Why I LOVE Japanese Games Part 3: Persona

The next Jrpg series that I will be talking about will be on the Persona series or the shin magami tensei persona series if your a die hard SMT fan. Before writing this script I finished the most recent game in the series titled persona 5 which has to be the game of 2017 in my opinion. Anyways this isn’t about Persona 5 it’s about how I got into the series and why I love the persona series and the like. Please note that I haven’t played the first two or the second game’s sequel innocent sin and only played the third,forth,4 arena,and recently five. So far I enjoyed every game in the persona series I played so far but for right now im going to explain how I got into the awesome series. Let me tell you a story that one day I stumbled on persona 3 portable on a emulator out of curiosity and boredom. It was late at night so what did I did I played it of course and the first couple of minutes I was hooked due to the characters and how the used the overused anime high school setting into a more realistic one like teachers that TEACH, students that act like students, clubs or sport practices and the like. What got me into the game was the tartaus segments or the dungeon crawling segments due to me playing this game at night and tartaus only comes out at night I felt like I was in a horror movie. I’m over exaggerating here but if you stood at a floor for too long the reaper super boss appears and boy you DON’T WANT TO ENCOUNTER IT. You will know when its going to get you when you hear chains making that shackle sound. That sounds makes me shiver every time I was on a floor for to damn long. the soundtrack for that game is so weird and unusual at the time for me due to not hearing engrish rap that will sound corny to jrpg fans and some hardcore hiphop fan and thats the main battle theme. Overtime that same battle theme will grow on you over time even you are not playing the game. Other themes like the night time travel theme when going out at night, or the secondary school theme or the first one makes you feel like your at school. My favorite has to be the dorm theme it has that chill feel to it. The game play is like you traditional turn based jrpg but you use persona’s (think of stands from JOJO) I will explain personas abit later on oh what the heck let me explain them now. A persona is mostly like a persons self or shadow or inner self (man I need to not fast forward on the explanation on personas) that manafest into a stand like being or physical form. They are used to mostly attack shadows (monsters are called this in the persona games) by using magic points or sp in the persona games. Your main character can change personas at will but most persona games you get them by fighting them in battles and engaging in a mini game to get personas or money or bonus exp. In five however you can hold a shadow by gunpoint and make them join you or give you items or money or you can just kill them. Also you can gain personas by fusing them you obtain in battle to make a stronger persona but you have to be in the same level as that persona you fused. Also another interesting mechanic about persona 3 through 5 is the social links system. This system alows you to understand your fellow party members and certain classmates through these events and also gets you bonus exp for their attribute for the persona that you are fusing or getting new abillties like party members helping you and the like. Then a year or two later after I gotten a ps vita from my grandpa I gotten persona 4 golden and man I spent countless hours on that game but gotten stuck on a boss but still on the game digitally but my ps vita charger is broken at the moment so I cant play it. While playing persona 4 golden I fell in love with the Japanese countryside setting, the awesome characters, game play mechanics are abit more easier to gain personas, the ost has to be and still the best in the series. Even the slow beginning is engaging because your just a boy who is staying with his uncles house for a year while your parents are out on business. This entry has a scoobie do feel to it due to you guys being teenagers with a teddie bear mascot as a party member. Now recently I finished persona 5 in this video I will not tell you the story and you have to buy the game yourselves sorry for being a jerk but I want you guys to have the experienced that I had with the game. My mom gotten me this game for my birthday and after I gotten it from the mail I entered it in my ps4 and oh boy I was hooked from beginning to end due to again the story, characters, game play, and the graphic style atlus chose for the game. Again im not saying much about this game but what are my thoughts about. After playing a couple of hours on my first sitting my bro wanted to play the game due to him watching me play it and he was hooked as well and he loves JRPGs and rpgs for the matter. The gameplay is AWESOME instead of pressing X button on your ps4 controller to navigate through the menus instead you press triangle to summon your persona, square for items, X button to attack with your weapon, circle to defend, up direction pad button to use your gun right trigger to use other commands like flee and analyze enemies. This makes the battles much more engaging and fun also the menu design of the game is original to the point that even Japanese games dont have the same style and flair as persona 5 does just look at some screen shots on it’s menu system on google. The sound track has this bossa nova jazz like sound to it but hey it fits the thief theme pretty damn well at least. So before I end the video let me share my recommendations for persona. First start with five because its the easiest to get the hang of it, than persona 4 golden on the ps vita, than finally persona 3 portable due to having the option to control your party members. So that’s it for now peace and go buy persona 5.

