So, having just completed Persona 3, I'd like to take a moment to recommend this game to you all.

It is, simply, the best damn game in the best damn series of games there is.

A little background:

The Shin Megami Tensei: Persona series is characterized by a group of people who have the ability to summon mystical beings, their 'other selves'
called Persona. These beings are based on mythology around the world, and are also all split up into various groups based on the Tarot arcana. In each game,
some whacky shit goes on involving otherworldly beings, and it's up to your characters to figure out what's going on and to stop it.

While combat in each game is different, it's characterized by being unusally contemporary. Character use melee weapons like swords, but they'll often
have guns. All magic in the game is done through your persona. If you for example want to heal someone, you summon your persona, it appears over your head,
the spell happens, it buggers off (people who watch/read Jojo's Bizzare Adventure will recognize this).

Persona 3 doesn't have this, but the previous two games (as well as some of the related-but-seperate games like SMT: Nocturne and Digital Devil Saga) you
could talk to the enemies, and sometimes make deals with them and/or recruit them for your persona.

Another common feature of the series (and related games) is Igor and the Blue Velvet Room. Igor is a creepy little guy who has the ability to fuse your
persona to create new ones. (Yes, there's a Pokemon aspect, too.)

As I mentioned above, the game takes the persona/enemies from various mythologies - including the Judeo-Christian mythos. Higher-level persona usually include
things like: Satan, Lucifer, the Metatron, the Messiah, Gabriel, Uriel, Raphael, Michael, Beelzebub, Thor, Odin, Shiva, Vishnu, Chi You.

Okay. Background done.

Now, about Persona 3:

Persona 3 centers around a small made-up area in Japan, specifically the high school. You play a transfer student who comes into town, and on
that day you are introduced to the Dark Hour, and a group of students who are trying to figure out what the deal is. All of you are persona users, but YOU are
special.

The Dark Hour is a magical, sinister time that occurs between 0:00:00 and 0:00:01. Everyone living in the world is in stasis during that time, stored in
coffins - except for persona users. For them, the Dark Hour is a period during which they can use their persona. The Dark Hour is also home to sinister
beings called the Shadows, who prey on the few people who don't end up in coffins (latent persona users?) and turning them into near-mindless zombies.

The other big change (other than the fact that the Dark Hour makes everything look creepy) is that your school turns into this massive tower called Tartarus.
Tartarus is a 250+ level 'dungeon', each level randomly generated (they're small levels) and haunted by shadows. Your job as a member of that team
is to figure out what's up with Tartarus, what's causing the Dark Hour, and how to stop all the badness.

I mentioned the persona of your team members, and how you're different. Each of your team members has their own persona, that they develop (and at a late
point in the game, promote). They only get to use that one persona each - so one character will be your fire user, another your wind user, another your ice,
etc. YOU, however, can equip all the persona out there, up to 12 at a time, and change your active one as you see fit. You also have the ability to use all
weapons.

The combat system is a standard turn based, except for some small caveats:

1) You don't control your teammates. You can assign a strategy to each one, but no specifics.

2) Hits that knock someone down, be they a standard attack or an elemental attack on a weakness, gives you another turn. As long as you keep knocking people
down, you get free turns.

3) Once you knock all the enemies down, you can trigger a dogpile attack that does massive damage. (And looks hilarious.)

When not in combat, your character is a standard high-school student. That means you go to school every day. During your free time, you get a chance to
persue Social Links - a sort of dating game, including attributes like Charm, Courage, and Smarts that you have to improve to get the most out of it. Each
Social Link is attached to an Arcana, and will aid you for creating persona of that arcana. It can get a bit frustrating trying to reach level 10 on each one
(I missed on like 5 of the 15 or so), but the rewards are worth it. It also adds a bit of social engineering, because a good chunk of them are with girls, and
they don't like competition. Once you reach a certain level with a girl (6-8, usually) you have to make sure you don't reach a similar level with any
other girl, or she'll get pissed, and you'll have to spend 2 socialization periods making it up to her.

The graphics of the game are decent. While the 3D stuff isn't FF12 extraordinary, it does a *really* good job of replicating an anime world in 3D.
There's some anime cutscenes, but they're minor. One of the gems is the fact that each persona you can equip is also rendered in 3D - no 2D sprites
for this game. The mentu interface is also a gem - clear, large text, and looks very stylized and clean. A little slow due to all the fade effects, but
it's not too bad.

