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tbh rpgs nowadays are shorter than rpgs were back in the day, generally speaking. like tales of arise is way shorter than tales of symphonia. its just persona games are insanely long, specifically
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Dec 26, 2022 00:06
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It's mostly an artifact of the life simulator piece since you're only allowed to do like two things a day max so they have to pack in a LOT of days for you to hit all the events/confidants/etc. But yeah Okumura's place drags like crazy even in Royal where it was significantly shortened from Vanilla.
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Dec 26, 2022 01:26
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Alder posted:After 5 years I forgot the horribly timed puzzles in the factory palace and now I'm forced to clear them again. Also, I see that the airlock puzzle remains there too. The factory puzzles are extremely easy (to the point where I don't even know if it makes sense to call them "puzzles" - you just turn on the timer and run across the nearby bridge it creates), but I still don't understand the last airlock puzzle and just beat it by trial and error.
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Dec 26, 2022 01:56
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Endorph posted:tbh rpgs nowadays are shorter than rpgs were back in the day, generally speaking. Ah yeah that's fair, I haven't finished arise yet and the only other rpg I've played lately is Y7 (which was pretty dang long with side content iirc), P4G and FF7R which is reasonably paced Super glad to hear shorter RPGs are still around!
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Dec 26, 2022 02:57
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First playthrough, just finished the casino palace and I'm sitting at 95 hours. Gotta say, I hated that the big twist was FFXIV's 'several cutscenes will play in sequence' notice but instead you get a series of deus ex machina retroactively explained by way of an unreliable narrator. Yeah, you know enough about the metaverse to puzzle out what was actually going on the moment the phone shows up, but "actually we were a step ahead of Akechi the whole time and there was never any danger" sucks. Everyone really loves third semester so eventually I'll push through to that. How badly will it hurt my enjoyment of Strikers if I switch over to playing that? Do I need the full story context or is the fact that I've met the major characters enough to let Strikers shine? I'm not keen on spoiling the remainder of P5R for myself but am feeling a little burnt out on it.
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Dec 26, 2022 18:14
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Strikers i think was developed overlapping P5R so none of the new characters or anything that happens in the P5R extra chapters are in it
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Dec 26, 2022 18:15
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Strikers is a fun enough story
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Dec 26, 2022 18:17
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Waste of Breath posted:First playthrough, just finished the casino palace and I'm sitting at 95 hours. Haven't finished 5R or played strikers mind you, but iirc there's absolutely zero, or close to, royal content in strikers unfortunately.
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Dec 26, 2022 18:17
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Waste of Breath posted:First playthrough, just finished the casino palace and I'm sitting at 95 hours. Go play Strikers right now, you don’t really need much context beyond what you’ve already had, Haru joining is the last real important beat to not missing anything
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Dec 26, 2022 18:18
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Waste of Breath posted:First playthrough, just finished the casino palace and I'm sitting at 95 hours. There was still plenty of danger as the entire crux of it involved a drugged up and severally beaten up Joker managing to convince someone who was growing more corrupt and desperate by the day that she should believe him and play along with the plan.
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Dec 26, 2022 18:19
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Strikers is 100% a sequel to vanilla, not Royal. None of the added Royal content or characters is addressed at all in Strikers. There will be no third semester spoilers because in Strikers' timeline the third semester never happened.
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Dec 26, 2022 18:29
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Strikers will technically spoil a few remaining details of the vanilla P5 storyline, but if you have an inkling of who the seventh target might be, I don't think there are any you'd care about. I'll second that you're fine any time after joining up with Haru.
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Dec 26, 2022 19:10
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Royal's new content is written in such a way that there are plenty of outs for why none of it comes up in Strikers.
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Dec 26, 2022 19:40
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Zulily Zoetrope posted:if you have an inkling of who the seventh target might be I think it's pretty obvious that it's Davis Aurini, so I'm not too worried about having that confirmed--they've only been teasing it since basically the start of the game. Thanks everyone, I'll probably recharge playing some Strikers then before I finish out Royal. And then SMT3 and Soul Hackers 2 are both on sale so I should probably buy those. Between Yakuza and Megaten, Japanese devs are making it hard to find time for other games! 