Why I love Final Fantasy Versus XIII so damn much!

For starters let me say this from the get go Final Fantasy Versus XIII was supposed to be the ultimate  modern Final Fantasy game promised in the trailers since 2006 through 2013. Due to the well editing and put together trailers made of cut scenes and gameplay. Made people like myself and many others gravitate towards the game due to it's darkened colors of the trailers and the setting as well as the characters. Noctis when he first appeared to the public's eye people called him Sasuke a character from a well known manga titled Naruto. Due to his appearance and hair but to me he was this mysterious freaking bad ass who killed an army without even trying and this was in his first trailer. Along with teleportation skills as well as a awesome outfit to boot and sitting on the throne at the end of the 2006 trailer as seen in the gif above this post. Through out my high school years and young adult years I thought to myself that this is the game that will surpass final fantasy vii as the best modern final fantasy (from 1997 onwards) game in squares eyes. Please note that from final fantasy vi and below are considered to me the early era of final fantasy (NES to SNES) which I call the Amano era while the modern era is the nomura era. Lets get back to versus xiii the final fantasy era topic will be a separate blog post in the future. Almost three years has passed since Final Fantasy XV was released and I was hyped as first but every time I pick up and play the game my hype and love for it dropped drastically and desired versus xiii more and more. Also look at the title of my blog the ultimate versus fanboy. That alone tells you that im a supporter and believer of the true final fantasy xv: Versus XIII. Even though Square wants us to fans to forget about the awesome versus xiii and remember ffxv but to be honest ffxv is like a placeholder for me and square is actually planing something for the versus faithful very soon.

Why I LOVE Japanese Video Games Part 2: Fire Emblem

Man Fire Emblem Awakening what a classic

Yo for starters this second entry in this series is a nintendo series but im showing off gameplay elements anyways so pray to god youtube doesnt DCMA the video wait this is a blog post so im safe. Okay with that out of the way let me say this series is one of my favorite nintendo games along with mario and fzero. the series is called fire emblem and fire emblem is a strategic jrpg series by nintendo’s intelligent studios or inc or whatever. where each your members can actually die when they get killed in combat which is the charm of the series for me because you can get attached to the characters as well as the game due to this feature. the series is a stragtical role playing game so each scenario can take about an hour or two to finish if you plan head enough. also the series uses a rock paper sissors like battle system where sword beats axe, spear beats sword, but beats axe, magic can beat armored units and so on. If you can use this system well then the game becomes much more enjoyable to play. I havent played fates or the remake of fire emblem gaiden but let me tell you that I enjoyed awakening and the previous fire emblem games execpt for the dated nes titles no those are a chore to play but I prefered the GBA and SNES titles. Okay so how I gotten into the fire emblem series for starters thank super smash brothers melee and brawl for that matter due the characters marth,roy, and ike. As well as emulation when I couldnt seem to find those games even the gba ones due to being nintendo games and having high replay value as a result after playing the games I became hooked and dude those games get hard if you just run and gun through enemies and you will run out of funs which makes the game not fun due to being to hard. That’s what I like about these games because they make you think about your units and funds and all of that. Sorry to make this one short but that’s all I have to say about why I love the fire emblem series also here are my suggestions on the fire emblems series, all of the gba fire emblem games and fire emblem awakening for the 3ds. So what are your thoughts about the series

