Review #2 - God Is An Astronaut "All is Violent, All is Bright" (Music)

God Is An Astronaut is an Irish Post Rock band consisting of three members. They write instrumentals heavily reminiscent of the likes of Copland, Casiopea, and Godspeed You! Black Emperor. As such, the music takes on an ethereal quality unlike any sort of music that I've ever listened to.

Sure, I love Explosions In the Sky, Mogwai, and Godspeed, but this music is so calming and meditative that it is some of the best collection of sound I've heard in a long time. Some people bank on the Sigur Ros for their warming tones, but GIAA succeeds at this task far better than Sigur Ros could ever hope to.

Anyways, on to the album itself. The album actually begins with sort of a weak track "Fragile" which is 4 and a half minutes of not much really exciting or exceptional happening. But, the album picks up very quickly with the title track, and doesn't stop elevating itself until near the end of the album, where it should and does decline properly. The song that comes after the title track, "Forever Lost", is simply the best song on here no doubt, and is powerful and soothing all at once. It nestles you into a warm and comfortable place, then pummels you with chilling synthesizers that truly get the mind thinkin'.

Some would say the "Rock" part of their Post-Rock label is missing, but with tracks like "Suicide By Star" and "Fire Flies and Empty Skies", you can definitely hear the thumping bass lines, pounding drums, and distorted driving guitars. There is even a double bass and guitar tremolo section in the end of "Suicide By Star", which is quickly snuffed out by the somber piano of "Remembrance Day" and the sounds of snuffed synths swimming through your system. The transitions from heavier pieces that aren't really distortion heavy, but "wall-of-sound" heavy, to the somber pieces is astounding. It's truly something to respect and enjoy, something that I've yet to fully master in my own songwriting.

So, with all this high praise, there must be cons, no? Well, to be honest there are. I listen to music almost exclusively on a pair of very thick and bass-heavy Koch headphones, which I obviously turn down on the equalizers so I can actually enjoy music without the bass all up in my face, but the point is that GIAA's music doesn't sound very great in a bass-reduced environment, but rather works better on open speakers, and would undoubtedly sound fantastic on vinyl. That is some fault of my own, because I live in an area where any type of music played loudly gets reproted, and I'm not a huge fan of that, but I still think that it is disappointing when a band's music doesn't work too well on a headphone set.

That's not to say the production values are low, however. In fact, I'm surprised by how high the quality is on this album. The open and sizzling hi-hat meshes perfectly with the twang of the electric guitar, and the fuzz of the synthesizers. The bass cuts through purely by its clean and bright tone that is wildly different than the rest of the instrumental tone. The guitars are hidden, but protrude when necessary, and the synths are at the forefront, bearing full melodic backdrop.

There are some issues with speed on this album, however. Sure, I love music that takes a driving pace and litters it with slower instrumentals with a forward thinking drummer, but this band does for 10 tracks, and after awhile it starts to lose its cool. Bits like the end of "Suicide By Star" are so welcome, that it gets to be disappointing when you realize that you've been waiting for a pick-up in pace for more than half of this fantastic album.

Like I said though, this album ash excellent production, performance, tone, and composition, and those mark the greatest parts of songwriting. The sad thing about the whole album is that since it pretty much draws you in from the start, refusing to let go, it doesn't vary the overall tempo that often, but when it does, it is truly a joyous experience.

In the end, this is one of the best Indie/Post-Rock albums that has come out in the past decade, and is one of the best musical feats accomplished by man; power through emotion. Something like that hasn't been done since the likes of Fugazi, Rites of Spring, The Promise Ring, and At the Drive-In.

Final Score: 4.5/5

Review #1 - Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 (Video Game)

(credit for the picture goes to an unidentifiable source at metavideogame.com)

I Will be discussing heavy Endgame spoilers, so beware...


