Don't Let the Door Hit You, 2012

2012 sucked.

Yeah.  There were good things.  Great things, even.  But the majority of them were in gaming, which in of itself is not a bad thing, I suppose.  The Vita came out which might be the single most high point of the year in terms of gaming (for me), and I guess if it's your thing, the Wii U came out too just recently.  Beyond that, the year saw the release of such wonderful titles as Sleeping Dogs, Lollipop Chainsaw, the surprisingly fun Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale, Gravity Rush, Persona 4 Golden and a handful of other great titles.  Playstation Plus hit its stride, coming out as the bonafide best deal in gaming, with the implementation of the Instant Game Collection not only for the Playstation 3, but the Vita as well.  And did I mention Persona 4 Golden?  Because Persona 4 Golden.

Everything else, though, pretty much sucked for me this year.  Between suddenly becoming single (officially), health issues for myself and my family and a bunch of other stuff, it's been a stressful year.  One that I'm not too happy with and one that I'm certainly not going to miss.  I could always hope that 2013 will be better, but considering that I'll be spending New Year's Eve by myself with only my Vita and some carbonated beverages to keep me company, combined with the fact that I am positive I'll be getting some bad news fairly soon after midnight, I'm certainly not looking forward to it, either.  But it's just something I've got to soldier through, I suppose.  Or at least something I just can't let bowl me over whilst I drag myself through it, is more appropriate.  Since I'm not too optimistic.

As such, I'm not going to do a big stats post tonight.  I could - I have the time, but the desire just isn't there tonight and I don't want to force it.  I can say that I'll probably do one tomorrow, but I don't know the truth in that statement.  And I really do need to finish the series of 999 posts - had I realized that it was literally this close to New Years (I don't know why I didn't think about it) I would've started it after the new year.  Live and learn, I suppose.  Apologies for kind of wobbling that one, folks.

And with that, I have some social links to build up, and terrible soft drinks to consume.  For Auld Lang Syne indeed.

Just So Much Persona

There's just so many screenshots that I've taken of P4G.  It's that good.

Lately, if I've been thinking about anything it's been...well, it hasn't been Persona 4, but if it's been the -second- anything, it's been Persona 4 Golden.  Which is to say that it is effectively second-place in what I've spent all my time thinking about, which is to say that I have been spending a lot of time thinking about Persona 4.  It is not unwarranted, of course - Persona 4 is every bit as amazing as I've been lead to believe it was, which is nice.  For once I go into a game with everyone telling me it's going to be great and then it is.  I don't have to wonder if there's something wrong with everybody, something wrong with -me- or just if there's just something that has gone awry with matters entirely as I have wondered in the past.  Since it is a valid concern to have, I imagine.

Come Game of the Year time, using the thing I go by, I won't be able to vote for Persona 4 Golden as a Game of the Year since it is a remake of a game from years past.  That restriction, not being able to include remakes or re-releases, has never been a problem for me until this year and specifically because of this.  P4G is every shade of wonderful, and if I'm being honest, it would have a very real shot of being in my top 5 list were it able to be.  It's honestly going to be a little painful to not be able to give it that recognition that it actually deserves, but I'll suffice for using this post that is gushing about it to do that.  It is close enough, at least, I should say.  Since there is honestly not a negative thing I could say about the game - even the parts of it I don't care for (the dungeon crawling, basically) are manageable at worst and I'm completely indifferent to their issues as a standard (the last dungeon I was in began to grate on me...then it was over.  So that was good.) so it's of no concern.

In fact, Persona 4 Golden is so good that it's in fact making me like Persona 3 (Portable, since that's all I played) even more than I liked P3P when I was playing it and beat it.  Admittedly, I took issues with some things in P3P, but it's a solid game overall, and like I said I'm being reminded of that by playing P4G.  I am retroactively liking P3P more and more as I play P4G.  You can ask me how that works, but my response will be "I have no idea" because I really don't; I just know that it is a thing that is happening.  As I'm playing P4G, I find myself thinking about P3, thinking about the characters and the story of it and it's all just fantastic.  Admittedly, part of it is me comparing the games to one another which is an unfair thing to do, but a lot of it is just good old fashioned reminiscing and it honestly is probably enhancing my playthrough a little bit because of it.

