So, the third version of the same game. But this time with even more features than ever before. And some drawbacks.

I think that all of you know how much I enjoyed Persona 3. Even if I haven´t written it out when you read about Persona 4 you see that I liked it.

So this time Atlus decided to release it for the PSP. And they made some changes.

Female main character? Lovely
One of the biggest reasons for me to get this title was that now I get the choice to be male or female. Having been male in the last two versions I gladely took it upon myself to be female this time around.

And she is lovely. I named her Minato Kuji. Yes I suck at names so what can I do?

With Minato I started the adventure. The very first thing I notice is that now the game is more like a visual novel/dungeon crawler than every before. Lines of text is displayed with a static background and the characters face and body talking.

Even most FMVs have been reduced to text only. I don´t mind.

She is also more full of emotion than the male lead. Giving her more personality.

The bonus for this is the ease of traveling. With all screens being a static image with the characters you can talk to and places to go within your reach it´s faster than the original when you want to go somewhere in school or town. I love it.

Dungeon & Battle A B C
Dungeon crawling is the same as it was in P3: Fes. I´m not 100% sure about this but I don´t think the various errors in Tartarus were available in P3: Fes with floors that are dark with no map available, you get the full map viewable from the start, you can more EXP, Items or the best/worst “bonus”. A floor with no enemies, lots of treasure chests and the Reper coming after you fast as hell.

For battles this feels more like Persona 4 than the earlier versions. You can make co-op attacks with your teammates when the Fool S Link is high enough. You have the option to controll them on manual, no AI is needed. Maybe the best upgrade to the battle system is that downed enemies stay down even if you hit them again with an attack.

So if you have 4 enemies, 2 of them are weak to fire and the others are weak to ice you can use maragi to hit them all with fire damage, then switch to a persona that is able to use Mabufula to hit them all with ice damage and voila, all enemies are down and you are able to make an all-out attack.

Also a cool thing is that you don´t get “tired” during your stay in Tartarus so that you status changes as it did in the previous versions. This allows you to grind your way around Tartarus as much as you want. Doing quests and what not in one swing and then ease trough the following battles.

When you leave Tartarus though on the following day you are tired or sick.

Social links
When you were a boy and joined a sports club in school you could pick from kendo or soemthing else. I don´t remember. Here it´s switched as you get to choose volleyball or tennis instead. It´s still the same arcana but the character have changed.

Which is pretty cool.

You are also able to get closer to your teammates faster than ever. I don´t recall being able to talk with Junpei or Akihiko at all in the original. Here as you are a girl you can charm them if you meet their requirments. Akihiko being the school idol he has many fans so you need to be charming bee to even be able to approach him.

Junpei is Junpei, he´s glad as anyone of the opposite sex talks with him.

Getting your charm/academics/courage up has also never been easier. With the introduction of part time jobs you can work at Chagall Cafe to earn money and increase your charm as an example. There are more places you can work part time on and most of them also increase various stats for you.

Theo, a male butler for Igor is also available. Elizabeth is also available if you want her. You actually get to choose the gender of the butler for Igor as well. Pretty neat and fun to see.

All in all
Even though I have both SMT: Persona 3 and SMT: Persona 3 – Fes I don´t regret getting this title at all. It´s fun to play, it´s easier to grind and make social links grow. It´s way more easier to navigate trough school and the city and everything is a bit fresh since I play as a female lead. Getting her into the skimpy battles panties and then talking with Junpei and Akihiko was hilarious. Or getting Yukari or Mitsuru to wear it

If you haven´t gotten this game already and you want to try out the SMT: Persona series then this is a must have title.

Just think cold water and eat ice cream is basically what I can do at the moment. Today has been full of heat and even a thunderstorm with rain that helped lower the temperature a bit.

But now it´s back in full vigor and it´s hot hot hot.

So a filler post for today. A serious, joyfull and comedy filled scene from Macross Fronter Episode 16 featuring Altoh and Sheryl. And yeah, they argue thanks to the scenario.

Wish me luck for surviving in this heat untill the next time!!

So, we need to get something checked out and thus I created this.

One of the reason I choose Arthemia Premium as a theme for this site is because of the headline and featured sections.

But as things are now we don´t use these sections as much as I would want to and thus I become a bit irritated when I go here and see that it´s the same damn topic still.

So I´m writing this as a post instead of making a poll out of it: Should we remove the headline and featured sections from The Fool?

It´s a simple thing for me as the theme options allows me to choose. But I can agree to stop this madness if our readers tell me so. If they aren´t irritated by seeing the same headline over and over again all the damn time.

Or should the headline be used for this type of announcements? That we have a current theme, question or what not that we want the readers to answer?

Otherwise. I wish everyone a nice summer and that you hopefully have somewhere cold to spend the days and nights. It´s horrible here. So damn hot one can almost not stand being awake.

I know I´ll be sweating and cursing the heat a lot of it continues like this. Espacially since I can´t experience the nice beach and all the nice looking ladies there :p

Bah, to keep me from babbling, I´ll just end this post now. Do answer the question and we´ll see how things will turn out.

And with my feet starting to act up again this isn´t turning out to be a good summer.

But for all that it is worth. Finding this movie was great.

It is not I who am playing. With that out of the way just watch this and enjoy it. This is how you should play Bayonetta

Oh my. I´ve forgotten to post yet another week on the correct day.

Reasons are many and they are few. So grab a bite to eat while I go trough the few but time consuming events that have lead us all up to this day.

First of all. Eien no Aselia has taking a lot of time. Sure now I have finished it, but thanks to that I have so little time over for other stuff. But oh man what a great game it is!! Spread the word that it is marvelous!!