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Dec 26, 2022 20:21
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Strikers is one of those rare games where I've done a NG+ run and still look forward to doing a new playthrough down the line. Not really any lulls in the story, great emotional beats, killer soundtrack and I found every character enjoyable.
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Dec 26, 2022 20:23
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Waste of Breath posted:Thanks everyone, I'll probably recharge playing some Strikers then before I finish out Royal. And then SMT3 and Soul Hackers 2 are both on sale so I should probably buy those. Between Yakuza and Megaten, Japanese devs are making it hard to find time for other games! Soul Hackers 2 is not reviewing well, so you might want to pump the brakes there. Not sure you'll like it given the frustrations you have with Royal. FireWorksWell posted:Strikers is one of those rare games where I've done a NG+ run and still look forward to doing a new playthrough down the line. Not really any lulls in the story, great emotional beats, killer soundtrack and I found every character enjoyable. Strikers’ new party members were handled much better than Kasumi was. I actually disliked her until Third Semester because of how Mary Sue she came across as during the vanilla storyline. She does get much better as a character later on, but Wolf and Sophie were great from the get-go. anakha fucked around with this message at 23:55 on Dec 26, 2022 |
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Dec 26, 2022 23:49
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Anyone here can absolutely wait on Soul Hackers 2. Even as a huge fan of the franchise and it's predecessor specifically it's a very C Tier game. $25-30 is the price I would say it becomes a should buy for fans of Megaten.
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Dec 27, 2022 01:29
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Gaius Marius posted:Anyone here can absolutely wait on Soul Hackers 2. Even as a huge fan of the franchise and it's predecessor specifically it's a very C Tier game. $25-30 is the price I would say it becomes a should buy for fans of Megaten.
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Dec 27, 2022 01:47
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Just finished my Steam playthrough of Royal in under 72 hours. Played it through on PS4 and it was my personal GOTY in 2021, but the Steam sale price was worth it just to have the mods to tweak the PT outfits (PT masks + Shadow Ops uniforms = awesomesauce) and also allow me to have Akechi be the navigator for Sae's palace and all of 3rd Sem. Soul Hackers 2 is currently 45% off on Steam, but that still feels too expensive. Gonna wait for a lower sale price on that one. Probably gonna try out Triangle Strategy for now while waiting on P3P in January.
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Dec 27, 2022 08:21
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I'm sure this has been discussed to death in the years since the game's release, but I just got to the part where the "true culprit" is revealed I'm no writer, but I think maybe there's a more elegant way to do a twist than to have a fake-out happen, give a partial explanation to the audience, immediately followed up by a complete explanation of the same thing. What is the point of giving me a "flash" of mona talking about pancakes, or asking futaba to check something out, when the immediate next story step is to do an exhaustive play-by-play of those same scenes but with more detail? I don't even know what to say about the scene with Akechi and Shido standing in his office literally just talking to themselves about all of the crimes they did and why, for the sake of the invisible audience.
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Dec 27, 2022 20:22
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Scoss posted:
It's because modern games tend not to respect the player's intelligence on any level. And, uh, given the state of humanity... I get it.
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Dec 27, 2022 20:26
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Scoss posted:I'm sure this has been discussed to death in the years since the game's release, but I just got to the part where the "true culprit" is revealed There's a few points where during the story he gets a weird headache that I think should have instead been like bad edits. It would have been a good way to inform the player that there is an important clue here while meeting the greater narrative of a story within a story. Like Akechi walks off after talking about pancakes, and the then Maybe a slight static sound effect and you cut from the three of them talking to exiting, the player left wondering what happened in the frames between where Ann and Ryuji are suddenly off screen.
