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Endorph posted:You do realize Perosna 4 is a shin megami tensei game, right? Actually, his second spoiler explains it well. He has no problem with mythology, he has a problem with the idea that ancient and powerful gods that dwarf humanity can be conquered by the POWER OF HUMAN FRIENDSHIP.
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Jan 18, 2012 22:12
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I dunno Persona 2 subverts that in the most blatant way possible.
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Jan 18, 2012 22:15
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Radish posted:I dunno Persona 2 subverts that in the most blatant way possible. Well yeah... but only the first half. Not so much the second.
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Jan 18, 2012 22:16
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Tallgeese posted:Well yeah... but only the first half. Not so much the second. Well the entire second game is your characters specifically trying to make sure the group of BEST FRIENDS 4EVER never remember each other or reality crumbles and it ends with everyone going their separate directions with only a small hope that they will ever really meet up. One of them avoids another in order to stop another world ending event from happening again. Eggplant Squire fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Jan 18, 2012 |
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Jan 18, 2012 22:19
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I think my biggest problem with P4 was that they solved the mystery not through reasoning with Izanami, but by killing her. It doesn't feel like they "solved" anything, especially when the entire game was just one event after another, and the group was just kind of waiting for things to happen.
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Jan 18, 2012 22:20
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To be fair the classical myth of Izanami was that she kill humans daily in order to spite her husband that disobeyed her wishes and abandoned her in hell so I doubt there was much to be reasoned with. The whole mystery thing kind of fell apart once it was revealed to be Adachi. They way they caught him in his lie was kind of lame anyway since it wouldn't be that unusual for a mediocre detective to think that the kidnappings were related to the serial murders that both started around the same time.
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Jan 18, 2012 22:23
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Radish posted:Ending synopsis Oh right, I forgot that aspect of it. Now I remember why i liked that game's story so much. Carry on, hooray for that game.
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Jan 18, 2012 22:24
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Tallgeese posted:Oh right, I forgot that aspect of it. Now I remember why i liked that game's story so much. Carry on, hooray for that game. Yeah I think that P2 is my favorite plot since it really lays in thick with the friendship can solve anything!! theme throughout the game like a lot of other RPGs do and then they shove it in your face that it didn't right at the end.
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Jan 18, 2012 22:26
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Authorman posted:Um the main theme of the game is looking cool in shades and bear puns and there is zero plot holes as far as that is concerned. The other thing you're talking about hamfisted mythology/previous persona plot retread corner can get dropped like a bad penny. Better some magic and mystery left over than stupid nonsense. Guys DDS was cool until the second game, then everything went to hell, what were they thinking it was supposed to be about the Matrix rite???
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Jan 18, 2012 22:28
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Iceclaw posted:I disagree. If you had no problem with the rest of the game, then the true ending has nothing to offer that would make you cringe? The true ending has Igor's magical Deus ex Machina crystal, which was dumb as hell, didn't fit into the game, and seemed to only exist because THIS IS A JRPG AND THIS IS WHAT JRPGS DO. Authorman posted:Then this is where we disagree then because saving the world against the capricious whims of gods through believing in the heart of the If you really played the games, you'd know that it isn't caused by the capricious whims of the gods. Humanity was secretly, subconsciously asking for it. I think The Soulless Army was the only PS2 SMT game that didn't use that as the Last Boss's motivation. It's still dumb and boring and repetitive, but, you know, for different reasons. TurnipFritter fucked around with this message at 22:41 on Jan 18, 2012 |
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Jan 18, 2012 22:37
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Whoa, hold on buddy. You just spent sixty+ hours doing this fun-times murder mystery thing but wait up boss we've got this optional two hour segment tacked on to the end that has nothing to do with what came before and is so half-assed that it only seems to have been included out of obligation so just forget everything that the entire rest of the game was about because here's the the real poo poo right here. You saw that ridiculous text dump in the middle of the game, obviously this is what it was about all along! btw pretty sure Persona games aren't SMT games.
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Jan 18, 2012 22:50
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tooooooo bad posted:Whoa, hold on buddy. You just spent sixty+ hours doing this fun-times murder mystery thing but wait up boss we've got this optional two hour segment tacked on to the end that has nothing to do with what came before and is so half-assed that it only seems to have been included out of obligation so just forget everything that the entire rest of the game was about because here's the the real poo poo right here. You saw that ridiculous text dump in the middle of the game, obviously this is what it was about all along! None of the non mainline games are sold as SMT games in japan but considering they all use the same demons/composer/artists/etc they pretty much are in all honesty.
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Jan 18, 2012 22:53
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tooooooo bad posted:btw pretty sure Persona games aren't SMT games.  Oh also there's other stuff, like Kuromaru's (many) similarities to the dog from the first SMT. And the fact that they have the same composer. And demons. They're all spin-offs, at the very least. Do you think Final Fantasy Tactics isn't a Final Fantasy game?
