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Weird Pumpkin posted:I think P3 really nails its themes particularly well, and really executes it's ideas without stumbling in the home stretch, that I remember at least. It really does a spectacular job of keeping its themes in mind. I just wish it had a more gradual introduction of interesting plot than the sudden 0-100 it does in late September or so. Most of the game before that is quite slow, with the exception of full moon events, and after that it's going super hard more or less nonstop. It's a bit jarring, and the lack of motion in the first several months turned off at least one friend I tried to get to play it.
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Feb 6, 2023 16:15
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Barry Bluejeans posted:I loved the addition of Adachi's social link to Golden, if only because the ending that can be unlocked by maxing it out is one of the bleakest loving things I've ever seen (and I mean that in the best way possible). No Wave fucked around with this message at 16:24 on Feb 6, 2023 |
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Feb 6, 2023 16:21
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No Wave posted:I'm actually curious what you mean. Adachi writes to say that he can imagine maybe being sorry some day. Which is about the best you can get out of someone slobbering on himself while pushing women into television screens. They're referring to the ending exclusive to Golden that can only be gotten if you maxed out his link and decide to cover his rear end for the murders, which he justifiably makes fun of you for because you're now his accomplice. The other implication of this is that the fog is still rolling in unimpeded, so you've pretty much directly doomed the world on top of that. You also get an item as a reminder that you did that iirc, but you have to save the game after the credits. Edit: Didn't see the edit as I was typing lol
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Feb 6, 2023 16:25
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Skipping over spoiler chat, but I remember coming across gossip that Royal had a largely new writing team which is also involved with P6. Dunno how baseless it is, but I think Royal specifically was good on those fronts. Like it didn't include a new main party, but it added a bunch of interstitial events which were just nice and not horny, like Kasumi's arc, stuff like just hanging at Kichijoji with Ryuji and going to the jazz club. Plus I haven't seen the vanilla date scenes, but the Royal ones are wholesome enough*, especially the stag ones. If the series can keep that energy going forward it's gonna be aces. *grading on a curve here, Kawakami remains a romance option, but all the peers are cute
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Feb 6, 2023 16:36
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If you mean the R part specifically that's good. The R characters are the funnest characters in P5 and arent repeats of P4 arcs.
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Feb 6, 2023 16:47
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I'd be excited to see what happens with Persona 6 although I've been burned too often by hyped-up sequels to want to dive into it day one. I'll wait for the honeymoon period to wear off before getting it, unless I have nothing better to do (lol as if I ever have anything better to do). It's fun to progress through a new release with a large crowd of other people in principle, but release day/week discussion of a hotly anticipated media thing tends to look more like a hot dog eating contest than savoring a delicacy.
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Feb 6, 2023 17:47
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Zulily Zoetrope posted:Skipping over spoiler chat, but I remember coming across gossip that Royal had a largely new writing team which is also involved with P6. Dunno how baseless it is, but I think Royal specifically was good on those fronts. Like it didn't include a new main party, but it added a bunch of interstitial events which were just nice and not horny, like Kasumi's arc, stuff like just hanging at Kichijoji with Ryuji and going to the jazz club. Plus I haven't seen the vanilla date scenes, but the Royal ones are wholesome enough*, especially the stag ones. If the series can keep that energy going forward it's gonna be aces. Specifically Katsura Hashino, who was essential the principle point person behind the last three mainline games (Director, Producer, and co-writer of P3, P4, and P5) bowed out after P5 vanilla saying he was tired of the series and wanted to move on to other things. The new Royal content was principally written by Shinji Yamamoto (who was a co-writer on vanilla) and Strikers was an entirely new writing team who as far as I can tell were not involved in P5's script at all. He's never been a solo-writer for a mainline game so I doubt it's entirely him, but it's generally understood that Hashino is the driving force behind some of the shittier persistent aspects of the series, like the relationship choices being stridently no-homo or the constant borderline salacious fixation on threats of sexual violence towards women. Either way Strikers and the Royal content were both phenomenal - if not quite head and shoulders above vanillas stuff it was pretty close - so if Hashino is genuinely out of the writer's room for good and those new creative teams are taking the wheel I have very high hopes for P6.
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Feb 6, 2023 19:48
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On the topic of P4 Golden's new ending... Adachi interested me more in my second run and I think that the Accomplice ending isn't even the best ending for him. I don't believe cackling cartoon villain Adachi is any more authentic than bumbling detective Adachi. By covering his rear end, all you're doing is perpetuating the guy's misanthropy whereas, if you bring him in, he seems...if not repentant, at least humbled. Dojima still showing him some kindness or respect and him being speechless in the face of this is the most "real" we see Adachi for most of the game.