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Dec 27, 2022 20:30
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I thought they would do more than the bare minimum for P3P, that's really disappointing - I've been putting off replaying through 3 (I played P3P back when it came out but never tried the sequels) and then playing through 4-5 until the remake, expecting they will make a definitive version. I guess I'll start playing P3FES with the various mods instead. Also as a C++ programmer I'm pretty sure it's not the code which would have been difficult to do, it's the models, animations, cutscenes and maps for FeMC content. Direct control in particular has been in P3FES from the beginning and is just disabled and can be re-enabled very easily with a small patch. They even used the crappy PSP models; which, again, I can kindof understand in that they would have to make higher-poly models for the new P3P content so that it matches, but it really seems like all they did is a quick port from the PSP with only the minimum amount of work to get it running at all. Private Speech fucked around with this message at 02:28 on Dec 29, 2022 |
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Dec 27, 2022 23:33
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Scoss posted:I'm no writer, but I think maybe there's a more elegant way to do a twist than to have a fake-out happen, give a partial explanation to the audience, immediately followed up by a complete explanation of the same thing. What is the point of giving me a "flash" of mona talking about pancakes, or asking futaba to check something out, when the immediate next story step is to do an exhaustive play-by-play of those same scenes but with more detail? It's to give players one last chance to go "A-HA!" and let them piece everything together by themselves before giving out the solution, since solving a mystery yourself even if it's at the last moment and having the story confirm your suspicions is always more satisfying than having everything explained when you have no clue. You can probably recall other stories that do something similar, like a detective having flashes of the key pieces to solve the mystery before going eureka and gathering everyone in the living room to explain what happened. Scoss posted:I don't even know what to say about the scene with Akechi and Shido standing in his office literally just talking to themselves about all of the crimes they did and why, for the sake of the invisible audience. This one is way harder to defend, but I kinda agree with PT6A's sentiment.
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Dec 28, 2022 09:15
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I think I get what the intent was, but the impression it left on me was that it just felt repetitive and a bit clunky. Personally, I became certain Akechi was bad when he *pulled a loving gun on me* and told me that he *hated* me all along Also, maybe I am the idiot that really does need a twist explained to me in exhaustive detail, but even with all of the setup and the framing device, it still ended up feeling like they were just kind of inventing rules for the metaverse on the fly in service of the twist. Like, "oh, okay, whatever you say, game". "They" transported a literal army of real agents and police officers into a metaverse casino that doesn't exist, where the courthouse is supposed to be, and none of them noticed? I know the game clearly established that "metaverse clones" of people who are killed don't affect the real person(unless within their own palace), but how could they have known a metaverse Joker would be sitting in the same interrogation room waiting to die? Where did they even send Akechi when exposing him to the phone-- the game previously only allows metaverse travel when you stipulate a palace destination, or mementos which seems to be located entirely within the Tokyo subway system and also is a chaotic maze. I know this is all a bit nitpicky but the game clearly views this as a classic heist movie moment where the masterstroke is revealed and many pieces fall into place, and it did not quite stick the landing for me. Scoss fucked around with this message at 18:59 on Dec 28, 2022 |
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Dec 28, 2022 18:52
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The real answer to the bringing police officers into the Metaverse part of your criticism is that they had animated the intro movies long, long before the game's script was finalized. As for this bit: Scoss posted:but how could they have known a metaverse Joker would be sitting in the same interrogation room waiting to die? Where did they even send Akechi when exposing him to the phone-- the game previously only allows metaverse travel when you stipulate a palace destination, or mementos which seems to be located entirely within the Tokyo subway system and also is a chaotic maze. It's answered pretty definitively by the game itself. They're sending Akechi to Sae's Palace, which they intentionally never collapsed. Futaba didn't have to stipulate a destination because hacking plus Meta-Nav. Also, they know there's a Metaverse Joker in the interrogation room because they know Sae just saw the real Joker there, which created him.
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Dec 28, 2022 19:02
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Scoss posted:Personally, I became certain Akechi was bad when he *pulled a loving gun on me* and told me that he *hated* me all along This part isn't even much of a surprise for anyone paying a modicum of attention because the dialogue at around Justice rank 4 onwards already hints that each one knows the other is hiding something; Akechi's downfall was caused by him not knowing Joker was already aware he was up to no good.
