|
Fojar38 posted:Not really considering her upbringing, her family, how she defines justice, and all the problems in the system she becomes aware of over the course of being a Phantom Thief? I don’t know why this is such a point of contention with this thread. The cops are horrendously flawed and deeply corrupt, but just saying that you hate them and doing nothing else doesn’t really accomplish anything. Especially when predators like Kaneshiro and the like exist. Makoto idolized her father who, by all accounts, was about as ideal as cop could be. She wants to rise in power enough to try to make the cops at least try to live up to the idea that her father represented. It’s highly naive, but it does show that she’s thinking in long term and does want to make larger scale reforms in society outside of her work with the PTs. She’s not excusing anything that they do. Hell, she’s the one member of the Thieves that gets angriest when she hears of how many cops are Shido’s willing enforcers. She just wants to root out the corruption and rebuild the force into something actually worthwhile.
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2019 20:20
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 19, 2024 09:31 |
|
|
ImpAtom posted:I feel like you want the end goal of the game to be "The Phantom Thieves somehow completely change society instantly" which is a bit much to ask from any video game. Even video games about drastic social upheavel trend towards status quos for obvious reasons. Even in fantasy or sci-fi settings you get movement towards a comfortable safe status quo because it's frigging hard to envision a society that isn't that in a way that it's horrifyingly offensively simplified or completely implausible. Yeah I didnt want them to solve everything forever, but I think I was let down by how the game through marketing and preview material felt like it was going to go farther in on the outcasts shunned unfairly by society angle. So thats sort of colored my reading of the game overall.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2019 20:27
|
|
|
the phantom thieves eliminate anyone with corrupt power, which is good. But those people aren't abusing the system, it's the system that enables them to become powerful. The closest the game comes to making any sort of statement in that regard is with the final dungeon where the masses are said to sit content with whatever happens. But that whole bit is all just sort of muddled and not strongly alluded towards, and then the masses lose all memory of everything when it's all said and done anyway. Cool setpiece on the tower though.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2019 20:41
|
|
|
Ibram Gaunt posted:Yeah I didnt want them to solve everything forever, but I think I was let down by how the game through marketing and preview material felt like it was going to go farther in on the outcasts shunned unfairly by society angle. So thats sort of colored my reading of the game overall. Yeah, I can't disagree with that. I think they had some strong ideas but were too conservative in actually executing them. There's some really strong concepts there but it really involves being willing to be more critical than you're likely to get out of something like that. It's a poor combination of both developers being hesitant/conservative/both and thinking (or maybe knowing) their audience is entirely possibly more conservative in some ways, especially when dealing with both local and overseas. There was an article recently about FFXIV (which is *largely* with some flaws a fairly open/welcoming game) where they mentioned they got a huge backlash in Korea for supporting a Australian Pride Parade, and at the same time it's also suffering a large backlash because one of the recent outfits they added is "Early 1900s style" to Japanese players and "the iconography of horrifying oppression and abuse" to Korean players. It feels like a lot of developers have more ambitious ideas and then either get scared or get straight-up told they're too far and so we so often end up with half-baked stuff. I think the best you can look towards in indie titles which have a lot less riding on having huge success, but of course also have significantly smaller budgets and a whole lot more competition so even a well-made game runs the risk of just getting completely lost in the shuffle. I have a hard time thinking of any serious big budget games that have done anything more controversial than "have a woman in it" or "maybe a person isn't straight" or the lightest dusting of "maybe (home country) has a FLAW OR TWO?" Add into that the actual complexity of trying to argue for any serious social change within the confines of fiction is ripe for saying something awful without even intended it. If you have Batman save the day you're arguing in favor of billionaires without oversight brutalizing the poor. If you say "Avalanche had the right idea from the start" in FFVII then you're cheering on an eco-terrorist group who killed innocent people in a bombing. If you say that people should act outside the law because the police are inept/untrustworthy/corrupt then at best you're arguing for vigilantism (which is often extremely wrong) and at worst you end up with "We need PMCs because they can do what the military/police CAN'T" and god knows heroic PMCs are a loving lovely thing to encourage. (Add into that cultural differences where the same message can mean VERY different things.) And that's even ignoring the fact that the vast majority of people have biases and offensive ideas without even realizing it. Even good/talented creators can suddenly Milkshake Duck themselves without realizing it and a lot of game developers in particular are prone to be in the groups that hold some reaaaaaal specific opinions about things. A lot of developers are aware of this and try to avoid saying anything too controversial even if they personally believe it for fear of saying the wrong thing and causing a big issue that loses them their job. This isn't to say this is a *good* thing, it's just how people think and especially when other people's jobs are also on the line. The end result is that you end up with a lot of games focusing on one or two big messages and otherwise playing it safe, and sometimes even those messages are playing it safe. I'm not really sure how you can fix it because you need some strong combination of intelligent, progressive, confident and capable which is pretty freaking hard to find in game developers. (Or really most places.) (this doesn't excuse anything or isn't me trying to defend poo poo like the awful awful gay panic poo poo. Just kind of saying that it's a bit hard to get expectations high for most video games to do more than have a few strong themes and a push towards one or two specific areas of improvement.)
