out of his slumber when he has gained all of his strength, Magus is waking him early by summoning him so Lavos could be destroyed. When our party interfered him, Magus was distracted for long enough to miss his chance of defeating Lavos for good. Because of this misunderstanding millions of people will die. Maybe they should have done more research before they meddled.

A gate opens up and pulls everyone through. On the other side, Crono wakes up in his bed. Was it all a dream? Marle comes in the room to check on him. They are married! Are they in a different timeline? No, this life is too good to be true. Crono has been dreaming, and he wakes up one more time to find himself in the pre-historic time. The portal that opened in Fiendlord’s Keep threw them back here. Frog and Marle are here as well but Magus is gone. Ayla is here and she wants to eat Frog. I don’t think he will go down that easy, especially once he has Masamune. Ayla does not know of another pale man. She only saw these people and brought them back to the village to keep them safe.

Ayla tells them to rest and leaves. Kino comes in here to check on them. Before they can settle, another person rushes in to tell Kino the North Woods are on fire. Forgetting the heroes, everyone rushes out. I don’t think there is anymore time to rest. Adventurer’s work is never done.

12-06-2020

Finally we are in the presence of Fiendlord himself

AJ 12/21/20 AJ 12/21/20

Persona 5 - Shido’s Ship

The Thieves go to the Diet Building to see if they can figure out how to get into Shido’s palace. After trying a few different words, the metaverse is triggered when someone mentions ship. Of course, Shido would think of himself as a captain who will right the ship of Japan. He has been charting the course for years and now he is at the helm. His ship is full of people who have bought the ticket to be on board by helping Shido achieve his ambitions. Only the most influential people get to enjoy the party, and none of the thieves have the invitation.

In the central hall, we see people milling about but they pay no attention to our friends. You need to be a somebody to even get a look from these people. That is not a problem though. Less the people notice us, better it is. There is not much to do here but the restaurant is off-limits. Only those with the membership card can go in there. Considering these are the Phantom Thieves, it should not be too hard to get one. Somebody has lost one, so we don’t even need to steal it, just claim it from whoever found it. Joker traces his footsteps until he ends up back at the bar. After a few questions, the bartender just hands the membership card over. We are so fortunate all the corrupt people are also inept. If they weren’t, I don’t know what we would do. I do wish there was more than one way to solve this problem. Maybe allow us to fake one, or find an alternate way in. This has not been that kind of a game though, so no reason to start so close to the end.

With the invitation, Joker and friends can go to the dining hall. The plan here is to get letters from some of the influential people and use them to get access to Shido. Just like any corrupt enterprise, access to the top is gated by middlemen. Once they can vouch for Joker, he can finally meet the boss. Inside the dining hall, two people have to take the seat. Makoto being the smartest one has to be one. Ryuji is excited about trying the food here so he can be the second one here. Everyone else will hang out close by just in case there is any trouble. Ryuji’s excitement fizzles out once he is told the food is not going to be real. It is more of the Matrix situation though. Who cares that it is not real if the brain is tricked into enjoying it? Interesting question to ponder about perception and reality, sadly the game does not dwell on it for too long. An arrogant old man nearby starts complaining about sitting next to the common youth. Persona 5 gets the disdain politicians have for the people they serve absolutely right. Mr. Ooe is the complaining politician in this instance. His literal job is to listen to the people who elect him and represent them. Instead, he is upset about just being near them. His attitude is so relevant to the current political climate, it is painful. With that in mind, it is all the more satisfying to completely wipe the floor with his shadow. I did not hold back with anything. Just crushed him and forced a letter of introduction out of him. Even though all of these are people in the real world, the versions here are only Shido’s cognitive perceptions of these people. Killing them here will not really have any negative impact on the real world counterparts. I did not understand this on my first play, and it did bother me a little because I kept thinking these people were going to start dying in the real world. Game does a good job of making the player invested in the morality of the characters’ actions. This makes all the actions even more impactful. We will see a few more examples of these before the end.

Still not a fan of the puzzles in the ship. Turning into rats and becoming powerless does force a different style of gameplay by making the player resort to stealth. Constantly turning the statues switches on and off gets old quickly. Penalty of being seen by the shadows is quite steep. If Joker is caught a few times in the rat state, you might as well start from a save point. It is even more annoying now that my whole party is as strong as it can be, but I am restricted from using it for a significant chunk of the palace.

I am so glad when I’m done being a rat and can finally go beat a lecherous man into giving me a letter of introduction. Ryuji’s giddiness at having the girls in bikinis comes off a little gross, but it the real cherry on the pervert cake is the Japanese royal family member who is lounging around here. At first, he refuses to even talk to our friends because they are commoners. Only when Ann pretends to be a part of British royal family, he engages with them. And then right away he becomes rapey. Another garbage person who I enjoyed beating down. The parallel drawn here between the royalty and the politicians is hard to miss. The arrogance each one has when faced with interacting with the common people is very similar. Royalty is used to be the ruling class in Japan, until as recently as the second world war. Politicians have replaced them since then. Even after having lost the privilege of being the stewards of the country, these people have not learned their lesson. Their perception of their own superiority has not diminished one iota even as their real power has decreased substantially. This man still thinks of himself as somebody who was divinely gifted with better genes and a title. The hard truth is that he was gifted with being born into enormous wealth which papered over his shortcomings and allowed him to live in luxury while other smarter, but less fortunate people suffer through poverty. I do not know how relevant that is to Japan right now, but the parallels to a certain leader in the United States are just uncanny. Even down to the tendencies of being a sex pest.

The politicians replaced the royalty as the leaders of the nation almost every where in the modern times so the people could have more control of the governance. But they behave like the new royalty now. They conduct business with the same disregard for their constituents the “divinely” selected leaders used to. They also maintain the distance between themselves and the people who they represent, so they never have to answer for their actions. I do not want to keep on harping about the politics and the current state of affairs but the theme of this palace compels me to do so. With the current level of poverty and death Americans are going through the symbolism here hits awfully close to home. Over three hundred thousand people have died in the last year with millions incapacitated by the pandemic. The disease has ravaged the economy, and the normal way of life for virtually everyone. Those who have not lost lives or loved ones have lost jobs or homes. The richest country in the world has the longest lines for food banks. And the democratically elected leaders do nothing. Those who passed legislation to give trillions in tax cuts to the ultra-rich, balk at the suggestion of giving a few hundred dollars to the people who are at the brink of financial ruin due to no fault of their own. Millions are spent on charades the culminate in elections, yet the public is not even given peanuts to get by on. The disdain for people like us is palpable. Those who sit in the halls of power squabble and peddle bullshit conspiracy theories to massage their own egos, while the majority of this country is forced to figure out how to keep a roof over their heads. It is deeply saddening to see the people around me suffer, but it is absolutely maddening to see the those in positions of power sit idly by instead of helping. This palace made me long for a metaverse where we could change the hearts of our leaders, so they were no longer hard as stones.

05-22-2020