Clarste posted:

Well, from what I can tell you want the game to be representing something it doesn't. Didn't you also complain about the ending earlier? So you're trying to fit this into your broader misunderstanding of the rest of the game.

Specifically, the game was never about you rebelling against Order as an abstract concept, or even Authority. You aren't the forces of Chaos fighting YHWH in a mainstream SMT game. You aren't anarchists plotting to bring down the government, and while "gently caress the Police" makes a good slogan that's not what you're about either. One of your party members (Makoto) dreams of being a police commissioner even as she's working with the Phantom Thieves. From beginning to end, the game is simply about justice. You target the criminals who society has allowed to prosper: they are specifically criminals who would be tossed in jail right away if it weren't for their social standing. IE: You don't hate society in general, you just hate that these specific people have been allowed to get away with their crimes. And the final boss is an embodiment of the aspect of society that let them do so.

multijoe posted:

Makoto wanting to become a police commissioner was some of the most tone-deaf writing in the game though. Sae's arc is explicitly about how working in the (unjust, sexist, authoritarian) Japanese legal system has twisted her and put her on the path to being a genuinely bad person and is resolved when she resolves to leave it behind and become an ace attorney. Makoto seeing not just everything the system has inflicted on her friends but also how it nearly destroyed the life of her sister and then resolving to become one of the leaders of that system was loving stupid.

multijoe posted:

Makoto wanting to become a police commissioner was some of the most tone-deaf writing in the game though. Sae's arc is explicitly about how working in the (unjust, sexist, authoritarian) Japanese legal system has twisted her and put her on the path to being a genuinely bad person and is resolved when she resolves to leave it behind and become an ace attorney. Makoto seeing not just everything the system has inflicted on her friends but also how it nearly destroyed the life of her sister and then resolving to become one of the leaders of that system was loving stupid.

UberJew posted:

she's idealistic and the single most determined person on the cast. she believes that she can reform it and make it a force of justice and well, she's wrong, but lord knows i wanted to be an attorney when i was a teenager for the same wrong reason

Zore posted:

The skill balancing in this game is... odd to say the least.

But yeah, you're not really missing something. I guess they really wanted people to use the Lockdown mechanic?

Clarste posted:

IIRC, he does all his elemental attacks in a preset order (the same order they're listed on the analysis screen), so if you pay attention to his pattern you can just guard on that turn and never get hit by elemental weaknesses.

Josuke Higashikata posted:

Clarste posted:

So you're trying to fit this into your broader misunderstanding of the rest of the game.

You target the criminals who society has allowed to prosper: they are specifically criminals who would be tossed in jail right away if it weren't for their social standing. IE: You don't hate society in general, you just hate that these specific people have been allowed to get away with their crimes. And the final boss is an embodiment of the aspect of society that let them do so.

CharlieFoxtrot posted:

Holy poo poo 50 hours in I am still failing multiple negotiations in a row because the dialogue options make no sense to me, I read that chart about personalities but that doesn't really help with all these weird options

slev posted:

Hanging out with Mishima on Sundays provided even better opportunities to dunk on him than in his actual social link.

Relin posted:

hunting for a hope diamond sure is tedious

Saigyouji posted:

Really, the Gallows/Electric Chair/Lockdown mostly seem like they're designed for ridiculous min maxing stuff when you already know the system, which is kinda awkward with an 80 hour long game.

UberJew posted:

she's idealistic and the single most determined person on the cast. she believes that she can reform it and make it a force of justice and well, she's wrong, but lord knows i wanted to be an attorney when i was a teenager for the same wrong reason

Clarste posted:

She wants to be a leader because it's broken. So she can fix it. She sees it as pursuing the same justice she does as a Phantom Thief. Maybe that's overly optimistic of her, but it doesn't seem out of place for the tone of the game. Sae never explicitly wanted to fix things in the system.

multijoe posted:

It in that sense, it's quite a bleak ending for Makoto. She's cursed to either repeat the mistakes of her sister and eventually leave the system in disgust, or ethically compromise herself in her rise to power until she's no better than the people she wanted to reform. Or we can assume with hardwork and gumption she succeeds in fixing the system through heroic force of will and ushers in a new era of justice and freedom for the people of Japan

Saagonsa posted:

Yes, a major thing in the game is about a group of people doing the impossible to reform the unreformable.

multijoe posted:

Which they did as outlaws. It's a major thing in the game that nearly every single individual and institution involved with the protagonists' struggles was complicit up to their eyeballs and if they'd tried to stop any of it via legal, socially accepted means they'd have got absolutely nowhere.