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2019 20:57
|
|
|
I've always viewed the politics of P5 as secondary to the real point of the game. Every Persona game - and indeed every SMT game I've played - are far more concerned with the Human Condition than the here and now. Our present problems are ephemeral and almost meaningless when placed alongside the span of human history and the potential human future. Japanese society in the early 21st Century is not terribly significant in the grand scheme of things. What is important is not political revolution but revolution of the soul. Every Persona game gives us a handful of kids who are basically the best the human race can offer. That was pretty explicitly why Philemon chose the P2 protagonists and did his deal with Nyarly. He bet that a few select individuals could be better than the rest and, through their example, guide humanity to a better future. This has been repeated in every subsequent Persona game. Shido and his machinations are nothing compared to Yaldy who is the manifestation of a human impulse that has always existed. The Kirijo Group and Ikutsuki and Adachi are similarly insignificant as the true villains are things like man's simultaneous longing for, and fear of, death. The Persona protagonists embody the hope for human progress in a way far more substantive than political change in one country in one moment in human history.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2019 21:45
|
|
|
ImpAtom posted:It feels like a lot of developers have more ambitious ideas and then either get scared or get straight-up told they're too far and so we so often end up with half-baked stuff. I think the best you can look towards in indie titles which have a lot less riding on having huge success, but of course also have significantly smaller budgets and a whole lot more competition so even a well-made game runs the risk of just getting completely lost in the shuffle. I have a hard time thinking of any serious big budget games that have done anything more controversial than "have a woman in it" or "maybe a person isn't straight" or the lightest dusting of "maybe (home country) has a FLAW OR TWO?" The way the devs speak about games like The Division and Far Cry 5 really drive this point home. I didn't think it was possible to express that much cognitive dissonance out loud without your head exploding.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2019 22:31
|
|
|
Dr. Fishopolis posted:The way the devs speak about games like The Division and Far Cry 5 really drive this point home. I didn't think it was possible to express that much cognitive dissonance out loud without your head exploding. Even something like the new Wolfenstein which literally has plots about Americans capitulating to Nazis because it doesn't impact them personally and they're biased against the same people anyway, is about the most extreme you'll see and even then it's not really willing to say anything more than "Nazis and Racists are bad" which is only a controversial/political statement because 2019 loving sucks.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2019 23:48
|
|
|
Geostomp posted:I don’t know why this is such a point of contention with this thread. The cops are horrendously flawed and deeply corrupt, but just saying that you hate them and doing nothing else doesn’t really accomplish anything. There are people on this forum who earnestly believe that we'd be better off if every cop on the planet was executed, right now.  ImpAtom posted:Even something like the new Wolfenstein which literally has plots about Americans capitulating to Nazis because it doesn't impact them personally and they're biased against the same people anyway, is about the most extreme you'll see and even then it's not really willing to say anything more than "Nazis and Racists are bad" which is only a controversial/political statement because 2019 loving sucks. Controversial video games are normally restricted to the moral panic kind of controversy, just because of the nature of how they're made. They're still more designed by committee than even say, movies, which is why you can only really get the artsy, controversial stuff from smaller projects. I think there are some major release that would qualify, but they're mostly older. Deus Ex, for example. Cuntellectual fucked around with this message at 01:15 on Jun 2, 2019 |
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2019 01:12
|
|
|
Ibram Gaunt posted:Yeah I didnt want them to solve everything forever, but I think I was let down by how the game through marketing and preview material felt like it was going to go farther in on the outcasts shunned unfairly by society angle. So thats sort of colored my reading of the game overall. Did the marketing and previews focus on that more? I've always been really confused on why people said the game did a bad job of portraying the "real" social outcasts when the game isn't about social outcasts at all, it's about the victims of those who abuse power, but that would make more sense.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2019 02:35
|
|
|
RazzleDazzleHour posted:Did the marketing and previews focus on that more? I've always been really confused on why people said the game did a bad job of portraying the "real" social outcasts when the game isn't about social outcasts at all, it's about the victims of those who abuse power, but that would make more sense. It focused on chairs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKfaPgl8N8E CJ fucked around with this message at 03:02 on Jun 2, 2019 |
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2019 02:59
|
|
|