Why I LOVE Japanese games Part 1: Final Fantasy

To start off my new series of blogs let me start of with a common game everybody knows. It starts with two words and made by a company named after a shape. The answer is Final Fantasy the reason why I started off with this game series is because not just it’s one of my favorite Japanese game series but also it’s one of the most recognizable and popular Japanese game series out there. Okay the real reason I chose final fantasy is because I just want to talk about why I love the series (although the recent entries suck besides final fantasy xv). So with that out of the way let get started for started how I heard about the final fantasy series is from my younger sister’s best friends older brother who I admired and looked up to and the reason of how I became a gamer and the like. I first saw him play final fantasy vii or final fantasy viii it’s been a long while but I believe it was seven due to the part of the mine cart area that when one of rails broke cloud will have to climb up  from where he fell and yada or other words it was near one of mako reactors. While watching him I was amazed at the gameplay yes this was in 1999 and I was a little kid then so those blocky graphics amazed me back in the day. Also the main character of final fantasy cloud strife looked badass when I was a kid and how his big ass buster sword looked awesome to the point I still remembered him to this day and okay I like cloud strife. I haven’t played the game until it came on the psn for the psp and the ps3 so it was around 2009 I gotten the chance to play the game. My god I was hooked for hours when I first played the game and yes I ignored the dated blocky legomen graphics and enjoyed the story despite the horrible translation. Then afterwards final fantasy viii came along on the psn and snaged that one up as well and also I was hooked for hours till the begining of the third disk of getting stuck on the boss at the begining of the disk I forgotten the name of the moment its been a while since I played that one. Then afterwards I picked up final fantasy IX on the psn and I was sooooo hooked to the game to the point I beaten the game and it became one of my top final fantasy games due to the characters, the world inhabited by animal people and humans alike, the simple save the world story, the simple turn based system from the early games. I even felt sad at one of the characters fate at the end of the game. Then rewind to how I got to play my first final fantasy game hear me out it’s an entry I really wanted to like but the battle system ruined the experince for me I was suspecting traditional turn base combat but nope I gotten an offline morpg. the entry is final fantasy 12 again I wanted to love the game but put off by the gambit and battle system, I loved the setting and the monster designs and the OST. This was back in 2006 or 07 and then I bought another favorite entry in the series final fantasy x. This game is a CLASSIC due to the awesome story, amazing characters auron, tidus, luna, lulu,wakka, kimari, and even lame ol seymore quado, The amazing sphere grid battle system which gives you many options in the game, hidden summons and superbosses. Whenever I talk about the game I wanted to play it again as well as my little bro who finished the game before me and it’s his favortie final fantasy game. Now let’s talk about my favorite memory I had with the series is waiting for final fantasy xv release. boy I waited for almost EIGHT WHOLE YEARS for this game to come out and I was late for the waiting party but boy watching those early trailers when it was verses 13 when it was a different game and the like but thats another video by itself but before I change the topic I wanted to say that I waited for ffxv to come out since it was called ffverses 13 and I even watch the annoument trailer or the first trailer for that game it still looked even more badass than the final fantasy xv we got now. But if they go back to the orginal concept with the orginal director/creator on board although it will taken years to do so bring it on and im ready to support it as much as I can. Now that’s all I can say about why and what are my memories of the final fantasy series. So here are my suggestions on which titles you can get into: final fantasy X,IX,VII (if you can get used to the dated graphics), VI and finally IV. So what are you memories as well as your favortie entry in the massive final fantasy series im looking forward to your responses.

Why I LOVE Japanese Games

Today I have to announce that im doing a new series of blog post dedicated to my love of Japanese video games and series made in the land of the raising sun. Originally they are supposed to be a series of videos on youtube but all of a sudden I didnt feel like doing the videos and the scripts just sat in my hard drive not being used. Even though disk drive space for word docs are cheap but typing down the thoughts isnt so when I made this blog I said to myself hey I can just post the unsused scripts here so they don't have to be a waste. Anyways the as the title says these series of blog post are going to be about my love on Japanese video games and series etc. I'm really excited myself to sharing my thoughts on my favorite video games from Japan. Also please note that I think I made/posted some videos I made under this banner if so I will post the link to the video.

