Alright, let’s do this one more time. Now, this is going to be a bit of a strange video. As some of you may know, I’m a pretty big fan of the persona series. In fact, longtime viewers might be a bit confused since I’ve already covered persona 5 before on this channel… twice. I’ve said basically all that’s needed to be said at this point so why am I even talking about this? Well, the answer is quite simple. The kind folks over at Sega and Atlus were generous enough to send me an early copy of the Persona 5 PC port that, at the time of this recording, has recently released. I initially only wanted to talk about the port’s quality and whether or not you should consider picking it up. However, I figured I could use this opportunity to have a more nuanced discussion about how I believe Atlus have been mishandling their rereleases of the megaten series. This video is going to be divided into two distinct parts. I want to cover the Persona 5 ports before diving into the main meat of this topic. A lot of people have been looking forward to either getting back into the game or trying it out for the first time, so I think we should quickly look and see if these ports are at all worth getting. Just a heads up, I’m going to make the assumption here that you’ve either already played Persona 5 or know the general gist of it. While there aren’t going to be specific plot spoilers in this video per se, the footage you’ll be seeing is from the mid-game since it best represents what to expect out of it gameplay-wise. Just keep that in mind in case you’re a new player looking to get into this game for the first time. I’d also like to reiterate that I played the PC release for this video and everything said is about that version of the game. I won’t be covering the PlayStation and Xbox versions of the game, but I will briefly talk about the switch release since a lot of people are excited about that one specifically. The Problem with Atlus Rereleases. in The Problem with Atlus Rereleases I’m going to be talking about why Atlus Rereleases are bad. I’ll also be dedicating a large portion of this video to the recently released Persona 5 Royal PC port, Persona 5 Royal Switch port, Persona 5 Royal Xbox port, and Persona 5 Royal PS5 port. We’ll be taking a look at Persona 5 Royal PC to see if you should buy Persona 5 Royal PC and to answer if Persona 5 Royal Switch is worth it. You can actually view this as a Persona 5 Royal Switch Review if you want. But don’t let that distract you from the fact that this video is on The Problem with Atlus Rereleases by Nam’s Compendium. I want Atlus Rereleases to get better in the future and the Persona 5 Royal Ports are a good start, but it doesn’t fix The Problem with Atlus Rereleases in its entirety.

Few filmmakers short of Luis Buñuel have made better onscreen use of dreams than Robert Altman, and 3 Women is the film in which he most successfully (and disturbingly) captured the hazy logic and off-kilter visual perspectives of the unconscious state. Shelley Duvall delivered the best work of her career as a woman so shallow that it never occurs to her that people are laughing at her behind her back, and Sissy Spacek is brilliant as Pinky, the naive girl who worships her; their emotional give and take as they begin to exchange personalities exemplifies the kind of risky but satisfying performances that Altman knows how to draw from actors. Gerald Busby’s quietly troubling, discordant score and Bodhi Wind’s surreal artwork are singularly appropriate aural and visual backdrops, while Charles Rosher Jr.’s cinematography layers the images in intoxicating washes of yellow and blue. While Altman has made a career out of endings that don’t spell themselves out, the conclusion of 3 Women is both vague and provocative — have we witnessed the aftermath of a tragedy, a descent into insanity, or a quiet but defiant call to arms? Altman isn’t telling, but one can read 3 Women in a number of ways and still walk away convinced that it’s a work of singular vision and emotional power from one of the most gifted American filmmakers of his generation.

Horror is a film genre seeking to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience’s primal fears. Prevalent elements include ghosts, aliens, vampires, werewolves, demons, dragons, gore, torture, vicious animals, evil witches, monsters, zombies, cannibals, and serial killers.

The Sender – Roger Christian, Friday The 13th Part VI – Tom McLoughlin, Psycho II – Richard Franklin, Prince Of Darkness – John Carpenter, The Hitcher – Robert Harmon, Spellbinder – Janet Greek, Friday The 13th Part III – Steve Miner, The Fog – John Carpenter, He Knows You’re Alone – Armand Mastroianni, Halloween II – Rick Rosenthal, The Howling – Joe Dante, The Entity – Sidney J. Furie, Altered States – Ken Russell, Dead Of Winter – Arthur Penn, Ghost Story – John Irvin, The Changeling – Peter Medak, Friday The 13th – Sean S. Cunningham, Night Of The Creeps – Fred Dekker, Hellraiser – Clive Barker, A Nightmare On Elm Street 3 – Chuck Russell, Evil Dead II – Sam Raimi, The Beyond – Lucio Fulci, Possession – Andrzej Zulawski, Re-Animator – Stuart Gordon, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 – Tobe Hooper, Dark Night Of The Scarecrow – Frank De Felitta, The Stepfather – Joseph Ruben, An American Werewolf In London – John Landis, A Chinese Ghost Story – Ching Siu Tung, Videodrome – David Cronenberg, Wolfen – Michael Wadleigh, Near Dark – Kathryn Bigelow, Little Shop Of Horrors – Frank Oz, The Company Of Wolves – Neil Jordan, Poltergeist – Tobe Hooper, Fright Night – Tom Holland, The Shining – Stanley Kubrick, Aliens – James Cameron, The Thing – John Carpenter, A Nightmare On Elm Street – Wes Craven