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Feb 6, 2023 20:09
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gonna try out P3 after this run of EP i'm playing. i played p2 back in the day first, then didn't touch the series until 5r. now i'm working backwards, 4 was a lot of fun, liked the story a bit better than 5.
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Feb 6, 2023 20:36
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Ah, thanks for clearing it up. Yeah, I don't mean to dog on a single writer; the broader point I was going for is that Persona 5 was released in 2016, which is a pretty long time ago. The stuff released since has been a whole lot less juvenile, outside of those two scenes in Strikers. If Persona 6 comes anywhere near being as teenage boy horny as Persona 4 or Vanilla 5, it won't be a series constant; it'll straight up be a step backwards.
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Feb 6, 2023 20:47
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Persona 6 will probably have some step-sibling romance option. I’ll still end up buying it day 1.
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Feb 6, 2023 20:55
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I am not at all comfortable with the fact that P5's initial release was 7 years ago. It felt like yesterday.
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Feb 6, 2023 20:55
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NikkolasKing posted:On the topic of P4 Golden's new ending... I do think it's interesting that long before the "incel" was really codified as a recognizable trope, P4 nails the exact same kind of person in Adachi, right down to his rant at Saki prior to pushing her into the TV basically having the same energy as "while you were partying, I studied the blade." He feels he's owed success and the love of others but not only doesn't work to obtain them, but also has a warped perception of what those things even mean. He imagines himself as the superstar ace detective women are throwing themselves at left and right, and as a result can't notice the simpler success and love he already has in essentially becoming Dojima's right hand and even kinda softly being adopted into the family.
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Feb 6, 2023 21:39
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When P6 comes out I won't buy it because I will wait for P6 the DLC full version and then another five years for it to come to the system I own instead of a PS7
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Feb 6, 2023 21:42
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HootTheOwl posted:When P6 comes out I won't buy it because I will wait for P6 the DLC full version yeah much as I want to play it on release and all, I'm absolutely going to at least be waiting for it to come out on PC
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Feb 6, 2023 21:59
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P4G's ending is good because it's basically powered by fujos. P5R could never.
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Feb 6, 2023 22:27
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Maybe I dont understand the fujo concept. But isnt Akechi's P5R obsession/rivalry with the MC super clumsy fujo bait?
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Feb 6, 2023 22:34
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It definitely got the shippers on board, but I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be an interpretation of the classic Holmes - Moriarty rivalry seen from the point of the "criminal". Though from what I understand that rivalry does itself have a lot of shipping involved as well.
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Feb 6, 2023 22:48
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Putting up giant brick walls next to every male character in the next game so there's no f*joshi bait
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Feb 6, 2023 22:50
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Prowler posted:End game Persona 4 spoilers (don't read, Zulily!): I think that it was a lot harder to guess before Golden. Original P4 didn't have the Adachi social link, and I remember being caught off guard by the reveal because Adachi is a very minor side character without that social link (and you don't really have any reason to think he's more important than any other side character). Same goes for P5, actually.
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Feb 6, 2023 22:55
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Commander Keene posted:It definitely got the shippers on board, but I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be an interpretation of the classic Holmes - Moriarty rivalry seen from the point of the "criminal". Though from what I understand that rivalry does itself have a lot of shipping involved as well. this is how I read it as well 
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Feb 6, 2023 22:56
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Your point of reference is Sherlock Holmes, mine is Danganronpa. we're just built different.
