You know you're playing an Atlus game when you hit the difficulty wall three bosses in (in this case, Shadow Yukiko). Unfortunately I am fail at planning and waited until the last day to do Yukiko's dungeon, which means that while I desperately need to grind like another two levels on each character, I don't actually have basically any recovery items. I've gotten her down to like 10% at least three times now, but when she gets low she casts AoE attacks like every round and owns me. Anyway, general non-spoilery thoughts on gameplay and such:
-Combat system is fun, although I really wish there were turn icons like Nocturne and DDS have. But I like the special pile-on attack that triggers when all the enemies are knocked down.
-Going in, I wasn't sure if I'd like the S.Link/life sim bits of it, but...they're actually surprisingly fun.
-Chie is so awesome XD And Teddie is hilarious but also creepy.
-Jon pointed out the ironic inversion that right now, out of my three person party, the girl is the only one who can't heal.
-Oh god why can't I skip the super-long scene before Shadow Yukiko I've seen it like seven times now whyyyy
And kind of related - I'm starting to really hope Tseng gets kidnapped for the Desai Midnight Channel plot, because playing Shadow Tseng would be creepy and interesting and awesome. Basically, my Tseng hides two things about himself. The first is that he's sort of a borderline sociopath - not only does he not really feel guilty about the fact that he kills people for a living (the exception being Sector 7, and there it's more 'that was not right' and regret at having made the wrong decision), a part of him enjoys the violence. And he hides a lot of that, and hides his fear that the inner Beast is most of what he is.
The other thing he hides is his fear and shame about his sexuality (my Tseng being pretty much 100% gay) - he was raised in an extremely conservative family in a rather conservative culture, and while he moved to Midgar as a teenager, being gay in Midgar is not so much welcomed as it is tolerated. I think this goes for a lot of cyberpunk cities - it's less 'it's okay to be gay!' and more that people just don't give a shit who you're fucking. But I personally see a lot of the Midgar upper-class, as well as the upper echelons of the company, being very much 'wife and two kids', and that there aren't a whole lot positive depictions of same-sex relationships in the media. He hides his sexuality, but if confronted about it wouldn't deny it - he would deny the feelings of shame, that he's unnatural, that his love is ultimately damaging, because he has a certain amount of pride and self-confidence.
So yeah, Shadow Tseng would be kind of a super-creepy over-the-top sociopath with that slightly feral gleam in his eyes, possibly combined with elements of the good old Predatory Gay stereotype.