Move aside E.L. James, Blanka Lipinska’s breakout series 365 Days has officially begun it’s english translation journey. This is Stephenie Meyer’s extended Legacy from Twilight.

“Check and Mate” brings J.R. and Bobby’s contest for control of Ewing Oil to a satisfying but somewhat silly conclusion. In the final scene, the brothers learn J.R. boosted the company’s profits by $40 million, making him the clear-cut winner. With his victory clenched, J.R. announces he’s reneging on his earlier promise to split the company with Bobby, even if Bobby comes up short. Suddenly, Bobby receives some last-minute news: He just made a killing on his Canadian drilling deal, making him the contest’s winner. J.R. wants to go back to their original power-sharing deal — and of course Bobby agrees. Would we expect anything less from this show?

Indeed, this is another example of “Dallas’s” rather fanciful approach to big business. J.R. and Bobby receive the contest results while meeting with lawyer Harv Smithfield on the last day of the competition. Legally, shouldn’t this meeting have taken place the following day, when all the profits could have been counted? Also, in the previous episode, Bobby’s Canadian partner Thornton McLeish still hadn’t struck oil; now we learn Bobby and McLeish not only hit big, they managed to sell their shares to some bigger oil companies. Talk about a fast sale!

But even if this scene stretches credulity, it remains one of the best corporate showdowns from a series that practically invented them. Bobby’s 11th-hour victory is surprising and dramatic; I usually don’t like to see J.R. get beat, but when Bobby does it, I let it slide. Besides, Larry Hagman gets to show a lot of range here — unabashed smugness when J.R. thinks he’s won, muted humility when he realizes he’s lost — and that’s always fun to watch. (I also appreciate how the sequence includes one last letter from Jock, whose explanation that the true purpose of the contest was to bring his sons together makes the storyline feel like Jock’s version of J.R.’s master plan from the TNT series. Or maybe it’s the other way around.)

The lasting consequences of J.R. and Bobby’s fight yields mixed feelings too. There’s no doubt the battle has changed Bobby, who compromised his integrity in his quest for power and ended up losing his wife and son along the way. Bobby is now a damaged man, and Patrick Duffy does a nice job imbuing his character with a sad, soulful weariness. I wish we could say something similar about J.R. After the Southfork fire, J.R. had an attack of conscience and agreed to jointly run Ewing Oil with Bobby, regardless of which brother won the competition. He changed his mind pretty quickly and spent the episodes before “Check and Mate” secretly plotting to stab Bobby in the back when the final results were announced. No one wants to see J.R. turn into a good guy, but wouldn’t it have been more interesting to watch him wrestle with breaking his promise to Bobby? It would have revealed a new depth to J.R.’s character and made the yearlong battle for Ewing Oil, one of “Dallas’s” milestone moments, feel even more meaningful.

Even with these slight shortcomings, “Check and Mate” remains the seventh season’s strongest hour yet. With J.R. and Bobby’s war ending, the show shifts its attention to two supporting characters: Ray and Donna, whose marriage is rocked after Ray is arrested for Mickey’s mercy killing. (This makes Mickey one of the last casualties in the war for Ewing Oil, along with Rebecca Wentworth and Walt Driscoll.) Did Ray pull the plug? Or was it Lil, the only other person in the room at the time? Steve Kanaly is a portrait of quiet resolve as Ray goes through this episode refusing to discuss what happened in the moments before Mickey’s death. The silence is frustrating, but it’s also perfectly in keeping with the character of Ray, a laconic cowboy if ever there was one. Whether Ray pulled the plug himself or he’s simply taking the fall to protect Lil, we wouldn’t expect him to talk about it.

Even if Ray doesn’t have much to say, Kanaly still manages to give the audience a sense of Ray’s inner torment. In “Check and Mate’s” moving next-to-last scene, he sits at the patio table outside his home and asks the deeply depressed Lil for permission to bury Mickey at Southfork. Kanaly’s delivery breaks my heart, but as I watched this scene I remembered Ray and Jock’s memorable conversation at that very table in “The Fourth Son,” when the old man told Ray he was his son. It’s a subtle but poignant reminder of how Ray tried to take Mickey under his arm, the way Jock did with Ray, and how Ray’s efforts ultimately fell short. On the other hand, whether Ray killed his cousin himself or he’s just protecting Lil, is he not exhibiting a Jock-like sense of duty and honor?