Why I Love video Games

When the game is really good you cant put it down

Why I love video games you might ask or myself when I was thinking about a video topic before I start Ramadan in like a week or a couple of days (this was last year when I wrote this). Anyways I chose a topic that involves one of my favorite past time of all time video games. Why video games you ask again because not just video games are a hobby of mine but also an inspiration,gave me awesome childhood memories, development stories about games we loved while growing up, stories about canceled games and scraped concepts. I can go on and on and on and on and so forth but I will keep this video at a certain length to save time as well to not get viewers bored while watching this video. Okay with the intro out of the way let me start the topic on this video. How I got into playing video games where too games Super Mario 64 for the N64 and Bonks for the turbographix 16 or super bonk for the snes or one  of the bonks games. I was born in 1992 so I wasn’t raised playing with the nes or the atari systems just if your wondering. When I saw my mother or father playing the n64 one day I was glued to the screen due to the awesome graphics at the time as well as the awesome skills my parents have at the time. They don’t play video games that much anymore due to adult things like work and raising kids. I will do the same one day as well so anyways when I touched the n64 controller for the first time I was excited to just play the game I wasn’t that good at the game due to being a little kid but good enough to do the simple platforming like jump from ledge to ledge and changing the camera angles with ease. Which surprises my dad till this day that I was able to move Mario and change the camera angles at the same time. As a result I started playing starfox 64 and diddy kong racing thanks to my dad playing it when we had the n64. Around a year or two later a close friend of the family had a sony playstation as well and that’s how I got to play spyro the dragon, the crash bandicoot trilogy, the orginal rayman, and so on although I mostly play spyro and crash on their sony playstation until we got our own and I played the hell out of the system and also got ape escape (which is a classic) and remember complaining to my parents that the game needed the dual shock controller to work which I didn’t noticed it until I played the game and couldn’t get the character to move remembering it now is quite embassing. When my famliy finally gotten the controller I was hooked into the game due to the gameplay the graphics the pipo monkeys yes those pipo monkeys also made the game for me for having personalty and charm to the game. After a acouple of years later my family bought the awesome sega dreamcast and boy I was hooked to the console due to the unusual controller with the vmu memory card and finally the games like soul calibur, sonic adventure 1 and 2, sonic shuffle (which isn’t a good game at all), marvel vs capcom 2, rayman 2 great escape, Jet Set Radio (or Jet Grind Radio back in the day), project justice (or rival schools 2), headhunter (which isn’t the best game but the soundtrack is one of the best in gaming in my opinon). And as a result I had wonderful memories on the system and also whenever I boot the sega dreamcast emulator up on my computer I had fond memories about the system. When we moved overseas to a country named Qatar in the middle east I was still playing my dreamcast until my family bought a ps2 and boy before I get started talking about the playstation 2 let me say that the ps2 is the pinnacle of modern gaming in my opinion due to the games and the experience. So anyways the first game we played was a title called capcom vs snk 2 which is one of the reasons how I gotten into or even heard about snk in the first place. The experience was amazing and we played that game for hours and hours without getting bored. Then my dad bought a title called hitman 2 all I have to say that it’s one of my favorite games of all time as well as being my first rated m game I played in my life I still remember playing for hours before I ran out of tv time. Back in the day my family had a rule that we have 6 hours of tv time in our house that includes playing video games too and as a result I still turn of the console at least 4 to 5 hours due to the tv time rule being enforced back in the day. I can go on and on about the ps2 from playing the Jax and Daxter trilogy, Crash nitro cart racing, street fighter 3rd strike, the megaman titles from megaman aniversity collection, to megaman x8 and command mission, legend of kay, star wars battlefront 2, Kof 2003 ps2 port, final fantasy x, and the kingdom hearts games. When we moved back into america in 2006 I still played the PS2 to death and a year later the ps3 and the xbox 360 came out and we bought both of the consoles my grandpa bought those consoles and due to my ps3 disk drive breaking and the xbox 360 kept getting the red ring of death I haven’t experienced much of the ps3/xbox 360 generation till the very end of it but gotten a few experiences like Halo 3,project gotham racing 3, killzone 2, soul calibur 4, infamous, little big planet, ninja gaiden 2, tales of vesperia, and so forth that gen had amazing games but it wasn’t a good generation when it came to presations like e3 or gaming news in general and boy I remember watching e3 and getting angry when e3 wasn’t showing any new games. The Japanese where doing horrible doing that time and the west where mocking Japanese games for being to weebish (which the word didn’t came out yet) and childlike while bland shooters began to over saturate the western video game market. Although the Japanese where in the dark age I didn’t like it when western developers mocked the Japanese for childlike games while western games have bland protagist in their titles and bland settings for most of them. Also you have to have a ps3 in order to play Japanese role playing games which is one of my favorite types of games. The 360/ps3 generation went without fanfare in my opinion and I forgot the mention about the nintendo wii, a pretty good gaming console with awesome games but covered in shovelwhere and a lack of actual 3rd party support. Still it has amazing games like super smash bros brawl, legend of zelda skyward sword, capcom vs tatsunoko, red steel, wii sports, super mario galaxy. I havent mentioned xenoblade chroncles because my wii broke then and also it was hard to get so I didn’t experience it. Also the wii went without fanfare in my opinon and boy dont get me started on the god artful wii u. I know it has some good games but mostly it didn’t have any games at all let alone having 3rd party support at all. Funny with coming out with a lot of shovelwhere to coming out with NO GAMES AT ALL. Along with having a GOD ARTFUL CONTROLLER AND THAT TABLET/CONTROLLER HYBRID WANABE!! Makes me rage when I think about it so enough with ranting about the wii u and lets move on with the modern generations with the xbox one (stupid name) and the ps4 (which is awesome filled with awesome games). The Xbox one I havent gotten experince recently due to not owning one as well as having no games let alone exclisives I was into. I was filled with bland games even for western taste and standards. The only game I was intrested in is Halo 5 and that game was a disappointment for a lot of reasons. The ps4 however is a awesome system so far that not just have my type of games (jrpgs, japanese fighting games) but also have good 3rd party support let alone a good controller to use for a laptop/pc. Although this generation is still active I have no words to say about this one. Also this generation isn’t memorable at all only some games but most games are coming out incomplete which sucks. So anyways those are my gaming memories and why I love video games so freaking much to the point I went on judging each console generation I experienced in my life. 

