Baroque Atlus PS2 Wii Released
Today, April 8th 2008, Baroque was released for the Playstation 2 and Wii consoles. I have some respect for Atlus from previous games like the Persona or Growlanser series for example, so I figured this would be worth a pickup since it's 40$ instead of 50$ new.
Be prepared that this game is not for the weak. It's a very dark game (par for the course for ATLUS, but pretty rare for a Wii / Nintendo game) and is brutal in difficulty. If you remember Persona 3 or Persona 3 FES, the tower and dungeons spawn randomly. Baroque is the same way. You wake up as the main character and then have no choice but to go to the Neuro Tower. You are to go to the bottom of it. The enemies and shape of the tower are randomized so in turn it's hard to write a walkthrough FAQ for it.
So how you explore it will be different each time. I say each time because the game continues when you die, and in some cases you are forced to die in certain areas to advance! You start back up with the scientists, but if you get far enough in the dungeon you can warp (like Persona 3). Anything you have collected is gone; the only way to maintain items / weapons in your trips is to find a Consciousness Orb.
In terms of gameplay this is your basic action RPG, but with the aforementioned twists. You fight with guns, swords, etc (typical ATLUS weapons). Thing is, you need to kill enemies for their hearts, which you then eat to restore your own health. But it will often times get to the point where your VP gets too low and eventually decreases gradually, so staying alive is more than not getting hit by enemies - you need to be efficient with your steps and your time so that you don't die yourself! But of course you will be dying a lot in Baroque, it's all part of the game :).