By: M. Ahmadad

‘Splatoon 3’, released last year on September 9th, is the third installment of the Splatoon franchise developed by Nintendo. It’s an online player-versus-player multiplayer game, with a single player story mode.

The fan base has been active for 8 years now, and the newest seasonal update known as “Chill Season” was announced just a few days ago.

The multiplayer gameplay is about humanoid cephalopod characters participating in popular sport competitions surrounded around shooting ink and cartoon violence. The story mode uses the same mechanics but it’s player-versus-enemy and levels that are race courses/challenges. The story mode is mainly about explaining the background history of the players, the current in-game power source of the multiplayer city, and the conflicts that arise from it.

I like the general style of ‘Splatoon”’ the bright characters, art style and music genre are easily recognizable, and they’re fun. The world setting is full of life, but the gameplay does get really boring after a short while; you can only shoot paint/ink for 3 minutes at a time so many times. They don’t add much to play for after you start getting most of the objectives finished, like story mode and unlocking all weapons. That doesn’t take long to finish either, so being a “fan” of the game really just means waiting for more.

The only real reason I can imagine playing it consistently for more than a month is if you’re hyper-competitive or if you just really, really, really like funny sounding squids. While the game is made and enjoyed by people of all ages, I think it’s fair to say that based off the dialogue and 3-minute matches, it’s best fit for people who enjoy short and colorful gameplay that doesn’t require too much attention or focus (I don’t know how people take the competition seriously).

‘Splatoon 3’ is not much different from the previous installments. It’s more enjoyable to use because of improved features and better quality animation, and the only person who could really tell the difference would be a fan of ‘Splatoon’ or ‘Splatoon 2’. I love the art style and music from the game, but there’s really not much to love when I’m actually playing the game.

By: Persephone Pond

The ‘Persona’ series is a series of games comprising 23 total official and spin off games that started releasing in 1996. In this article, I’ll be going over how the ‘Persona’ games came to exist and more historical facts about this franchise.

The ‘Persona’ games are spin offs of a series called ‘Shin Megami Tensei’. These games started as a part of the ‘Shin Megami Tensei’ series, but used a different name as they were being released in the West.

The first ‘Shin Megami Tensei’ game was released in 1987 on a console called Famicom, and a total of 14 more official games have been released since, the latest being in 2021.

Altus, the production company, started releasing ‘Persona’ games in English, and due to their growing popularity, has continued their production. These spin offs grew to hold even more popularity worldwide than the original games, and as the production of ‘Shin Megami Tensei’ didn’t cease, the ‘Persona’ franchise grew to be what Atlus’ more known for.

‘Revelations: Persona’ was the first of its series to be released outside of Japan in 1996 for the original Playstation. Following its release came ‘Persona 2: Innocent Sin’ and ‘Persona 2: Eternal Punishment’ in 1999 and 2000, then came ‘Persona 3’ in 2006, ‘Persona 4’ in 2008, and ‘Persona 5’ in 2016. These games all have very similar premises and basic world building, but are all self contained and separate from one another. Many spin offs and mini games were also produced in the years surrounding these core games.

Over the years, Atlus has worked on reproducing many of the core ‘Persona’ games, giving them extended content, bug fixes, and graphic upgrades. ‘Persona 3 Portable’ was released in 2009, ‘Persona 4 Golden’ was released in 2012, and ‘Persona 5 Royal’ was released in 2019. These are significant upgrades from their original games and are often recommended over their counterparts.

Atlus hasn’t stopped releasing more games in this series. No ‘Persona’ games were released in 2021 or 2022, but Atlus soon recovered from that few year gap and just a few days ago on November 16th, released ‘Persona 5 Tactica’, a spin off mini game of ‘Persona 5 Royal’. In addition to this new release, Atlus is releasing another rendition of ‘Persona 3’ titled ‘Persona 3 Reload’ in February 2024 and it’s rumored that Atlus is also currently planning and starting the production process of ‘Persona 6’, which wouldn’t be released until 2025 or 2026.

All of these games are wonderful and engaging and are all worth the play. The extensive history of the ‘Persona’ games is only one aspect of what makes them fun and interesting, and I would highly recommend the download if you’re looking for something fun to get into.

You can find the Persona games across all major platforms.