The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

With no games to play and plenty of need to distract myself, over the past few days, other than playing in the new Shin-Megami-Tensei-Themed Mafia game and playing fucking Tiny Tower, I watched all of Sasameki Koto. I’m not sure why I did this. I watched the first couple episodes back when it was first airing, and I found it kind of depressing and frustrating. But it stuck with me, I kept thinking of going back to it, and this week I found myself just watching it all.

What a stupid show.

I mean, okay, obviously there are some things I liked about it or I wouldn’t have kept watching. For example, the yuri-lover Asuza, who claimed she wasn’t a lesbian, was an interesting and sadly realistic character, and Sumi trying to deal with her without hurting her was a real decent sort of conflict. The idea of trying to take care of her, while trying to protect the identity of Kazama’s brother, and that causing Sumi and Kazama to drift apart a bit? Fantastic idea for a conflict.

Of course, the problem is that Sumi and Kazama aren’t a couple, because the show is STUPID.

Maybe this is a Japanese thing, and is something about how Japanese lesbians stereotypically act. Maybe that’s why I don’t understand it. But for goodness sake, Sumi and Kazama joined a LESBIAN CLUB together, and Sumi still can’t admit she’s gay, much less that she likes Kazama? Like, for a little while at the beginning, I get it, right? Sumi is worried about rejection because the type of women Kazama lusts over aren’t like her. I get it. But with all the shit going on in this show, when they’re laying together, right next to each other, talking about how Sumi is always going to be there for Kazama, and you still don’t say, “You know, I’m gay, and I really love you.” Fuck. That. It’s extra sad that a lot of the conflicts in the later part of the show would be more sensical if they WERE dating. With them just being friends, it seems really ridiculous that some of this stuff is a problem. If they were a couple, not only do I get it, but I also empathize with a lot of it, such as the whole “I’ll call you when I get there,” and then get no phone call for a day or two. For a friendship, Kazama seems to be way the fuck overreacting. If they were dating, her worry might make more sense.

I also wish I knew what they were trying to do with the crossdresser character, Akemiya. It’s like they couldn’t decide if he was transgendered or not. His original motivation was to date Sumi, which is really a ridiculous premise to go to such lengths to crossdress, because then you’ll convince the lesbian to date you and of course she won’t be disappointed when you’re male, right? (Also, literally EVERYONE deduces that Sumi is gay but Kazama, by the way, because she is really clearly obsessed with fucking Kazama, going into constant daydreams about it all the damn time, which everyone notices. Of course, she won’t just say it! Blerarg!) Sometimes he’s being forced and he “complains,” sometimes he seems completely, completely into it and enjoys it, and then near the end, he wants to prove himself to be “a man,” when before he was worried about his clothes not being cute enough and shit. It would be different if he just didn’t know how to deal with his attraction to doing it, or something of that nature, but his character just comes off as… well… whatever they decided for him to be at that moment. Again, obviously some personal bias makes me want him treated well as a character, but dammit… when you can have something as amazingly well done as Hourou Musuko out there, it’s hard not to demand everyone treat that sort of thing with respect and actual character building.

Anyway, yeah. It’s a silly show. It tugs at heartstrings a few times, but man, there are so many annoying bits! Just fuck already, dammit! Surely all your lesbian friends are! But yeah, I wouldn’t recommend it.

After Brer totally didn’t take me to see it, I was afraid I wouldn’t see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 in theaters. This bothered me, as I’d seen all the others in theaters. Finally, it came down to Monday. I had the day off, no game in from Gamefly… I had nothing to do. I envisioned myself alone all day, eaten up by depression. Fuck that, I said! So I asked Cara to go with me to the movie, and she said yes, and then I had something to do to distract me AND I got to see all the Harry Potter movies in theaters! It all works out.

I think I have more to say around the movie than about the movie itself, though. We saw the Sherlock Homes: A Game of Shadows trailer, which looks fantastic. (I really liked the direction they took Holmes in the last movie, okay?) Glad to finally see that. I used the crazy-ass Candy Dispensing Machine just to see what it would do. Oddly enough, it dispensed candy. This allowed me to have some Shockers, which I hadn’t had in awhile. Shockers are still quite good candy, in case you were wondering.