No Wave fucked around with this message at 23:04 on Feb 6, 2023 |
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Feb 6, 2023 23:01
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NikkolasKing posted:On the topic of P4 Golden's new ending... (P4G) Imo, the true ending is "I can fix him", the accomplice ending is "I can make him worse".  Regarding Adachi's authenticity: I recently played Golden after having not touched the game since vanilla P4, ages ago. I believe the writers' intentions were that any line where he uses ore as his Japanese pronoun, it's the real, genuine Adachi speaking. For example, during the social link event where the old lady introduces him and protag to her real son named Tohru. After she leaves, Adachi says, "So it didn't have to be me huh". This one stands out to me because it got a voice acted line, and his social link scenes otherwise don't really have much voice acting beyond the simple "hey", "you", etc. Before his boss fight, he tells the gang, "Oh shut up. Aren't you just pretending to be tough? Even though you can't even stand up to me without denying everything I've said? What the hell would you possibly know about me? You're some immature high school kids." These were also with ore and sound like they're about to turn into the Navy Seals bit. And when he appears alongside your other social links in the Izanami-no-Ookami fight, he tells protag, "...get up. You're different from me" again with ore. I'm sure there were more, but the significance didn't register with me until the social link voiced line. miasmacloud fucked around with this message at 00:31 on Feb 7, 2023 |
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Feb 6, 2023 23:48
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No Wave posted:Maybe I dont understand the fujo concept. But isnt Akechi's P5R obsession/rivalry with the MC super clumsy fujo bait? Considering maybe 90% of P5 fanfic/art is about that I wouldn't call it clumsy.
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Feb 6, 2023 23:57
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lunar detritus posted:Considering maybe 90% of P5 fanfic/art is about that I wouldn't call it clumsy.
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Feb 6, 2023 23:59
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Finished P4. Spoilers and unfocused rambling ahead. Man that true ending came out of nowhere. Doing the whole 'talk to everyone one last time bit' like in P5 and going to Junes thinking it'd be one last bit of reminiscing only to unlock a whole new dungeon. I wound up power-levelling Izanagi a bit just for funsies as well as getting a few last fusions done. Lucifer was kind of a disappointment and not worth the trouble. Despite playing the whole game with increased money via the custom difficulty options I ran out of money a bunch of times during big fusing sessions, I can't even imagine doing it normally. Maybe if I ever do New Game + on P5 I'll actually use the DLC personas now I have some emotional attachment to them. I never actually finished the Adachi social link because going into the TV to confront him alone after promising everyone you wouldn't felt like a bad ending flag. Oh well. Him and Temperance and Hanged Man can sit on the sidelines together, I got everyone else done at least. Wound up rushing the last couple floors of the dungeon since I already had everyone at level 90+ from money grinding. At least I was able to dress people up one last time, I was devastated doing the Hollow Forest and seeing 'all your items are gone' included the costumes. I never bothered using costumes in P5 because the Phantom Thief attire was just so cool already, but dressing up these kids out of their school uniforms was always fun. Was happily shocked by the flash forward several months later for a Summer trip back to Inaba and seeing everyone with brand new portraits. Was a little bit like Strikers in miniature with no actual plot, but it was really fun seeing everyone for that one last time after the big goodbye. Despite having a lot of that 00s meanness in places, it's a game with a lot of heart and charm too. Marie as a divine weathergirl was just the cherry on top.
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Feb 7, 2023 02:17
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Welp, I made it to November, and so far I still feel the same about most of the characters, but there's been one change: (Not related to the other P4G spoiler chat, only involves stuff 'till mid-November) The protagonist is kind of a douche. I appreciate all the dialogue options for the culture festival, but everything that's not dialogue options is "you're being forced to do this" or "grumble emoji," and he just meekly goes along with Teddie and Yosuke's plans to creep on the girls at the inn. Worst of all, though, is that there have been several cases where all of his dialogue options straight up suck. The biggest offender by far being one of the Ai hangout where some dude harasses her, she tells him to gently caress the hell off, and all of the options are variations on calling her a stuck-up bitch. I did my best to make you cool, but you kind of suck dude. Joker and the P3 girl sometimes failed to pick up on stuff I wanted them to, but they never gave me that kind of garbage. The culture festival, the inn, and the visit to the Persona 3 bar were a pretty rough set of events. Though I did do some evening hangouts with my school friends afterwards, which were a lot nicer. Kou cheered me on and said the entire basketball team voted for me, and Ai offered to do my make-up sometime and appreciated me saying I wanted to be cute. Those hangouts feel like they were added in Golden by a much cooler team. Yukiko and Kanji did a whole lot to make those scenes bearable, and I love them. Teddie absolutely crushing the drag competition and immediately going on to destroy any respect he might have earned gave me whiplash and I feel like that must have been on purpose. Less so for Yosuke's "being forced into dressing provocatively for the entertainment of others without my consent isn't fun," and immediately reverting to being a creep, which was wholly unsurprising. Naoto has been cool so far and I like that the team suddenly has brains, but I haven't seen her social link yet because the protagonist is too much of a coward to hang out with her. Rise's weird pretend (?) jealousy is still weird, but otherwise she's been cool and I appreciated her walking in on the group date and bailing immediately, and setting up the band segment which was just good and wholesome and Yukiko. I of course cleared the dungeon in a single day, and didn't even need to return to visit the Fox. I appreciate it being simpler than the previous couple and having a boss with a very exploitable gimmick, because I figure they wanted to let players clear it before monday. Not sure how to feel on the murder mystery; I figured Adachi was the kidnapper and that you're supposed to suspect him. I bet there totally were references to the delivey guy at the other kidanpping scenes, but I didn't pick up on it until the obvious clue of Nanako answering the door for him. I still don't trust Adachi and am convinced he's somehow involved, but haven't picked up on any clues as to how.