Saigyouji posted:

Really, the Gallows/Electric Chair/Lockdown mostly seem like they're designed for ridiculous min maxing stuff when you already know the system, which is kinda awkward with an 80 hour long game.

Neddy Seagoon posted:

The whole point of the endgame is society has been reformed. People have broken out of their apathy, which is why everyone suddenly wanted Shido's head on a platter. Trying to make a difference might actually work from within now.

Neddy Seagoon posted:

The whole point of the endgame is society has been reformed. People have broken out of their apathy, which is why everyone suddenly wanted Shido's head on a platter. Trying to make a difference might actually work from within now.

The Gorp posted:

Everything you said is 100% correct, and it's why the final boss doesn't work.
Not only is what Yaldabaoth doing completely outside the realm of law, what he physically is calls into question the validity of attempting it. There's obviously no law against merging a demon world with reality, there's no higher force that would prosecute him even if they had the reach to do so. You fight Yalda because he does something you don't like, and kill him for it. The team basically becomes Shido and claims they know whats better for humanity, then destroy the thing that's in their way. If we consider Yalda a criminal with a corrupt heart at all, he's the public's collective distortion.

If that's the case, getting 100% approval on your website (which is an infuriating metric) should just stop him. You shouldn't need to shoot him. Sae's palace dissipated because she overcame her distorted desires on her own, but when the public has a change of heart Yaldabaoth and Mementos still exist? At the very least the non-sentient Mementos should have vanished before the final blow was struck. Instead its implied that Yaldabaoth has become his own being, which only ads further questions to how in the hell any of this operates.

He simultaneously does and does not represent: The seven deadly sins, apathy, social control, and justice. Stopping him is the equivalent of throwing 99% of society into prison for sins they both do and do not allow to profligate. Is a percentage of him made up of the protagonists? Do antagonists have any stake in his weapons or behaviors? He either represents the populaces desires or he doesn't, and it seems to waffle to whatever solution is more convenient for the climax. The phantom thieves aren't banding against the penultimate symbol of nonpunishable authority, they're banding up to beat up rouge runaway desires that have been given form. This isn't a heist, they aren't here to steal the treasure of Mementos (Yaldabaoth) away to create a massive scale change of heart. They arrived to kill a false deity that they don't like - and while I too dislike Yaldabaoth the confrontation against him goes against everything the game was saying up until him.

Imagine if every time you killed an arm in that fight, a party member would rip it off and run away with it in an attempt to steal it out of his range of influence. Eventually it would just be you and the main body and then you go into a menu option to terminate mementos by removing the body. I'm not saying that could have been pulled off or even be satisfying to the player, but it would at least be in theme with the rest of the narrative. Yaldabaoth is simultaneously a treasure, a palace, the public and someone who needs their heart stolen. I cant see him as just "the embodiment of the aspect of society that let" the antagonists get away with abusing others through society, because Yaldabaoth is by his very nature so much more than that. If that's all he was, he wouldn't put up a fight at all and would tolerate you doing horrible and 'illegal' things to him. His machinations and actions don't seem to be in service of anything outside of justifying a bombastic boss fight.

I don't want to dominate the forums with something that is clearly my problem. I think about things too much, and in every other aspect the game holds up to that sort of analysis. The more I think about Yaldabaoth the less sense he makes, and I should begin trying to forget about him. Maybe he'll make more sense in NG+.

multijoe posted:

Which they did as outlaws. It's a major thing in the game that nearly every single individual and institution involved with the protagonists' struggles was complicit up to their eyeballs and if they'd tried to stop any of it via legal, socially accepted means they'd have got absolutely nowhere.

Endorph posted:

Fool: The dog is biting at him instead of being a willing companion, and he's going the opposite direction of how the fool is usually depicted.

Magician: Instead of being a wise holyman who provides the fool with advice, here he's a crass looking criminal sort looking over a bloody table of tools.

Priestess: she's looking at porno

Empress: Instead of dignified and with mental strength, here she's in a skimpy outfit and got her legs spread and a sword and shield, implying physical strength.

Emperor: Instead of sitting dignified and stern he's smoking a bowl and leaning against his throne.

Hierophant: Instead of smiling softly and raising his hand invitingly, he's giving a shiteating grin and a thumbsdown.

Lovers: Instead of an obvious adam and eve thing, this one seems to be depicting a love triangle

Chariot: The man riding the chariot isn't strong and confident, he's got a broken arm and a beaten down, pathetic expression.

Justice: He has empty scales in the proper tarot, but here he has a scale where a money bag is outweighing a heart, IE: money is more important than justice.

Hermit: Instead of a quiet, railthin wiseman type, he looks kinda fat and is also sticking his tongue out. His lamp's also off.