Interviews, press releases, just about everything went on about how the characters were tied down by society and had to break those chains. That is very much the topic the game approaches, along with interpersonal stuff, because politics or society or death or what have you and one's own personal monsters aren't mutually exclusive. Why a lot of people relate with persona is because it brings up a lot of real world issues and how individual characters cope with those issues. It's both societal and interpersonal. It's just, a lot of people have been moving away from these titles because they approach these topics pretty clumsily, whether they drop ideas that have been brought up or they completely backpedal on them. ----------- Edit: Persona 5 was my game of the year 2017 btw. I haven't been poo poo talking this game because I'm trying to take something away from everyone in this thread. The series is special to me, so I don't want to see it stumble, but it's got some real serious issues that still keep coming up with each mainline title that still haven't been addressed. I don't think bending over backwards to try and justify those issues is the right way to approach this at all. Butt Ghost fucked around with this message at 03:28 on Jun 2, 2019 |
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2019 03:03
|
|
|
Butt Ghost posted:It's just, a lot of people have been moving away from these titles because they approach these topics pretty clumsily, whether they drop ideas that have been brought up or they completely backpedal on them. A lot of people here, maybe. For all the discussion about "huge backlash" against P5, they seem to be doing alright with all the dancing games and spinoffs and expansions and anime and merchandise and concerts. I really don't think the idea that P5 should have been more of a socially-conscious political drama is really a widely-held opinion
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2019 03:19
|
|
|
Yeah, poo poo like this goes way above the head of the Average Gamer. But I don't really care because I think a lot of the gripes you see here are totally justified.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2019 03:27
|
|
|
Personally as an American I kinda let slide a lot of the things you could take issue with thematically cause I assumed it was at least in part due to being written for a context of contemporary Japan which I don't really know anything about, aside from like the gay dudes chasing Ryuji which should not fly anywhere.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2019 03:32
|
|
|
Butt Ghost posted:Yeah, poo poo like this goes way above the head of the Average Gamer. But I don't really care because I think a lot of the gripes you see here are totally justified. My biggest issue with a lot of the complaints I see is that people want the game something that it's not, or something it wasn't trying to be. That's why I think the "societal outcast" complaint is weird, because that's something I don't think anyone who played the game would say the game was about. So, yeah, of course it did a bad job portraying that angle, because it didn't try. KICK BAMA KICK posted:Personally as an American I kinda let slide a lot of the things you could take issue with thematically cause I assumed it was at least in part due to being written for a context of contemporary Japan which I don't really know anything about, aside from like the gay dudes chasing Ryuji which should not fly anywhere. See now I was actually impressed by how a game that started production in Japan in 2009 had so closely touched on the themes that would be important to people in America in 2017. Persona 5 was never going to have a perfect depiction of a group of young people successfully overthrowing the entire world's status quo and completely restructuring society. But, if you look at the game for what it actually was, the themes the game does engage with were surprisingly on-the-ball considering the game's development. RazzleDazzleHour fucked around with this message at 03:40 on Jun 2, 2019 |
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2019 03:35
|
|
|
Yep. It seems like some people wanted the Phantom Thieves to go Full Communism Now when it was clear they were just sort of liberal or even conservative. I think there's a lot to criticize in P5 but this was not even in my mind as a flaw when I played it. I don't think it occurred to most gamers as a flaw, either. And as bad as gamers are, I don't think this is a sign of that. I think they just recognized tjat a JRPG in 2 017 isn't going to endorse radical politics. I and many others already predict FFVIIR won't have AVALANCHE portrayed as terrorists like they were in the original. It will be toned down at the very least.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2019 04:11
|
|
|
KICK BAMA KICK posted:I assumed it was at least in part due to being written for a context of contemporary Japan which I don't really know anything about, aside from like the gay dudes chasing Ryuji which should not fly anywhere. I want to talk about this point in specific. I think this scene in particular, along with a lot of the homophobia scenes in P4, are a direct result of P4/5s transition into comedy games. The hosed up thing about this scene is that it does fly in Japan. Japanese humor totally normalizes these kinds of jokes. I've heard people say that "oh even these jokes are outdated by Japan's standards," but I really disagree with that. Jokes about crossdressers and "traps" are standard even in the most popular anime, and they also inevitably come with the related gay panic scenes that you see a lot of in P4 regarding Kanji. Downtown Gaki no Tsukai is a really popular Japanese variety show where these kinds of gags have been standard for a LONG time, to this day. The latest Batsu Games episode's biggest gag was an overweight guy dressed as