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I was surprised to learn that outside of that one most cursed romance option, all of the real horrible ones were introduced in P5 and it is not a series staple.
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Feb 11, 2023 10:43
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P6's protagonist should either have a single romance option, or be aggressively celibate
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Feb 11, 2023 10:58
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YaketySass posted:P6's protagonist should either have a single romance option, or be aggressively celibate With Hashino gone they go the forbidden route: bringing back the gay protag option.
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Feb 11, 2023 11:10
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Neeksy posted:With Hashino gone they go the forbidden route: bringing back the gay protag option.  Let me date all the good boys in P6
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Feb 11, 2023 18:17
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Neeksy posted:With Hashino gone they go the forbidden route: bringing back the gay protag option. It'd honestly be a huge missed opportunity to not have you be able to pick between male/female protagonist and include at least one same sex option for each Just seems like such an obvious choice, although I guess it's probably pretty hard to write around without having multiple takes of a lot of stuff. Though I think I've heard that in Japanese you can really avoid ever saying anything gendered more easily than in English? So maybe it's not that big a deal
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Feb 11, 2023 23:06
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Alder posted:
Dating the dog is problematic
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Feb 12, 2023 01:00
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I'd like P6 to not restrict itself to the calendar/dating sim structure, because the series has radically changed itself in the past, so why not again? I feel like it really ends up causing some of the modular storytelling issues to become a bit more apparent, such as having social link progress not being felt in any way from the main plotlines or scenarios, because it has to assume that the player potentially has never pursued them and thus has to structure things for the lowest common denominator of interest. And it kills any sense of mystery about the pacing of the story, because we all know poo poo is about to happen in December, every time. Also I'd like the series to once again understand that the concept of personas is that all people have more than one, it's the entire point of having them, it is their functional utility. I know none of this is happening, but I'd like that again.
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Feb 12, 2023 01:13
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Neeksy posted:I'd like P6 to not restrict itself to the calendar/dating sim structure, because the series has radically changed itself in the past, so why not again? As someone new to the franchise without any of the rest of the background information, I was interpreting the one-per-person vs the Wild Card as something akin to "normal folks can manifest a single persona because that persona is their dominant mask." It's not that they don't have other masks, it's that to manifest a persona one of them needs to rise above the others in such a way that it can inflict itself on other cognitions. Since that persona arises of such a powerful imbalance between the masks a person can wear, it would be difficult/impossible to change the average individual's persona in a short time--which I think is what the social link evolutions represent. A Wild Card, on the other hand, is someone who is much more 'fluid' in their cognition. Their superpower is basically being a cognitive chameleon. It fits Joker as the blank-slate protagonist because you as the player can make Joker's personality wildly inconsistent, representing that he's exceptionally good at changing his 'mask' based on the circumstance. It's code-switching on a more fundamental level. Akechi gets a similar treatment for spoiler reasons. I thought that fake Igor and Lavenza both indicated that Akechi might also be a Wild Card, but I could be misremembering. Because of this, I concluded the fact that you couldn't give Akechi multiple persona in the third semester as a gameplay limit rather than a story one. That's how I came to understand it with all of one Persona game under my belt.
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Feb 12, 2023 02:44
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Joker's a polyfragmented plural system with up to dozen headmates in the foreground and many more waiting in the wings.
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Feb 12, 2023 02:53
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Joker, Yu, and Makoto are all strengthened beyond the norm by a Contract with something with powerful metaphysical mojo. The P1-2 parties got their powers through a minor ritual and contact with Philomon. The P3-5 party members, for the most part, spontaneously developed a Persona without outside support in order to interact with the supernatural on an even level.
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Feb 12, 2023 03:19
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Neeksy posted:I'd like P6 to not restrict itself to the calendar/dating sim structure, because the series has radically changed itself in the past, so why not again? I think because the structured daily life sim is such a part of Persona's identity that getting rid of it would get rid of a lot of the stuff people like about it. Like, it's one of the main things that sets it apart from other RPGS. You get one year to live your life while also trying to save the world, boom, go have fun and get a part time job. Warmachine posted:A Wild Card, on the other hand, is someone who is much more 'fluid' in their cognition. Their superpower is basically being a cognitive chameleon. It fits Joker as the blank-slate protagonist because you as the player can make Joker's personality wildly inconsistent, representing that he's exceptionally good at changing his 'mask' based on the circumstance. It's code-switching on a more fundamental level. Akechi gets a similar treatment for spoiler reasons. I thought that fake Igor and Lavenza both indicated that Akechi might also be a Wild Card, but I could be misremembering. Because of this, I concluded the fact that you couldn't give Akechi multiple persona in the third semester as a gameplay limit rather than a story one. I think it's canon that Akechi can't make more than one Persona because he doesn't have any meaningful relationships and thus has no social links. No friends = no power.
