Status Report - Operating at about 60% (Pixiv Fanbox)

Just another update. Been slowly getting back into things, and have been back to Blending again. Just random things at this point, with no real character or theme in mind as of right now. Some of the slowness is due to Persona 3 Reload, but I ending up finishing it this past weekend so anime waifu and death simulator is no longer consuming my life. I have to say that I really enjoyed it, and it probably had more of an impact on me now than it did when I first played it well over a decade ago, and it was already on my favorite games of all times list. It was exactly what I wanted from a Persona 3 remake. It's essentially the same game with a prettier coat of paint while also smoothing out the rough spots and what not. Combat-wise, it's more in line with recent titles, which I imagine some people won't like, but I enjoyed it a lot. The AI party members doing dumb moves that get you killed isn't my idea of fun. Nor is it good difficulty. And really, the SMT and Persona games are overrated in terms of difficulty. I had heard horror stories about Matador in Nocturne… I beat him first try. And it was the first time I had played an SMT and didn't even know what I was doing. I just knew that I probably should be using buffs if they're there. I didn't play the Personas until after Nocturne, and I only got Nocturne because it featured Dante from the Devil May Cry series. True story. I am that much of a DMC fanboy. But I ended up liking the game beyond that enough to play other SMT games and its spin-offs.

Still, the whole story of P3R is basically exactly as I remembered it(admittedly the last time I played P3 was in like… 2011, since Tartarus was a huge drag, so there are probably some changes but overall nothing felt drastically different.), and the new scenes with the teammates and what not are a nice addition that feel perfectly in tune with overall theme of the game. Considering P3 is definitely rough around the edges, being their first foray into this particular style of Persona, the remake smooths those edges out and is one of the only, if not only remake I'd consider to be the 'definitive' edition of a game. REmake4 is a good game, but I'd still prefer to play the original honestly. RE4 is still a good game, and remaking it just felt pointless to me. Sure, I enjoyed the remake well enough, and there are some good qualities to it, but it's never going to have the same impact as the original did to me. On the other hand, Persona 3 was a good but flawed game, enough that I didn't touch it for over a decade since the thought of Tartarus just kept me away every time. So, Reload did exactly what it needed to do. Keep what's good about Persona 3, pretty it up while polishing up the rough spots. While the thought of Tartarus in P3R isn't exactly exciting, it's not the dread of the original P3. They burned my dread of Tartarus. So yeah, good remake.

In general, though, I'm not really a fan of remakes. Something good will stand the test of time, regardless of how old it is. The term 'classic' is a term for a reason. That said, while there are plenty of duds, it's not impossible for a remake to be better than the original. I prefer John Carpenter's The Thing to The Thing From Another World, for example. Although is that really a remake, or is it a reboot, or another adaption? Whatever. And in terms of video games, I'd put Reload up there as a great example of a good remake. Perfect? Definitely not, but neither was the original. Oh lord was it not perfect. But Reload manages to be my favorite remake thus far, and we've been getting a lot of them. Too many, honestly.

Besides that, the story is as good as I remember, and Mitsuru is still best girl. Even if I feel like they kind of dropped the ball on her model compared to the other characters, and compared to her model in the Dancing game, she is still the best. Aigis is second best. And while I'm still not a huge fan of Yukari, her model and artwork in Reload tickled me more than I expected. I will hopefully be able to dip into animations of them all at some point. As I said at the start, I am slowly getting back into it. I just am being indecisive with what I want to do. Just want to get into it naturally with proper motivation instead of just going through the motions. I have sort of started on Kaine, but it's far from my first choice lol. I will hopefully be getting back into the swing of things with the polls, and I don't know when they're gonna return properly. Hopefully sooner rather than later, but I can't make any promises at the moment since some days I'm okay, then others not so much. I also probably will be releasing something this weekend, since I had a set I started November of last year that I decided to finish up. But I don't think I'll be returning to bi-weekly releases right out of the gate. Just gonna play it by ear and see how things go.

Anyway, Happy Valentines Day.