a schoolgirl, and that was on May 19th of THIS YEAR. "Batsu Games" means "Punishment Games," and they're usually "no-laugh challenges," meaning if a contestant laughs they get punished, usually they get bent over and hit on the rear end really hard. Someone here talked about the scene in P5 where Ryuji gets beat up and it's supposed to be funny. That's another staple of Japanese humor. Again, look at anime, where punching someone as a joke is used ALL the time. So, in a challenge not to laugh, the show producers obviously want the comedians to laugh, because them getting hit is funny. You know they think it's funny because they superimpose the hosts (or contestants) faces over the screen during the show and they always laugh when someone gets hit. Unerringly, every episode has a crossdresser. Sometimes it's a really ugly or overweight woman, but whichever one they choose they usually make them kiss someone, sometimes a contestant. These jokes are absolutely commonplace and normalized in Japanese humor. That's the reason why I get so mad at people who try to write off these issues as being the result of Katsura Hashino. It's a WAY bigger issue than just him, but people try to pin the blame on him because it makes them feel better about liking a series that so readily includes these sorts of jokes. You're essentially making a scapegoat for yourself, where you get to say "oh this series wouldn't be so bad if not just for this one guy, I don't have to worry about the much larger systematic issue that is the normalization of using homosexuals and transgender people as a punchline" and that's hosed up because it is a much larger systematic issue that people seem weirdly excited about sweeping under the rug.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2019 04:11
|
|
|
RazzleDazzleHour posted:See now I was actually impressed by how a game that started production in Japan in 2009 had so closely touched on the themes that would be important to people in America in 2017.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2019 04:12
|
|
|
Also, the protagonists are still societal outcasts anyway. They’re just not literally removed from everyone else. They’re mistreated and disrespected and kept at arms length by everyone who isn’t themselves somehow outcast from society. Like, look at the confidants. You have a disgraced medical doctor, a teacher working herself to death for past failures, a disgraced politician, an ex-Yakuza, a journalist who is being beaten down by the system, a clairvoyant who is being made to sucker her clients, the list goes on and on. Arguing that these people aren’t somehow outcast enough is ridiculous in my mind. Heck we just discussed Mishima, who is almost literally everyone’s punching bag and victim. To the point where Futaba mistreats him too. Joker almost literally has no friends because everyone treats him like a violent criminal. Lord_Magmar fucked around with this message at 04:18 on Jun 2, 2019 |
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2019 04:15
|
|
|
Lord_Magmar posted:Heck we just discussed Mishima, who is almost literally everyone’s punching bag and victim. To the point where Futaba mistreats him too. Futaba specifically calls him "an NPC." Like, drat, how much more predictive could the game have been?
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2019 04:20
|
|
|
The way the game just endlessly shits on Mishima sucks IMO.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2019 04:20
|
|
|
Ibram Gaunt posted:Mishima sucks IMO.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2019 04:21
|
|
|
For real though, the treatment of Mishima leads to some good jokes, I'm not too broken up about it
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2019 04:22
|
|
|
Exaggerated physical violence for the purpose of comedy is called slapstick and I cannot bring myself to be angry about it
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2019 04:28
|
|
|
Which is the other thing, comedy is subjective and where some might find Mishima’s treatment hilarious, and in several ways it is. Others might find it deeply upsetting in the same way people find Ryuji getting dumped on constantly obnoxious. Or Yusuke’s starving artist schtick.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2019 04:32
|
|
|
Lord_Magmar posted:Which is the other thing, comedy is subjective and where some might find Mishima’s treatment hilarious, and in several ways it is. Others might find it deeply upsetting in the same way people find Ryuji getting dumped on constantly obnoxious. At least Yusuke’s joke is shown to be his own fault thanks to his inability to stop spending all his money on whatever happens to inspire him at the moment.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2019 05:01
|
|
|
RazzleDazzleHour posted:Downtown Gaki no Tsukai Gaki No Tsukai's funniest skits have always been 'Absolutely Delicious' because there's this delightful contrast between the people making an earnest attempt, people failing as a gag, and people going for truly grandiose failure that requires help from the production team because their idea is not only illegal under the challenge's rules, but also still produces complete garbage. Gulping Again fucked around with this message at 20:49 on Jun 2, 2019 |
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2019 07:15
|
|
|
Ibram Gaunt posted:The way the game just endlessly shits on Ryuji sucks IMO.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2019 07:40
|
|
|
I’m pre-emptively putting the Yosuke of P6 under my protection
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2019 07:42
|
|
|