Second. My real life caught up with me. Now I´ve got a own personal coach that will help me hopefully find a job. And I´m thinking about other stuff. I just need to do research for that said project that is job related before I throw myself into it. Hopefully I will learn much more stuff from this coach and who knows where that might lead?

Third. Books are enjoyable again. I´ve started to read the Elenium books by David Eddings again. And I´m enjoying every little tidbit of it to the fullest.

Fourth. This is the one thing that has drained the most time out of me: I´ve started to try and understand custom posts and all the new features that came with WordPress 3.0. I´m also creating a new theme that incorporates all these new features. Or trying to anyway. And no, it won´t be for this blog. It will be for my Swedish blog Nibelung Valesti that I´m thinking about just every two seconds on what I should do with it.

I´ve decided to keep it, but I also want a new fresh theme for it that makes my ideas bear fruit and may add me in the project I talked about earlier. So I´m trying to get a good hang of it all.

So while it hasn´t happend much it has taken a lot of time and phew, I´m almost starting to get exhausted. If it weren´t for Eien no Aselia I wouldn´t have played anything at all.

Sorry for this short post. But now you know what I´ve been up to during the week. This week will be exhausting as well. But finally I can get som good rest from soccer so my body can heal.

And while I say that I bought this theme and won´t change it I´m starting to get the feeling that I need to redesign the theme for this blog. I love Arthemia Premium I really do but at the very least I have to think about a new color scheme.

That´s all. See ya around and hopefully I will have a new chapter for The Thousand Summer up and running some time this week.

So, I promised a post about my first impressions of Eien no Aselia – Kono Daichi no Hate de. And here we have it. This is by far the best game so far that I´ve played this year. Hopefully something can top it since it isn´t a game that has been released this year.

Story
Yuuto is somewhat of a jinx, his parents died and he was adopted by his new sister Kaori´s parents. Soon after they also died and Kaori being in coma. As the young child he is he can´t do anything but pray. He wishes for a miracle, that Kaori should be saved and he would give anything for it to happen.

A voice appears in his head, with short and hard to understand words it promises to save Kaori if Yuuto abides to make a contract. To save Kaori and give her a happy life Yuuto agrees to this.

Kaori is saved and they start living together as brother and sister.

They grow older and start going to high school. Yuuto has headaches on random intervalls and he can´t understand it.

These headaches get their explanation the day he himself and Kaori are transported to an alternate world. A world where spirits exists and Yuuto is called an Etranger. Looking for Kaori Yuuto finds himself before the king of a land, Rakios and Kaori is kept prisoner.

To guarentee Kaori´s safety Yuuto has to fight against the other countries spirits as an Etranger.

Characters
There is a great mix of characters and personalities here. Yuuto himself is being torn a part by his mind, is killing spirits alright to save Kaori? What is his other alternatives? He can´t find any. But he still wants to help the spirits that are under his command. They do not have to die if they ask him and he treats them as humans where everyone else is treating them as tools of murder and slaughter.

Espelia, a green spirit in maid clothes is the dorm master one could say and while she is excellent in everything she does she seems to have a dark past.

Aselia is a blue spirit with no sense of living except for battle. It is when she in battle that she is shining the most. Even if she doesn´t speak much and it takes time to get to know her she is full of thoughts and is good at crafting.

Orpha is a red spirit and acts much like a child. She calls Yuuto “papa” and is hyper active. She is a mixed personality, she enjoys killing her enemies as everyone around her will praise her if she does. But she still has a soft side to her.

Lesteena is the princess of Rakios and she does not share her fathers view of controlling the surrounding countries by force. She believes in a world where there is no war and will gladly act the part of the villain to aquire this.

One thing that is pretty cool is that in this game some minor characters, one could call them generic spirits are also given some time in the spotlight if you keep them alive. You get to know them better.

Battles
The battle system is great for a SRPG. So far I am able to have four squads based on: Attacker, Defender and Support.

The attacker is the position where you will attack the enemy. As long as you have a Defender you will not be hurt as a Attacker unless the opponent uses certain magic skills. Any type of spirit have certain attack skills but from what I can understand blue spirits along with red spirits are a good choice for this position.

The Defender is the guard of the squad and is the one that mainly takes the assault of the enemys attacker. Thanks to their high def and hp green spirits are a good choice for this position.

The Support unit is a bit of jack of all trades. They can make stats increase, attack with magic, seal the opponents magic, heal and on and on. All depending on what kind of squad you want to build you may use blue or red spirits here for either cancelling the opponents magic or attacking with fire based magic. Green spirits usually boost defense or heal the squad when placed in this position.

There is also a fourth type of character. These are called all-round but since I haven´t gotten the time to play with any of this type all I can say is that they get to use all their skills in one turn. Which is great.

Battles take place on a world map.

You have a set route where you can attack or move each round. Or train your soldiers. When it comes to attacking or defending a town/castle the siad town/castle can provide special boosts in defense to the defending group. You also regain your skill uses and a fixed amount of HP after each turn is over.

So if you have a town/castle under your controll you have a big advantage.

It´s fun to play and fight. Sure it can get a bit repetetive since they only have so much to say before they use their attacks and skills. But still, this system is great and brings out strategy. A weaker group can defeat a stronger unit if played correctly.

Thoughts
This is the non erotic version of the game. So all erotic scenes and some bloody scenes are removed. But I don´t mind. I like this game and I sure as hell recommend anyone who has an interest in a great storyline and a great system for battles to get your hands on this title. With or without the erotic material.

I just wish that they would work on Seinarukana. The sequel I think it is.

If I should have to complain about one thing it is that the girls are designed to look a bit young for my tastes. Aselia is super cute but she doesn´t appear to have any chest. So while it is refreshing to see that they don´t focus on having a mix of breast sizes it would be better if they had somewhat more different ones in this title. Not that I focus on that when I play.

But just a quick reflection. Otherwise this is a great game.