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| My God... It's full of Chairs! |
Sorry for posting two "Crescent's Thoughts On" in a row, but there has been some news this week that isn't Anita Sarkeesian related that I want to talk about. Said news is 3 parts awesome, 1 part suck, and 1 part "I have no idea what's going on." And you can probably gather from the title of today's post, this is about Youtube and the deity known as Atlus bringing us the second coming of the Messiah (Which for one of the news topics I'm going to discuss is actually surprisingly accurate). So while everyone is in a rush to consume as much Thanksgiving leftovers as possible before it all goes bad, I will go over this news one by one, starting with Youtube.
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| To be honest, this is about as functional as the Youtube App gets. |
Two weeks ago, during their Nintendo Direct announcement video, Nintendo announces that Youtube will FINALLY hit the 3DS with features such as being able to browse on the bottom screen while watching videos on the top screen, and that this App will be available before the end of the month. Unlike their Flipnote Studio 3D promise, this one they actually kept and Youtube was available on Friday of last week, and it is kind of disappointing. While the touch controls work fine, there are numerous issues with the navigation and responsiveness of the menus, giving no feed back telling me whether it recognized my input and the significant delay to every action. Searching has this issue where tapping the search icon brings up the Keyboard, but it won't actually search until you tap the search icon again. And then when adding filters it brings up the Keyboard EVERY TIME select a new filtering option. And then finally comes the video quality... My GOD. EVERY VIDEO looks so horribly compressed and muddied, and this is on it's HQ version, if you deselect HQ, then suddenly the screen shrinks to half it's original size. And while you can browse on the bottom screen while a video is playing, it is only for the video description and related videos list, the moment you try searching for a new video, you are kicked out of the video you are watching. And lastly, it crashes and Freezes on me ALL THE TIME. It crashes after trying to look for a video after a few minutes, and it will completely Freeze if your Wi-Fi connection is in any way problematic. And lastly, I'm watching Youtube on a 3DS, who's main feature is being able to play games and video in 3D, WHY THE HELL CAN'T I WATCH PROPER 3D VIDEOS ON YOUTUBE IN 3D!?
Personally, the only reason why I wanted Youtube on my 3DS is so that I can watch anime on the go, unfortunately FUNimation has stripped a lot of the videos that where on it's channel to just the first 4 episodes of any given dub, and only a handful of shows with a complete sub. More recent series such as The Devil is a Part Timer is completely absent, while older series like Spice and Wolf are for the most part only there subbed. Unless, FUNimation puts all of it's series on Youtube again and Youtube fixes all of these problems quickly (which knowing Youtube, they will only make things worse) I don't see myself watching that many videos on my 3DS... At least until Crunchyroll puts out a 3DS app. They have a MUCH better selection of anime, and I will ALWAYS want to stop to watch Maoyu again.
Moving on, next we have Atlus's promotional blitz for the Persona series introducing 3 new games and giving more information on their previously announced Persona 4 THE ULTIMAX ULTRA SUPLEX HOLD!! I'll start with the title that demands to be shouted at every mention.
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| If this isn't Aigis's new Instant Kill Move I will be disappointed. |
The sequel to Persona 4 The Ultimate in the Mayonaka Arena (Known outside of Japan as Persona 4 Arena), the Ultramax brings 3 new characters into the fray (Junpei and Yukari from Persona 3 and Sho who is an original character) and new gameplay features along with a brand new story that seems to mix the concepts of Persona 4's TV World with Persona 3's Dark Hour. This new trailer showcases two new elements, one is the Shadow characters who in the original Persona 4 Arena where just copies of their respective characters and function as a Mirror Match in the Story and Arcade modes. This time around they are a separate "Mode" for each character having their own special characteristics for players to play around with and encounter during story mode. This trailer is also the first time we get to see Sho fight and what he is capable of (Interestingly enough Sho appears to not have a Persona). And finally, the trailer ends with a teaser regarding a character from Persona 4.
Personally, I was already interested in this game, I've played Persona 4 Arena (Review found:
HERE) and while I'm not a fan of fighting games, I did thoroughly enjoy P4A and a continuation of the story is interesting given the end of the previous game. I'm looking forward to this next installment, now what the hell are they going to call this game in the US?
Persona 4 The Ultimax Ultra Suplex Hold Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zqmnp2wZRU4
Next I'm going to talk about something no one saw coming.