I will admit that my first confrontation with this (may I say, FANTASTIC) game was via the wonderful guys at GiantBomb and their Endurance Run of the game. That site is a fantastic source for video game news and hilarity, though I may be outsourcing and ruining my own obvious and killer success. I digress, GiantBomb may be a brilliant site, but this review is here for a reason!

I am a huge RPG fan. I'll admit it, I love everything from Fallout (the first) all the way to Pokemon back again to something like Mass Effect.Storytelling and systems have driven me to love RPGs ever since I can remember. Remembering now that the first RPG I played was either Final Fantasy VII or Legend of Dragoon gives me a very poor cache in terms of "indie-ness" and you hardcore RPG fans reading this. Roughly five yeas ago I started to get back into gaming, and bought a ton of cheap RPGs from the 80's and early 90's including everything from Wizardry 6to Akalabeth. Last year I decided I should get back into modern gaming, and being the brilliant man I am, pulled out my PS2, and popped in Final Fantasy XII. Being the first Final Fantasy I had played since the 8th game, I was so desensitized by the MMO-ish gameplay (which is a genre I will dissect eventually) that I could only get about 40 hours in, then stopped. I was listening to the podcast version of the men I mentioned in the previous paragraph, and heard them mention the Endurance Run in an older 'cast, and managed to catch it after it had ended, and watched the whole thing.

Yes, I watched 100 hours of a game...then proceeded to buy it. If that doesn't impress a sort of awe onto you about this game, prepare for a deluge of positivity that will spew from my (proverbial) mouth. I will say that as of this post's date I am roughly 140 hours into the game, currently grinding to fuse a very high level persona for use in my 3rd+ playthroughs. Anyways, I will start my loving dissection of this game from here:

Story (SPOILER WARNING)/Characters:

As a huge fan of open-ended storytelling, and somehow at the same time Japanese console RPGs, I was a mite bit disappointed by the super linear and formulaic storytelling featured inPersona 4. I also mostly having a problem with this game in its speed of storytelling. The story begins with the (silent) protagonist arriving in the small town of Inaba, Japan because his parents are going on work trips for the year, and they decided to dump their spawn with his mother's brother, Ryotaro Dojima. You have a quirky meeting with a gas station attendant (remember it!) in the very beginning. Then the story proceeds to introduce you to the characters at a hellish pace even when you can tell right from the get-go if a character is important because they're undoubtedly wearing an accessory that pushes them to the front of your vision against all the other drab black outfits.

So, school is introduced, and along with it the rumor of "The Midnight Channel", a mysterious channel that only appears on a switched-off television set whilst it is raining that shows to you your future love. The main character decides to test this out one rainy night, and is pulled into the T.V.

...

Yeah, the damn T.V.! The protagonist is then shown comically struggling, and pulls himself out only to be ridiculed about it by his companions the next day. When three of them (including the protagonist) decide to visit the local Dept. Store (owned by one of the character's parents), they witness firsthand the bizarre ability of their new friend, that's you bub. You all are somehow bumped into the T.V. and meet Teddie, the ambiguous dweller of this televised realm. From the whole game forward you are tasked with visiting the T.V. World to rescue characters that will either be a) story/party characters or b) villains. This is my first problem with the game; you can quantify an issue with the story progression with a simple AB formula like this. The game is constantly switching between the Social Linking (See: Gameplay) and the dungeon-crawling. The characters also seem to have the need to regurgitate what they already know every goddamn time they sit at a table, though it makes sense for when a new character joins they do it nearly every single time.

However, don't say I'm whacking at the game's head because of that little discrepancy. In fact, the (majority) of the S. Linking is well-done and the story itself is interesting. A murder-tale that results in a malevolent deity backing it all, who happened to be the gas attendant from the beginning and who was manipulating a faux-stupid detective. The story ends in three different ways, either:

- Good Ending:

You saved Nanako, but did not realize the true culprit

- Bad Ending:

~ Failed to realize Adachi was the murderer

or

~ Failed to save Nanako

- True Ending:

~ Saved Nanako, Realized the true culprit and killer

This is interesting considering that the Bad Ending is nearly impossible to get because you either were, too slow to save Nanako (which in itself is a feat) or you still thought Namatame was the murderer, which they left tons of clues and hints in incidental story dialog for you to figure this out yourself.