I think the thing about P3 that has stuck out the most as a result of all of this is probably what I like most about the game and is one of the only things I think it does better than P4, is the characters.  Now before you start, just hear me out, alright?  I haven't beaten P4G yet, nor do I think I'm that close - at the most I'm 3/4ths of the way through - but by this point in P3, the characters had all developed entire arcs, changed dramatically before the players eyes, and that was all done in the main story.  That is not to say that P4 doesn't do that, but if you take the likes of Junpei from P3 and Yosuke from P4 (the obvious equivalent) and put their character arcs (main story only) side-by-side it's no comparison.  That might be an unfair example, however, as I've considered that they sort of...well, not have the same arc, but really similar ones, but they're told in entirely separate ways over the course of the game.  Both have a loss aspect to their arcs and while Junpei's has a build to it, Yosuke's loss is almost immediate and the rest of the game is the after-effects of that, where Junpei's loss is his endgame.  So perhaps it's being able to see Junpei for so long before it, see what he's like before he deals with that, that makes it so different and so dramatic a change, but it's there nonetheless.

Of course, there's a trade-off to all of that too.  Persona 3's strength is in its characters, so much so that it overshadows the narrative, but Persona 4 does not have that problem.  Persona 4's main story is all about that and it's a compelling ride because of it.  It's a give and take thing as I sort of inferred because I don't think P4's characters are quite as developed as P3's, but they're entertaining all the same and their real development comes, unsurprisingly, from spending time with them one-on-one in the social links.  Because of that, I cannot say fully that they're not done well, nor would I suggest it, but I'm just saying that, well....I think you know what I'm saying, really.  Persona 3 was character-focused, Persona 4 is story-focused and they're both great.  It's all about build, about tension and drama and it's all about development in either case, so it's subjective to say the least, but to me, both games are just really good at what they attempt to do in their respective approaches.

In any event, playing P4G has been nothing short of a pleasure from start to where I am now, and I doubt that that is going to change in any facet.  I look forward to seeing the story continue to unwrap as I honestly still have no real idea of how it's going to end and that alone intrigues me.  I suspect it's either going to be a situation where I go, "Well, I couldn't have guessed that" or I'll say, "Oh well, -now- it makes sense!" instead of dreading that it will turn out one way and being frustrated that it did.  Because, usually, when I figure on where a thing is going and I'm right, I'm a little disappointed because as we all know, I am pretty bad at predicting things.  So if -I- can predict it, it's probably not all that strongly written.  Maybe I'll be able to develop theories closer to the end, but so far I've really got nothing and I like it that way.  No matter the case, I'm having a hard time imagining P4G leaving my Vita for the rest of the year (okay yeah, it's not that long but still) and that's saying something.

Okay, awesome, I made it the whole post without saying I miss Yukari

wait shit

Okay, I Really Like Persona 4: The Golden

There's no real qualifiers here, nothing I feel I need to clear up lest I say something wholly positive, and nothing that I feel is muddled in that statement.  I just really like this game.  I can't quite place the why per se, but there is something that is undeniable about Persona 4 that has drawn, kept and cultivated my enthusiasm for the game in a way that Persona 3 just didn't manage to.  I had expected it would, but certainly not to the degree that it has, considering the version of Persona 3 that I played, (Persona 3 Portable) incorporated a lot of improvements from 4 into it.  I had thought that, on a functional level, it would be roughly the same or a similar game at least, and that it would really be up to the story and the characters to sell it to me, but there's entire oceans of depths between the two games in some respects.  That alone is fairly impressive, but it's really just the game itself that has taken me aback.