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Feb 7, 2023 03:32
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Prowler posted:I missed the armband, what does it do? I got her other gifts, though. Too bad other characters can't use them. Honestly, we didn't need that Social Link in the game. I kind of feel it was thrown in for fans as a "Oh, wouldn't it be cool to actually talk to this person?" sort of deal. Especially since Golden released after the base Persona 4: Arena, IIRC. But yes, without that Social Link, the plot pointing toward them wouldn't happen as fast.
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Feb 7, 2023 06:08
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AnonymouseNo5 posted:Honestly, we didn't need that Social Link in the game. I kind of feel it was thrown in for fans as a "Oh, wouldn't it be cool to actually talk to this person?" sort of deal. Especially since Golden released after the base Persona 4: Arena, IIRC. Eh, if you've played more than one Persona game, you'd already be suspicious of any key recurring character with a portrait that isn't part of a social link.
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Feb 7, 2023 07:08
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Zulily Zoetrope posted:Welp, I made it to November, and so far I still feel the same about most of the characters, but there's been one change: Yeah the Protagonist never being able to protest or stop Yosuke and Teddie's various creepy/unpleasant stuff really diminishes the character. Not being able to even give Kanji a word of support during the camping trip was agonising. The band segment was really good though, and Yukiko discovering her saxaphone works was probably the funniest moment in the whole game for me. Spoilers regarding the villain: I had been spoiled so I knew Adachi was the villain, and him being the last person to see Rise right before she vanished seemed to serve as the smoking gun for me, which made everything with Namatame really confusing. Same for the Nanako stuff because of course she'd answer the door if it was her dad's goofy partner.
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Feb 7, 2023 13:20
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Shyrka posted:Spoilers regarding the villain: Same for the Nanako stuff because of course she'd answer the door if it was her dad's goofy partner. But Namatame was still the one who kidnapped Nanako under the guise of a deliveryman. Aside from the first couple of deaths, Adachi wasn't the one throwing the victims into the TVs.
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Feb 7, 2023 13:52
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anakha posted:But Namatame was still the one who kidnapped Nanako under the guise of a deliveryman. Aside from the first couple of deaths, Adachi wasn't the one throwing the victims into the TVs.
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Feb 7, 2023 13:54
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anakha posted:Eh, if you've played more than one Persona game, you'd already be suspicious of any key recurring character with a portrait that isn't part of a social link. Exactly. Like I mentioned earlier, I had started to rule him out BECAUSE he has an s link; if he didn't, he would have been even more suspicious to me. I'm not saying they did a poor job of hiding it--there's just too many games where the "idiot is a genius, actually." There's another rpg series I'm playing where they absolutely love this trope--several goofy or seemingly innocuous characters you engage with across one or two games turn out to be the most powerful or evil people in the land--so I guess I was trained to be suspicious of certain character types. The last rpg I played before P4 and P5 late last year used this trick. Maybe if I had played it nearly 15 years ago it'd have been a surprise.
