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[Ben-San]

So this is not so much the kind of community that uses the Internet to talk about video games (being far more concerned with important things like pretend sports and online comic strips about cats). That's okay because I don't feel like having the kind of conversation about video games that communities formed to use the Internet to talk about video games have. Apparently we're hard up for posts and I know at least a couple other people here buy and play video games, and I've been playing a video game and I want to talk about it.

The video game is Persona 3: FES, it's getting zero advertising, and it is the best goddamn deal on the market right now. It's a rerelease-plus-expansion-pack of Persona 3, the most recent installment of one of my favorite series, and it's thirty bucks. You don't have to have played the earlier games in the series, just trust me that this is a really awesome RPG for thirty bucks.

I could ramble about it all day but I probably won't unless prompted.

[CortJstr]

Platform? Setting? Frontal nudity?

Is a turn-based RPG? Because I gave up on Morrowind after about 5 minutes because of the combat system.

[Ben-San]

Platform is PS2. Setting is approximately present-day Japan with the exception that at midnight time stops for all but a few people, who then experience an hour of Unpleasant Supernatural Events while the local high school turns into a bizarrely twisted tower. No frontal nudity, although there is a guy who wears his hair like Jesus and walks around shirtless if you're into that.

Exploration is semi-real-time; the enemy encounters move around the area, and you want to try to hit the enemy icon with your weapon before it spots you to get a combat advantage once the fight starts. The actual combat is turn-based and fairly straightforward; you control only one character directly, but can give the other characters general plans of action such as "you keep us healed, you wait for now, and you hit them with everything you've got".

The game takes place over the course of a year. There is a lot of Jungian psychology and tarot symbolism used in weird ways, the pragmatic upshot of which is that your superpowers' effectiveness depend less on how many monsters you've killed and more on what social links you've cultivated during the day and how. (Killing monsters does still help, though.)

[CortJstr]

Platform is PS2.

Ah well. Considering my platform options are PC and SNES it was a long shot.

[Pedro Picasso]

Wow, that sounds really cool.  My big turn off with turn-based combat was that it was mostly house-keeping.  Telling characters "look, just don't let us die, and don't bother us.  Papa's busy."  sounds like much more fun.  And increased combat prowess due to social interaction is so neat in a distinctly Japanese way.  The vague Tarot symbolism is Japanese in a way that's not quite as cool.  I keep seeing this technique where they'll bring up a theme or a set of symbols (angels, Catholicism, the moon, etc.) and then not really pursue them.  If everyone on TeamFightGiantMonster wears a big silver cross on a chain, it's never explained, and they don't act as they would if the big silver crosses meant anything.

Anyway, it sounds like a neat game.  All being Sarah plain and tall until the witching hour when you are Sarah cunning and beset at all sides.  I'd throw in a quarter for that action.   (But I probably wouldn't run out and buy a PS2, ah well.)

[Ben-San]

The vague Tarot symbolism is Japanese in a way that's not quite as cool.  I keep seeing this technique where they'll bring up a theme or a set of symbols (angels, Catholicism, the moon, etc.) and then not really pursue them.  If everyone on TeamFightGiantMonster wears a big silver cross on a chain, it's never explained, and they don't act as they would if the big silver crosses meant anything.

The Tarot symbolism in Persona 3 is actually fairly functional in mythic/symbolic/whatever terms. Essentially, your supernatural ability is a "persona": a mythical figure or creature that corresponds to the face you put on to the world, which you're able to physically manifest under certain circumstances. Due to Reasons, your main character is able to change his Persona relatively easily, but the strength of a given Persona generally corresponds to how much you've developed that face of yourself. Each Persona corresponds to one of the major arcana of the tarot, some in obvious ways (Apollo is Sun, Pale Rider is Death, most angels are Justice) and some in nonobvious ways. Each of the characters you can create a social link with also corresponds to one of the major arcana, and although it's sometimes in ways that aren't immediately obvious, the connection becomes clear as you become closer to them. The more you develop a social link, the stronger the Personae of that arcana will be.

So, yeah, it's not really throwaway symbolism. The series creator is a big fan of Jung, and while it's not as all-pervading in this as in the earlier games, it does inform the game's construction.

Reflecting on it, I think one of the things I like best about this game is that it is intended to make you uncomfortable - not in a "OH LOOK HOW SHOCKING WE CAN BE" way, but in a quiet way that comes from reflecting on how someone who acts like a video game protagonist would fit into society after playing without noticing for long enough. A number of the social links will grow faster if you essentially act as an enabler to unhealthy behavior - from a typical video-gaming perspective, this is the "right way to play" but after a while it might grow on you that maybe it's not really the best thing to do.

[Drygioni]

Any Football Manager fans? No?