There's so many damn little touches here and there that improve the overall experience that I can't actually imagine the game, any game like this, without them.  Especially the features in The Golden, as I find myself using Voice and SOS a lot.  For the former, it's good to kind of know a general idea of what might be a good thing to do if I'm not really too up on doing the same thing again and again, or I don't want to 'waste' an afternoon by idly hanging out with someone so that I may hang out with them -again- to actually get a boost.  Whenever possible, I like to make use of the times when I can't gain a rank, but can get some points regardless because there is something in me that desires to maximize my time with the game, even though there is a very real possibility that I will play it again in NG+ the full way through instead of like with P3P where I start one and ragequit because goddamnit Elizabeth, fuck your stupid time-sensitive quests.

The dungeon crawling, which was my most hated part of Persona 3, is much the same in 4, but it manages to not be that bad yet.  I'm not quite sure if it's because the actual dungeons aren't that big themselves, or simply because the design of the levels are a little more interesting uniformly and aren't things that you'll see for forty goddamn floors at the start.  Probably with the later dungeons, but with the first two being 8 and 12 floors respectively, that's certainly quite a short bit of crawling.  Beyond that, the Card Shuffle bit sometimes offers Cup Cards which restore HP/SP and if you're using SOS like I am, you stand to keep your vitals up to an acceptable level without doing too much actual work to do that.  Not that it's easy, of course, as there are still enemies who will wreck your shit if you're unprepared (Goddamn Dice with their Last Resort attack) and the amounts of HP/SP you gain through the mentions methods are drops in a bucket, in all reality.  They help - they don't scratch the itch completely.  Eventually you're going to have to suck it up and down an item or just head off for the night.  But, well, it feels like to me that I get a little bit more accomplished per dungeon trip than you would think, and it never feels really overlong, so I suppose they did something right here.

Beyond that, the characters are actually really enjoyable.  I'm not sure if I prefer anyone on this cast to Junpei and Yukari from 3 (both of whom I have discovered I hold a lot of enthusiasm over only after thinking about 3 because of 4) just yet, but there's nobody I actively dislike aside from the obvious character who I don't even have to name because you know who he is and he is meant to be hated.  Also King Moron.  (You see the joke is that I was obviously referencing him and then suggested it wasn't actually him.  It's bear-ly a jo-goddamnit Teddie)  The scenes so far have all been entertaining in their own right and I haven't really had a "hurrrrgh, just shut up" moment or anything like that.  Really, I'm just kind of waiting on when I'm going to find something in the game that I just hate.  I feel like there -has- to be something, but so far, I'm honestly just turning up nothing.  That's.....that's uncommon to say the least.  But Persona 4:  The Golden is an uncommon game.  Uncommonly good game.

Technical Difficulties

If only this said Technical Difficulties instead of Art Director.  Would be perfect.  Is that bad?

So, I have been playing Persona 4:  The Golden lately.  I have been enjoying it a lot.  I tried to convey that in words tonight and it didn't work out at all.  In fact, I've tried to convey a lot of things in words here lately and just haven't been able to manage it.  I have no less than three blog posts in my head that refuse to siphon themselves through my fingertips and it's the height of frustration.  I'm trying to work through it, but it's not working perfectly just yet.  So with that, I'll just have to ask that you bear with me while I try to work through this latest funk in the series of funks this year has provided.  I'll figure out something here eventually and then everything will be hunky-doory.  In the meantime, friggin' buy Persona 4:  The Golden if you haven't already.  Seriously.  Believe the hype in this one, because it does not disappoint.

Early Persona 4: The Golden Impressions

I haven't played a lot of Persona 4:  The Golden, but that's mostly because the start of the game, moreso than Persona 3, I believe, is a lot of talking and cutscenes and making sure you go this way and that way.  The actual 'game' part, where you can go around and do whatever you want to do unrestrained, is something that I've finally gotten to a handful of hours in (admittedly some of it is idle time) and it's fresh and new, but familiar all the same.  Familiar even though I have not once played Persona 4 prior to The Golden, despite having bought Persona 4....like when it came out.  I believe back then I told myself I would only play it after I beat Persona 3 which I was going to play after I played something else, and well, you all know how that kind of thing goes.  It was only with Persona 3 Portable and my Vita that I was able to fell the JRPG beast that is Persona 3, and it's only fitting that I similarly tackle the new behemoth on the very same platform - especially with the enhancements The Golden has to offer.

