Unwanted Impression - Persona 5 Royal

The last time I had "Unwanted Impression" it ends badly because I never finish Cyberpunk 2077. However, I look back at that post and it reminded me about how much I hope to remember the small little details of enjoyment I had in games. So here it is, Persona 5 (P5 for short) that I had 120 hours in it with 1 complete playthrough.

Do note that there are no avoiding spoilers here, because I felt like I had to remind myself in the future how good this game is with its story.

Spare the long introduction, I will try to make it short. Persona 5 is not a new game, it's been released as console exclusive for years, and later on updated with the version that consists of DLC, Persona 5 Royal. Atlus Studio decides to release P5 on all platforms in 2022, with the inclusion in Xbox PC Game Pass, I had my hands on the game for the first time.

IMPRESSION

P5 is a standard JRPG, turn based combat, map that looks empty to walk around, have to hit or be hit by enemies to load into combat phase. Just a personal preference, I do think turn based JRPG games like this is slightly outdated, unless you have a good reason (like porting to mobile phone). Sounds like knit picking, but in truth I don't have much complain about P5, the combats are still fun that being said!

The best impression I had on P5 is, Atlus Studio basically blended visual novels into a standard JRPG. It is so smart to implement a time feature, so player can only do limited set of things based on how much progress you currently have. Always struggle if I should bond with certain characters first, or increasing my stats for combat, or getting more Personas to play the game like Pokemon. There are much much more to do in the game, always felt like "ah I wish I had more time" just like in real life!

LIFE WILL CHANGE

Story writing, characters development, they fit perfectly. It is a good starting point for players who are not familar with visual novel and want to get a taste of what it is. Although, story can get a little childish, but on the grand scale of entire story, there are points that I feel like I can take in and have my own interpretations in my life. The main theme is to "refuse to settle, stand up and fight injustice, make changes". Even if story can go childish, the theme is not. For that, I have a lot of respect on how the author write the stories and characters.

Can't move fast without breaking

Can't hold on or life won't change
And our voices ring out, yeah
Took the mask off to feel free
Fought it out in the debris
Now we know that life will change

The lyrics of the theme song "Life will Change" hits me so hard. Maybe it is due to what I have been experiencing in recent years, but I guess it suits a lot of people too. A lot of us are too afraid to leave our comfort zone, it can be anything in life. We always hold on to it but we want things to change for the better, not knowing that gripping it too hard leads to nowhere. Staying true to ourselves, not forgetting the adults we don't want to be when we were kids, accept changes in life. I felt like I learnt something from the game, I hope people do too. 

MEMENTOS

For future reference, ChatGPT is released on late 2022. ChatGPT is an AI model that trains itself with data from the Internet dated to 2020. Machine learning is an interesting study, ChatGPT model in some ways are just mimicking human behaviours on Internet until 2020, including all the knowledge that it can get from it.

Reason why I brought ChatGPT up is, I learnt and gave a good thought about Mementos in Persona 5. To explain, Mementos is a dungeon in Shinjuku in the game, it represents the collective unconscious of general public. This means the tendency of people leaning towards something, their thoughts and desires, is always show in Mementos. Now, does it sounds familiar to something I just mentioned?

Just for the fun of it, I asked ChatGPT's opinion on this and he gave me the answer that I expected. Yes, Mementos in P5 is very similar to ChatGPT. They are both general cognitive of the world that we live in, Mementos reply to human by appearing as obstacles or enemies to fight in the game, ChatGPT talks to human by text. This idea about Mementos is just so much fun, I have to bring it up in this review.

VERDICT

There are reasons to not like Persona 5, although for me they are not such a big deal:

1. Some boss fights are just not fun, I was basically grinding a damage sponge. The lack of strategy in a turn based RPG is not ideal.
2. Lengthy puzzles and dungeons, in a game that is so similar to visual novel is very weird! I really wanted to replay the game to try other routes for different characters, but knowing that I have to go through all the hassles for hours again just made me uninstall the game.
3. Tutorial is sometimes annoying, typical holding hands tutorial that limits what you can do. At the start of the game, it felt like there are so many things that I can do but they were locked for not progressing the story.

