Doctor Insano controls the Midnight Channel!

Oh and episode 71 is generally accepted as the best Endurance Run episode. I beat P4 before that even started. (I beat it six days before the first episode aired.

@mikaoj: SPOILER ALERT! I've already read both parts of that so far, but each has a major spoiler.

I see you have Persona 4, Spoony. God, I love that game. It's my favorite!

Honestly, I recently finished replaying P3 FES and P4 from scratch and I've got a few things to say about both games. But, let's split the topics so it wouldn't be a clusterfuck:

Story: Persona 3 FES wins thins if only due to the fact that you feel like you're actually accomplishing things. P4, for me, felt a bit like watching a Scooby Doo episode - except a tad more interesting.
Personas: Persona 3 FES wins again, but only because it features Thanatos. Most badass mofo ever.
Music: P4 lacks Lotus Juice, and thus, loses. Not to say that it was BAD, but come on - it's motherfucking Lotus Juice.
Characters: Debatable, but here's how I would compare the PARTY members:
Junpei > Yosuke
Yukari Yuki
Akihiko < Kanji
Aegis + Ken + Koromaru = Naoto + Teddie
P4 and P3 FES both have somewhat enjoyable Social Links, but I think they're tied here.

Replayability:
Oh, FES wins this one, if you for how much easier it makes New Game+. I mean, it gives you all your money, your MC level, max stats, and every equipment you had as well all fully stocked stores. Good shit.
Gameplay: P4 wins automatically. However, with P3P out in Japan, this might change soon.

Actually, after looking at my "review", I started to wonder why people like P4 more.

Didn't he already review Megaten games in general?

Persona 4 is a great game, but it's also a long-term commitment unless you have four or five days with absolutely nothing else to do, like I had.

Come on, Spoon, where's the reviews?

@Apathetic One

K.

We get it. You don't like JRPGs(or quality for that matter).

I think it's a safe bet that spoony has gone into full tilt experimenting with his "gift",

Expect hijinks

Damn Dr.Insano Just accomplished what Pinky and the Brain tried to do for years

Don't forget that Dr. Insano also controls all the Al Bhed in Final Fantasy X. Take a close look at their eyes and you'll see Dr. Insano's swirls instead of pupils.

Spoony...when are you going to quit playing crap JRPGs and get back to reviews?

For the comment all the way back in 74. I know i just ment a video of spoony talking about persona 4 and the other ones, just giving another talk about them. He did it with D&D so why not the shin megami games, but it wouldn't be heart breaking if it didn't happen,

That's quite funny.
Don't know what the hell it is, but it's still funny.

I love it! Those glasses are so classic.

Speaking of things you should sell in the store, Spoony, how about replicas of Doc Insano's glasses? I would so, so buy a set to display. (Hell, just more Doc Insano stuff in general would be awesome.)

Glad to see that you got around to playing P4. Did you finish P3 yet, Spoony?

SPOILERS WARNING

''Tartarus had different types of stairs and some differences in the layouts. Those small fourway staircases don’t appear in all the blocks. The twoway up the corner staircases vary in height between blocks. ''

These differences don't even come close to the difference between the void quest and heaven. The differences between the blocks in tartarus basically amount to having different types of stairs. And in the case of arqa: having extra giant heads generate randomly in the hallways.

They don't have any real aesthetic difference from each other unlike heaven, which doesn't have any walls and very narrow hallways or, the void quest, which looks like an old school video games, or a stripclub, or a bath house(these last two get extra points for originality). It doesn't change the gameplay. But it does keep the dungeon progression from getting extremely dull by changing the environments .

Instead of seeing the same corridors for 60-70 floors, and than seeing another extremely similar dungeon design for another 60-70 floors.

We get dungeons that have wildly different themes and unique looks from each other and we only have to tolerate them for 11 floors at most(kanji,rise) or 8 floors(Yukiko,killer). Also the dungeon tracks don't suck. Hell, Long way, Heaven,Void Quest and Secret Base are probably some of the best tracks in the game

Another point about P3, is the dungeon itself. Most of the time going up Tartarus felt like a chore because of the inability to freely leave whenever I want and go back to complete my progress. You HAD to go up 15 floors and reach the teleporter or else you would have to do all that shit over again.

''And there’s other differences ''

Not really, those 4-way staircases are the only thing that shifted from floor to floor.

''
There’s also an option in the square button menu to have several different music tracks. ''

Well.......I bought the original P3 and that didn't have that fancy option unlike FES :-(. I guess thats a bit of personal problem with someone that only played the original P3. But hey, the only one of those 4 tracks that doesn't blow anyway is Maya's theme.