Of course, having never -played- Persona 4, said enhancements are often fairly hard to spot and it's only with very careful counsel skimmed from the internet that I have a rough idea of what is new.  Aside from what is very blatantly new, of course, such as the SOS system.  It is blatantly new because, well, even though the PS2 had internet capabilities of a sort, I'm sure Persona 4 didn't make use of them.  I find myself wondering about the SOS system as well - it's neat in concept and theory and I'm willing to say execution as well, but there's still something off about it.  Basically what it is, if you haven't already experienced it or read up on it yourself, is whenever you're in a dungeon, you can hit the SOS button in the upper left corner of the screen.  Doing so sends a broadcast over the network that will, in turn, bring up help requests on the screens of other dungeon dwellers.  Those people can choose to tap the "Send aid" button (which is just there, doesn't pause the game or anything like that) and if they do that before you enter your next battle, you will receive a nominal HP/SP refill before it gets underway.  And I mean nominal like 10 HP, 8 SP total for a few people aiding you.  So don't -rely- on it for your HP and SP needs, but hope that it'll be a nice little bonus to help you out.

Similarly, the function that I believe is just referred to as "Voice" is an ability to get a little tip about where others who are playing the game have gone when faced with the same situation as yourself outside of a dungeon.  So, on April 21st, if you want to have an idea of some things you can do in the evening, you hit the voice button (where the SOS button is in a dungeon) and it'll bring up a mess of bubbles stating different actions.  Some people read a book, some people studied, and others just went straight to bed.  This is particularly helpful for someone who hasn't played the game before since, well, at times I've been informed of things I can do already in the limited experience I've put in the game.  "Oh, someone talked to Marie?  Yeah, I suppose I -can- do that, hadn't even thought of it."  "Someone studied?  Hrm....why?" and then I walked to the library, talked to the girl outside of it who informed me that studying on rainy days meant you could receive a higher bonus from increased concentration.  Seeing as I'd already read the "increase Knowledge gain from studying" book, that was a no-brainer (huuuurrrrr) and three Knowledge bonuses later, that little edging in a direction proved to be a good one.

Newness aside, The Golden feels familiar because it takes a lot from Persona 3 and refines it, not drastically changing a lot of it.  As Persona 3, you spend quite a bit of time -outside- of dungeons and what you do there matters almost as much as what you do in dungeons, if not matters equally so.  Social links are the name of the game, and you'll want to do whatever you can to build them up unless you're more interested in bettering yourself so you can, in turn, get -more- Social Links.  There's no wrong answer here - just whatever works for you since you'll inevitably have to do your heavy lifting on a New Game + unless you want to meticulously follow a guide to a T.  That's never much fun, so it's really not recommended of course.  I do see how experience with Persona 3 has affected my experience with 4 already, however as, even though a lot of 4's improvements saw their way into Persona 3 Portable, there's many more that didn't and I can appreciate those for what they are.  Beyond that, I'm familiar with how the game works, so I don't need to stress out over Social Links and such as I did with 3 - I can simply relax and enjoy the game as it comes.

At the moment, I'm simply interested in actually getting into the meat of the game as I'm still entirely too early on in it.  I've started unlocking some Social Links and exploring them and I have a renewed reason to dungeon crawl again after the initial on, but it's still all introductory.  The time where I find myself overwhelmed with choice still hasn't dawned and that's the point where I'm looking forward to it most, since it'll ensure that I don't have to worry about figuring out something to do, more that I'll simply have to decide what I need to do of everything available.  I want to find out what my protagonist (named Masamune Noboru btw, Last/First) is like after answering enough of the (sometimes silly, as you see above) social link responses and otherwise, and after enough of day-to-day activities.  Not to mention the learning of the finer points of the rest of the cast along the way since I'm assuming that's going to be 4's strength as it was one of 3's.  To that end, I think it's time to hop back into the Castle and slay some more shadows, as money for weapons and armor is not just appearing in my pockets any faster by not doing that.