Like Kanaly, Susan Howard also makes the most of her time in the spotlight. She has two terrific moments in “Check and Mate.” In the first act, Donna speaks to Ray in jail after his arrest; the glass partition separating the couple feels like a stand-in for the bigger barrier, which is Ray’s willingness to open up about the circumstances surrounding Mickey’s death. Donna seems to believe Ray disconnected Mickey’s life-support system, and Howard makes her character’s disappointment palpable. “Nobody has the right to play God,” she says with signature breathiness. Donna’s reaction makes sense, given the character’s strong moralistic bent. It’s another example of how well “Check and Mate” scriptwriter David Paulsen knows these characters.

Howard’s second great moment comes at the beginning of the third act, when Donna rides out to a Southfork pasture to confront Ray about his lack of willingness to defend himself. She reminds her husband that his only duty wasn’t to ease Mickey’s suffering; Ray also has an obligation to his marriage. Once again, Paulsen gives Howard a great line, and she delivers it beautifully: “You’re what I wanted all my life. You may not think your life is worth saving, but I sure as hell do.” With this single line, Paulsen manages to encapsulate Donna’s entire history with Ray, including her affair with him during her marriage to Sam Culver and when she rescued Ray from depression after Jock’s death.

The other great performance in “Check and Mate” comes from Charlene Tilton, who is moving and believable in the scene where Ray comes home from jail and is greeted by the Lucy, who in her grief-stricken rage beats on his chest and cries, “You murdered him!” It’s another example of how Tilton, when given good material, is a terrific actress. I also have to hand it once again to Howard, who allows the scene to end on a graceful note. “For God’s sake,” Donna says as she tries to comfort Lucy. “Don’t you know that it’s tearing him apart too?”

Like all great “Dallas” episodes, the details in “Check and Mate” are also worth paying attention to. Toward the end of the scene where Sue Ellen offers to throw a barbecue for Peter and his fellow camp counselors, Linda Gray touches Christopher Atkins’ shoulder; right at that moment, composer Bruce Broughton brings a few piano keys into the background score to ensure the audience doesn’t miss the significance of the gesture. Moments later, when Peter runs back into the building to retrieve John Ross, watch how Atkins bounds up the stairs. Peter is still a boy himself, isn’t he?

Elsewhere, director Leonard Katzman also gives us a great shot during the scene where Cliff approaches Sly as she leaves Ewing Oil for her lunch break. Debbie Rennard stands with her back to the building, facing Ken Kercheval, whose face is reflected in the façade. It’s a clever way to get both performers’ faces in the frame, but is it not also a symbol of how Cliff is increasingly reflecting the underhanded sensibilities of the enemy who works there?

While we are told nothing of what this child of Dark had done prior, Nadalia, originally Nadola, (ナドラ) most assuredly contributed nothing positive to the world. As the apostle of “loneliness”, (孤独) her existence is defined by solitude, and the Chime of Screams derived from her soul implies this to bring her constant anxiety. Her ambient dialogue, as confirmed in the Dark Souls Trilogy -Archive of the Fire-, reveals that her cause for consternation traces back to her very beginning. Nadalia bemoans the fact that she and her “older sisters” (姉) aren’t together as one, implying that she was the last to take form and thus the proverbial runt of the litter. By then, all the others had apparently gone off on their own, leaving the youngest all alone — and Nadalia’s nature made that unbearable. For her sake, all of Manus’ disparate fragments must be reunited, which she seems to believe will occur if she acquires power, specifically powerful souls; with a strong-enough spirit, she can theoretically lure her soul-hungry siblings back to her. When she heard word of the Old Iron King, she found herself the perfect candidate.

Despite the fact that he already had a Queen, Nadalia was confident that she could earn the mighty king’s affection and become his bride. If her sisters are any indication, she trusted in her ability to imitate a beautiful human woman and steal his affections. It is worth noting that item descriptions never once speak to her affection for the man. Rather, it is his potential for her that she is so obsessed with. The Japanese text to her soul even uses terms with connotations of depending on someone, emphasizing her intent to use his great power to take care of all her needs. While all the other children of Dark ultimately seek to become dependents in the house of royalty they approach, Nadalia needs that kind of firm cornerstone to give her peace of mind. Her king is the only solution to her lonesome dilemma. It is no accident then that her Chime of Screams is sloppy iron frozen solid.