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Dec 28, 2022 19:23
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anakha posted:This part isn't even much of a surprise for anyone paying a modicum of attention because the dialogue at around Justice rank 4 onwards already hints that each one knows the other is hiding something; Akechi's downfall was caused by him not knowing Joker was already aware he was up to no good. Yeah the best part of Akechi's S.Link in retrospect is that from the beginning Joker at least knows that Akechi can enter the metaverse and has been close enough to him to hear Morgana talk (which is why Morgana always makes a point of going "oh you're going to hang out with Akechi? I'll find something else to do then."), and Akechi knows Joker is a phantom thief. With that knowledge the whole thing becomes re-contextualized as each trying to probe the other for what their deal is, and that even before the duel you can see hints that Akechi is getting increasingly confused and pissed that Joker is genuinely using his powers for good with no ulterior motive and living his best life surrounded by true friends despite his circumstances. I'll say again that I went into Royal expecting it to absolutely ruin Akechi's character with some bullshit redemption story and instead it elevated him into one of the best characters in the entire narrative.
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Dec 28, 2022 19:53
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Sydin posted:Yeah the best part of Akechi's S.Link in retrospect is that from the beginning Joker at least knows that Akechi can enter the metaverse and has been close enough to him to hear Morgana talk (which is why Morgana always makes a point of going "oh you're going to hang out with Akechi? I'll find something else to do then."), and Akechi knows Joker is a phantom thief. With that knowledge the whole thing becomes re-contextualized as each trying to probe the other for what their deal is, and that even before the duel you can see hints that Akechi is getting increasingly confused and pissed that Joker is genuinely using his powers for good with no ulterior motive and living his best life surrounded by true friends despite his circumstances. The thing is I don't think that Akechi is a bad guy was ever intended as a twist even if quite how far he took it was. It was instead the obvious 'twist' that you were meant to spot and pat yourself on the back while never noticing 'Igor' is the real bad guy
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Dec 28, 2022 23:40
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Plus he's not in the original opening or cover art!
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Dec 29, 2022 00:12
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Which also doesn't make a lick of sense because why the hell is he helping you and not Akechi then. If he really wanted a fair contest against real Igor then he could have ... just let the real Igor help you and not sawed Lavenza in half. Everything after the showdown with Shido is one big nonsensical wet fart in general. The already-paid-for cutscene where Ryuji heroically sacrifices himself plays and then ... he immediately walks in from off camera in the very next scene and everybody immediately beats him up because ha ha Ryuji getting repeatedly beaten or molested is hilarious comedy. The Igor who was helping you turns out to have been helping you but evilly or something and is then immediately replaced with archive footage of real Igor. Morgana turns out to be the embodiment of human hope, although he sure as poo poo could have fooled me. Qlipoth World happens, you punch God in the dick because otherwise it's not a JRPG it's just sparkling turn-based combat, Morgana fades from existence in the already-paid-for cutscene as sad music plays and then he just walks back in three months later because literally he popped straight back into existence immediately but apparently he thought reuniting immediately after a tearful farewell would have been too awkward or something. Oh and Joker gets munched up by the corrupt system that the entire game has been making tepid liberal-brained criticisms of for the past 80 hours. Woo. Good job. Some games do everything right and still come out as bland cardboard. Others do a whole bunch of things glaringly wrong but somehow they still work. Persona 5 is an example of the latter I guess.
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Dec 29, 2022 00:21
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Sapozhnik posted:Which also doesn't make a lick of sense because why the hell is he helping you and not Akechi then. If he really wanted a fair contest against real Igor then he could have ... just let the real Igor help you and not sawed Lavenza in half. 1. He already has. Akechi had about a couple year head start on you in learning to use his powers and thus influence the playing board. 2. He is curious to see what the trickster could achieve safe in the knowledge that he had already completely rigged the game in his favor. 3. Over the year he starts to have some respect for the trickster and what they accomplished so they decide to offer him a place high up in the new system he was going to create.