The Week The Wallet And Spare Time Died

The above (admittedly low-quality since I gave zero fucks about making it pretty) image displays the pick-ups I made today which is a lead-in to stating that the $100 I spent right there is me getting off light compared to some this week.  By spending only a meager one hundred dollars, I am getting the precise amount of entertainment I want and I am lucky that my desires, my wants, came that cheap this week.  You see, if you've been living under a rock or something, you will know that this was the week that a fucking metric ton of things came out, including but not limited to:  The above Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale (which is faring a bit better in reviews than one would assume - The bulk of the negatives being that it's 'not enough of a Smash Bros clone' which is absolutely fucking hilarious and god I hate critics) and Persona 4 Golden (a must-have for any Vita owner), as well as Hitman:  Absolution, Disney's Epic Mickey 2, and a little thing known as the Wii U which you might've heard of, I guess, plus a whole slew* of games for it.

*Slew not guaranteed quality

If that weren't enough, some of you will recall that this is also the week of Black Friday, which also means that it is the week where a bunch of people replace their brains with their wallets and their common sense with concrete-solid self-centeredness.  (Not in a wholly negative way, but I'm sure you know what I mean.  The bulk of the people shopping on Black Friday are pushy brutes who will trample you to save three dollars on something they don't even want.)  That all means that if you can truly get through this week without spending a dime on games or such, then I salute you, for you clearly have a will that is more steeled than my own.  I mean, I'm in a dangerous situation as it is - I bought those two games as is, and man was I tempted to look further for something else.  "Oh, I'm sure they have a copy of Zone of the Enders HD Collection - I really do want that Rising demo..."  "Oh, perhaps they have 999?  Or at least Virtue's Last Reward - don't wanna miss out on that."  "No, no, I cannot buy the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection on PS3 or Vita yet still.  God help me, I want to, but I can't."  These and more all circulated through my head in the scant ten minutes or so that I spent within the walls of GameStop as I purchased my items and left; being extra careful to give the Wii U demo console a wide berth lest I feel compelled to play it for 'just a minute'.

Of course, if you follow my Twitter (I apologize for bringing it up so much), you might have noticed that I became less impressed with it by a fair deal when a double-tap of bad news (coupled with something I already knew) put everything to a halt.  I'm not going to speak on it too long here, as I want to do a different post for that, but suffice to say if I had made a checklist of "Ways Nintendo Can Make the Wii U Completely Unappealing To Me", then that was a lot of boxes checked all at the same time on a list that wasn't realistically very long to begin with.  On top of that, there's all sorts of reports of consoles bricking left and right because the reportedly 5 gig or so firmware update you have to download when you first power up the system was being interrupted by users and/or bad luck.  (Turning the machine off because there's no canceling the firmware update in the former, internet cutting out in the latter)  Even if I were geared up and ready to get my Mario ZombiU Warriors Orochi 3 Hyper on on the Wii U, all that would've been enough to give me pause - enough so that I think I can resist its charms even after a hands-on.  But I dare not gamble when it comes to these things because it is a fire that I'm not risking a burn with, not yet.

