Old Dork Yells at Clouds

I can't think of any successful science fiction book that doesn't go on to become a series today. I wish that there were more books in the genre that are stand-alone, single experiences. The genre should encourage more single works as it allows for writers to play with different speculative situations. Isn't that the core of science fiction?

I enjoyed the first Kindom book, These Burning Stars. Esek is a good anti-hero, and Chono is a great reader stand-in of how a person with modern-ish mores would handle having to cater to a borderline psychopath. The universe is different, alien, and intriguing. It is very much a more violent version of Martine's Teixcalaan series.

However, On Vicious Worlds falls into the middle book of a trilogy problem. The book largely exists to bridge the next book in the series. The conflicts and struggles of the protagonists of the novel don't end up meaning much in the end, as the events are transitory and lack permanence. The climax of the book is unsatisfying as the antagonists machinations just collapse and give way to a more cliched villain. I don't have a spoiler plugin for my CMS yet (anyone recommend one for Pelican?), so I won't leave the details here.

Six is a poor replacement for Esek, and whenever the focus shifts to them, it just reminds me of the better first book in the series. Hopefully, the next book will deliver better than On Vicious Worlds.

I really enjoyed Persona 3 Reload. I didn't play the original Persona 3 as I came into the series with Persona 4, so I don't have some of the baggage that some long time players have regarding the combat changes. On the contrary, I think the combat in the game is the best in the series. It took the combat in Persona 5 and made it more balanced and engaging.

That doesn't change the fact that the meat of the Expansion Pass, Episode Aigis, gives you nothing but combat. I enjoyed the combat of Persona 3 Reload greatly, and I quickly got tired of the dungeon after dungeon in Episode Aigis. At the end of each dungeon, you get a 5 minute character scene. That's it. Everything else is dungeon crawl. It's not the eighties anymore Atlas - the Wizardry format doesn't work.

I will give Atlas credit for the climax of the Episode Aigis, it is very fun and engaging. All of the characterization and plot of Episode Aigis is crammed into maybe the last hour out of thirty hours of gameplay. I don't care how engaging your endgame is, it is not worth thirty hours of non-stop dungeon crawling.

The extra music and costumes in the expansion pass are not worth discussing. No one would have bought the costumes or music DLC if they weren't bundled with Episode Aigis. Someone must like this kind of garbage DLC, as companies keep publishing cosmetic DLC. I have yet to meet this person - they are probably very deranged.