Final Fantasy Versus XIII and the Impact it had on me & it's Fans.

Man this part of the trailer gives me sad vibes as well as awesome vibes due to watching this trailer throught out my years of late middle school/high school days man oh man I still remember looking for intel about this game on google for years and years.Yup people when they are just about too read this are going to say "dude Final Fantasy Versus XIII is now Final Fantasy XV and it's almost two and half years since it came out". This gets me pissed off to no end and call me a "versus fanboy" all you want but it will never stop me. For the longest time I was one of the only versus fanboys on final fantasy peasant facebook group. I even had articles defending ffxv at one point till I played the game again after I platniumed it and guess what I found more flaws than the positives about ffxv. Final Fantasy XV was a good game but not a great one either and from the gif above ffxv CANNOT SUPPASS THIS CLIP! One day I typed in final fantasy versus groups on the net and lead me to the petition to bring back versus and then it lead me to...an awesome fan group called the Reboot Final Fantasy Versus and here's the link to their twitter group: Reboot Final Fantasy Versus Twitter page and here's a link to their facebook group as well: Reboot Final Fantasy Versus facebook group. As a result I typed up final fantasy versus xiii on the search bar and clicked on it and then I began to type up my love for final fantasy versus xiii. I must of made about two facebook post about my love for versus. It gotten to the point the main group leader messaged me himself and my love for versus and asked me what are my skills are and whatnot and I said video editing and my love for ff versus xiii or I can remember. As a result I met awesome people and made new friends due to our love for final fantasy versus xiii to the point it became my favorite facebook group to hang out as well as one of my only reasons that I still go on facebook as a whole.

