Line #15 Gush/Atlus


1	Okay yes, so Creator/{{Atlus}} games are [[NintendoHard sadistically difficult]], as in [[SignatureLine "we get off on your tears"]] difficult, to the point where they have [[ThatOneBoss/{{Atlus}} their own That One Boss page]], the first non-genre TOB subpage at that. But despite the notorious difficulty, or perhaps [[ChallengeGamer because of it]], there are many players who have a deep appreciation for Atlus games.
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3	* ''VideoGame/Persona3'' and ''VideoGame/Persona4''.
4	** The plots, systems, characters (oh dear lord the characters), music, presentation, ''the entire package'' something that cannot be missed.
5	** The most awesome characters ever like Aigis, Akihiko and Junpei, and damn, everyone is awesome after awhile. Most social links have downright heartwarming and redeemable backstories, like fascist dictator disciplinary man or elementary school kid Maiko. Hell, there are places where the game lags... that combat system is atrocious and the personas look like they fell straight off the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down. The boss battles are awful. I hate the use of Japanese suffixes in an English localization. But then there are moments like September 23rd when you take Shinjiro out to the Film Festival and it warms your heart that you guys just bro'd out and watched 2 hours of Little Pet Adventures.The characterization and overall feeling of immersion makes this one of the best [=RPG=]s ever.
6	** ''Persona 4'' is such a happy game that the theme color is ''yellow.'' Like all of ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'' it has a ridiculously complex storyline but it manages to accomplish this without the usual "emo" mood. You will get so attatched to every character playing this game that you will want so badly either to live in their world or for them to be real just so you can be friends and hang out with them. Besides all the supernatural/heroic stuff, there are so many fun slice of life stories about you and your friends' adventures in ordinary life; cooking competitions, camping trips, shopping, and field trips. As mentioned above, it really feels like you are in the game.
7	** It is also really nice to see that in a market where many games, [=RPGs=] or otherwise, try to be 'edgy' by trying to tackle big topics like religion, race, and all that. And while there are some games that pull this off well, alot of them don't know how to tackle in any meaningful way. Persona, 4 and the other Persona games by extension, has its issues and conflicts small yet meaningful, the interpersonal relationships, the troubles each of your social links face, the CharacterDevelopment; heck, even just the main cast stressing about the next test in school is pretty refreshing. And near the end, when it does tackle bigger issues, mainly the truth and "do not lie to yourself", it pulls it off excellently.
8	** ''Persona 4'' has challenging though fair gameplay, a quirky storyline, and 3-dimensional characters that you will fall in love with by the end of the game. However, it's the way the game handled its theme of truth that left this troper awestruck. The gameplay constantly pushes the player to find this truth whether it be through completing social links, solving the murder case, or obtaining the True Ending. It's one of the few games that actually uses game mechanics to explore its themes which makes it in this troper's opinion nothing short of a masterpiece. If this troper ever has any children, she will make sure that they play this game. Creator/{{Atlus}}, thank you so much for this wonderful experience...
9	** And now, thanks to the efforts of Atlus' P-studio, ''Persona 4 Golden'' is now on PC. Persona fans, rejoice!
10	* ''VideoGame/Persona2'' is somewhat different in comparison with later Persona titles: Social links are nonexistent, the whole team thing works in a smaller scale, and yet you can't help but feel the same awe and wonder as Tatsuya and co. as they march for the truth, when they first summon their personae, and ''everyone'' has their great moments. Even ThoseWackyNazis, Nyarlathotep, the {{Quirky Miniboss Squad}}s...
11	* The whole series, both ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'' and ''Persona'', are made twice as awesome with the intricate attention to detail Atlus gets for each game and make it awesome. And Kazuma Kaneko, Atlus' master artist, gets bonus points for having drawn and brought to life so many mythologies and pantheons with such care and details for years.
12	* Continuing on Kaneko, his absolutely wonderful and unique style after his ArtEvolution. It's a style that perhaps can best be described as clinical and calculated, but also organic in a way. It almost feels like a geometric case of the UncannyValley, but in the best sort of ways. But it really get's to shine the ''Digital Devil Saga'' games. It's no wonder he has been seen as pretty much the face of the series.
13	* VideoGame/DevilSurvivor, a relatively new spinoff, has some weird mechanics, but the result is par for the course for Atlus: they never settle for anything but the best.
14	* ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIIINocturne''. The soundtrack, if a little low in sound quality, is beautiful, the gameplay is sublime, and the game completely averts the Morality ranking in place of choosing simply what you believe is right. The boss fights are suitably tough, and the designs of the Demons are just amazing. And back on the soundtrack for a minute, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fylg8zp4Pzo Just listen to this.]]
15	* ''Videogame/TraumaCenter'' deserves a spot on here. It's definitely a unique experience... instead of killing people left and right, you save them. Plus, Derek is adorable.
16	* ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiStrangeJourney''. The story takes the traditional law-neutral-chaos axis from the first two games and turns it up to eleven by having some of the best reasoning behind each of the three alignments, and some kick ass endings to boot. Couple that with some really unique level design (How many other dungeon crawlers take place in A shopping mall, A giant computer and A red light district?) and gameplay that's different from every other game in the series and you have one of the best games on the [[UsefulNotes/NintendoDS DS.]]
