Massive Rat War

 Well my Sunday was filled with mainly not game related stuff but the one thing I did manage to do was finish A Plague Tale: Innocence.  Like I said in the previous post, it's not a bad game but it doesn't have enough good ideas to support its length.  There was about 16 chapters total with the first 6 and the last 2 being sort of cool and then everything in between feeling like a bunch of stupid padding.  They could have very easily cut the game down to about 10 chapters and it would have been a perfect length but instead it really does start to feel like a slog by the end.  

 Spoilers ahead if you care for some reason

One thing I did find quite interesting though is that in the last few moments of the game you get to actually control the rats and you have to sic them on dudes like little diseased Pikmin.  You spend maybe 2 chapters of the game using this power to get through some guards only for the entire thing to climax in what I can only describe as a rat war with a priest.  I was sort of worried that the game would do that really annoying thing of just having you fight goons while a cutscene happens in the background and you just win when enough of them are dead but there's a full on hilarious boss battle with giant rat towers and it was actually quite the spectacle.  I'm glad that I stuck with it to the end but I'm also glad that I didn't have to pay for it. 6/10 I guess.

Before I wrote this article I actually loaded up a game called Ghost Runner, a sort of Hotline Miami via Mirrors Edge that's kind of fun.  I got half way through a stage though when a spinning platform bugged out when I landed on it and angled itself at about 45 degrees.  When I respawned I could still land on the platform but it was clipping through the wall I was supposed to run along and when I tried to do the wall run I'd get knocked off and fall to my death.  I tried to exit the game and reload my save thinking I could go from the checkpoint but when the game loaded in I was at the start of the stage and upon seeing that I promptly quit the game and it might be a good few days before I drum up the will to play it again.  

Tomorrow I'm hoping will be a bit of a MegaTen day.  I'm working in the office which means I'll be lugging my Switch down with me to play some SMT V in my lunch break and when I get home I'll be firing up the PS1 version of Persona 2 (Innocent Sin) for the Stream!  I'll be back tomorrow to report how many times I got my ass kicked by demons

Some Persona Fans Piss Me Off

I can feel the hate mail coming just from the title so hold your fucking horses and let me start with a clarifying statement.  I fucking love Persona 5, it was an amazing experience with both style and substance and is probably my personal favorite game on the PS4 right now with very little chance of being overthrown any time soon.  I'm also a big fan of Persona 3 and Persona 4, also great games that I sunk many many hours into and loved dearly.  Persona 4 Golden (and Dancing all Night) was pretty much the entire reason I bought a Vita.

But with that said, god DAMN some of you Persona "fans" on the internet piss me the fuck off.  Now I'm not talking about the legions of Weaboos that seem to make up the games fanbase, that's just sort of par for the course when it comes to titles like this and while they are cringy as fuck their slightly overzealous enjoyment of games in this style aren't really the problem.  My problem comes when I see posts from supposed "fans" shitting on mainline SMT or Persona 1 and 2.

First I think it's important to understand where I am with this series.  Way back when I lived in the UK, I remember my mum telling me about this game called Lucifer's Call on the PS2.  God knows how she came across it but it piqued my interest and I grabbed a copy and went from there.  This game blew my goddamn mind.  It was a bit like Pokemon but instead of shitty little woodland animals coming out of my balls and winning the day with friendship the whole game was basically a struggle to survive in a harsh world of demons that you had been thrown into (there's more to it than that, but for another day).  So I played the fuck out of that and then I don't remember playing much of the series until Persona 3.  It wasn't until that game that I realized that I wasn't just playing "Persona 3" but I was playing "Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3".  So I did some research on the series at large and the obsession grew from there.

Now the reason I can't stand the people who shit on Persona's 1 and 2 is just because I'm a ponce.  Those games are harder and a bit dated but it just seems silly to shit over the first two games and then go around the internet touting yourself as "a fan of the series".  Let's face it folks, Personas 3 and up and designed for ages 3 and up.  Easy mode SMT for people new to the series, a nice little way to break you in.  It's a great place to start if you've never played a MegaTen game before (although I'd argue that Digital Devil Saga is better) but by ignoring the rest of the series because it's "too hard" for you is just a crying shame.  As Souls fans say, "Git gud" because you're really missing out on so much and if you just spent even a LITTLE bit of time learning the basics of these games even notoriously hard entries like Strange Journey won't seem so impossible.

The people who get my back up though are the ones who shit on SMT as a whole.  The ones who are elated to point out the fact that ATLUS dropped the "Shin Megami Tensei" off the front of Persona 5.  The ones who will type out pages and pages of stupid, backward reasons about why the series sucks and Persona is the only thing keeping it alive (untrue).  These people are a bunch of stupid fucks that need to shove a Mara up their gaping assholes.

I can get why one might say "I don't like these games, they are hard and dated" because they are.  I'm currently replaying Megami Tensei on the NES (not even Shin) and coming off the back of P5 GODDAMN it's taken some readjusting.  But to turn around and say that SMT sucks is just fucking stupid.  Without SMT there wouldn't even be a Persona and as much as you probably don't want to admit it you are just playing easy mode MegaTen.  Hell, you could rename Persona "Shin Megami Tensei USA" because that's almost what they are at this point.

For those of you who didn't get the joke

Persona as we know it today wouldn't even be a thing if it wasn't for a very specific Shin Megami Tensei game called Shin Megami Tensei If...

It wasn't a hugely successful or popular title but two things in this game were direct inspirations for Persona.  First was the high school setting and the second was the guardian spirit system but if you think Persona 1 and 2 are dated you don't stand a chance with SMT: If...  The point is, everything that you love about the later Persona games has been tried, tested and perfected throughout the rest of the series at various points.  Disliking it is fine but shitting on it just makes you look like a fucking moron.

If you've tried the games and felt that they are dated or too hard, I implore you to go give them another try.  Use a guide if you have to or play the next best entry game after Persona in terms of difficulty, Digital Devil Saga.  If you think that SMT in general just sucks and you aren't willing to try again or even accept the massive impact its had on your so called "favorite" game, then have Morgana put you to bed and then do the world a favor by never waking up.