I also just couldn’t get over what Overthinking It said about Harry Potter. I normally totally agree with those guys, but they said, in one of the podcasts of theirs I was catching up on, that Harry Potter is a “fully realized world.” Harry Potter is a lot of fun in a lot of ways, but let’s be honest: that’s one of the books biggest problems. It’s obvious she made up this world as she went along. It isn’t a cohesive whole in any way whatsoever. They then broke into a discussion about how it just SEEMS like a complete world, but has a lot of vagueness in it, which I might buy more, but it still felt a stretch.

But yeah, there was a movie I watched. It was fun. The fact that all the good parts of the wasteland that is book 7 were in this movie really helped things out. Of course, there were some dumb things. I don’t know if this was pulled from the book or not, it’s been to long, but using “The lightning has struck” as a code phrase for Harry Potter arriving is beyond stupid. That’s way the fuck too obvious. No wonder Death Eaters were breaking down their door immediately. And, of course, the epilogue was as stupid as it ever was. But you can’t say the movie didn’t want to please. It constantly kept things moving, and kept things very action-packed. It didn’t waste time explaining a lot of backstory, assuming that viewers would already know it, or that it’s so nonsensical anyway that they’d be better off just not knowing the details. Frankly, that’s just fine with me. There’s just a throwaway line or two about all the Elder Wand bullshit, and that’s enough.

There’s just really not much to say. It was a fitting end that used the source material well. Seeing all the fighting at Hogwarts was awesome. Of course it was. It’s not like they’re going to come this far and not give us some badass visuals for all that. I didn’t leave all “Wow, that was a really good film” like I did with the sixth film. But I was satisfied. It was sad leaving all that behind again, to some extent. Of course it was. As much as I bitch about Harry Potter, and I do bitch, I am a fan, and I did enjoy the series, for serious. I’m glad I saw it. I’m glad I was there for it. There’s no surprises or unexpected high or low points in the movie. If you want to see it, you’ll see it. Probably already have. And you’ve enjoyed it. But there you go.

What do I want to write about?
I want to write about loneliness, I guess.
Just skip this post if you want, no worries.

I feel like things are pretty decided on the “I have to move out” front. I feel my parents pushing me away, not wanting me in their lives and trying to get me to go back on everything I’ve ever wanted, and I doubt they’re going to take me seriously unless I call their bluff, get out from under them, and start living my life. So away I should go. I’ve run the numbers. I should be able to do it, I think, without too much issue. I’ve got to find a place, of course, but I’ll get started on that soon. Things will work.

When I think about reasons I don’t want to leave, though, I find it surprising that Molly is kind of the top of my list. I mean, she’s very much my mother’s dog. But she likes me a lot. She’s always happy to see me. If I’m sitting here, feeling depressed and lonely, I can go downstairs and sit with her on the couch and at least cheer up a little bit. She’s just always so happy, so pleased that I’m there. I loved Frisky, our previous dog, of course, and he was friendly too, but I was much more one of the people he was watching over and protecting, if that makes sense. Molly wants to be around me, comes to me when she’s scared to hide. She’s just… yeah. I feel stupid that writing that kind of shit brings me near to tears, but here we are. That kind of devotion, so in my face, just melts me.

I’ve got fucking awesome friends and a boyfriend I love. I shouldn’t feel lonely, perse. Frankly, I enjoy alone time anyway, quite often. But even though life is going great, I still do break down from time to time. It’s hard not to sometimes. That’s just life. Molly is my escape plan. If I am feeling really unbearable, she’ll be there to make me feel loved. Silly, maybe, but effective. Losing that kind of scares me. I’m so used to doing it now, I don’t know how else I’d cope. Cara is like, “Oh, get somewhere that allows pets and get your own dog!” and I mean, I suppose that’s an option. I never really thought about it. I guess it might also be an excuse to make my mom accept me more. She’d put up with me for her “grandkid,” I bet. However, it’s also a lot of extra expense that I don’t know if I can handle. So much of that “extra expense” money is still going to be tied up in transitioning for a long while. And I don’t know if Brer wants a dog around when he gets here… I don’t know.