Without a doubt the best (mostly) text-based game ever. Of sorts, if you like sports.

Sorry, didn't mean any rudeness: Ben, that sounds a lot like those new-fangled Mario games on the Game Boys, with the whole random-but-not-quite-random battle entry system (you can jump on enemies etc.) (maybe not so similar in other ways BUT) and I enjoyed it a lot, so maybe I will pick it up if it's lying in a bargain bin somewhere (I'm pretty sure it will, you get all sorts in shops here)

I think my tastes in games are depressingly mainstream for most internet people, the only games I play right now are Oblivion and Football Manager, and I only like the first one because of the stupidly excessive modding community.

[Ben-San]

Any Football Manager fans? No?

Without a doubt the best (mostly) text-based game ever, you can shove the Hobbit up your arse.

Sorry, didn't mean any rudeness: Ben, that sounds a lot like those new-fangled Mario games on the Game Boys, with the whole random-but-not-quite-random battle entry system (you can jump on enemies etc.) (maybe not so similar in other ways BUT) and I enjoyed it a lot, so maybe I will pick it up if it's lying in a bargain bin somewhere (I'm pretty sure it will, you get all sorts in shops here)

I've got a friend who's a huge Football Manager fan. I'm not enough of a sports-type to be interested, though.

Being able to do a little semi-actiony bit on the field to get an advantage in the start of a turn-based fight is becoming relatively common these days. I wouldn't expect to find it in bargain bins, since this company doesn't tend to print huge runs, but it's being sold new at half the price of most PS2 games anyway. (Here, at least, dunno about its European release.)

[Drygioni]

I've got a friend who's a huge Football Manager fan. I'm not enough of a sports-type to be interested, though.

Being able to do a little semi-actiony bit on the field to get an advantage in the start of a turn-based fight is becoming relatively common these days. I wouldn't expect to find it in bargain bins, since this company doesn't tend to print huge runs, but it's being sold new at half the price of most PS2 games anyway. (Here, at least, dunno about its European release.)

Well this game shop in the locality tends to (probably illegally) acquire games released solely in US/Japan on import and sell them for pretty cheap, either way I'll keep an eye out for it, as that does seem a pretty good deal for what you (And I trust your opinion) reckon is a pretty awesome game. Thankyou!

Also, it may have seemed I might have directed the 'shove the hobbit up your arse' comment towards you, which is not the case at all. I haven't played it even so a pretty poor choice of words to be honest, duly amended.

[Ben-San]

Wait, there was hobbit-arse-up-shoving? I missed that and now it's edited out. No offense taken, but now I'm mildly perplexed.

I really want to know what the hell it was supposed to mean now. I can sort of guess, and if it's in the direction I'm thinking it's probably justified (since I'm an overweight video-game-playing D&D-playing Tolkien-reading comic-book-illegally-acquiring neckbeard), but I'm mostly puzzled.

[Drygioni]

Wait, there was hobbit-arse-up-shoving? I missed that and now it's edited out. No offense taken, but now I'm mildly perplexed.

I really want to know what the hell it was supposed to mean now. I can sort of guess, and if it's in the direction I'm thinking it's probably justified (since I'm an overweight video-game-playing D&D-playing Tolkien-reading comic-book-illegally-acquiring neckbeard), but I'm mostly puzzled.

No no no! That was exactly what I was not doing!

I called Football Manager the best text-based game ever, and then (for japes) insulted another famous text-based game. In this case, 'the Hobbit'. In Britain at least, when comparing some stuff and one is better than the other you tell the lesser one to be shoved up someone's arse.

For example: Young Americans by David Bowie is the best white-soul album ever, you can shove Van Morrison up your arse!

The 'you' doesn't mean anyone in particular, it's just a figure of speech like.

Basically I was saying Football Manager is awesome and games such as The Hobbit (which no-one here may have even heard of) is a mere pretender to the crown of text-based games, that's all.

I'm sorry if I'm over explaining, I just hate the idea that I've been giving the wrong end of the stick here, as you are awesome Ben-San.

[lprkn]

In a hole in the ground someone's ass there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

[jaydub]

Around here, if you want to take the piss from someone who is looking for something, when asked if you know where such-and-such a thing is you reply, "You'd know where it was if it was shoved up your ass".  Or, for emphasis, "shoved up your ass sideways".

[jay-ell]

I've always heard the phrase "shove it up your ass" used to convey anger and resentment towards either the object or the person who is being directed to do the shoving. 

As in, on terminating one's employment, "You can take this job and shove it up your ass." 

[CortJstr]

Or, if you're The Rock, "I'll take that hobbit, shine that sum' bitch up real nice, turn it sideways, and shove it straight up your candy ass."

Although what he would be doing reading our little board I haven't the faintest idea.