17	* ''VideoGame/{{Catherine}}''[='=]s gameplay, albeit hard, was fun, the story kept me on edge, the characters were fun and three dimensional and the voice acting was top notch.
18	* ''VideoGame/EtrianOdyssey''. This game made me realize something. What a game seeks to achieve is immersion. Its ultimate goal is to suck you into the world. And while a lot of games can do it with engrossing, sprawling plots with a healthy dose of gorgeous cutscenes, and it does work, this game manages to do it with just one thing: the feeling of exploration, of adventure. It's all about the experience and not the destination with this game. You don't feel compelled to grind and hurry through everything to advance the plot, but you are absolutely captivated and motivated to explore each and every cranny, just from the sense of adventure it gives you. And it's a lot of people's complaint about the game, about it having no plot, but firstly, that's not true. It comes in late in the game, when you don't even expect a story. It's simple, but very effective. It heigtens the sense of mystery and exploration in the labyrinth, and that is what the experience is all about, not a Let's Save the World kind of plotline. One last thing, it has made me notice the importance of difficulty regulation. Although it slips up towards the end, the merciless difficulty in the first and second strata is so carefully and deliberately callibrated. It is a SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome when you meet the [[FanNickname Rapelope]] and get your ass handed to you so hard. You sit there shell-shocked, before slowly realizing: this is going to be AWESOME.
19	* ''VideoGame/{{Robopon}}''. A {{Mons}} series with robots that manages to be highly entertaining and playable. I still love my good ol' Golden Sunny from the first game. And it had an awesome villain in Dr. Zero!
20	* ''VideoGame/Persona5'' takes the formula of the previous two installments, cherry-picks the best elements from all the past games, and spins it all into one great game:
21	** For those who thought ''Persona 4'' was too "happy", the overall tone of ''5'' is definitely darker. The main color of ''5'' is a vivid red, and fittingly for the color, the game doesn't shy away from depicting the protagonist being brutally beaten by the police, and Persona awakenings are shown to be painful and somewhat bloody. The story also doesn't shy away from addressing corrupt authorities, police brutality, and its effects on everyone. However, at the same time, it doesn't descend into grimdark depths. Each of the Phantom Thieves qualifies for TheWoobie, but they all try to remain positive and use their experiences as motivation to reform the world around them rather than mope about it, and even though the world is shown as flawed and that those in power can be corrupt, it also shows that there's still hope so long as people are willing to do something about it.
22	** Story dungeons are more dynamic, featuring unique puzzles, parkour and stealth mechanics. And for those who prefer to explore randomized dungeons, there are Mementos, which is an area like ''Persona 3''[='=]s Tartarus where you can explore, grind and perform sidequests.
23	** All Social Links (called Confidants in this installment) now provide additional benefits beyond Fusion EXP bonuses and Ultimate Personas. Need better weapons? One of the confidants is the weapon shop owner, and leveling his Confidant gives you discounts and new items in his shop. Need SP recovery? You can learn how to make SP recovery items from Sojiro. Need time to craft those items? Your homeroom teacher can cancel class to give you that time. Need to copy skill cards? Not only does leveling Yusuke's Confidant make him a better party member, it also gives him the ability to copy skill cards.
24	** The combat system has all sorts of new improvements:
25	*** The game highly encourages switching out party members. Each party member is balanced, with no single party member being overly broken like Akihiko or too niche like Naoto in the original ''Persona 4''. You can freely switch around party members out of battle (and in battle with the right Confidant), and inactive party members can receive EXP (up to the full amount depending on how high the Moon Confidant is).
26	*** Like in ''Persona 1'', each party member carries a melee weapon and a gun. Guns are an entirely separate element, and each party member has a gun that works differently (the protagonist's pistol hits single enemies, Ryuji's shotgun hits everyone, Ann's SMG has tons of ammo but hits randomly and has lower accuracy, etc).
27	*** The four basic elements now have additional effects (such as burning for fire and freezing for ice), dark and light now have damage skills (in addition to the usual instant death skills), and two new elements, nuclear and psychokinetic, have been added. Also, if you get a One More, you can now Baton Pass your extra turn to another party member, temporarily increasing their stats.
28	*** Battles are now much faster and smoother. Rather than navigating a menu, each command is mapped to a button, and Persona summoning happens as soon as you open the skill screen (the {{Eyedscreen}} still happens on critical and weakness hits, but it's much quicker). And also, you can freely switch between your Personas so long as you haven't yet used a skill, so no more switching to the wrong Persona by accident and getting stuck with it.
29	** ''Persona 5'' is as stylish as a piece of Banksy graffiti in video game form. It positively overflows with cool, from the more caricatured appearances of the characters, to the more cartoonish art style, to the red, white and black of the menus combined with smooth animations and a dishevelled look that resembles [=2D=]-rendered FashionableAsymmetry. Put all that in a blender with the game's score, which combines smooth jazz with rock'n'roll with J-pop, ending in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGX8rvO0q40 "With The Stars and Us"]], which takes the usual bittersweet tones of [[VideoGame/Persona3 "Kimi no Kioku"]] and [[VideoGame/Persona4 "Never More"]] and adds some of the finest use of a bass guitar I've heard in any soundtrack, full stop.

Context Gush / Atlus