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Feb 12, 2023 03:34
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Warmachine posted:As someone new to the franchise without any of the rest of the background information, I was interpreting the one-per-person vs the Wild Card as something akin to "normal folks can manifest a single persona because that persona is their dominant mask." It's not that they don't have other masks, it's that to manifest a persona one of them needs to rise above the others in such a way that it can inflict itself on other cognitions. Since that persona arises of such a powerful imbalance between the masks a person can wear, it would be difficult/impossible to change the average individual's persona in a short time--which I think is what the social link evolutions represent. Yeah, the Akechi stuff basically fits narratively in that he doesn't trust others and works alone, that's the whole moral laid out in the engine room of Shido's palace, so why would he trust some shadow he had begging for mercy? So he never goes through the same sort of negotiation that Joker does to acquire more shadows. It did bug me that he couldn't swap between Loki and Robin Hood during the third semester even if he wasn't going to be picking up any fresh ones though. Although really the Velvet Room is the big thing. Even if you pick up other personas as you go, you're gonna be way behind someone that gets to gently caress around with fusing them. P4 villain spoilers: Adachi and Namatame presumably could've acquired multiple personas as well but neither of them ever did any fighting in the TV world to acquire them, assuming they'd get access to shuffle time themselves. Which they might not since its tarot card based mechanics line up with the Velvet Room's stuff too.
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Feb 12, 2023 03:35
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Space Cadet Omoly posted:I think because the structured daily life sim is such a part of Persona's identity that getting rid of it would get rid of a lot of the stuff people like about it. Like, it's one of the main things that sets it apart from other RPGS. You get one year to live your life while also trying to save the world, boom, go have fun and get a part time job. On the topic of the life sim, I don't think it's possible to resolve the tension between liking the life sim and social links vs adding more reactivity to the main story. It's the old paradox of choice in game design--you can make a short and reactive game, or a long and static game. You're always trading reactivity and length, and Persona feels like it has chosen length in that trade, but also wants to keep the individual stories that you can choose to interact with or not. The best you could do is integrate some optional branches at distinct points where a social link gets a payout if you've done it--which Atlus already did with Hawaii, the school festival, and Christmas/V-Day/White Day. I think the problems with this stand out the most in the "harem" Valentine's Day scene. I watched it on YouTube, and it struck me that the girls never directly acknowledge each other. Haru and Makoto are friends, why aren't they commiserating about what a giant rear end in a top hat Joker turned out to be? The answer of course being that accounting for all the possible combinations of girls with individual interactions is impossible.
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Feb 12, 2023 03:42
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The Wild Card has the ability to wear a lot of masks, but that isn't their superpower; their superpower is their magnetic (often implied) personality, which lets them draw people in and form genuine, lasting bonds. These bonds in turn strengthen their ability to wield personas. This is represented in gameplay when you get bonuses for advancing a confidant and each of Joker's most powerful personas is unlocked by maxing out a relationship, but chiefly in the plot as a thematic throughline that he has the ability to tell fate to gently caress off, and he wouldn't have been able to shoot god in the face, twice, if he didn't have people in his corner. That's their own power, which lets them scoop up any loose personas they find lying around, which in P5 is the roaming shadows in the Metaverse. On top of that, Joker has the Contract, which lets him access the Velvet Room and use the compendium and ask the twins to fuse his personas into bigger ones. Fusion mechanics differ across the series, and there's probably some way for the Wild Card to figure out how to do it on their own, but the protagonists get a big leg up by having a sponsor to do it for them from day one. Meanwhile, Akechi does have the same power, but he uses it for personal gain instead of for others, so he has no close bonds. This gives him only two personas, with Loki being born from his own shadow, like Joker's Arsène and everyone else's one persona, and Robin Hood from his public-facing "detective prince" persona. Futaba theorizes this when his second persona is first revealed, and Yaldy B confirms that he gave Akechi the Wild Card and no further guidance as a prank, specifically to spite Igor. Akechi always had the ability to switch between his two personas, but he doesn't do it in November because he's keeping Loki a secret, and he doesn't do it in January because he doesn't feel like it. He could theoretically learn to pick up some of the lovecraftian horrors lounging around the final palace, but it's probably not as easy as Joker makes it seem, and also it involves asking for help. Zulily Zoetrope fucked around with this message at 03:57 on Feb 12, 2023 |
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Feb 12, 2023 03:54
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My problem is not the internal story logic that makes up the supernatural reasoning for the protagonist having the power differently than their peers, I just feel it's that thematically it gets weird that every other person is restricted to just one persona/arcana. It's a core issue I have with how the narrative sets up the protag as being a super-duper mega special being and not just a person who was caught up in it like everyone else. It sometimes feels too power fantasy-ish, particularly in 5.Warmachine posted:On the topic of the life sim, I don't think it's possible to resolve the tension between liking the life sim and social links vs adding more reactivity to the main story. It's the old paradox of choice in game design--you can make a short and reactive game, or a long and static game. You're always trading reactivity and length, and Persona feels like it has chosen length in that trade, but also wants to keep the individual stories that you can choose to interact with or not. The best you could do is integrate some optional branches at distinct points where a social link gets a payout if you've done it--which Atlus already did with Hawaii, the school festival, and Christmas/V-Day/White Day. This is prettymuch what I was hoping to get at. There's something structural to it that limits what you can really do, story-wise. And it also means that you have the characters constantly reminding you of the main plot points over and over and over again because the game can't possibly know if you've spent a whole time doing one thing or another between these moments. Neeksy fucked around with this message at 04:37 on Feb 12, 2023 |
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Feb 12, 2023 04:35
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I don't want to manage a full party and a full party of personae for them. I prefer the wild card system.
