A missed opportunity known as Greenhill’s New Leaf Academy

Between playing some more Assassin’s Creed II this weekend and something else I’m not yet ready to reveal, I put a couple more hours into Suikoden II. When last I wrote about Hodor and his friends, they had just gained control of Dah Castle, with plans to fill it with friendly, like-minded people to assist them in taking Luca Blight deep down to the underground. Alas, not much of that actually happened, as the towns I revisited were short of recruitable Stars of Destiny, and so I got back on the main story path, settling a dispute between humans, kobolds, and winged demons, before eventually making my way to Greenhill, the newest of the five city-states and a strong believer in higher education.

Why is our colorful gang of warriors and wizards going to a college town, you ask? Well, army strategist Shu has informed us that the Highland army has taken Greenhill. Unfortunately, the Dornish army is in no shape to re-take Greenhill, but Shu wants us to rescue Teresa Wisemail, the town’s mayor, as we could greatly use her on our side. Our best bet for sneaking in is to use a party of college-age Stars of Destiny, with Flik as a bodyguard. I went with Hodor, Nanami, Gengen, Millie, Chaco, and someone else that I’m blanking on now. Um, dang. No, no–wait. Flik was an actual party member too, with Pilika in the convoy to boot. Right. Okay, it’s off to Greenhill, to learn!

Now, I’ve never played Persona 4, but I did watch the entire Endurance Run over at Giant Bomb, and my favorite parts generally involved Charlie going to school and actually participating in classes, quizzes, and socializing. There was also a good chunk of my life devoted to daily wizard lessons in Magician’s Quest: Mysterious Times. I don’t know. Maybe I just miss being in school, having that structure and chance to prove yourself, but I was hoping for a similar experience here in Suikoden II. Instead, it’s all fade-to-black summaries and talk of delicious cafeteria food instead of actually experiencing it. Let me explain.

Before you even truly enter Greenhill, Fitcher, who went ahead to scout the situation, recommends everyone come up with fake names to use while playing phony high school graduates. For Hodor, I went with Bubba. Nanami liked the name Beth, and Flik got Blue Thunder. No one else in the party was special enough to warrant a name change. Naturally, this is a callback to Suikoden when everyone picked new names while escaping Gregminster and crossing a guarded border, but a part of me actually hoped I would get to roleplay Bubba while I roleplayed Hodor in this Japanese roleplaying game. Considering that only a single scene later Nanami drops Flik’s real name out in the open for all to hear and the other fake names aren’t even brought up…well, no. It was just window dressing.

Once you’re inside New Leaf Academy, you’ll meet Emilia, who will review your group’s paperwork and show you around some of the classrooms. This equates to quickly walking around the school area and some light talk before a man named Shin interrupts everything. You are then free to explore on your own before returning to the dorms for the evening. There are a few items to find, namely Old Book Vol. 5 and Recipe #20, but little interaction. In fact, most of the classrooms are empty of professors, with kids simply sitting listlessly at desks. It’s easy to imagine them brimming with activity. It’s so easy.

Much to my dismay, you never actually attend a class or do anything school-like while you are pretending to be college freshmen and learning about what ultimately happened to Teresa and the townsfolk. Instead, you’ll do some investigation stuff while Flik is avoiding a young girl’s smooches and then retire to the dorms for the evening so that you can kickstart another day of plot-vital happenings. There’s even a warning about misbehaving and getting expelled, but there is nothing you can do to affect any kind of system. You can’t even behave. All I was hoping for was maybe an interactive class or two, a chance to earn a special item or learn a new recipe by listening to what the teacher said and selecting an appropriate response.

In summary, I think the idea of pretending to be students at New Leaf Academy is a missed opportunity for Suikoden II, one that can’t be undone as I’ve now left the school behind, eager to get back to Dah Castle and see what story beat is next. At least I know there’s still cooking competitions to look forward to.

I’d rather watch Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 than play it

If it’s not terribly obvious, I’m a big fan of the Giant Bomb website. It’s a place that prefers to present things within the videogames industry raw and honestly, as well as welcomes everyone to contribute to its ever-growing wiki. For myself, I’ve done some decent wiki work on Game of Thrones: The Game, The Sword of Hope II, and Musashi: Samurai Legend. I go there every day to read and watch and interact sporadically on the forums.

But I’ve only recently taken it upon myself to experience one of the biggest things the website is known for–their lengthy tackle of playing Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4, the critically acclaimed event where the term Endurance Run got dubbed. It’s 155 episodes of varying length, with Vinny playing and Jeff constantly adding colorful commentary, and I’m just under halfway through it on episode 71. Strangely, I’m hooked, and it has a lot to do with the ridiculousness of the game itself, as well as the GB duo’s reactions to these moments. Otherwise, it looks like the kind of JRPG I used to play, but no longer have the time and dedication to handle now.

Persona 4 is an odd story, and I can only imagine it gets more odd later on. Nay, I predict it. The main character and his friends from school form an investigation team to unearth the answers to recent murders in Inaba, Japan. There’s a strange connection between these murders and a TV-world they can enter to fight shadow demons. During the time you are not fighting monsters, you can work on increasing relationships with your friends and family by doing social activities, such as getting jobs, attempting beef bowl challenges, and going to camp. Also, since you’re in school, you have to study occasionally for midterms and finals. And, when certain stars align, you can pursue romantic relationships. Oh man, that’s a lot of systems to juggle.