Anyway, that’s why I’m worried about moving out! Stupid, huh? But that’s what’s been on my mind since I decided dragging my heels would make things worse here. Might as well get out there and get the being murdered my mother assumes will happen over with, you know? No time like the present. Onwards to my apparently obviously imminent death!
(Times like this, I’m glad she doesn’t read this. I love her. I don’t want to be this snarky to her face, but fuck, I have to let it out somewhere. I’m allowed to be frustrated. Just not an asshole.)

I beat Red Faction: Armageddon.

Red Faction: Armageddon is not a very good game.

I mean, it certainly is a game. You shoot dudes in it, for example. They are mostly the same like 3 dudes, over and over, but you can shoot them, and they will die. But it’s kind of dumb. There’s no depth to it at all. It’s just going through the motions.

Really, it’s frustrating to see this be the sequel to Guerrilla. That game was the fucking best. Seriously. This is such a by-the-numbers third person shooter with no life to it. It’s sad. Sure, there is destructible stuff, but it’s mostly just kind of window dressing and has very little to do with the actual gameplay.

The game is certainly TRYING to be interesting. There’s an upgrade system that, interestingly, carries over into multiplayer. But instead of the actually awesome team deathmatch with crazy power packs multiplayer from Guerrilla, which I actually played for a few days, this is just horde mode against the same enemies I’ve already killed a million times. So you’ll excuse me if I’m not excited about that. The game also is constantly throwing weird vehicles at you in order to keep the action switching up a bit. This is appreciated, and none of the vehicles were un-fun to use, but they also weren’t very exciting. I often just kind of wanted to get out and get back to using my regular weaponry. There are a lot of guns in the game, as well, but most of them seem a bit pointless. When I played the demo, for instance, I thought the Magnet Gun seemed really interesting, but it’s just so hard to actually use effectively that you just set it aside. You take the Assault Rifle, because it’s good in all situations. You take the Maul, because it’s good for taking down enemy structures. You take the Nanorifle, because it’s very versatile against bigger enemies, in the same way the Assault Rifle is. Then you pick one of the like 5 Heavy Weapons (I picked the Rocket Launcher for homing) and you call it a day. Ammo packs refill ammo for basically anything you have, and the weapons are so general use that there’s no need to have specific guns for specific situations. There’s no reason not to just pick four and stick with them forever. Some guns I didn’t even fire once. There seemed to be no point.

On top of all this, you have some of the most frustrating video game writing I have seen in a long time. Main Character has a computer AI on his wrist, who is an AI, and they have WACKY CONVERSATIONS which contains, seriously, the most CLICHE AND ANNOYING DIALOG I HAVE HEARD IN A LONG TIME. It got to the point that any time they were talking to each other I wanted to rip my ears off. They talk back and forth all the time. It’s supposed to lend the game some comic relief, but it is so bad. The other characters aren’t great either, though they’re around less, so they’re less annoying in that regard. They certainly aren’t anything bordering on interesting. There’s a dramatic death near one of the games like four endings (meaning that it keeps coming to a climax, but then just keeps going like four times, and that’s not a good thing like in, I dunno, Bayonetta) and the only reason I was sad to see that character go was that she was the only thing distracting the main character from talking to the fucking AI at that moment.

I mostly beat this game because it was there, and I was worried about the future and depressed, and I needed something mindless to do. I really wouldn’t suggest anyone else do that. Even if you are in my position, there has to be something better to play. Armageddon is a serious, serious disappointment.

You know what’s super interesting? OTHER PEOPLE’S DREAMS!
Yeah, sorry, but this dream was kind of vivid and fucked up, so I will share it. Get out your dream interpretation textbooks and tell me how weird I am.