With that being said, I don't have a lot of games that I played for more than 100 hours. This might have been the third or fourth game, and I spent 120 hours in this game. Knowing that I don't have much time for games ever since I started working, this 120 hours playthrough felt very lengthy but I still enjoy it very much. There are other remakes for Persona 3 and 4, but looking at it they looks very outdated and I'm unwilling to commit that many hours into them. There might be Persona 6 in the future, and if there are any creative changes for it, I can't wait!

Persona 5 is a really enjoyable game for me! Probably due to the fact that I like stories and it is such a heavy plot game. Some game designs like characters affection, time limit, definitely inspires other games in this era whenever I play them. Atlus Studio made a giant in the game industry, that it is still a lot of fun even if it is a JRPG for players who don't usually like them much. Personal opinion would definitely be a 9/10 game!

Unwanted Impression - Cyberpunk 2077

First of all, this isn't like any of my usual posts here. I once decided that there should only be Chinese posts in here, so that my language capacity does not deteorate into... crap, as if it wasn't at the first place. But seeing how I treat blogs more towards as a personal diary, albeit it being public, but seriously who cares about this place other than myself occasionally checking on my stupidity. 

Second of all, I'm kinda disappointed that I didn't jot down my impressions on games when I first played them. Yeah memorable games stick to my heart, but it's the tiny details that I wanted to remember and I couldn't. A long list of games with things that I like and didn't like, including Red Dead Redemption 2, Nier Automata, The Witcher 3 and maybe even 2, list goes on...

So, maybe in a few years and Google still haven't close down Blogger completely, and I managed to reread this, then I'll remember the first 15 hours of Cyberpunk 2077 impression.

INTRO

Cyberpunk 2077, according to CD Projeckt Red, has been in development for 8 years. Throughout 2018-2020, there are rumours, confirmation, then delays for 3 times and it's finally released on 10th December 2020. Pre-orders reached 8 million, already funding the development cost according to the company. History were made for being the best selling single player game until today, most concurrent players on launch day etc. With all eyes looking at this game, it's almost inevitable that at least some people were disappointed and call it "overhyped". Hey, at least no one force you into this hype train, you bought the game and helped in making history by pre-ordering. Comparing it to the previous gem, my favourite game of all time, The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt, Cyberpunk 2077 is the next step, the ambitious game that should inherit the success and evolves through it.

IMMERSIVENESS

To start the first impression, Cyberpunk 2077 is definitely an incomplete game. Although it's in development for 8 years, it should have stay in development for another 1 or 2 years. On launched, day 1 patch is already released. However, the game is bug beyond fixable that soon. During development, it was also mentioned that third person view is removed, that the game will solely focus on first person view. This might ease the development, to not needed for catering different perspective on each scenes. It's also crucial to showcase the immersion of the game, an actual first person view role playing game. Creates a character, decide yourself whether you want a vagina on a masculine body, there's no limit, be whatever you want in the game. This became a double edged sword. People are so focus into the game through first person view, you will notice every single details that is off, be it unnatural movements of NPCs or just straight up buggy cases, materials floating mid air, unsync lip movements and sounds.

Maybe we could ignored all the bugs, and judge the game based on other perspectives. However I look at it, the game feels like a GTA wannabe but just could not hit the final nail. The AI movements are not natural, full of videos demonstrating that online. Reusing art assets everywhere are usually fine, but to reuse them in every corner of Night City, seems to be a little less caring on the fine details. Not to mention the first place you wanted to explore, the main character V's room, is full of junks that are similar everywhere, and not much of them is interactable other than TV or radio or a couch you can sit on. Don't even mention the weird mirror that you can stare, scowl, smile at for some reason. The hawker food stalls under V's apartment gave me hope. For a minute I saw shadows of Hong Kong crowded and tiny apartments, the liveliness. Then it's really disappointing that you can't buy all the foods there. Every boss of the stall can be interact with, but their responds are likely "Huh?", "What?"