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Jan 18, 2012 22:59
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  Atlus USA branded both Persona and Digital Devil Saga as Shin Megami Tensei, but they're not branded as such in Japan. edit: yeah they are spinoffs but they're not direct entries into the franchise themselves, they're not SMT games like Nocturne or Strange Journey. Policenaut fucked around with this message at 23:06 on Jan 18, 2012 |
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Jan 18, 2012 23:03
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Don't the mainline SMT games have references to each other?
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Jan 18, 2012 23:23
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It's times like these when I wish Atlus had kept the old Megaten Portal up. Spoiler alert: It covered DDS and Persona too.
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Jan 18, 2012 23:24
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I'm not saying that they aren't related to SMT, I'm saying that "well Persona 4 has Shin Megami Tensei right there on the box so obviously it has to be about mythology" isn't right. e: and the vast majority of the game absolutely isn't about mythology. see you tomorrow fucked around with this message at 23:35 on Jan 18, 2012 |
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Jan 18, 2012 23:32
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Alteisen posted:Don't the mainline SMT games have references to each other? Some, yeah. If you take the True Demon path in Nocturne it's revealed that one of the characters is the reincarnation of SMT2's protagonist, doomed to be constantly reborn and watch the world end over and over again. And think SMT2's world is the way it is due to what happened in SMT1. So yeah there are some references.
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Jan 18, 2012 23:42
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tooooooo bad posted:I'm not saying that they aren't related to SMT, I'm saying that "well Persona 4 has Shin Megami Tensei right there on the box so obviously it has to be about mythology" isn't right.
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Jan 18, 2012 23:42
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Endorph posted:Yeah except for the part where you're summoning mythological figures from your brain. Your crew of Pokemon having funny names doesn't inform on the central theme of the game. e: wrong word see you tomorrow fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Jan 18, 2012 |
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Jan 18, 2012 23:46
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Why are we getting caught up on a technical distinction that is irrelevant to the original point discussed?
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Jan 18, 2012 23:48
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tooooooo bad posted:Your crew of Pokemon having funny names doesn't inform on the main conceit of the game.
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Jan 18, 2012 23:48
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Eggn0g posted:Some, yeah. If you take the True Demon path in Nocturne it's revealed that one of the characters is the reincarnation of SMT2's protagonist, doomed to be constantly reborn and watch the world end over and over again. And think SMT2's world is the way it is due to what happened in SMT1. This is wrong. It's just some fanwank theory a dude came up with.
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Jan 18, 2012 23:48
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Endorph posted:Which is mythology. Christ. Izanagi. Izanami. Do you not see the loving connection here? I feel like we've lost the point of the discussion. I'm aware of the connection. I don't see what that has to do with everything that the first sixty or seventy hours of the game are concerned with, which is what I was talking about. I know that the game has some Japanese mythological fluff in it, I don't think that that's what the game is about because it has little to do with most of what the game actually is.
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Jan 18, 2012 23:56
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Endorph posted:Which is mythology. Christ. Izanagi. Izanami. Do you not see the loving connection here? The name of your charizard has nothing to do with 99% of the game until someone somewhere remembered that there was a dumb jrpg/smt nonsense checklist to be filled out and slapped on the secret ending. TurnipFritter posted:If you really played the games, you'd know that it isn't caused by the capricious whims of the gods. Humanity was secretly, subconsciously asking for it. I think The Soulless Army was the only PS2 SMT game that didn't use that as the Last Boss's motivation. It's still dumb and boring and repetitive, but, you know, for different reasons. No that was totally the capricious whims of gods, Izanami/Nyx/Random Mythology Reference are just being dicks and justifying it with "I'm only doing it because humanity was the real monster all along". They themselves are behind everything they are doing they are not simply tools of fate. Also the guy who originally asked about the optional ending hasn't even finished the game, so yeah random spoilers.
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Jan 19, 2012 00:16
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What kind of discussion is this? People complaining about an ending that bothers to tell you why everything happened. What the hell? 
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Jan 19, 2012 00:24
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I'm loving all the smug condescending "heh POKEMON" comments considering that the SMT series is older than the Pokemon series by years.
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Jan 19, 2012 00:27
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What bugs me about the secret ending the most in Persona 4 is simply the fact that you could remove it and the game would be no different (well, you have to remove that character, due to the scene at the beginning of the game, in the gas station). There would be no lingering threads, not plot holes, nothing. It's the definition of tacked on. If they had put some clues and hints of a greater force or something throughout the game, weave it into the plot, it might've meant something, but nope.
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Jan 19, 2012 00:35
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tooooooo bad posted:I feel like we've lost the point of the discussion. Yeah, the mythology stuff is actually a bit of a distraction. The most important thematic connection between P4's true ending and the rest of the game comes from the way it follows through on the game's core epistemological thesis: that you can only truly know the truth if you've discovered it for yourself.
