Some screenshots breaking up walls of text

Day 398

My blog has been lacking severely in the picture department lately--not because I haven't been taking screenshots, but because I've been too lazy or busy to upload them! Here are a few to tide you (me) over.

I've been playing Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals in 30-45 minute sessions during lunch breaks at work, but I think I do like it a lot. It is positively chock full of well-trod RPG tropes, but it does distinguish itself from the pack by featuring a wide variety of different puzzles, some of which are quite challenging. This kind of thing isn't normally my forte, but I do enjoy experiencing something a little different from the norm. It reminds me of Golden Sun in some ways, although Lufia II thankfully does not feature its pages and pages of tedious dialogue.

Of course I also finished up Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions after becoming fed up with how much time I was spending grinding out level after level and unlocking every single class and special item in the game. I should know from experience that his kind of thing will quickly burn me out on a game unless it features ridiculous amounts of content to explore. The War of the Lions does feature a decent amount of content, but much of it I've seen many times before. For that reason, I just ended up rushing it there at the end.

Next on the agenda is Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 2: Innocent Sin, a game of many subtitles. I think it's safe to say I prefer it to its immediate predecessor, but I'll be the first to admit that I miss being always accompanied by a Shoji Meguro soundtrack. The game's opening theme was a composition of his (unless I very much miss my guess) but the remainder of the soundtrack seems to be a remixed variant of the original PlayStation version. There's nothing particularly wrong with it, but Shoji Meguro has a flare that really distinguishes him from other video game composers.

Like Shin Megami Tensei: Persona before it, this game allows you to assume control of a five person party of youngsters capable of communing with demons and unleashing their powers on unsuspecting enemy high school students--as well as a whole host of other demons. It is a formula I'm very familiar with by now, having played and finished three of the games in the series, but there's a vocal minority among SMT fans that hail Innocent Sin as the best Persona game. I liked Persona 3 and Persona 4 a lot, so it has some pretty high expectations to live up to. I'll say right away that I don't necessarily dig the demon negotiation system. It is largely unchanged from the first game in the series except for the fact that this game features new characters and therefore new negotiation options.

Very true.