Regardless of whether you do somehow manage to avoid the temptations of spending this week, or you succumb to throwing green (or whatever color your money is) at a clerk for items bound by plastic shells, your free time is in a deathmatch with all that is offered this week.  Why is that, you ask, even if I don't spend a dime?  Well, that's because Playstation Plus arrived on the Vita this week in all its glory, throwing six full games, at least one of which you're guaranteed to not own on a Vita, into your lap or your hands or wherever your Vita spends the bulk of its time when you're actually playing it.  Uncharted:  Golden Abyss (which is getting a wonderful-looking Card Game Add-on at the start of December), Gravity Rush, Wipeout 2048, Mutant Blobs Attack!!!, Jet Set Radio (!) and Final Fantasy Tactics:  War of the Lions join the stable of games included in the Instant Game Collection, not replacing a single existing one in the PS3's list, meaning you have access to an entire 18 games right off the bat for your price of entry.  These Plus games are yours after you download the Vita's 2.00 Firmware Update that went live Monday Nig-

Wait.  Wait.  Did I just say Vita's 2.00 Firmware Update?  Why yes.  Yes I did.  Let's talk about the 2.00 update for a moment.

Okay, 2.00 is awesome.  When it was announced, it was just like "Oh, it's the Plus update, woo" and as it got closer and closer, little things were being said, things about folders for music and pictures and videos which is nice, and things about the browser that were very noncommittal and it was just like "Oh well, some other tweak-y stuff, that's always cool.".  And indeed, there -are- a lot of tweaks; the PSP and PSOne Emulators saw a bit of an update in terms of letting you know how to get into the Emulator options (touch the screen for a few moments) as well as adding some more control and viewing options which is always nice.  Near has once again been revamped for whatever that's worth, and most instances of "Please Wait..." for various things (the one I noticed being Trophy Synching) seems to have been phased out completely which is alright.  But the thing to take away from this update?  The singular thing that elevates it from cool to holy shit yesssss?  Open a game.  Any game.  Whatever, open your copy of Xenogears (because you should have a copy of Xenogears) or Persona 4 Golden, whatever you want, and start playing it some, then press the PS button, swipe over and find your Internet Browser bubble, open it and look up your website of choice.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That just happened.  

That just happened and it's awesome that it works now without a LiveTweet workaround.

Anyways, as I was saying, your time is being contested by these free games out there, simply waiting for you to give them a good home and a little attention and for someone like myself, that's going to be a goddamn chore.  I'm not done with Ragnarok Odyssey yet in terms of I haven't finished it, but with Persona 4 Golden in my possession, I am done with Ragnarok Odyssey for now.  Then I have a copy of PASBR for my Vita on my PS3 disk just waiting to be transferred over (at least, I believe that's how it works) which I actually intend to play because it looks neat.  The aforementioned Mutants Blobs Attack!!! has been downloaded and I put a little time into it already - it's a neat little game, I'll give it that much, but tilt sections are the worst.  On top of all that, I have Jet Set Radio downloading right this moment (and, well, for the last three hours and the next....three...hours) which you know damn well I am going to put some time into.  I do not have time for all this.  At all.  But goddamnit, I am going to make time for it all because this is prime-time right here and I haven't been this excited at being in the middle of a field of options in....well, quite a while.

I Pre-Ordered Five Games Today

In the extended campaign of assaulting a rotting horse, I am once again going to stake just how goddamn confused and worried I am about 2012.  Last night, knowing that I would be heading into GameStop today, I put pencil to post-it to leave a little reminder for myself on what games I'm looking out for that come out this year.  That list comprised of seven games, and that fact still does not fail to amaze me because of how most years go for me, as you might know if you read this blog fairly regularly.  It's not that I am very very picky, it's just that I usually narrow the games that are coming out to things I absolutely want, since the rest can usually be picked up later for less (even as a New product, which I try to buy when I can).  So, come Game of the Year tally time, I end up scraping my purchases together to produce a list of ten or twelve games that I bought that year to rate, rather than being games that I could hand-pick from my acquisitions and rate.  I'm not sure that I'll have that option this year.

The list, for those of you who are curious (though you might know it already) is:  Sleeping Dogs, Lollipop Chainsaw, Resistance:  Burning Skies, Gravity Rush (pre-ordered before today, hence why it's not on the receipt), LittleBigPlanet Vita, LittleBigPlanet Karting, and Persona 4: Golden.  You might notice Sleeping Dogs and LittleBigPlanet Karting are absent from my pre-order receipt and this is both so that I didn't spend $35 in one swing just pre-ordering games, and because I don't know if I'll have $60 to throw down both times for the games when they come out.  Make no mistake:  I crave them, but slightly less than the other games, which means that they rest on the precipice of purchasing, rather than falling from it to my waiting arms.  If I can swing it, there is no doubt that they will be mine, especially Sleeping Dogs, since as you might know I am kind of excited for it.