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Jan 19, 2012 00:36
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Morpheus posted:What bugs me about the secret ending the most in Persona 4 is simply the fact that you could remove it and the game would be no different (well, you have to remove that character, due to the scene at the beginning of the game, in the gas station). There would be no lingering threads, not plot holes, nothing. It's the definition of tacked on. If they had put some clues and hints of a greater force or something throughout the game, weave it into the plot, it might've meant something, but nope. That ending does explain the TV world and the MC's powers a bit more. But yea most of the game is about murders, and when I played I just kinda took it for granted that the MC can go into another world inside the TV so I didn't feel like it needed explaining.
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Jan 19, 2012 01:08
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Ibram Gaunt posted:I'm loving all the smug condescending "heh POKEMON" comments considering that the SMT series is older than the Pokemon series by years. Why anyone associate using monsters to fight for you in battle with Pokemon, one of the highest grossing franchises in the history, instead of an obscure series of jrpgs that weren't even released in english for years after their release and that 99% of people familiar with the series were first introduced to during the PS2 era is beyond me.
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Jan 19, 2012 01:19
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Atlus released "Shin Megami Tensei if" around the same time as SMT 2. It took place in a high school that got sucked into the demon world and had some new mechanics where you got guardian spirits that would help you. When the Playstation came out they made Persona which was a sort of sequel/upgrade to if. They took the guardian spirit system and expanded it into the Persona system and changed the standard SMT COMP into getting cards from demons which could be fused. They kept however the first person view, highschool with demons setting and frustrating stuff like trap or warp tiles. The main character from if is a NPC in Persona. Persona then was popular enough to spawn its own franchise. Persona 2 had a few references back to if; the main character of it returns along with the Persona 1 characters and there are random npc students from the if school. So while Persona might not be officially in the SMT series it's a direct spin off so I think saying it's a SMT game isn't unfair. Eggplant Squire fucked around with this message at 01:26 on Jan 19, 2012 |
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Jan 19, 2012 01:23
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Man, who cares if Persona is an SMT game or not (Don't answer that, apparently a lot of people do).
Boneless Jogger fucked around with this message at 02:02 on Jan 19, 2012 |
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Jan 19, 2012 01:59
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Ibram Gaunt posted:I'm loving all the smug condescending "heh POKEMON" comments considering that the SMT series is older than the Pokemon series by years. SMT is Pokemon for people who think they're smart. 
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Jan 19, 2012 02:23
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TurnipFritter posted:This is wrong. It's just some fanwank theory a dude came up with. And then later disavowed entirely when he realized a) that it was dumb and b) that people were treating it as canon. Because it's not. Anyway, the initial persona being Izanagi pretty much telegraphs Izanami coming in at some point. The ending is mythologically sound (relatively spekaing, anyway), even if it may not have been the most satisfying way of going about it.
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Jan 19, 2012 02:33
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Boneless Jogger posted:Man, who cares if Persona is an SMT game or not (Don't answer that, apparently a lot of people do). I don't really I just think the history is interesting.
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Jan 19, 2012 02:56
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And here I thought the influx of new posts would be about Growlanser 4. Or is there a thread about that?
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Jan 19, 2012 03:02
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neongrey posted:And then later disavowed entirely when he realized a) that it was dumb and b) that people were treating it as canon. Because it's not. In all honesty that ending would've been significantly better had Izanami even acknowledged for a second she had been handing out copies of her husband to random guys or a nice little piece of special dialogue for using Izanagi against her. Something to make the mythology more meaningful than "These two are married and Izanagi treated her not that well so this is kind of ironic".
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Jan 19, 2012 03:48
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Sex_Ferguson posted:In all honesty that ending would've been significantly better had Izanami even acknowledged for a second she had been handing out copies of her husband to random guys or a nice little piece of special dialogue for using Izanagi against her. Something to make the mythology more meaningful than "These two are married and Izanagi treated her not that well so this is kind of ironic".
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Jan 19, 2012 04:56
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Momomo posted:That's another thing that confused me. I assumed what they've been using the entire time were the concepts of these figures. Like, Akihiko wasn't literally summoning Caesar to fight his enemies, and you don't bring the real Satan out to take care of things. The way Izanami did it seemed more like she was mockingly giving people the image of her former husband. It's kind of weird. It's implied with the drugs that Shinji took that these things do operate on some level sentient thinking or at least some instinct since some people can't control them, after all they created from the mind to begin with. Izanagi does actually talk to the main character (Two times and it's the same thing both times, but still) and it does seem like with Ryoji/Thanatos that some Persona might actually think themselves, but he sort of helps prove the theory they're just concepts of the myths and not the actual things. I'd really like it to be made more clear, but in all honesty I'm probably just overthinking things.
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Jan 19, 2012 05:05
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