When Nadalia arrived to the land of the Iron King, she faced a kingdom in tatters, her would-be husband already dead. By all circumstances, her first indication was witnessed at his famed ironworks, now overrun with Hollows and his crown left abandoned with an empty throne. Just when she had finally found someone to assuage her loneliness, he had disappeared; realizing such an ironic twist of fate brought the apostle utter dismay, bordering on hysteria. Much like she hopes to do with her sisters, Nadalia tried to pick up the pieces in a desperate attempt to still be close to her absent sovereign, to preserve what remained of him. Clutching his crown, the monster took up residence at the bottom of the central tower, burying herself in the king’s throne rife with soot. From there, she divided her soul into fragments to abandon their body and wander the facilities, possessing more relics of the Iron King in lieu of the actual man.

These “relics” apparently refer to the soot permeating the tower, each vestige of her forming a statue out of it. While these idols loosely resemble her, they come with quite a few extra hands wrapped around themselves, as if to both protect them physically and give them security mentally. They also emit black flames, sometimes unleashed in an “outcry” as the pyromancy derived from her soul indicates; sometimes with a healing effect for nearby enemies like that of the Warmth. But most dangerous of all is their ability to diffuse a black fog across fairly wide area, through which they can exacerbate the Undead curse and possess persons or objects either directly or via the soot. In the case of the latter, enemies are simply empowered, but the former makes them complete puppets, as best demonstrated by the abandoned iron equipment freely piloted by the fog and endlessly revived by the idols. Defeating these lifeless empty armors nets us souls, confirming the smoke to be an expression of Nadalia’s spirit. She is the fog, “dancing” around the towers to keep some measure of this place alive.

While all of this might seem like a hopeless bid to turn back the clock, that notion fails to convey the full depths of Nadalia’s denial. Listening to her ambient dialogue, it is clear that Nadalia believes us to be the Old Iron King, perhaps sensing vestiges of his power on our person after slaying the boss — she has familiarized herself with that same power left in the crown she keeps. Moreover, the fragmented monster leaves no question that she has been awaiting “our” arrival. This is why item descriptions consistently describe Nadalia as the “bride of soot”. In her distraught state, she has actually deluded herself into believing that the Iron King is somehow still alive and will come to wed her, granting her his mighty soul in the process. Indeed, despite the fact that her and Nashandra’s chimes can’t be called “holy bells” due to their profane nature, Nadalia’s iron bell nonetheless raises faith, demonstrating her incredible conviction that all her efforts will be rewarded. One might question then exactly why she acts so violently toward her supposed groom-to-be, but her feelings are far more complicated than that.

The statues’ dialogue cycles through a whole mix of emotions. One moment, she is a sobbing mess overjoyed to see her king come. The next, she is a spiteful backbiter blaming him for ruining her plans and making her wait. At the very next, she wants to hold us in a loving embrace, begging us not to run away. At the next after that, she is warning us about her deception, demanding we leave. The child of Dark is simply not of one mind, let alone one soul. Her nature in solitude makes her feel equal parts happy, sad, bitter, loving, guilty, and likely much more, constantly ebbing and flowing between sentiments — at one point, she even has to swallow her resentment bubbling up in the midst of her “happy” swing. The only consistent element is the knowledge that now, after so long, she will not let the mighty monarch slip through her fingers ever again.

Perhaps it is this bipolar obsession with the Old Iron King that makes Nadalia vulnerable solely to the smelter wedges picked up mainly around the ironworks. Even though all of her dialogue cycles through in-game, the Archive of the Fire claims that one line in particular is scripted to occur upon an idol’s destruction. The line very clearly has her reacting to pain, confused and desperate to hold on. With that in mind, this was most likely how it was written to play out when the dialogue was first scripted and recorded, but then it was ultimately never programed into the actual game. In that case, it provides some insight into how she views our actions. To see the “Iron King” stab a pole of melted iron he is so strongly associated with through her breast — where her soul’s power seems to radiate from — must come as utter rejection, catching her off-guard and thus breaking her spirit; in the end, she simply can’t take being alone.

It might be for that reason that, during her long wait for a husband, she has welcomed intruders to the ruined facilities, earning the place the name Brume Tower, or “Tower of Black Fog”, (黒霧の塔) in no time. Those who didn’t manage to escape and spread this ominous reputation either ended up dead or enslaved, the smoke casters exemplifying those whose wills ended up broken by the fog keeping them alive and puppeteered for so long. Not even destroying all the idols and Nadalia’s main body can free them from the smoke, though this might simply be due to limitations in game design. By splitting her mighty soul, the lonely child of Dark has dispersed her influence so that her claws cannot so easily be dug out. We can reassemble the soul by overcoming all her vestiges, but some trace might forever haunt the land. Perhaps that is the perverse irony to solitude: you make yourself firmly planted.