Experiencing Games With Friends: Persona 5 Royal

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My best friend and I got Persona 5: Royal on the same day. It’s fun to experience this game again, but it’s even better to experience the changes with a friend! My friend managed to finish the game fairly quickly while I am still getting through it because I play games very slow plus busy with work and I don’t stay up late.

New Animations

The first thing I noticed was when the new song and opening video started which I was so excited about! I had gotten the game first so I was telling my friend how fun the new song was.

While we were playing together while talking on the phone, we noticed that the faces of the players in the text bar changed. The game would give the characters a couple of expressions, but now they seem to be more defined and we both noticed that it gave the characters a lot more emotion!

New Characters

The two major characters were Kasumi Yoshizawa and Takuto Maruki. I thought Kasumi kinda resembled me with long hair, but we both agreed that I’m way too clumsy as she was doing some complicated moves during the opening animation and prologue. I am hoping I can bond more with her character as I just unlocked her as a Confidant.

When my friend got way further into the story than I did, he said he was similar to Maruki. At first, I was confused because Maruki is awkward. But, he does like to help people and my friend is really sweet and looks after people (I’m only saying nice things about you because I know you read these, joking you’re the best!). Maruki also appears to enjoying cooking and my friend really loves cooking and has taught me some things!

New Mechanics

The first thing we both loved was the grappling hook because it was fast and fun! He also loved the showdown, but I have unfortunately not been able to trigger one yet. I only just finished the second palace so I’m sure I’ve got time. I learned the hard way about ransom always being a technique because I thought it was new, but no just got very unlucky!

I also love the Thieves Den as it’s really cool! I got a statue of Carmen while I was calling my friend while playing and I was so excited that Morgana and Ann started talking about Carmen. I also love playing cards with them!

Jose is an interesting addition to Mementos. I think he looks like a robot, but my friend wasn’t sure. I like collecting flowers and stamps for him! We also have different ways of traversing through Mementos. He prefers collecting all requests before completing a section while I complete the section first and then take requests so I can easily get to the floors that they are on.

Plot Changes

I know that there is a third semester which I am told by my friend is amazing so I really want to play it. Besides that the cleanup section was really funny! I was laughing at Maruki attempting to sprinkle the salt in an artistic manner and teased my friend that yeah he would also be that extra when he cooks!

Confidant Changes

The first thing I noticed with Ryuiji was hanging out with him resulted in a phone call afterwards It now seems that every time I bond closer with a character, they call me which is super sweet! I love getting phone calls from friends so I really enjoy that addition!

Boss Changes

I noticed when fighting Kamoshida that he summoned slaves which made me angry. I was just enraged when he summoned Shido, who he sexually assaulted,  and put her in a playboy bunny costume demonstrating how he saw her. I was very disturbed and desperately wanted to defeat him.

Madarame got me with his mirror images. I was so annoyed that they kept respawning until the end of the fight, but it was funny that they eventually got weak because he is a terrible artists. The one dumb thing I did was use abilities that targeted multiple people as one or two Madarame clones would be weak to it, but the other ones would block it back at me.

New Experiences Every Time I Play

I do love that every time I play this game, I see something new! My favorite part is sharing what I’ve seen with my best friend. It allows us to bond during quarantine. That’s what I love about playing video games while corona is going around; they still allow me to bond with friends and become closer with my friends.

What games have helped you bond with your friends recently?

 

Random Events I’ve Seen in GTA Games So Far

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Being an open world game means that you see some really strange stuff exploring the different cities in the Grand Theft Auto games. Some stuff happened in missions, others were while I was just exploring looking for missions or things to do.

Vice City

Right away my favorite car was an Infernus because it was very fast and I loved the look of it. I found it because it was being driven by other drivers in the area.

The civilians in this game have dived out in front of my car several times like they’re trying to do insurance fraud. One guy dived underneath my car while I was parked and then got stuck so the other NPCs in the game started hitting my car. Cars have the same issue. I’ve been driving and they will swerve into me even if I am driving straight.

My favorite radio stations so far are Flash FM for 80’s pop and V-Rock for the 80’s rock. I also learned that cars on the side of this road do not mean free as taking a motorcycle conveniently placed next to a mission turned into a police chase.

My favorite dumb death of mine has to be me at the beach. I wanted to explore the beach and go into the water because I could do that in Grand Theft Auto: V. Nope, I drowned and it was barely up to my head.

Hardest mission for me so far was the worker’s riot mission as I was very quickly overpowered by the workers whether I drove in or walked in. I won by fleeing in a vehicle and watched them getting taken down by the police or the terrible drivers in Vice City.

I’m currently on the mission where I was told to destroy a building because the character who hired you wanted the real estate. I did not realize he meant use a tiny remote controlled helicopter to do that.

San Andreas

Confession time: I’ve never got past training wheels as a kid riding bikes. My biking skills are still awful in this game. I kept falling off during the very first mission in the game just like I did as a kid. I also messed up the tutorial because when I crashed the bike I landed on the car chasing me. The game did not realize that anyone would crash on top of a moving car so the car pursuing me just kept driving around in circles with me on top until it fell on it’s side exhausted from the effort of trying to shake me off. I also got stuck in the skateboard park on this bike and that was awful trying to get out of! I just could not jump out of the hole. It was a tough tutorial for me!