The first moment I can remember was that there was this tournament. It was something multidimensional. It was taking place on earth, but creatures from all over were involved. The night before, the tournament had happened, and something crazy had happened, but I had woken up the next day with complete amnesia about the events. All I remembered was that we’d done something great, I was on a team consisting of me, my mother, Harrison Ford for some reason, and a ton of My Little Ponies. (Yes, for whatever reason I think it stranger that I was teamed up with my mom and Harrison Ford than My Little Ponies.) Also, since we had won, or something of the sort, we had access to some sort of guild hall. So I went there.
The place was gigantic. A mansion really. People had already picked out rooms and such, and I wandered through, looking it over. My mom was swimming in a gigantic pool in the middle of the gigantic living room area, apparently. I asked her what had happened last night, and she filled me in. Apparently there was some sort of bomb threat. Some sort of interdimentional explosive compound had shown up, and our team, me especially, had been key in diffusing it.
It was then that Rainbow Dash rushed into the room. Apparently we hadn’t gotten it all, and she was calling the whole team together again to try to finish the job. The dangerous compound was some sort of red blob. Rainbow Dash explained, (In my dream, she was a chemist, and I didn’t really question this.) mostly for my benefit, that the way to diffuse it was to cover it with this green blob compound, and run it through a filter. That filter was a human brain. This was dangerous, of course. Apparently last night, I had been the filter, which is why I couldn’t remember it, but the amount she found today was so much more. More than just memory loss could occur. I volunteered, but everyone said no, I would be at much more risk than a new person because I did it last night. That’s when Harrison Ford stepped up and volunteered.
I combined the two blobs, and then pushed it into one side of his head, pulling it out the other. Each time I did this, his expression got more and more vacant, but the red was disappearing from the blob. Soon, most of the red was gone, but not all, but Harrison Ford was looking pretty bad. I didn’t want to keep going. I turned to ask Rainbow Dash if this was enough, but she wasn’t there.
I ran outside, into some sort of Mall area, looking for her. She was nowhere to be found. I was getting fucking desperate, and I remember feeling that way. Intense, real emotion of being lost and alone without her guidance. Eventually, I found her, though.

There was then a series of flash-forwards. I learned how to make portals to connect dimensions and places, so I could keep in touch with my teammates, who were going back to Ponyville after the tournament, of course. It was a much different method than pony magic, and I remember Twilight Sparkle being very interested in my technique. I also started to use them just to jump around the world. I went back to Brer’s house, and surprised him. I made Jonathan and Shauna take pictures of empty bathroom stalls at Disney World during their Honeymoon so I could focus on them and open gates there any time. (I figured bathroom stalls gave me the least chance of drawing attention to the portals at a place as busy as Disney World.)

Eventually, I went to my ex-girlfriend, Natalie’s, house. I don’t really know why. I was definitely visiting, though. I had many suitcases and bags. Her house was absolutely nothing like her house used to be when I was visiting. It was pretty huge, seemed to have Brer’s living room attached to it for some reason, and was stuffed to the brim with comic books and manga, which was something she liked, but never to this extent. I mostly just remember trying to leave, and having trouble because, apparently, I had brought a ton of comic books and stuffed animals to her house, and I was having difficulty sorting mine from hers. I woke up from the dream going through her many shelves to try to figure out where my stuff was. I couldn’t even find all the luggage I brought.

And that was my dream! I woke up then, and played Tiny Tower in bed. I’m awesome. Seriously, though. I never remember my dreams. Why did I remember something as nonsensical as this? My brain must just be amazing. I’m also just surprised about all the Pony influence. The Harrison Ford thing I get, as I had written that Cowboys and Aliens ramble right before going to bed, but I haven’t experienced something pony-related in quite awhile. Eh, who knows.

I saw a movie called Cowboys and Aliens. I was hoping for a film that had both cowboys, doing cowboy things, and aliens, doing alien things, within it. These groups, hopefully, would fight, causing action scenes to occur and be entertaining. That’s pretty well all I hoped for.

Luckily, it delivered just that.

If you’re going to see one dumb, fun action movie, I’d still pick Captain America, but I enjoyed Cowboys and Aliens a lot. They had some good people in there, which helped. Cast sensibly, Harrison Ford still comes off as a badass. Though it’s kind of dumb how they tried to make him seem kind of evil at the beginning, and then UH OH immediately he’s a good guy completely. Making him more of a tactician than frontline hero dude, and letting Daniel Craig do most of that, let the movie use him really well, I thought. Similarly, they let Daniel Craig do what he’s good at, be a complete stone-cold badass, and that was fun. Watching him calmly fuck people up that annoyed him was really one of the highlights of the film.
I’m not going to mention Sam Rockwell just to piss Essner off.