Here is an amazing scene which was was scrapped and cut from the game which is a shame because these two have more chemistry than the official final fantasy xv couple nocisxluna which I will share my feelings about luna in a different post. So anyways this scene reminds me of the shakespere tale Romeo and Juliet. Noctis the person whos wearing black representing Romeo and the blonde woman which is name Stella represents Juliet. This element here added mystery to the final fantasy versus tale which still to this day I wished I can experience this along with other scrapped elements like the original Leviathan battle from the e3 trailer back in 2013. Now back to talking about this snippet or gif here look at Noctis and Stella it's clear that they DONT WANT TO FIGHT EACH OTHER AT ALL BUT HAVE TO DUE TO MYSTERIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES! How awesome does that sound on paper and while playing the game. And very somber music will play during the fight to bring the punches to the players gut while Noctis and Stella are battling it out.

This LEGENDARY scene here this is how you start a final battle or a major battle in a video game. For the longest time I wanted to find out the true identity of the man in the hood ie know is name and what not and whats his beef with Noctis. It took me years and years of searching till one days square reveled the mans name is Ravus. From the get go that Ravus doesn't even look like the man in the hood at all. Im just fanboying but look at this gif does the man in the hoods hair matches the hair style of Ravus of course not. Man what a shame I wanted to enjoy loving the man in the hood character and what are his motivations in attacking Noctis. Also during the game play this fight was going to be intense for instance you use your arminger to counter attack the hooded mans light spells while you are dodging his beams of light and vice versa.

To end this post I will post a gif of Stella because I felt like it (and shes one of my waifus of the final fantasy series) Also in the comment section please share your story how this scrapped game impacted your life and whatnot. Because without versus I wouldn't made many friends at the ff reboot versus group and typing up this blog till then I hope you have an amazing day.

Emulation and it's Importance to Gaming History

Yo this is ya boy the omega katana giving you another video lets get to the point shall we. For starters almost two weeks ago or a week and half ago two of the biggest romsites went down love roms and emuparadise. As a well as some others that I cant name atop of my head of the moment right now. This is a problem here because why are these romsites went down is because........of a certain company starting with an N is starting to threaten romsites. Due to combating piracy I know whats going on they are trying to get rid of the competition and as the consequence many games will be FORGOTTEN ALONG WITH THE CONSOLES THEY RELEASED IT FOR! Nintendo and other corporations haven't thought of that huh but they dont care because they want to charge money for the services and speaking of that it’s happening right now that gaming is starting to become a service and not a product that people put the heart and soul into making. And the final result is that huge part of gaming history will be lost for future generations to enjoy and learn from. And thats why emulation is important not just for the gamer but for history in general when it comes to video games. Video games is not just art but also a part of entertainment history that evolved overtime since it’s inception/introduction back in 1971 with computer space and 1972 with pong for the Atari correct me in the comment section if I get this simple fact wrong. If the corporations get what they wanted they will ease Atari history a chunk of third party game history for Nintendo and Sega games etc. Its going to be a HORRIBLE TIME FOR US GAMERS IF WE DONT STAND UP AND FIGHT AGAINST THIS INJUSTICE! It also baffles me that they are some gamers that support Nintendo on their war against piracy and emulation. For there excuse they will argue that emulation is piracy and all that crap but they dont realize that supporting corporations like Nintendo it will wipe out years of gaming as a whole and im not putting this as a joke im being serious here. As a result this is why I support emulation not because I can play games that I missed while growing up but also experiencing history as well when it comes to video games. Emulation in my opinion is one of the best thing that happened to video games. Why because many people experienced many games through rom fan translations of Japanese role playing games, played games that they missed during their childhood or discovering some hidden gems along the way. Like I did and as a result I NEVER EVER LOOKED BACK when I stepped in the world of emulation. It was supposed to be a video but I decided it’s going to be a blog post for my new Omega Katana blog or a twitter thread as well. Either or I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I did typing this up for you to enjoy reading.

Hello World or Other words an Introduction

Where to start off or how to begin it's been a WHILE since I last started a personal blog for personal use. My web name is Omega Katana and I love writing blogs, editing videos, playing video games, watching anime and sometimes reading manga (Japanese comics) and history. I'm also a freelance video editor as well and love to go to new places and meet new faces as well. I also used to write stories on my free time during high school but I lost those writing long ago which is very unfortunate but I can type up I will do a separate blog post on that subject alone. So that's all im posting for now and im looking forward to blog whats going on in my mind.