I like SMTV, but if you are coming from Persona it is a VERY different experience. Persona is a much more narrative spinoff series from the original SMT franchise. SMT games you are typically alone, with just a party of the monsters you recruit to help you. Consequently there isn’t a whole lot of dialog. There is some story, but in most SMT games it tends to be very back-heavy.

SMT games do tend towards bleak, depressing and extremely difficult. They usually do have multiple narrative paths/endings to give it some replay value. They are really for people who enjoy those kinds of gameplay systems first and foremost.

Some of my favourite games were JRPGs growing up. I always had the impression that while CRPGs gave the player a lot more freedom, I found JRPGs were more about telling one really good curated story.

Games like the early Final Fantasies, Chrono Trigger, and basically anything Squaresoft put out “back in the day” were among my favourite gaming experience.

These days, whether due to my tastes changing, more limited time, or just the genre shifting in a way that doesn’t appeal to me, I play very very few JRPGs. A lot have gone the route of the heavily anime-inspired fanservice vehicles that just aren’t really what I ever liked about the genre.

I still will play the heck out of a Persona game though.

Dropping that slogan must have been a fun board meeting.

“I think we should move away from not calling ourselves evil”

“…why?”

“Well you know…just in case we need to do something a teensy bit evil”.

It has decidedly pro-socialist themes (as did the first game). Which should not be remotely surprising coming from a studio named Fellow Traveler.
There are at least two worker co-ops/revolutions you can assist with.

McCarthy would be so proud of the present day US. Rampant sinophobia and russiophobia.

Has the US started a program for reporting your neighbors of suspected communism yet? Maybe they can get the Marvel superheros to do an anti-communism infomercial.

US gov is rapidly banning it on government devices, I assume that this will become a federal position sometime soon. At the same time they are adopting OpenAI for security purposes.

NASA apparently just banned DeepSeek as well. Like China’s aerospace program needs anything from NASA, they’ve well surpassed them at this point.

Just started playing Citizen Sleeper 2. Really enjoyed the first one, and the second one seems to be pretty similar. Great writing and a pretty good adaptation of some TTRPG mechanics. My only real complaint has been that it can be hard to track what is going on at locations you aren’t currently at.

I am looking forward to Civ VII and Monster Hunter Wilds…both which hit this month, unfortunately for my free time. I have no idea if it comes out this year but I am very interested in Endless Legend 2 as well.

My Switch 1 was probably the least used console I have ever bought, it basically existed as my girlfriend’s animal crossing box, so I doubt I will consider the Switch 2 honestly. Especially since I have a steam deck now.

This is just an absolutely badass achievement, can’t even bring myself to meme about how the west will try to gloss over it. Over 1,000 seconds is a pretty big milestone as far as I am aware.

Played Recently:

Been on a hell of a Warframe kick, with the 1999 update releasing. I don’t stick with it constantly, but it is always the live service game I keep finding myself coming back to. The amount of content is staggering, and everything always feels relevant so I never get the FOMO that some live service games try to force. The 90s theme of everything in the update is targeting my personal nostlagia centers directly and I love it.

Genres:

Automation, Factory, Strategy, RPG. I like most anything made well, though I shy away from FPS a bit.

TGA 2024 Announcement:

Intergalactic looks pretty amazing, I am a big fan of that kind of retro futuristic aesthetic as well. I am always excited to see what Team Ico pulls off, though I tend to like looking at their games more than playing them.

2024

My favourite thing from 2024 was probably Astrobot. It was just an unadultered delight of a game and won my number 1 spot on my personal GOTY list easily. The sheer volume of factory games we seem to be getting these days is also great for me. Some fantastic JRPGs with stuff like Metaphor and P3 Reload as well.

Space Age? Yeah, though priced at the same as the base game. Arguably bigger than the base game quite honestly. I imagine I will be over 200 hours by the time I finish it, assuming Gleba doesn’t break me.

The Paradox published factory builder is Foundry, which is more of a satisfactory style first person joint. Wube makes Factorio I believe.

I always come back to Warframe in spurts, I would like to play it again but just got so much on my list.
Soulframe NDAs are lifted now, so can say I enjoyed the time I put into that. It is a really visually striking game, but way slower paced than warframe.

Just rolled credits on Satisfactory after 100 hours, and been playing the hell out of the Factorio: Space Age DLC (at about 120 hours right now). I like factory games a lot.
Generally having a really good time on Factorio, but Gleba is absolutely not my thing. Everything up to that point I have loved, but I kind of dread continuing on from here.

I have Persona 3 Reload on the backburner, for when I clear my plate a bit. About 10 hours into that.

Biggest game I am looking forward to for 2025 is probably Monster Hunter Wilds right now.

McCarthy would be proud to see his legacy alive and well.

I can’t say I am surprised, but a bit disappointed.

5 is great, and also pretty underrated in my opinion. I recently replayed the first six and I think I had greatly underrated 3/5 and overrated 4.

Not obscure, but I always felt FF3 never got enough credit. Largely because it never got a western release at the time I imagine. It was incredibly ambitious for a NES title, the nested world maps was absolutely bonkers at the time and it was really the first real form of the iconic FF job system.

Yeah the party was just a blob of blank slate characters, but overall I think it actually holds up pretty well.

They are not. Asia (this comprises most SE asian countries), China, Japan, and SK are each separate regions.
Not quite as uniform as Europe, which is basically just one big region.

This is correct, I use a US PS5 in Japan and there is no issue.

I just have multiple PSN accounts for different regions. Even if you wanted to use the off-region PSN account outside that region you could, you would just have to do some workarounds to fund the digital wallet. Though there are plenty of sites that sell PSN codes that would work, I have used in the past and never been an issue.

Yen too, even factoring in exchange rates it is about 850 USD in JPY. In terms of relative purchasing power, it is well over 1000 USD.

We designed the damn thing and it is the most expensive here. I can’t imagine they will have all that many domestic sales.

It…depends probably.

You can definitely build a competent gaming PC for less than a PS5, depending on the games you want to play. If you are playing like Factorio and Rimworld, you don’t need a 4090 or something like that.

I think a PS5 is probably better value if you are just looking at raw tech specs for technically demanding games. Historically consoles (except sometimes Nintendo consoles) are sold at a loss because the platform holder makes money back on software. I have no idea if this is true for the Pro, though I imagine it is.

But on the high-end, PCs are definitely more expensive. The PC I just built cost me several times more than a PS5 Pro would have. It is almost certainly technically more powerful than the Pro would be and I can do a lot more with it besides just play games.

For me, makes no sense to replace my PS5 with a Pro. I don’t even care about the whole disc drive thing people are in arms about, I haven’t bought a physical game since the PS3 era. My PS5 has a drive that has never been used once. I just don’t really see the benefit of the upgrade when I have the base version and a PC already.