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| You can't be Narukami! You are showing way too much emotion! |
Persona 4 Dancing All Night.... It is a dancing rhythm game... for the Vita... Starring Rise and Yu... Yeah... I'm sure no one can say they saw this one coming. I really don't know how to feel about this one other than the trailer was obnoxious with the amount of Engrish phrases the voice over was spouting. On one hand, the Persona series has really AWESOME music, and several of them you can really dance to like Reach Out to the Truth, Your Affection, and the track featured in the trailer Pursuing My True Self. And this IS trying to appeal to a completely different demographic than myself so I can't really fault them for trying that. On the other hand, this just give the impression that Atlus will slap the Persona name on to anything, much like what Nintendo does with the Mario franchise, and I really don't think Persona is a franchise that can survive that kind of pandering. I mean, I was skeptical when the first wave of Persona 4 spin-offs, Arena, Animation, and Golden, where announced but I warmed up to them when it was obvious that the quality I expect from a Persona game was present in all of these other products (except for Golden, which isn't in regards to it's quality but rather it's necessity, Persona 4 was already an awesome game, I don't think they needed Golden to improve upon it). However, with Dancing All Night, this feels far more like a cheap cash grab than any of their other Persona ventures. Who know, this might be the most awesomist Dance game in existence thanks to the Persona touch, but I don't think many people will be disappointed if it never exits Japan.
Persona 4 Dancing All Night Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5BIRWiifo8
Next is something that has been rumored to be in development for quite some time, but no information as to what it was has surfaced until now. Around the time that the 3DS was released, Atlus has stated that they had some plans for the Persona series on this little handheld. There was a lot of speculation as to whether it was going to be a remake of an older game, or a spin-off to the main franchise, or even that it was going to BE Persona 5 (Hey they released Shin Megami Tensei IV on the 3DS), but no hard facts about the game... Until now.
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| OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! |
Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth is not only the first Persona game to make it on a Nintendo console (unless you count Shin Megami Tensei if... as a Persona game), it also promises the team up that every Persona fan has been fantasizing for years now: Makoto Yuki and the members of SEES join Yu Narukami and the Investigation Team. The Plot, as revealed by the trailer and conveyed by Youtubers who have subtitled it, centers around a Clock Tower appearing during the middle of Yasogami High's Cultural Festival and the Investigation Team getting trapped in another world, while SEES, during their excursions into Tartarus, are also sent to this other world, and now both teams must fight together to unravel this mystery that seem to revolve around the new characters Zen and Rei. The artstyle for Persona Q is drastically different, more chibified and far more similar to Atlus's Etrian Odyssey series than Persona. In fact, that can also describe the gameplay, as the few shots of gameplay in the trailer showcases battles that look awfully similar to Etrian Odyssey's battle system. Personally, I'm totally stoked about this game. Etrian Odyssey isn't that bad a fit for a Persona game (given that Persona 3 and 4 already had heavy dungeon crawler elements), and hey we finally get to team up the two most powerful Persona Users in existence up. What can possibly go wrong!?
Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etfqRXPXbQQ
And last but not least, the announcement we all knew Atlus was going to make eventually.
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| You are Engrish. Want Spell-Check? |
Persona 5. We all knew that Atlus was working on this. They can't milk Persona 3 and 4 forever (Though they did their best to try). The only disappointing this about this is that rather than a full on Trailer, all we got is this small Teaser. It's a series Chairs appearing and being strapped to a Ball and Chain, each time one of the names of the creative team appearing with a similar "Chained" motif. Ending with the Engrish phrase "You are slave. Want emancipation?" and finally "Persona 5 for PS3, Winter of 2014." Gameplaywise we've got nothing to go on, but it is unlikely that they will stray that far from the formula that made Persona 3 and 4 so popular. Storywise we at least know what kind of themes they are going for, Enslavement and/or Freedom, much like Persona 3's theme was Death and Persona 4's theme was Truth. And the teaser suggests that the dominant color scheme of the game is going to be Red. But outside of that, and the fact that it will be on the now "last gen" console of the PS3 a year after the PS4's launch (which given Atlus's track record isn't unusual and is probably a smarter choice), we've got nothing to work with. And that's the most disappointing thing about Persona 5 right now, we have NO information on it, so it is nice to know that it's in development, but for me there isn't anything to really get excited for yet.
Persona 5 Teaser:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mZssK05WYo
And there you have it. Youtube sucks, Persona is awesome, except when it's a dance game, Persona 5 exists, and I'm going to fantasize about Persona Q until I can get my hands on a copy.
Until next time.
-Crescent, Yu:"......" Makoto:"......." Yu:"........" Makoto:"......" Yu:"......?" Makoto:"!!"
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