Recent reviews by Tem Shop Tem

Catherine is a surprisingly touching story of love, loss (not death), and the want for self-agency. I would describe the game as a puzzle-based climber, or something. The story is about Vincent, a guy who's been stressed after Katherine, his long-time girlfriend, expresses wanting to finally get married. Vincent just wants things to stay the same and live a peaceful life, and ends up talking at the bar with a girl named Catherine. Vincent wakes up to find himself having slept with her, and so, the story will end based on how you shape Vincent's morals from then on.
At the time of writing this review, I've only achieved the "True Lover" ending.
I hope you don't mind ants :)

Pros:
• Atlus music being peak as always
• Rather balanced in both chill vibes and dread
• LOTS of extra content to do after you beat the game once (replay to get other endings, 1v1 w/friends, gamemode with randomized levels)
• The characters are generally likable, even the main character, who isn't really the greatest person
• The ending I got taught a good lesson
• Gets very high discounts on Steam sales
• You get a LOT of retries for when you die (ended the game with 80+ retries)
• There's an 'undo' feature for the puzzles
• getting drunk is an important gameplay feature and you learn cool facts

Cons:
• Controlling Vincent in the Nightmare segments (I played on controller) can be finicky and lead to a lot of deaths that feel unfair
• A couple major difficulty spikes, and some of the last few levels are somewhat RNG-dependent
• The sound quality for much of the game's voicelines are really bad
• Less than 20 hours for the main story
• Catherine: Full Body isn't on Steam, so there's some missing content
• Some cutscenes can look blurry
• Some levels can drag on for way too long

Thought it would be more psychological horror than regular horror, but it's still a good game (I don't do very well with traditional horror). There's quite a few jumpscares, but atmospheric horror is the main kind that's shown. There are calm periods between the heights of the horror, though, which is nice. I heavily recommend the Russian dub!

Pros:
• Graphics are pleasant on the eyes
• Story is sorta good
• Very effective atmospheric horror and tension-building
• New relaxing, slice-of-life mode coming soon
• Characters are very enjoyable
• carrot
• A surprising amount of minigames

Cons:
• Only ~4 hours long (~10 hours or less for 100%)
• A couple cheap jumpscares
• The weeping angel-like enemies in the midpoint of the story...

Persona 4 is my least favorite between Persona 3, 4, and 5, but that doesn't mean it's bad or not worth your time. Some parts can be frustrating, sure, but the story is just as good, and the comedy beats the other two games by a mile in my opinion. It's still worth your time if you haven't played Persona 4, but Persona 4 Revival is around the corner, so maybe hold off for a little bit to see if that ends up being a good remake. I will NOT be giving this game any grace just because of when it released, though.

Pros:
• Can't really play Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, Persona Q/Q2, or Persona 4 Dancing without playing this, but that's obvious
• Music has some of the highest highs of the series
• Comedy is on-point
• The mystery is actually interesting, even if you've been spoiled on it (as I was)
• This is the only entry that I know of that allows you to customize the modifiers for difficulty
• The main team is fun, likable, and memorable, and the characters that do mean-spirited things get their comeuppance
• The reaper doesn't show up normally, so you don't have to worry about taking too long on each floor in a dungeon
• "Great vegetables."
• Both languages have good voice actors
• Can revisit dungeons after completing them
• Nanako is precious
• Has some of the best social link stories (Death and Hanged Man are notable)
• Good message, even though it's slightly cliché
• Tatsumi Port Island from Persona 3 makes an appearance