The plot was not completely sensible. The aliens want gold? Okay. But that doesn’t really explain too much about why they’re attacking towns and whatnot. The claim that it’s for research so they can learn human weaknesses really only makes sense for a small handful of humans. Not entire towns. Of course, if they didn’t, then nobody would be riding out to stop them, and you’d have no movie. I guess maybe they’re searching for Daniel Craig’s wristband? But if they are “underestimating” humanity, why would they believe he could use it to good effect? I mean, I guess he does. But isn’t that like… if I dropped a pistol in front of some aliens? Even if they could use the pistol, it’s not enough by itself, right? Of course, this is a movie, so it ends up being as such! But you know what I mean.

Still, what I’m doing is looking at problems in what is mostly just a fun action flick. Turn your brain off, watch cowboys shoot six-shooters at aliens, and enjoy yourself. It’s fun.

Matthew Essner, in his infinite wisdom, told me that I should listen to The Magicians by Lev Grossman as I drove up to meet Brer.
I, in my infinite wisdom, did not. Because I am stupid.
He got on to me when I got back, so I gave in, and started listening to the audiobook I had prepped for the trip.

Then I couldn’t put it down.

If J.K. Rowling could write (by which I mean create realistic characters and fully realized worlds) she might hope to write something as fantastic as The Magicians. On the surface, it’s a story that “steals” from Harry Potter, but that’s not really the case. The world of The Magicians is real. It’s something that could exist, instead of something that only exists when you ignore massive plot holes. It’s filled with real people with real flaws who make real mistakes. Yes, these mistakes sometimes involve fucking, or drinking too much, because that is what people of the age of the students in the book would do. I also agree with Essner that the fact that you get to see what happens when you graduate from crazy magic school is just fantastic. Once again, it’s so realistic that they’d be lost, having trouble finding something worthwhile to do, even though they can do the impossible. It’s how actual people act. I barely read anymore, but it surprised me how nice it felt to see people, acting like people, in a fantasy world.

I’m not going to spoil much of it. I don’t know. I so truly enjoyed the novel that I didn’t do my English major thing to it, that I normally do to entertain myself even when things are going well. It was just lovely. I do have two things I want to talk about, though, so I will!

The book is willing to make references to Harry Potter. I like this. If I were to go to a magic school in this day and age, I WOULD be making Harry Potter jokes. It’s in the public consciousness, and I’m glad it was willing to go there. However, a lot of the book revolves around a series of books called Fillory and Further. This book series is a completely direct analog to the Chronicles of Narnia. It’s Narnia, with some things slightly changed so that it is its own thing. That’s fine, but why does nobody in the book compare it to Narnia, then? It just seems odd to me that that’s the one thing that’s not the same in this world’s general consciousness. Why not recognize that comparison, too? When you’re willing to compare your magical schools to other magical schools, and it works, I don’t know why you’d be so afraid of making that comparison as well.

The other thing is the ending. Essner was kind of eh on it. I can see why. There’s a climax, and then the book continues, and then there’s another smaller climax, and it’s all depressing and downhill from there until the end. The bit of “good news” at the end of the book almost seems tacked on, something too good to be true, since this is a realistic world where stuff just doesn’t always work out well. At the same time, though, I don’t feel like it’s unearned. Quentin had atoned for his sins with his quest, really. Well, I felt he did. He deserved to have his life back, and an event like that was about the only way it was going to happen. Sure, putting Julia in there seemed… odd. But otherwise, I was down with it. It certainly didn’t ruin the book in any way for me.

Anyway, go read the fucking book if you haven’t. It’s awesome. Apparently there’s a sequel coming out? I have no idea how you’d make a sequel from the book, but I loved it so much I will give Mr. Grossman the benefit of the doubt, to be sure. I’ll probably even read it. Me, who never reads.

Yeah, I’m not going to do that narration thing all the way through this. You don’t need to worry about that.

Bastion is a fantastic game, completely worth $15 dollars, and you really should play it.

I play a lot of games, stupid and otherwise, and very few games have the level of polish that Bastion has. Every inch of it seems polished to perfection. The look, the music, the narration, the combat… you can tell every one of them is doing exactly what Supergiant Games wanted them to be doing. They did what they set out to do, and they did it well.