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Dec 29, 2022 00:39
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Hunt11 posted:
Yeah exactly, Yaldy rigged the game so that he'd ultimately win no matter what but was genuinely amused at Igor's belief that the trickster could win, and figured he'd have a laugh watching Joker gently caress it up. But then Joker doesn't gently caress it up and forces Yaldy to play his final hand, which earns Joker some measure of respect. Also at least his English VA makes him sound somewhat genuinely shocked that the people threw the Phantom Thieves aside so easily even after they unambiguously bested Shido and made him confess. neonchameleon posted:The thing is I don't think that Akechi is a bad guy was ever intended as a twist even if quite how far he took it was. It was instead the obvious 'twist' that you were meant to spot and pat yourself on the back while never noticing 'Igor' is the real bad guy Oh yeah I mean even on a first playthrough I realized Akechi was bad news pretty quickly, I just think it's neat that on subsequent playthroughs you realize the confidant both in vanilla and Royal (albeit more so in Royal due to it being an actual S.Link) start at both Akechi and Joker knowing the other is a metaverse user but not much else, and the whole thing has been them trying to tease out what the other's game is. It's also an interesting bit of characterization for Joker that he knows Akechi is a metaverse user but doesn't tell the rest of the group for months until things come to a head with him, even after hearing from several palace rulers that there's another metaverse user besides them doing bad things.
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Dec 29, 2022 00:51
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Sapozhnik posted:] The games sense of style and core loop of constant improvement between and during dungeons papers over a lot of flaws. The menu and soundtracks alone...
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Dec 29, 2022 02:04
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HootTheOwl posted:The games sense of style and core loop of constant improvement between and during dungeons papers over a lot of flaws. The menu and soundtracks alone... I wish it won more RPG and score/soundtrack awards when it came out in 2017. I know Nier: Automata won a lot of score/soundtrack awards then but I wouldn't rank its OST over P5's.
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Dec 29, 2022 02:19
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I mean, it's not like Nier: Automata is undeserving of those awards. I personally like P5 better but that is also a sublime game. And was the big "twist" really that obvious to everyone else? I genuinely did not see it coming until his really convenient story at the start of Sae's palace and also breaking out the Hubert voice and admitting to having been a metaverse user for years in his rank 8 confidant. I really thought he was just a Pleasant Boy... Is there any hint other than pancakes and his generally shady behavior? I totally missed the former until the game spelled it out for me, and I don't think the latter ever really broke through to me until it gets really obvious by like late October. I had a whole half-baked idea that the black mask was some evil version of Joker, and the whole "rehabilitation" nonsense and Morgana's amnesia would tie into that. Which I guess technically was the plot, but I hadn't pegged Akechi as the evil Joker. I am on my first replay and I still read their confidant events as Akechi finding his equal and being genuinely curious if he's capable of friendship and what that path could have been like. Zulily Zoetrope fucked around with this message at 03:21 on Dec 29, 2022 |
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Dec 29, 2022 03:18
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The slog between palaces 4 and 5 is real. Palace 4 kicks off on 7/26 or thereabout and Palace 5 doesn't become available until 9/19, almost two whole months of lifesim and filler cutscene bullshit.They really could have spread that slack out over the rest of the game, the last time I slogged through this crap it made me drop the game for a year.
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Dec 29, 2022 03:20
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Zulily Zoetrope posted:I mean, it's not like Nier: Automata is undeserving of those awards. I personally like P5 better but that is also a sublime game. Oh, I love both games. I was focusing just on the OST comparison in my OP.
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Dec 29, 2022 03:28
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Zulily Zoetrope posted:I mean, it's not like Nier: Automata is undeserving of those awards. I personally like P5 better but that is also a sublime game. He's a cop.
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Dec 29, 2022 05:13
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neonchameleon posted:The thing is I don't think that Akechi is a bad guy was ever intended as a twist even if quite how far he took it was. It was instead the obvious 'twist' that you were meant to spot and pat yourself on the back while never noticing 'Igor' is the real bad guy Well that and Akechi being a villain is misdirection for the fact that the real twist is that everyone knows he’s the villain and is ready to clown on him.
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Dec 29, 2022 05:31
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