Wheel of Fortune: Instead of the sphinx on type being a neutral figure, he's sneering down, and instead of the figures in the wheel being fine where they are they seem desperate to get off mr. bones' wild ride.

Strength: Someone already covered this - instead of mental strength, she's just wrestling a lion.

Hanged Man: you get this one, but it's worth nothing that the symbolism of the hanged man is that by being disconnected from other people, he's found enlightenment. Naturally the cellphone goes against that.

Death: The point of Death is that it isn't actually physical death, just an emotional one - the figure in black in the actual death card isnt harming anyone, he's just arrived. Here death is going to town.

Temperance: Instead of a calm transfer of water from one cup to the other, it seems all over the place. Instead of a quiet expression, the angel seems surprised and lost. The terrain behind her is barren instead of grassy wetlands.

Devil: Someone already covered this - loose binds became tight ones.

Tower: The arrows firing at the people escaping the tower mean that they're screwed even though they've escaped.

Star: Instead of pouring water into the lake, the woman is drinking greedily from it.

Moon: Instead of the dog, the fox, and the lobster all staring up wistfully and peacefully at the moon, they're all ganging up on a person.

Sun: Instead of children below the sun, there's two skeletons - the sun's burned the entire area to a crisp.

Judgement: Instead of a young family celebrating below the angel, it seems to be a skeleton and two people praying for mercy.

Clarste posted:

Did you miss the part of the ending where they get Joker out of jail using legal, socially accepted means? There's also the general idea that as long as enough people care they can enact change on a grand scale. Even Shido's cronies were terrified of public opinion turning against them. In the end, the moral of a story is just your basic "write your representative to have your voice heard!" The structures of society aren't fundamentally unjust, they only become unjust once people stop holding them accountable.

NowonSA posted:

I didn't pick up any treasure demons after palace 7 (though I did get 7's), so I think I'm missing two of 'em. Do they show up somewhere in mementos?

multijoe posted:

Immediately after that Sae leaves the service forever because she's disgusted by the corruption and naked self-interest of the legal system. The Phantom Thieves inspired ordinary people to do the right thing, such as the woman Shido assaulted coming forth to recant her testimony but absolutely nothing suggests the legal system itself has turned a corner, which is why Sae leaves and the game ends with the police still trying to bust the Phantom Thieves out of spite. As Uberjew said, it would be insincere if the game portrayed such large and intractable real world problems being resolved so easily in any case, the best the Phantom Thieves can do is inspire people to keep pushing forward against a continually unjust society.

Relin posted:

Yeah, there's a few floors they reliably show up on, with some unfortunate overlap. You can use a treasure trap from crafting and certain weather conditions to up their spawning frequency.

I got the hope diamond after about an hour, though I should really be saving my tedium complaining for the Passionate Listener cheevo. That's going to be the real slog, creating situations where she says things over and over again ahhhhhhh

Clarste posted:

He never stops being something people desire, he's just also something people don't want. He's the Monkey's Paw, granting a real wish in exactly the worst way. That doesn't mean the wish was a lie, or even that the wish changes once they see its consequences. People are complicated, they can wish for two opposing things at the same time. That honestly seems to be your biggest confusion here: you seem to assume that people's desires will flip like a lightswitch and turn him off immediately. That's not how things work. It's a conflict within a single being (society).

The Gorp posted:

The general portrayed idiocy of the public and disagree with you. Its heavily implied through pretty much any instance the party looks at the online poll that people are total morons, which also would further the significance of Yaldabaoth being that publics self-destructive and slothful side made manifest.

The phantom thieves gain 100% support and his response is "I actually don't care about the public", when up until this point he always argued that this was all for the masses. I understand that him being a slimy guy who doesn't take accountability for his actions is a reason to dislike the antagonist, but it just makes him even less understandable in this case. If this still sounds wrong than you've indeed pinned down one of my biggest confusions, but it's what the game seems to be implying.

Clarste posted:

Yes, change won't happen that easily, but you also just killed a giant god that was specifically standing in the way of that change, so it should happen more easily at least. Also, Sae doesn't leave because she's disgusted by corruption. Or at least I certainly don't recall her saying anything like that. She just decided that she could do more good on the other side of the court. Note that this is immediately after she successfully charges Shido for his crimes, indicating that the prosecution is still a necessary force for good. Like, literally your entire plan as the Phantom Thieves was to get the villains arrested and tried in court with a confession, so it's not like you don't trust the system at all.

The Gorp posted:

Should I do something about it for the sake of etiquette?
If a video is in a spoiler bar, is it not still considered a spoiler?