The ending is satisfying, if a bit cliche. The result is you defeating the evil-God Izanami through your strength of heart, connections to Izanagi, and your friends telling to get up one last time. Somehow, the apparent death of your friends in the previous battle is canceled by the defeat of Izanami, and you get a farewell from the god that implies respect rather than true defeat. The next day is a sad one; the protagonist is leaving. You give your farewells (damnit Naoto, I do want you to come with me!), and you are treated to a cutscene with credits and an absolutely fantastic credit song titled "Never More" by the glorious Shōji Meguro. I honestly teared up a bit at this ending...and the fact that I would actually miss these characters as people and not bitmaps struck harder.

Score: 9.5

Gameplay:

If you are familiar with the Persona games (well 3 & 4, really) you can skip this paragraph. The main mechanic of this game is similar to the Pokemon series, though only in a few, albeit important, areas. You begin the game with a persona that is, obviously, very weak but you will soon realize that you cannot train your starting persona until level 99 and have him stay useful because they are given strength-specific skills. What I mean is that the skills themselves build with the personae, but at the same time they stay in restricted levels that limit the amount of damage they could possibly do, even based on your stats. A quick way to tell what skill is is based on the actual etymology of the word. A few examples across several forms:

- Attack Skills:

~ Agi ('agi' equates to 'fire attack')

~ Maragi ('ma-' means "use on all of the selected group" and fire, so "fire to all enemies)

~ Garudyne ('garu' means 'wind attack' and '-dyne' means 'heavy damage', so "heavy wind damage to 1 enemy")

- Support Skills (these are much harder, though the 'Ma-' prefix applies):

~ Dia ('dia' means 'heal')

~ Tarukaja (Increase Attack for Three Turns)

~ Auto-"Buff" (At the beginning, this spell is cast without spending SP)

~ -Rama, -Han (Suffixes for 'dia', meaning respectively, "moderate" and "full heal")

So, that is a very simplified version of the elemental attacks (not even including the sometimes stupid names for physical attacks) and the support skills. Though, if you are good with any language, and dig linguistics this is really easy and quick, and kind of cool that you have a technical lexicon that spans throughout (most) Shin Megami Tensei titles. So, to sum it up the personae are really just shells to use higher level spells for, and are really irrelevant beyond their elemental/physical affinities.

Oh, yes, there is an affinity system. Those unaware of what that means, think Pokemon's weakness system, the simplest affinity system I can think of beyond Rock-Paper-Scissors. If unfamiliar with either, know that an affinity is a preference and since we're talking about attacks, it means a preference of attacks literally. What it means to the game is that if you have a persona weak to fire, but strong against ice, then you should avoid using the persona against a fire-casting enemy and use it against an enemy that uses ice. This tactic is simple enough, and is very similar to Pokemon until you start getting groups of enemies (mobs) that are comprised of differing strengths and weakness. What this leads to is a ton of trial-and-error attacking and the strategic usage of personae that have no real weaknesses, and plenty of strengths. This only really applies towards the last 3-4 dungeons (in the True Ending path, since there is a "secret" dungeon that comprises the True Ending).