Shinjobi posted:Joker being able to romance Sae is just....it's over the top. Joker will not settle for a doctor, or a reporter, or his goddamn teacher, no--Joker is going to romance the woman hellbent on putting him behind bars. It's bonkers. But yes, I regret it not happening. The very idea makes me laugh. Yes, but this is also why dating Akechi would be even more delicious. Well, at least if you've already played the game through once, but that describes a lot of people who are going to play it. And remember the irony of Joker and friends knowing about him earlier than the game tells the player. Even the complications are funny.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2019 07:50
|
|
|
I'm all aboard for all of this. As for social commentary talk, I will say I was also let down by what we got. I wasn't expecting full communism now or whatever the hell, but when your promotional material keeps highlighting prisoners, balls and chains, and its revealed your team is the Lupin III crew, the resolution of "well NOW you should let the system that hosed you so bad in the first place handle it from here" to be so lackluster. Maybe if we had seen more evidence that there was a legit shock sent through the system by our actions? The way it went I felt like we missed a few more scenes.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2019 08:26
|
|
|
Shinjobi posted:I'm all aboard for all of this. It was more like them learning that changing society as a whole isn’t remotely as simple as making about one target a month confess. Instead, they should try some more mundane methods and hope that the people they trust can handle things now that the most supernaturally dangerous elements are gone. It was kind of weak, but killing Yaldabaoth instantly making everything better would be insulting. Onomarchus posted:Yes, but this is also why dating Akechi would be even more delicious. Well, at least if you've already played the game through once, but that describes a lot of people who are going to play it. And remember the irony of Joker and friends knowing about him earlier than the game tells the player. Even the complications are funny. Don’t give the fanfic writers more material. We don’t need them to have more reason to ignore that their precious, precious baby is an unrepentant mass murderer.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2019 12:55
|
|
|
Some of the concept art had the protagonists being a bit more edgy.   
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2019 12:58
|
|
|
Geostomp posted:Don’t give the fanfic writers more material. We don’t need them to have more reason to ignore that their precious, precious baby is an unrepentant mass murderer. lol if you think  THE FANFIC WRITERS aren't into that
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2019 13:44
|
|
|
Lord_Magmar posted:Which is the other thing, comedy is subjective and where some might find Mishima’s treatment hilarious, and in several ways it is. Others might find it deeply upsetting in the same way people find Ryuji getting dumped on constantly obnoxious. I'd be fine with the game constantly dunking on Ryuji if it was because of his inability to keep his mouth shut about being the Phantom Thieves. Ryuji's an okay character but a terrible Phantom Thief. But it does get tiring when the game shits on him for the umpteenth time just because he's the designated dumbass of the party. Plus it just makes Morgana look like a complete jackass. As for Yusuke, he reminds me of Yukiko. I like his arc in the S. Link, but he's just kinda there to remind you of his shtick in the main story, with maybe the occasional flash of insight.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2019 13:45
|
|
|
Goddamn that's terrifying. I'm so glad that design wasn't used.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2019 15:09
|
|
|
amigolupus posted:I'd be fine with the game constantly dunking on Ryuji if it was because of his inability to keep his mouth shut about being the Phantom Thieves. Ryuji's an okay character but a terrible Phantom Thief. But it does get tiring when the game shits on him for the umpteenth time just because he's the designated dumbass of the party. Plus it just makes Morgana look like a complete jackass. I did get tired of them pushing the whole Morgana's into Ann thing. I can only imagine it's even more frustrating if you're romancing Ann and you can't tell him to pipe down.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2019 16:45
|
|
|
Dawgstar posted:I did get tired of them pushing the whole Morgana's into Ann thing. I can only imagine it's even more frustrating if you're romancing Ann and you can't tell him to pipe down. On the other hand it's because of this that we got the "tender touch of a soft butt" line
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2019 18:37
|
|
|
Dawgstar posted:I did get tired of them pushing the whole Morgana's into Ann thing. I can only imagine it's even more frustrating if you're romancing Ann and you can't tell him to pipe down. The thing that gets me is that it's not even like...something they ever bother to openly discuss ever. Joker never talks to Morgana about it, Ann never acknowledges it, it's basically just like constantly hearing Morgana's internal horny thoughts. It could have been interesting if the game did literally anything with it, but they don't. Is the whole thing just supposed to be a goof about how Ann is dressed like a cat and Morgana is a cat? It seems so bizarre for one of Morgana's defining character traits to never be acknowledged by another character
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2019 18:51
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 19, 2024 09:31 |
|
|
CJ posted:Some of the concept art had the protagonists being a bit more edgy. Can I get these as alternate costumes tho
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2019 18:54
|
|