Where this game shines above all is the dubbing/rewrite. The voices are *perfect* for each character. They kept the original Japanese names, and use the
honorifics-in-English style you often see in fanfics - so a character may refer to another as Akihiko-sempai, or Ken-kun. The writing is clean, without
Engrish, funny where it needs to be, serious where it doesn't, and all in all exceedingly well done. ATLUS knows their stuff when it comes to translations
these days. The music in the game is top-notch, and just when I started to find it a bit repetitive, they change soundtrack. How can you not like that?

While this game is *long*, taking me more than 100h to finish, I enjoyed every damn minute of it. The Shin Megami Tensei group of games are really well done,
and Persona 3 is easily the pride of my game collection.

Phoenix Wright does The Frantic's "Last Will and Temperment" sketch. And does it beautifully.

(Link courtesy of TheFrantics.com.)
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

…which, if passed, would make it illegal for restaurants to serve food to any
person who is obese. Many people, myself included, have made comments online about
this egregious example of nanny-state incroachment on individual freedoms.

--The Twisted One
"If you
wish to converse with me, define your
terms."

--Voltaire

Does anyone here have experience using Firefox Portable?

For various reasons I'm not going to rant about here, it looks like I'm going to have to use Firefox for something. I do not want to have to install
yet another piece of software on my already overloaded machine, and it's my understanding that Firefox Portable can be run from a Jump Drive. Can
it be run (and run well) from a Jump drive, or do you need something a little heftier than that? Does it only take up 25MB? Does it overstress the
"mother machine"? Anything to look out for? Basically, does it work as advertised?

Jeanne Hedge
www.jhedge.com

"Believe me, if I have to go the rest of my life without companionship, knowing myself won't be a problem."
-- Gabrielle of Potadeia

Anyone know how to make table borders NOT display? I have a table in my sig file, and the table borders are visible (moreso in some skins than in others).
I'm already using border=0.

Jeanne Hedge
www.jhedge.com

"Believe me, if I have to go the rest of my life without companionship, knowing myself won't be a problem."
-- Gabrielle of Potadeia

For anyone who is interested/curious/whatever other adjective you'd like to add, there is now a The Legendary Gwed (Guild Wars Edition). If you play, let
me know and I'll throw you an invite.

That's all I wanted to say. Carry on. -Cindy

Just stopping in to say hello. Drenivian finally talked me into joining up on these boards, so you can aaaaallllll blllaaaaaammmeee hiiiimmm!

So, uhm... yeah. I draw, costume, sing, play with sharp and pointy objects and write stuff (though I've been getting slower and slower at that recently,
as I'm sure several of my readers would tell you...). I'm not actually as scary as I probably sound though.

So, yeah! Hiya, everyone!

Berz.

...if only I can con, er, convince the players to accept the rules and the setting.

http://rpg.starwreck.com/]Star Wreck Roleplaying Game

Yes, that Star Wreck.

Quote:Whether you're a veteran gamer or a beginner, this game will have you shooting light balls at your own home planet before you can say: "Whoops!"

A little boy with leukemia wishes for unlimited wishes from the 'Make a Wish' foundation. Go figure.



http://208.116.9.205/10/graphics/movies ... sh_kid.wmv
---

The Master said: "It is all in vain! I have never yet seen a man who can perceive his own faults and bring the charge home against himself."

>Analects: Book V, Chaper XXVI

There has been a heresy of the darkest order, one that even the Inquisition has not been able to halt.

After more than a year of anticicipation, the Black Industries (part of the Black Library, part of Games Workshop) released Dark Heresy, the first volume (of a
promised three) of the new Warhammer 40K roleplaying game line.

It sold like hotcakes. As if it were going out of fashion. It sold OUT. That was wednesday 23rd.

Wednesday 30th, the Black Library shut down Black Industries and declared the line would have 'some online support' for the immediate future.

WTF? Okay, I realise that they presumably have some business based reasons for this (focusing on the novels, it would seem). But I've seen those novels,
shelf after shelf at Borders, shifting a few a day. Dark Heresy was a license to print money. And they killed it!
D for Drakensis

You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.