By the end of the first dungeon, you will have caught on to this system. However we are leaving out physical attacks and skills. Unless you play like I do in an RPG, typification of "Blitzkrieg", it is unwise to even buy new weapons. This is because the game downplays regular attacks as nothing but grinding tools when you don't want to spend SP, or if you are using Kanji or Chie. Like I said, my play style conforms to a heavy damage dealing system and the inclusion of a strong physical character (in my case, Kanji) lends towards the best weapons. Physical skills, however, can be the most devastating Boss-Buster in the whole game. Take this situation for example: You are fighting a boss that has no elemental weaknesses, but is strong versus various types and your SP is draining fast. You'd be more inclined to whip out a few healing items in sacrifice to the possible THOUSANDS of damage that Kanji and Chie can do with their highest level physical skills versus bosses. That said, these characters prove to be only marginally useful in a regular battle situation where you would be abusing physical skills on low level groups rather than a high level and powerful boss.

As an antidote to this "mob-prob" as I call it, is I always use Naoto. She's a very average character stat-wise, incapable of doing high damage unless you equip her with an SP-cost reduction item and constantly use Mind Charge, but she is also the only character that innately learns Light/Dark skills. Most of the time enemies are either weak to, or indifferent towards, Light/Dark skills. Now if you are unfamiliar with SMT games, that means that they are either weak to or vulnerable to instant-death. If you are weak to an instant-death spell in an SMT game, you are instantly killed by it. Keep in mind this works for both parties, but having Naoto is perfect for swift grinding and very quick dungeon crawls. However, the main complaint I, and many others, have towards her is that she is given to you very late in the game (~30-40 hours in, depending on your speed of play).Keep in mind this works for both parties, but having Naoto is perfect for swift grinding and very quick dungeon crawls. However, the main complaint I, and many others, have towards her is that she is given to you very late in the game (~30-40 hours in, depending on your speed of play).

There is also a very unique way of giving personae to the character. Unlike Pokemon, the character is given the persona cards through something called "Shuffle Time". They are not required to catch anything, but they are required to complete a reflex-based minigame to collect a persona card. Then you are given a nearly useless persona with, probably, two or three skills. The real point of collecting them is to Fuse. Fusing involves combining the cards together to make newer, stronger personae that will gain skills from those previously used in fusion. The persona being made must be either the protagonist's level or lower for it to be made, and this also applies to Shuffle Time. However, my real gripe with this system is inheriting skills. When you are fusing, the persona you are making can receive a certain number of skills relevant to what level the fused personae and resulting persona are and the number of skills the fusion personae have. This sounds reasonable, right? Well, it is until the 'how' of inheritance comes into play. You see, the game randomly selects skills from the fusion personae, and dumps them on you.

Yes, the other end of this spectrum is that you only receive certain skills and might never learn certain skills if inheritance is a static allowance; but the arbitrary nature of this system is ridiculous. I have literally sat for minutes on end fusing a single persona with decent skills. This sounds alright, until you are on a fusing run, and spend 20 minutes rolling skills and doing this nearly every time you leave a dungeon for a day.

Speaking of dungeons, this game is divided into 8 or 9 dungeons that will absorb of large amount of time. You will spend a full day grinding and hoping to reach a certain level of a dungeon before rain starts because when it begins to rain the character you are trying to save is killed. You will spend days getting to the top of the dungeon, then defeat the boss which results in you getting a new character (eventually) and some relaxation days if you complete a dungeon a few days ahead of time.

Now, on to the Social Linking aspect. The second most important aspect of the game beyond the dungeons is the S. Linking. You will find yourself doing this for both gameplay and personal interests. If you max out a party character's S. Link, their persona is altered towards having fewer weaknesses, or (in Teddie's and Yukiko's cases) more strengths. Also, there are options to become romantically involved with nearly every non-familial female. Confusingly enough, you can simultaneously date all of these options, though there is one case with a certain romantic S. Link where this cause you some extra trouble. There is also one S. Link where you can reverse it, though the way of doing it is glaringly obvious. Some of my personal favorite S. Links are Kanji's and Yosuke's, simply because of their fantastic conclusions. Even though she is my favorite character, and my go-to love interest, Naoto's S. Link is awful and poorly placed in the storyline. The possible Christmas Eve event with her is very cute and satisfying though.