The narration, the first time you hear it, really does amaze. It’s like “Woah, it’s so dynamic!” Having played through the game a second time in New Game Plus (because it was that fucking fun) I can see how it all works now, certainly. You kind of figure out how they piece all the audio together to make it seem extremely relevant even though the game really can’t read your mind and know exactly what you’re doing. That doesn’t make the narration any less entertaining or awesome, though. It’s just this perfect way to feed you backstory about the world without feeling forced or getting in the way of the awesome combat. It’s just great.

Similarly, the combat is AWESOME. The game is set up, with its Idols, to let you adjust the difficulty however you want. Of course, I never really pumped them up much. (I used a few in my New Game Plus playthrough, but not many, and I turned them off if I encountered trouble.) But having the potential there, and giving you big monetary rewards for turning them on is a good idea. It lets you customize the game to your liking.
The combat itself is quick-paced, but lets you use strategy. You can be very defensive, using counters and such, and spec yourself out with the various buff beverages to reward that sort of play. Or you can set yourself up to be Kamakaze like me, and that works too. There are 10 weapons in the game, all of which you can upgrade, and surprisingly, each one is fairly different and fairly effective. The weapons constantly surprised me. One of my favorite weapons, for example, ended up being the Galleon Mortar. When I picked this weapon up, and saw how slow it fired and how hard it was to aim, I scoffed at its utility. But as I started to use it, it became my go-to distance weapon. It’s so good at clearing out armored enemies that I fell in love. On my New Game Plus, I focused on trying all the weapons, and upgrading everything, and I was constantly impressed by how fun they all were. If I had to pick my least favorite, it would either be the Calamity Cannon or the Fire Bellows, but both of them have their use, and I could totally see some players really loving those in a way I did not. Again, this just speaks of extreme polish to me: all the weapons have a place, and they’re all fun. There are no duds.

What’s really impressive, in a game that is, ultimately, about fast-based RPG-ish combat, is how much heart is in the game. The narration, the music, it all kind of tugs at your heartstrings, and I love it for that. The decisions you make at the end of the game, which determines which of the two endings you get, are actually surprisingly hard to make. I had to think about it a bit on my first playthrough. (On the second playthrough, I obviously just picked the other one, to see the other ending.)

Bastion is a labor of love, clearly, and it is one that paid off. It is, hands down, one of the best games I’ve played this year. It doesn’t overstay its welcome, and every moment of it is enjoyable and puts a smile on your face. If you have a 360, you should buy it right now. Seriously.

It’s time once again to clean out the ol’ tabs. A fresh start, with fresh tabs, will do us all a lot of good, don’t you think? Well, too bad, that’s what’s happening anyway.

First, let’s start with some comics that have vastly entertained me recently.
The last panel of this cracks me up every time. I think I might be slightly broken.
This particular comic kind of sums up everything about why Nedroid is one of the most wonderful things on the internet.
Romance on the job? It’s an idea with vast story potential.
I guess this is sort of a comic? It’s a diagram, at the very least, filled with important information about how to conduct business on the internet.

How about videos? I’ve got that too.
The more I watch this sketch, the funnier I find this discussion of one of the more pressing concerns in the restaurant industry.
It’s a Mega Man 4 Race! I was entertained, certainly.

Now I have two more links, without clear categories to put them in. Oh well.
So this is slash Retsuprae fan fiction. Finally, all your favorite Retsupraers will hook up. It’s about time.
Finally, here are more Harrison Fords than you can handle.

Always good to shake out the dust from those silly tabs, and make way for new ones! Actual content tomorrow, probably. Have a good day.

Yo. Catherine. Katherine. Many, many blocks, and pushing them. It was a game I was certainly looking forward to! I preordered it! I bought it new, something I hadn’t really done since Portal 2. The idea of having the main conflict in the game being known vs unknown, exciting vs expected… it seemed like the Persona 4 team was the dudes to do it.

Basically, I really wanted to like Catherine, and it let me down.

I’m just going to talk flat-out, and a lot of the game is ruined if it’s spoiled, so, you know. Don’t read on if you don’t want to be spoiled.