The First Hour‘s Greg Noe absolutely hated Persona 3, and I have to suspect he’d not like Persona 4 much more, considering that they share the whole “grind in a dungeon and then spend a lot of time socializing with friends and foes” thing; one big difference between the two is that, during battle, you can control everyone’s actions. But yeah, grinding and socializing–that doesn’t sound delicious to me either. But from a watching perspective, hey…it’s quite engrossing despite its slow gameplay. A lot of menu manipulation and a constant pausing when a list of decisions pop up; the greatest part is that it’s not me making these choices or dealing with items and switching Personas in battle and so on. That’s up to Vinny and Jeff, and they can make some silly mistakes, which might normally be frustrating on my own playthrough, but are now hilarious to witness. No, really…keep casting Bufu on enemies that heal from ice spells.

A bonus from watching this Endurance Run inspired me to pick up my bereaved copy of Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Surviver Overclocked again for the 3DS–with triumphant success, too. Though these both come from the same franchise, they are not entirely alike. The Social Linking stuff is gone or mostly diluted in Overclocked, as I have had to make a few relationshippy decisions, but otherwise you just watch a few different plot-driving scenes before going into a battle. Fights are more RTS-based than RPG-based, with character placement and the available number of moves vital to how a battle begins and ends. Individual battles are turn-based, with an importance placed on using the correct elemental spell to earn extra turns; I’m still learning the ins and outs of this, but I’m getting there, I swear. Just finishing up Day 3 after a whomping from the immortal demon Beldr…

So, while I’m not playing Overclocked, I’m watching Persona 4. It’s a nice way to stay within the game’s solar system, even if they aren’t exactly similar. All right. About seventy-plus more episodes to go until I see how Persona 4 ends. I’m contemplating adding it to my 2012 Games Completed list once I’m finished watching because…well, by that point, I will have invested a whole bunch of hours, and that should count for something.

Breaking on through to the other side of Devil Summoner Overclocked

Let’s travel back in time. About a year ago, a crazy hurricane named Irene tore through the eastern side of the United States, doing insane damage and just being overall terrible and freaky. Let’s hope she never returns. It also forced Tara and I out of the house we had just begun renting, pushing us to stay with her parents until power was restored in the Pennsylvania area. Before all of this happened, as a handheld gamer is wont to do knowing that a lockdown is imminent, I bought a new game for the Nintendo 3DS to help…ahem weather the storm. That’s the second time I’ve used that joke, and no, I’m not apologizing for it.

Anyways, that game was Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner Overclocked, and it seemed like something I’d like at first glance, but proved a little too difficult early on to overcome. Which is a shame, as the story was very promising and had all its hooks in me. And so I set it aside, disappointed in my second retail purchase for that nifty videogame system that displays things in three dimensions with no use of special glasses, only to pick it up nearly a year later to try again and knock down the wall blocking any and all progress. The main reason behind this? Well, I have finally begun watching the lengthy and amusing Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 Endurance Run at Giant Bomb, and all the talk of fusing different Personas and casting of spells like Bufu and Zio and growing relationships amid chaos and disaster reminded me that I had a game quite similar to that. Just a SRPG instead of a JRPG, that’s all.

And so, I hopped back into the thick of things. If you’ll recall, I put Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner Overclocked down at what I assumed was a boss-like battle early on during Day One of the lockdown in Tokyo, but was really just a traditional battle that stood in the way of the story progressing. My problem with it is that monsters would encircle a character and his or her team of Personas, and then they would KO super fast, then causing the other teams to follow just as speedily. This time around, I strategized and planned to move my trio of teens directly at the toughest enemy on the screen, killing it as fast as possible while keeping everybody close to each other. Also, I learned how to better use certain spells like Aggravate and Dia, as well as exploiting certain weaknesses for specific enemies, which then grant extra turns vital to staying alive. And lo and behold, I was victorious.

As Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner Overclocked continues on, I’ve entered a few more battles like the one that stopped me in my tracks before. It can be a little frustrating, but I’m beginning to see my mistakes and how I can handle things better. The opening few turns really do foretell how things will go, and one can grind on free battles if they need to level up their teams and Personas. In short, I’m definitely getting the hang of battles more, and I hate–with the deepest and darkest passion you can hold in the blackest spot of your heart–the demon Moh Shuvuu. One thing I still haven’t learned is to not attack her unless you can kill her in a single fight, because she will just Dia (heal) herself immediately after.

Last night, I completed Day One of the lockdown, and am now waking up to Day Two, with the counter on our collective deathclocks reading…one. Aww, boo. The story’s still fantastic, and Yuzu says some hilarious things, especially when nonchalantly talking about summoning demons from handheld COMPs and that one time they all took down a snowman. The voice-acting has really helped keep me engaged as the battles are most stressful than enjoyable, though I have only just gotten into them at this point. Learning to steal skills from enemies gives me a good goal towards perfectly the Personas currently in my party.

But yeah, I’m pretty stoked to have broken down that wall and gotten to continue on in the game. Don’t quote me on this, but it’s looking like I won’t be getting a new game until late September 2012 when Borderlands 2 drops, and so re-visiting a number of games from my backlog and continuing on with them is a good thing. Saves me money and makes me feel better about some of these purchases. Well, maybe not Game of Thrones: The Game; maybe not ever.