I am enjoying the RPG like mechanics. I manged to get lean by trying to get out of the skateboard park and failing a few times. Also the food you eat and how much you exercise affects your character. I did manage to figure out the gym mini game and decided to keep trying to build muscle until the game decided that I was done exercising my character for the day.

My favorite thing I bought for my character was a leopard cowboy hat. I bought it because I was trying to get a weird accessory, but he honestly looked great in the hat!

Grand Theft Auto: V

When I started playing as Trevor, I witnessed the police chasing a car driving recklessly but the guy got away. I was afraid to help because I did not want the police chasing me next. The drivers in this game are just as terrible as they were in Vice City. I also learned to not go into the desert without a car because I kept getting killed by cougars. So far with Trevor I can’t tell who is more deadly; the cougar or Trevor and his friends.

As Michael, I wanted to drive the red sports car parked in front of his house, but as soon as I started to get in, one of the kids took off with it!

While playing as Franklin I saw a mime, but I could not interact with it and then a bank robbery happened, but I was too slow. I did do well with Franklin in the tow truck missions except the car I was towing accidentally bumped someone while I was taking it into the towing lot. I ended up failing the mission because the guy was chasing me so I could not drop the car off and ran out of time. All because the towed car slightly bumped him!

I loved having a dog as Franklin. His name is Chop. The game noted that I could train him if I got the mobile app. I did try, but I struggled understanding the phone mini games and I kept losing and Chop started disliking me in the app (which would cause him to dislike me in the game) so I gave up on that. I appreciate walking and playing fetch with him!

What are some memorable events that you have seen in any open world games you have played?

 

Giving The Grand Theft Auto Series a Try

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The Grand Theft Auto games were originally a game that I did not want to give a chance. They’re known to feature criminals as protagonists and are also known for controversy.  But, after seeing them on sale on the PlayStation Store I decided to give the games a chance.

Why Give Chance

Besides the games being on sale, I am also really missing normal life. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, San Andreas, and V are the closest I can get to reality. I get to drive cars, hang out with people, get a haircut, watch TV.

I also softened up to them after playing Saints Row The Third on the Switch and Saints Row IV on Steam. I’ve also seen a YouTuber called Call Me Kevin play San Andreas and Vice City and they seemed like weird and funny games.

What Do I Think Now?

I really like them. I find them to be funny due to their satire. Nothing is safe in this series. My favorite satire so far is in Grand Theft Auto: V  which has a website for a teen clothing store. The store advertised cheap perfume being filtered in through the store and also that their clothing sizes are 4x too small so if you fit in a 0 you should probably seek medical attention. I remember going to one of those stores for jeans in real life and also finding out that the sizes were way too small so the game was super accurate!

I also love the side quests in Grand Theft Auto: V. My favorite is the “Exercising Demons” runner who you meet near a beach. You walk up near her, she starts swearing furiously so Micheal asks her why she is angry. She then yells at Micheal saying “I’m not angry, I’m EXERCISING!” and then you have to race her. I just love how she was just the angriest person when she was exercising. I would hate to be at a gym near her!

Progress

I haven’t gotten too far in the games as I have been distracted by Persona 5: Royal.

For San Andreas, I am now on to Big Smoke’s missions. My favorite part so far was the famous meals that Big Smoke orders and it made me laugh especially with how the other characters were looking at him. Also CJ is interesting because he wants things to be different but a cop forces him to continue being in a gang so the cop can get money.

In Vice City, I finished the crazy lawyer’s introductory missions. I would not want that guy to be my lawyer. He is neurotic and in his words he “could not even intimidate a child”. Not to mention he’s the lawyer of a mafia group. Tommy so far is a quieter protagonist  so I do not know what I think of him yet. The soundtrack is so much fun with the 80’s music.

For V, I am having the most fun since there is a lot to do in the game. I love Strangers and Freaks featuring side characters like the running woman. I also admittedly do like that it lets me skip missions if I get too stuck. The only mission I skipped was a race because I have trouble with the fast cars in this game. They tend to get out of control quickly when making turns and trying to brake while making a turn can sometimes lead the cars to spin out of control. I am currently working with Lester in this game.

Verdict

I really like these games. They’re weird and funny. The critique is my favorite part because I love how satire is used in this game from radio stations talking about violence to ads making fun of typical ads. The music is also great in these games!

One thing that is unique about San Andreas and Vice City on the PlayStation 4 is that it lets your see their original PlayStation 2 manuals which I enjoyed reading! I miss manuals and how fun they were, showing off areas of the game and setting the tone of the game before you even start playing! I loved reading the manuals for my computer games before I played them.

I am really going to enjoy playing these games despite how I am so far not too great at them. Vice City has been the hardest one for me to play so far.

What game or game series did you give a try? Were you surprised at how much you enjoyed it or did it end up not being your favorite?