The characters themselves are interesting and well developed, though one or two of the characters are really annoying and some of the dev. team's decisions make me very disappointed. For instance, the character of Rise is presented as the "cute idol" so common in Japanese art and gaming, but she is absolutely the most annoying thing the game. Every time she tries to get close to you, I wanted to say "Go away" but the game wouldn't let me, so I decided to ignore her S. Link until I realized it gives you fantastic skills for dungeon crawling. This brings me to my other problem, Teddie starts out as the battle coordinator but is replaced by Rise! I wanted to hit the game in the face for this, and I hate the game in a way because you get Naoto sometime after this, which is when I start really enjoying it, but you also lose Teddie as a coordinator, which is always full of puns and awesome lines. Some of my favorite characters are Kanji, Naoto, and Dojima. I love Kanji's stupid boyish anger and his final acceptance, I adore Naoto's shyness and her logical way of thinking (I myself succumb to strict logic sometimes), and Dojima's straight-up-with you attitude is endearing for a father figure, and his struggle to keep his family together is really touching, especially near the Nanako conclusion.

In the end, a satisfyingly simple yet strategic turn-based combat system combined with fun social aspects makes for a fun and fully-delivered package of RPG goodness. Some of the S. Links are poor, and some of the fusing parts are absurd, but that's not too much of an issue.

Score: 9.7

Graphics/Art:

PS2 Game circa. 2008: doesn't sound like it would be too amazing to look at does it? Well, be prepared because this game has one of the most fantastic art directions anywhere. The polygons of the actual characters are very rough and displeasing to look at, but the art of the character portraits and stylistic touches in the combat and dungeons results in a very pleasant looking game. Most of the time, I'm focusing on the portraits of the speaking characters and the text rather than the game, and when I do pay any attention to the game itself during dialog it is for physical expressions and I never look with intense detail at faces or models. Follow this pattern and the game will look fantastic forever. Like I said, though, the game's actual polygons and textures could use some anti-aliasing (I know, it's really difficult to nigh impossible on a PS2) and it would look presentable nowadays in this generation of consoles, the combat shows this off way in easily the worst ways. Some of the finer details of the personae are clumped up in the graphical prowess of the system, and the game forces you to look at the faces of your characters as they summon, showing off their strange unlikeliness to their portraits.

However the artistic direction more than makes up for this. The T.V. screen lining in the combat is well done and does not pervade; it only enhances. The color palette of the menus and the combination of hard and soft fonts give the game a feeling of retro joy and fun. This is a stark contrast to the previous Persona which used very heavy and hard fonts combined with electric blues and statically dark colors. All in all, the graphics are moderate quality because of the strange inefficiency of engine and bad polygon surfacing, but the art direction is wonderful and more than makes up for it.

Score: 9.2

Production:

Me saying this game has bad engine graphics may give off a bad feeling of production levels, but this is clearly a high(er) budget game. The inclusion of voice-acting for nearly every line of story-related dialog and incidental combat dialog implies higher budgets, but the Social Links are strangely silent minus a few exclamatory remarks or simple greetings. The voice acting is, for the most part, very well done and congratulatory. There are a few missteps such as, but not limited to, an incidental voice-over during combat proclaiming "Aha! Is this our chance?" in the most overdone and ridiculously stupid fashion possible. Chie's voice actress succeeds in the cute and kind of dumb department, but she fell face first there. Yosuke's voice actor, Yuri Lowenthal, is a successful VO-artist and it shows here, he conveys proper emotion with the proper tone and doesn't overdo it unless it is the constantly self-parodying combat dialog.

The setting of the game is, unfortunately, limited to a number of screens totaling below the several hundreds I would guess. The town itself is limited to about 12-15 unique screens, and the dungeons feature roughly 20-30 unique screens apiece. This is a mild downfall, as the art style is so good that I wish there was more of it here. This is truly the only downfall of the game I can't concede by besides the fact that Atlus isn't entirely a high-budget studio. Overall, the game has low quantities of unique screens that are supported by a higher quality of scenes and dialog, which in itself is supported by the very well done voice acting.