There’s not a lot of super-huge problems with the game. I actually don’t have a problem with the block-pushing puzzle sequences, for the most part. It is interesting enough, as a puzzle game, to keep my interest. Sure, there are issues. Checkpoints are a bit too sparse on some stages. The “boss fights” can be overwhelmingly frustrating sometimes, as the puzzles themselves can be hard enough without having someone constantly attacking you. But seriously, for the most part, it’s designed well enough. You could hang a full game on that gameplay, no problem.

Similarly, there’s no huge problems with the stuff outside the puzzle elements. While Vincent is very much an Anime Protagonist, as opposed to a real person like you’d hope, his story, given that it’s a bit unrealistic (I’m not talking about the magic part of the story, just his character) but not out of place for an Anime Character, is alright. I found it interesting that they painted both Catherine and Katherine as fairly terrible people. I very quickly came to loathe both characters, which shed an interesting light on the decision of who to back, certainly. In the end, I backed Katherine, because while I hated her, Vincent obviously liked her enough to stick with her this long, and it seemed stupid to drop it now. In any case, when you have control, and are texting and making decisions, it’s pretty neat. The texting system, while maybe a little cumbersome to use, sets a good tone, and that’s obviously more important to the game. The strange “Golden Playhouse” framing narrative worked for me, too. I’d watch another “episode” of Golden Playhouse.

However, the game doesn’t learn some lessons from the Personas that came before. One of the reasons I loved Persona 3 and 4 so much is that it was constantly flipping you between the two modes: life sim, and dungeon crawl. If you were tired of life sim, it would be about the time to go back to the dungeon, and when you were tired of dungeon, it would be about the time you were out of supplies and needed to go back to the life sim anyway. It kept me really engaged with the story, because it broke it up with entertaining combat and things of that nature in a way that seemed natural.
Catherine just doesn’t do this. You have very small segments of story, and then very long segments of block puzzles. I enjoyed the block puzzles, but after doing like 2 levels, I was pretty done with them and wanted to get back to the plot. Most of the time, though, you’d have four or five to do in a row before you could get back to story bits. That really felt like a bad plan.

Also, the story just isn’t dynamic enough. This is a fairly short game, one where you are supposed to make decisions. However, the only decisions that really matter are those you make on the climb to the last boss, from what I understand. Other than that, as long as your meter is on one side or the other that you’re gunning for, you can do whatever you want. Vincent’s decisions don’t affect the story until the last few. Things like Vincent trying to break up with Catherine happen even if you’re trying to side with her. It’s kind of stupid. Playing through, trying to be with Katherine, I didn’t notice. The story was very much structured for me to be making those decisions. If I had been going the other way, though, I’d be a bit annoyed. I had assumed that, since the block puzzles are so generic, they could make a story that had crazy branching paths, but they really didn’t. It’s a huge, huge missed opportunity, and it certainly doesn’t make me want to go back to the game again.

I guess I should be selfish and talk about the one story bit I want to talk about: Erica. The reveal that she’s an MtF transsexual at the end threw me for a loop, but it was kind of nice, too. Toby was a whiny bitch about losing his virginity to her, which was stupid, and made me want to punch him. You fucked her, so obviously there wasn’t any REAL reason for you to be complaining, asshole! But before I got too mad at the game, and not just at the character, I thought back to how she was treated throughout the story. Everyone who was not Toby knew of her past, since they all went to school together, but they still treated her like a woman and a friend. Though no longer “one of the guys” she certainly wasn’t pushed away from their social circle. They respected her as she was. Sure, they tried to keep Toby from dating her so the stupid complaining that happened wouldn’t happen, because they knew he’d be disappointed, but they didn’t treat her as a lesser person or a freak. She was a friend, but just one that it would be pretty weird to date, so they didn’t want their other friend to get involved in all that. In the end, I suppose that’s a pretty good portrayal.

All that aside though, in the end, I just didn’t feel any sparkle from this game. It’s not even a rough gem. It just feels rough. It’s a shame that a game which is doing its best to treat topics like sexuality and relationships with respect just doesn’t have the gameplay to back it up. It seems rushed and incomplete. If you’re vaguely interested in it, rent it. I wouldn’t recommend anyone else buy the game, certainly. It’s just not that good.