Night City looks gorgeous from afar. Chinatown, where we start at really gives a vibe of futuristic Hong Kong. Japantown is a poor name, but do consists of skyscrapers and also short double storey buildings, pretty cool. Jig-jig street in the area looks like Japan's red light district. These are art style and design that I really appreciate. I have yet to explore more places in detail, but a quick look at Downtown, Westbrook, they look awesome with their respective themes but with futuristic sense.

NARRATIVE

Less than 15 hours of gameplay, I couldn't judge the game story that quick. It could go even better from here or worse, only one way to find out. The overall impression currently is excellent. It took what was really good in Witcher, the quest design and further developed from there. Starting with Street Kid, Nomad or Corpo influences your story. Consequences of actions from quests. The hard to forget characters, poor Jackie.

That reminds me of how I judge trailers. Trailers are meant to tease, to make viewers ask questions and to buy the product to find out the answers. Trailers are a good way to sell movies, TV shows, live events and games. 2018 Cyberpunk trailer is good, not much was shown, only a brief explanation on how Night City looks like and the theme of the game, cyber and punk if it's not obvious. Then there is the Keanu Reeves 2019 trailer, which I'm sceptical at first, because I felt like it is a spoiler right from the start. But at that time I thought, since you are showing it in a trailer, maybe this part isn't important, there are much deeper plots from this. Well I was wrong later on, Jackie did died just like how he dies at the start of the trailer. Dex Deshawn wanna kill V just like how he kills him in the end of the trailer, although we don't know the real motive unless you play the game but does it really matter? Keanu being in the game, could have been a top news that will be talked in the industry for months if he is not revealed in the trailer. But this I can forgive, since marketing requires publicity, a sacrifice of famous actor reveals is necessary. Well in short, 2019 Cyberpunk trailer is shit.

VERDICT

It's really unfair to give a final judgement by just 15 hours, so I will either edit or make a new post after completion of the game. So far, the game still felt great. It is ambitious, maybe a little too much. Given time, this could have been a mark in history for another best game of the year. But for the quality we have right now, it's not in the list.

Cyberpunk 2077 is similar to Night City, fancy on the outside but hollow on the inside. From afar, everything seems good and all. From within, there is too much details that could have been done better. Is this due to lack of time and sacrificing everything other than main game flow? Only the company knows. CD Projekt Red is on the news for employees crunching as long as a year, that should always be reminded in the industry that crunch is not acceptable, not even a week so a year is disastrous. Yet even all the hardwork, the game is still missing a soul, how disappointed the employees will be.

Things That I Don't Want to Mention Much

• Poor optimization. CPU crank to 100% and GPU only runs 5%. Rub my eyes to check if I'm hallucinating on this one.
• Difficulty mid ground. Maybe it's just me, but there is no middle point for the second hardest and second easiest difficulty. 4 difficulties selection? Come on maybe there's a fifth in the middle.
• RPG shooting game. I know it's hard, but the game is low on creativity too. Chips installed on character that lacks modification (try looking at Nier Automata maybe?). Critical hit, poison and bleeding effects on gun shooting bullets? Ok...... Weird but I guess ok......
• Great audio. Digging it.

UPDATE IN 2023

I think I should give it a final conclusion since this post has been a while, 2 years+ is really a long time. In the end, Cyberpunk 2077 had a lot of patch for bug fixes. But I already dropped the game around 20-30+ hours, I couldn't remember. The optimization back then is so terrible, some parts are practically unplayable. With the continuous feeling of empty and hollow in the game, there are no reason for me to continue playing it.

In 2022, CD Projekt Red cooperated with Studio Trigger to release an anime call Cyberpunk 2077 Edgerunners. The anime is a big sell, it boosts the game by a lot. Many have turn their eyes back on the game, especially since it already had a lot of fixes. I never did go back into the game, as I already felt very disappointed with how hollow the game is. Hence, making this first review post to be incomplete.