Score: 8.8

Music:

And finally, the music of the game. I am an avid music fan. I also love video game music, and I really have a thing for Japanese Pop music, and this game honed in on these sensibilities to the tee. Shōji Meguro, the lead composer, is capable of writing everything from a funky pop song (see: "Signs of Love") to a rap song ("Behind the TV/Mayonaka Television") all the way to a very fun rock song ("Reach Out to the Truth", "I'll Face Myself - Battle -"), again to a melancholic piano ballad ("Traumerei", "A Corner of Memories"). His vocal tracks co-composed with lyricist Reiko Tanaka are also fantastic, and include the already praised "Never More".

He tends to either focus on J-Pop or Japanese style hard rock here, and his style of staccato playing combined with an elegant legato style make his lead guitar work incredible sounding throughout this game. His tendency to false sweep (mute several low strings and downstroke to one much higher note in very fast succession) has influenced my guitar playing and writing style, and it pervades the entirety of this game, though in a less negative connotation then what "pervade" implies. So, Meguro-san is a fantastic composer, and his style spans several genres but what about specific favorites? The main menu theme "A Corner of Memories", "Never More", "Signs of Love", "Heaven", and "Heartbeat, Heartbreak" all come to mind as brilliant J-Pop with high level musical quality. The music is brilliantly composed and fantastically placed, especially the very end boss theme which includes the leitmotif of the entire game that is in all of the following: "I'll Face Myself" (all versions), "Reach Out to the Truth" (though a mild variation), "A Corner of Memories", and "The Genesis". The game having its own modal phrase that represents the game is a fantastic way of presenting music in a game. Meguro-san, you are a newfound hero.

Score: 10

Overall:

So, in the end I'm very positive about this game, but I also have a few glaring issues like some S. Links being kind of junky and the weird inheritance of skills, but there is so much to love about this game's charm and guts for something produced in the 'oughts. This is definitely one of my favorite games of all time, and easily in my Top 5 favorite RPGs ever as of now. Atlus will have some job trying to one-up this game, and if they do, that may very well be the greatest game ever, no doubt. I shoved this off as a cheap anime-game knockoff, and now I own every Persona title and most SMT games throughout two different languages, one I can't even read. The moral is that the niche almost always has the better offering.

Overall Score: 9.4 (A - 4.44 Stars)

~

Signing off,

Joe R.

An insight into this blog (Oh Hai There)

I have created this blog with the intent of reviewing several various forms of media, consulting with various people about media, and hopefully interviewing low-level personalities in various medias. I will have to backlog things, then I will attempt to stay current (as time, money, and my general care allow).

I will have a review of three types of media appearing fairly regularly. In order of regularity:

Video Games & Music

Film

Literature (shut up, the title is a little misleading)

So, I will have my first reviews set up as follows:

(Within 6/9-6/16) - [Video Game] - Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4

(Within 6/17-6/23) - [Music] - Defeated Sanity's "Chapters of Repugnance"

(Sometime forthwith) - Some Undecided Film

So, hi everyone (maybe one or two people possibly?) -

~ My name's Joe R. and I am a 16 (verging on 17) year old student focusing on math(s depending on region :P ) and sciences. I plan on studying either Civil or Mechanical Engineering in college. I love various video game and music genres. My personal favorites are RPGs and Death Metal, respectively. I'm a budding programmer and musician, and hoping to start a little side-project thing with a full-on programmer friend as a Writer/Composer for an 80's style DOS-RPG running on BASIC and ASCII formats. Yep, I want to make Ultima or Wizardry, but with a much lower barrier-to-entry and release it via (either) mobile phone or PSN/XBLA. So, if you hear anything about a modern day re-telling of an 80's RPG, you (might) know who did it.

~

Signing off, Joe R.