Cons:
• Music has some of the lowest lows of the series
• The dungeons somehow felt worse and more tedious than Tartarus to me
• The camera can't be controlled by the mouse at all in dungeons (and keyboard controls are horrendous in general, so make sure you have a controller)
• Teddie's English dialogue localization is bad, leading to him being terribly mischaracterized
• The 5th, 6th, and 9th dungeons
• Some social links just feel so empty or forgettable
• Social stats seem to gate even MORE things than P3 or P5
• The optional missions SUCK, and you don't get anything for doing all of them, so don't bother unless you want a specific reward badly
• You don't unlock new weapons to purchase just by progressing through the game, you have to farm a bunch of enemy drops and sell them
• Shadows can randomly (and quite frequently, at that) jump out of chests, forcing you into a battle
• If you DO want to fight the reaper, you're forced to open 21 chests for a CHANCE of the next one being the Reaper
• Few save points, and can't save outside of those points
• Margaret (Velvet Room attendant) feels like she has no personality at all
• Two of the main characters have LGBTQ-esque plotlines, which I love, but being a game from Japan in 2012, it makes rude comments and jokes at those characters' expense, preventing their messages or introspection from really bearing any fruit
• Some boss battles are tedious and unfair at times, even on easier difficulties (although this may be a skill issue on my part, I don't play all too many RPGs)
• Can't easily run out of the way of shadows because the dungeon hallways are narrow and mostly linear

It was a little fun, but honestly really disappointing. I enjoyed it, but even so, ONLY pick this up if there's a significant sale, because average time taken to finish it is ~4 hours. If you expect a lot from this DLC, you WILL end up disappointed.

Pros:
• Good music as always
• More interaction with Akechi/Yoshizawa
• Akechi/Yoshizawa have distinct skill trees from main game party
• Cute little story
• You can bully Akechi verbally and physically
• Akechi is OP
• New characters are likable
• I'm really trying to stretch this out because I did actually enjoy it I swear
• It's better than the other two DLCs I guess??

Cons:
• High price
• No, seriously, the dollar per hour ratio is about double the main game's when at full price
• ONLY Joker, Akechi, and Yoshizawa can be used as party members in DLC story, somewhat limiting strategy
• Akechi/Yoshizawa can only be used in main game in NG+ and only after completing the DLC
• Unique DLC mechanic gets kinda old
• Only 14 stages
• Not long enough to make a very impactful story
• No persona fusion, weapon shopping/crafting, or replaying stages available
• Final boss is underwhelming
• Bonus challenge stages barely exist
• Akechi and Yoshizawa's synergy abilities are HP and SP, respectively
• And they both have single-shot weapons...

(8.5/10) Very addictive and enjoyable. The harder difficulties have some large difficulty spikes, but feel very rewarding.

i don't want to fish anymore

The game feels smooth to play, is quite fairly balanced (bleed is great, though), and has a charming style to it. Overall, a good game to pick up and play, being rather easy to understand.

If you play(ed) The World Ends With You originally on the DS or the Switch version, this should scratch your itch pretty well. I adore the first game. This is great, although, if you didn't play the Switch version, I would recommend watching a compilation of the cutscenes from "A New Day" in TWEWY: Final Remix. It'll give you knowledge that'll be relatively important in understanding some of the situations and characters in NEO. If you watched the anime... Play the DS or Switch version first!

Now get to playing, you factoring hectopascals!

This game... I'm stuck on it. It's very well played out, and looks very nice, but I feel as if it lost some charm from the more simplistic assets of the original games, especially with the trials. I also didn't really like most of the characters that were shown, and the ending simply disappointed me, even though it was interesting. Other than all those negatives, it's a good way to finish it off if you're doing a binge play-through of all the games. Is it a bad game? No, not really, it's really well made. I think it's just not for me given that I've gotten so attached to the first 2 games. I would still at least give this game a shot if you're playing all the other games, too, and want to round out the series.

Despite being a spin-off title, this is actually my favorite Danganronpa game out of all of them. The really special thing in this game is the storytelling and details of the characters. In my mind, Toko never got a redemption during the first game, and I had never really liked her. After playing this game all the way through, it's fair to say that Toko has become a respectable character in her own right. This game can get a little... weird, at times, though. In particular, the 3rd chapter is quite messed up (for a different reason, not like, the murder kind of messed up. THAT is present everywhere else in the game).