''
While P4’s dungeons are more varied and shorter, it’s still hallways, square rooms, and stairs to the next floor. They do differ more in appearance, but they’re essentially the same thing repeated a dozen times.If you’re someone who hated P3 because of Tartarus I wouldn’t recommend P4 to you.''

The battle system upgrades, the removal of bumblefuck AI, variaty and the pace of P4 made me like it for its gameplay a looooooooooootttt more than P3.

I watched the Answer on youtube. The answer initself is an atrocious monstrosity with a fanfic-level written plot and premise. I seriously consider that to be like the worst thing to ever happen in a SMT game. Gameplay was never P3's forte to begin with. Slapping a ridiculous, melodramatic plot ontop of P3's less than ideal dungeon crawling and you had a recipe for disaster.

I still really like P3 though.

I played this game to death back then and a part of me still compels me to play it again. I'll probably do when my Modern Warfare 2 cravings settle down a bit.

I wondered when you would get round to playing P4. Glad you are and hopefully you'll give us your opinion on this game sometime soon.

Shin Megami Tensei Forever! You are one of us too now Spoony.

For me, I liked P4 more becuase I felt the tone was...more real. Not in a real life sense, but the characters seemed more like normal people. I liked P3, but I absolutely hate...

*spoilers*

Martyr endings. There's nothing worse in a game then building up awesome character and then having him/her die out of your control.

*end spoilers*

So that's the main reason I like P4 better.

First off, I am near the end of the game, December 5th or 6th, and I'm going for the true ending. After playing Persona 3 and then P3: FES, I will admit I was giggling like a school girl when I heard of P4. I enjoyed P3 even though there was a few minor flaws with it. I remember during one of your earlier blogs, the Great Spoony didnt understand the fascination with the Shin Megami Tensei games. Now I personally havent played the Nocturne or Digital Devil Saga games, but I did play the Devil Summoners and the Persona series. So here is my opinion based on the Persona series.

First things first, an RPG must have a good story. And P3 and P4 delivered in spades. The first thing that got me was that I was living the life of a high schooler in Japan. That interested me from the get go because I knew they had a different setup then over here in America. To find out they had a day off for Respect for the Elderly...that's just awesome. There are trivia questions in both games, and I actually learned things because of it. How often can you say that about video games? Sometimes I would find myself thinking about what was going to happen in the story while I was at work or how to improve my social links. When I first played P3 I was hooked by the nice anime artwork, and the intriguing story. Persona 3 was definitely darker than P4, even though P4 had its moments, and I was simply amazed by how they summoned their Personas. It left me wanting more, so I played more. Yes I will admit wandering around Tarturus did get boring at times, and not controlling the other characters was a drag, but I wanted to see more of what was causing the 13th Hour and why the school turned into a tower full of evil hellspawns. And Mitsuru-sempai...smexy.

Now that I have had the pleasure to experience most of P4, I can say that as far as overall performance, P4 is better. Why? Let me count the reasons...lol, just kidding. Seriously though, the characters are more involved. Their personalities really shined through, showing both weakness and strengths. The witty banter between my friends and teammates during the story segements. Yukiko's cute yet addictive laughter. Chie's dumb obserations. Yosuke's headphones. Kanji's.umm...sewing skills. Rise's longing to be normal. Naoto's sharp detective wit and fashion sense. Teddie's failed attempts at trying to score with Chie and Yukiko. I loved watching the events play out. Like at the camping trip or the hot springs visit. My personal fave moment was the tribute to P3 when we went and did the class trip to the Port where P3 happened. The story itself of trying to find the TV killer itself is enthralling. There was times when I just could not put down the controller. I had to know what was next.

On top of the characters and story, the battles were fleshed out a lot more, allowing control of the other characters. I admit the battles were a lot easier than P3. (Dont even want to remember how many hours of gameplay I lost after dying so fricking much.) The whole fusion thing...that's most likely the weakest thing about the game to me personally. Most of the time I forgot what I had created and had to go back the completed list and double check before I fused. I'm sure that part appeals to the pokemon crowd, no offense to those. It's still neat feature, but honestly, most of my gameplay came from fusing them. Without the fusion time, this may have dropped to about 60 hours instead of the 80+ I have put into it.

Music-wise, both games have incredible soundtracks. I was glad to see a OST included with P4. The music always fit the mood, and I usually hummed or mouthed the words while I played the game, or even when I wasnt playing it. I wish there had been more anime scenes to watch but I'm nitpicking. The graphics weren't amazing and it doesn't need to be. These two games get it done right where it counts. Gameplay and overall enjoyment. You don't need to be pretty to be awesome. Even though I say Persona 4 is better, I recommend both games to people to try. It truly isnt for everyone, but then again, no game ever is.