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Feb 7, 2023 14:09
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Shyrka posted:Spoilers regarding the villain: I had been spoiled so I knew Adachi was the villain, and him being the last person to see Rise right before she vanished seemed to serve as the smoking gun for me, which made everything with Namatame really confusing. Same for the Nanako stuff because of course she'd answer the door if it was her dad's goofy partner. As someone who is both a big dummy and generally just tries to let the plot take me along with it rather than think critically about it (because of being a big dummy you see): edit: also this talks about the very very end of p4 as a heads up the Adachi twist surprised me. Tbh back in like 2008 I felt like it wasn't really necessary. I didn't really care about Adachi either way, but I thought the namatame thing made more sense and didn't even really feel like they planted all that many hints, so it felt out of left field. Looking back on it now from my playthrough last year that's obviously kind of silly, but it's the truth . The real dumb twist is the final sequence with the gas station attendant, I still feel like that was totally unneeded and kinda dumb
Weird Pumpkin fucked around with this message at 16:08 on Feb 7, 2023 |
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Feb 7, 2023 14:10
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Weird Pumpkin posted:As someone who is both a big dummy and generally just tries to let the plot take me along with it rather than think critically about it (because of being a big dummy you see): the Adachi twist surprised me. Tbh back in like 2008 I felt like it wasn't really necessary. I didn't really care about Adachi either way, but I thought the namatame thing made more sense and didn't even really feel like they planted all that many hints, so it felt out of left field. Looking back on it now from my playthrough last year that's obviously kind of silly, but it's the truth
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Feb 7, 2023 14:14
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No Wave posted:I loved the gas station attendant bit. This final floating character I'd completely forgotten about being tied up. But P4 was my first persona game so I was uninitiated and the elder god stuff really confused me. Edit: do not read this post I guess unless you've beaten P4: It's nice that it's tied up I guess. But at the time and still kinda to this day it feels like they sorta just pulled a "final villain go kill god." Like it's set up in the very first hour of the game where you shake their hand, but other than that it never really comes up again and so it leaves me feeling pretty meh about the entire thing. Especially after the whole resolution of the murder mystery and stuff. Golden definitely did a better job with it though using Marie to set it up a whole lot more, but I found it pretty confusing and sloppy in the base game where everything else pretty much hung together otherwise Weird Pumpkin fucked around with this message at 16:07 on Feb 7, 2023 |
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Feb 7, 2023 15:10
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Welp I got to the reveal and I think what spoiled it for me, more than anything, was something that happens in Persona 5 (spoilers for both that and 4): There's a few surface similarities between Adachi and Akechi, and obviously Adachi came first. I'm trying not to hold it against him that he seems to be a step down from Akechi in every way, but the guy's not making it easy. But the baseline of all my assumption was, of all things, Adachi's arcana. His card is the Jester, which is clearly some deck variant of the Fool. In Persona 5, the only humans who could access the Metaverse initially were Joker and Akechi, who had the power of the wild card, with the Phantom Thieves unlocking the Meta-nav after hanging with Joker. It seemed like a similar deal here, with the protagonist being the only one with the power to enter the television at the start, and the others gaining it after awakening to their persona. I'd been assuming that Adachi was another wild card and the only other person with the power to enter the Metaverse. This was obviously not the case; the kidnapper also had the same power, and the game has been clear that this is an open plot thread, and I completely missed that there was no reason to believe that the void quest kid didn't have the power. I can't exactly fault the game for not addressing my assumptions based on a future entry in the series. Now I'm mostly curious what's going on with that and the midnight channel and the fog; presumably they're all the product of some god or other who has decided that humanity's time is up. Hopefully that goes somewhere interesting, because the killer being a magic rapist nihilist who is just stirring the pot for shits and giggles is absolute not doing it for me as a murder mystery.
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Feb 7, 2023 15:15
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Seriously, folks, you'd been really good about spoilers up to this point. Please tag your spoilers and pay attention to what you're responding to (someone mentioned the killer in response to someone who DID NOT KNOW YET and I'm glad they didn't see it). I also just got the very last twist spoiled when it was not at all in the context of the ongoing discussion with people who haven't finished the game yet. It's not that big of a deal to me (and I got the twist spoiled another way when looking up FAQs when I thought I was in the clear), but I'm sure it'd annoy other folks. Edit: A good rule of thumb: if you are responding to a post, do not reveal anything in the story beyond what is currently being discussed unless you specifically let them know it is a spoiler for a point they haven't reached yet. Prowler fucked around with this message at 15:29 on Feb 7, 2023 |
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Feb 7, 2023 15:23
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I appreciate the heads-up, but I haven't checked either of those spoilers because I read "spoilers regarding the villain" as a warning specifically aimed at me, and the other followed from that post. We're all good. 
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Feb 7, 2023 15:29
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Zulily Zoetrope posted:I appreciate the heads-up, but I haven't checked either of those spoilers because I read "spoilers regarding the villain" as a warning specifically aimed at me, and the other followed from that post. We're all good. This is not just for your benefit; there are other folks posting their progress as well. I read the post because I was aware of the "spoilers regarding the villain," but the post in response to that was all related to that topic until the very end, where they dropped in another, unrelated spoiler that wasn't tagged.
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Feb 7, 2023 15:36
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