Now, the more observant of you might also notice that the above receipt contains a game that was not on the list I wrote up before heading to GameStop.  Ragnarok Odyssey, which I have also expressed desire for was pretty far from my mind when I was thinking up this list, purely because I am only now familiarizing myself with the idea of being able to buy it.  Yet, while going down my laundry list of pre-orders for the Vita, I asked "Can you take pre-orders for Persona 4: Golden yet?" to which the clerk, Leo, replied "Oh yeah, I got you covered there."  He then went on to say, "We're also taking pre-orders for Ragnarok Odyssey, if you're interested in that." to which I said, "Oh, Leo you're killing me.  Yes, put money on it, please."  Suddenly, my list had eight games on it, and then something flashed through my head, letting a chill of dread climb down through my spine.  "Do you have a release date for Metal Gear Rising:  Revengeance yet?", I inquired.  "Yeah...let's see.  Actually exactly a month from now."

Ffffuuu-  I grit my teeth against the news and as he asked if I had anything else to pre-order, perhaps Revengeance after all, I heaved a heavy little sigh and shook my head.  "No Leo, that's all for today.  I'm already cutting games off my list and I didn't even remember those two before now."  After I pre-ordered the five games only (knowing that Gravity Rush, already ordered, made six), I shared the rest of the games with him and he chuckled a little, saying "Yeah, this year is just brutal in releases."  It's only about now that I can wonder just how people who have a 360, Wii, and/or 3DS as well keep up with it all since it's all I can to to keep up with my Vita and PS3, both monetarily and where it concerns time.  God help us all if one of Sony's E3 reveals is a, no -the- firmware update that allows PSOne Emulation because with Final Fantasy 7, 8 and Xenogears already on my account, plus a desire to jump into those, I will be fucked.  In a way, I hope they do that since it'll quiet a lot of complaints and be a big deal (always a nice buzz generated when you get to say "Presto!  New functionality right now!  For free!") for the Vita and Sony both, but I dread such a time terribly.

I've pretty much run out of words at this point.  Between what I've bought already, and the nine games that I will get, provided I have the scratch to do so, I'm already ready for Game of the Year time; my list will be no challenge in filling up.  (Ordering yes, but still)  And yet, this is only for games that I know about.  Games that have been announced and are in my mind at least semi-regularly.  I shudder to think that there are other games that I for-Goddamnit, Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale is slated for the Holiday season.  Ten.  Ten goddamn games.  And yet, through it all, even as I, someone who barely buys a lot of games, pre-ordered four Vita games (with a fifth one done already) that will likely be out sooner rather than later (LBP, Gravity Rush in June, P4G in the 'Fall', likely with Ragnarok, Resistance this month), and in fact, turned down pre-ordering others (Warrior's Lair for instance) people continue to smugly state that the Vita has nothing coming out for it and is totally doomed despite being out for only three months.  Some fuckin' people, I tell you.

Persona 4: Golden, Officially Coming Out This Fall in NA

It's official, Persona 4: Golden (apparently formally dropping the "The") will be hitting western shores sometime this Fall which isn't as specific as we all might hope for, but it's at least a little better than "sometime in the future".  Yes, it's a port, an enhanced one at that, and as I've discussed before, we're apparently to hate any of these types of things, but hell, it's Persona 4.  Nobody's going to hate it based on being a port of itself for a handheld (especially given that it doesn't seem anything's being cut from the original), and if they're going to hate it for anything, it'd be over how they didn't like the original.  Though, I seem to see even more praise for 4 than I do 3, which I imagine is saying something.  I say this, that I see the praise, for the simple fact that, like Persona 3, I haven't fully experienced Persona 4 yet despite owning it on PS2 and this portable version will be my first exposure.