Honestly, Spoonster, I am glad you are playing P4. I am sure you will enjoy the storyline and characters at least. The images you showed was a just a small moment of warmth that I have come to remember and cherish about this gem of a game. I cant help but smile when Yukiko makes people try them on for the first time and she starts laughing. I've been watching your reviews and blogs since the Final Fantasy 8 Classic Burn series. I lvoe your insight on things, and agree with a lot of things you say. Sometimes watching your movie reviews is more entertaining then the movie itself, and watching you doesnt cost $8 to go see. Keep doing what you do, 'cause you do it with style.

I love both Persona 3 and 4 (I even plan to by the PSP remake of 3 whenever it comes out even though I've played both the original and FES), but in my opinion 4 is the better of the two. As one commentor stated, it's because the characters were better portrayed in that game than the first one, and their bonds as friends were more believable. To sort of add to this, I'd say the thing that made the characterization of the P4 characters better is that they seemed more human, more real in their portrayal. I mean with the party members themeselves, we actually got to know them as people, we learned about their personalities, their lives, their hopes and dreams, etc. The same could be said for the social links; they just seemed to have more depth than the social links of P3 and Souji (P4's MC canon name) just seemed more involved with the social link characters than Minato which made the relationships he formed with all of them feel more genuine.
Anyway, can't wait for Persona 5.

Still, I wonder what Doctor Insano's dungeon would look like, and how would he react to his other self? Actually, what would his other self be like?

I love P4 and P4!!
I never thought of those glasses that way! Can you do a Vlog about P4?
By the way, have you gotten to P3's " Operation Babe Hunt " ? It's awesome!

Crap. Ragnarok is upon us now, surely.

I wonder how Insano is doing with his plans of world domination with SCI....GAAHH WHAT THE HELL?!
Weird indeed.

@haha

Tartarus had different types of stairs and some differences in the layouts. Those small fourway staircases don't appear in all the blocks. The twoway up the corner staircases vary in height between blocks. And there's other differences as well as the general texture that covers everything.

There's also an option in the square button menu to have several different music tracks.

While P4's dungeons are more varied and shorter, it's still hallways, square rooms, and stairs to the next floor. They do differ more in appearance, but they're essentially the same thing repeated a dozen times.If you're someone who hated P3 because of Tartarus I wouldn't recommend P4 to you.

If you haven't already, check out a little of the Persona 4 Endurance Run on giantbomb.com. Vinny Caravella and Jeff Gerstmann are damn entertaining and all the more so since they go into it blind.

If you are playing P4, really when you get to November and are doing something important with a certain enemy in a certain hospital, WATCH WHAT YOU SAY!!! Or you will get the bad ending. It killed me the first time when I was like "wut?" The I figured out I shouldn't have been as evil as I wanted lawl

''People complain about the repetition of Tartarus in P3 and point to the different dungeons in P4 as an improvement which is something I have to disagree with. The dungeons in both games were essentially just palette swaps of previous ones, and while P4 has shorter/fewer floors to climb there’s really not that much difference between the two. If you don’t enjoy dungeon crawling you probably won’t like either game. If you enjoy it or don’t mind sitting though so, you will probably enjoy both games.''

No offence, but that simply isn't true. Each of tartarus's blocks look exactly the same, with minor differences(the only block that really looked different was the second to last one). While P4's dungeons all had wildly different themes, looks and even gimmicks and floor design in some cases
Minor dungeon spoilers:
( Example: the bathhouse and secret base both have 2 doors leading to different paths in the staircases, Heaven has no walls but very narrow hallways, Void quest(fuck floor 7) has indicators for stairs,chests and hallways.)
End spoilers

It also really helps that the dungeon music in P4 is really good instead of the same monotous shitty song that plays in tartarus for 80 hours of gameplay. I for one HATED the dungeon part of P3, and always dreaded a phonecall from elizabeth(telling me that another tedious 30 floors of exploration awaited me) yet, I really got excited everytime someone was thrown in the tv in P4.

What I really liked in p4, was the sense of team spirit the characters had. They felt like a really close group of friends , unlike, SEES in which it really didn't feel like the characters were all that close.

I'd like to see Dr. Insano's reaction to Hanako, simply due to the sheer fact of how her face alone is a scientific impossibility.

I didn't know Doctor Insano had a mustache.