GAMES
Persona is one of the biggest role-playing game franchises to have emerged from Japan. These games revolve around agroup of students banding together to fight shadows from aparallel dimension while often also challenging corrupt adults in society, as well as overcoming their own insecurities.
While the fifth instalment is often considered one of the best RPGs ever made, its foundations come from Persona 3 –and although that game did geta port earlier this year, it was the stripped-down version made originally for the PSP that was presented like avisual novel. Reload instead gives it afull 3D makeover in Unreal Engine that brings us closer to the latest title’s look… only with even more of aflourish in its animated menu screens.
During the day you’ll juggle your studies with your social life; but at the stroke of midnight you’ll enter the Dark Hour, where you and your friends enter the towering dungeon of Tartarus, defeating shadows as you go. Each party member has an attack weapon, but their real power lies in summoning a persona –aperson’s thoughts and personality manifested in apowerful mythical being. To put it another way, it’s Pokemon with added Jungian psychology.
While the characters naturally benefit from amodern facelift, along with reworked audio, the environments feel rather barren, much like the original game’s dungeon design. This remake doesn’t factor in later versions that expanded the story and added the choice of afemale protagonist, so the jury is out until its release in February.
FIRST LOOK WELCOME BACK TO THE JUNGLE
What’s the best Metal Gear Solid game? If not the original PS1 title, it’s often cited as its prequel Snake Eater, set in a Soviet jungle in the 1960s where you play as the Snake who would go on to become the legendary Big Boss. That said, while everyone raves about it, they’re usually thinking of the enhanced version Subsistence, which gave it a camera system more in line with modern third-person games.
It’s probably no surprise that it’s getting a remake, a bold move from Konami having only recently released Master Collection Vol 1. But with reports of that collection not being quite so masterful, we’re more hopeful about this remake –despite claims that it’s going to be nothing more than a visual overhaul.
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