Excessive?  Yes.  Entirely too much so, considering I bought my copy of Persona 4 brand new at $40 years ago and barely even opened the case to read the manual.  Seriously, I didn't actually realize that my copy came with the Soundtrack CD until just now when I checked to see if my copy was still shrink-wrapped.  Because it honestly could have been.  Of course, the reason for not playing Persona 4 was because the battle system was apparently so improved that it made going back to Persona 3 difficult.  Is that true?  I don't know.  I honestly probably won't know because I don't intend on throwing Persona 3 regular or FES in my PS2 and playing it out, and Persona 3 Portable reportedly has a lot of influences from Persona 4 in it, system-wise, so I won't be able to properly judge.  So long as the story is as entertaining as Persona 3's, I'm sure I honestly won't care too much.

Speaking of P3P, I feel like I should share the amusing little coincidence I experienced - I beat Persona 3 Portable this morning at 6 something AM (because endgame means forget about time) and after the ending finished, I promptly conked out.  By the time I woke up and got around to checking my LiveTweet on the Vita, Persona 4: Golden had officially been announced for the US ala above.  As I stated elsewhere (at Penny Arcade) it's like they were waiting for me.  Which means that I have to apologize to you all for not finishing the game much much sooner, but, well, you've played it I'm sure, so you know how it is.  I just wasn't sure that I'd be able to swing it since I couldn't kill The Reaper and went on a little grind-a-thon after I worked the courage up to do so with Odin, Raphael, Loki, Gabriel and Horus.  And....other Personae that I can't remember at the moment.

But P3P is a topic for another post, so I don't want to steep too much of this one in it.  I mentioned how Persona 4: Golden will be an enhanced port and, from what I've seen, that's exactly what I mean.  While P3P had to make a lot of sacrifices for the PSP as the platform of choice (namely the ability to traverse the world in-model, instead seeing everything as a blip on a map), P4G seems as if it will have to make none of those sacrifices and will, in fact, have additional content on top of the original game in its entirety.  I'm....not quite sure what it all means, of course, having not played Persona 4, but I'm sure the list, which will follow here, will make sense to those who have played the game.

• A bike that lets you travel to another town
• Revised background graphics
• A winter event
• New Personas for the main cast
• Team Attacks
• Rotating TV shows (including a quiz with Teddie)
• A brand new character
• 1.5 times the amount of voiced dialogue

Again, about the only one of those that I can make sense of are the last two which are pretty self-explanatory.  I can't find information on whether this new character will be a party member, a social-link, both (perhaps) or just 'story-important', but she's new at least.  Also more voice acting which apparently makes people all groany because it's mostly likely, 99% probably going to be English-only.  Which is....uh, a bad thing, apparently.  I am not, nor will I ever actively participate in the "Sub vs. Dub" conversation beyond saying that there's a time and a place for both, and will instead say that the voice acting in P3P was pretty good, so I don't mind it whatsoever.  Of course, those are just the pieces of info that they're actively sharing with us, though it's also probably the only bits that really matter.  But, I mean, I hope we can hope for another in-game nod to a future title ala Vincent explaining his situation from Catherine in P3P.  (That was so neat to stumble across, mind, and I think it was P3P only?)

I kind of hate that "the Fall" (sorry, I had to do it) is so far away, but I'm sure I can keep myself entertained until then.  Resistance:  Burning Skies is coming up and at the very least, P4G is skipping June by a wide margin.  Regardless, in the meanwhile, I have New Game + and/or "Girl Mode" on P3P to keep me busy for those moments when I don't have anything else, as well as a whole other RPG that I haven't even touched.  (Legend of Heroes:  Trails in the Sky)  My point is, I have everything at my disposal to be patient for this which is fairly rare, and not something I'm going to take very lightly.  Still, it will be oh so sweet when I finally get my hands on that (presumably) gold and blue case.