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Feb 12, 2023 04:36
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Neeksy posted:My problem is not the internal story logic that makes up the supernatural reasoning for the protagonist having the power differently than their peers, I just feel it's that thematically it gets weird that every other person is restricted to just one persona/arcana. It's a core issue I have with how the narrative sets up the protag as being a super-duper mega special being and not just a person who was caught up in it like everyone else. It sometimes feels too power fantasy-ish, particularly in 5. If they are going to mess around with something like that then they will call it something other then Persona.
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Feb 12, 2023 04:45
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P6 as a Disco Elysium-like game where every Persona is a voice in the protagonist's head.
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Feb 12, 2023 04:47
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If you want to Wild Card your entire party, the first three games (Persona 1-2:IS/EP) are what you're looking for.
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Feb 12, 2023 05:10
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I'm totally fine with party members just getting one Persona; it lets them stand out a whole lot more. Like, why would I ever swap Johanna off Makoto even if the game let me? As for the arcana, I don't think they're ever supposed to represent the entirety of a character. Makoto is the Priestess confidant because that is her relationship with Joker, counseling patience and introspection with regards to the Phantom Thieves. If her relationship with Sae ever came up as a gameplay mechanic she would absolutely not be the Priestess in that scenario, I'd peg her as representing Justice to Sae. Of course Makoto's persona also happens to be a Priestess, and all party members save a couple P3P dudes end up with personae that match their role in the protagonist's fool's journey, but I'm fine chalking that up as a gameplay contrivance; it is not a metaphysical statement that they are less rounded people than you.
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Feb 12, 2023 05:15
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Zulily Zoetrope posted:The Wild Card has the ability to wear a lot of masks, but that isn't their superpower; their superpower is their magnetic (often implied) personality, which lets them draw people in and form genuine, lasting bonds. These bonds in turn strengthen their ability to wield personas. This is represented in gameplay when you get bonuses for advancing a confidant and each of Joker's most powerful personas is unlocked by maxing out a relationship, but chiefly in the plot as a thematic throughline that he has the ability to tell fate to gently caress off, and he wouldn't have been able to shoot god in the face, twice, if he didn't have people in his corner. It's a minor quibble, but what direction does the causality flow? Does your magnetic personality enable you to be a wild card, or did Joker really only become a magnetic personality after becoming a wild card? I vaguely recall Yaldy's explaination being that he granted the powers to both Joker and Akechi, while tutoring Joker, based on some 'candidacy' that they might be able to falsify his hypothesis about humanity. Which suggests to me there's some criteria you need to meet before becoming a wild card, which suggests causality flows from magnetic personality/cognitive malleability/social chameleon traits to being a wild card. I don't know if I'd go so far as calling that a superpower, but it would definitely mean you have to be at least this gregarious naturally to ride Mr. Igor's Wild Ride. Rogue AI Goddess posted:P6 as a Disco Elysium-like game where every Persona is a voice in the protagonist's head. 
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Feb 12, 2023 05:19
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Zulily Zoetrope posted:As for the arcana, I don't think they're ever supposed to represent the entirety of a character. Makoto is the Priestess confidant because that is her relationship with Joker, counseling patience and introspection with regards to the Phantom Thieves. If her relationship with Sae ever came up as a gameplay mechanic she would absolutely not be the Priestess in that scenario, I'd peg her as representing Justice to Sae. Labrys would be the weird one because she's in a multi-route game, unless I guess her relationship with everyone is Fortune.
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Feb 12, 2023 05:25
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Warmachine posted:It's a minor quibble, but what direction does the causality flow? Does your magnetic personality enable you to be a wild card, or did Joker really only become a magnetic personality after becoming a wild card? I vaguely recall Yaldy's explaination being that he granted the powers to both Joker and Akechi, while tutoring Joker, based on some 'candidacy' that they might be able to falsify his hypothesis about humanity. Which suggests to me there's some criteria you need to meet before becoming a wild card, which suggests causality flows from magnetic personality/cognitive malleability/social chameleon traits to being a wild card. Oh, the personality comes first. I'm pretty sure there's always some vague foreshadowing about having "the potential" before a protagonist awakens to their Wild Card. I guess one could argue that all the metaphysical destiny-shaping magic powers are more of a superpower, but is that really as cool as having 22 friends? Akechi was the one who got his rear end beat in Shido's palace, after all, despite having years more experience at doing magic bullshit.
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Feb 12, 2023 05:34
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Personally, I think it'd be cool if the "Rank 10 upgrades that character's persona" was replaced "Rank 10 grants them a new persona that they can swap to freely." Like, say if Rank 10 Ryuji could use Captain Kidd and Seiten Taisei, and each had its own stats, resistances, and skills.
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Feb 12, 2023 05:38
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My solution for giving the other characters more than one persona is that you can assign them a pre-designed set of persona (or even arcana), so you can make them both thematic and tactically-designed without overwhelming the player with choices there and not making it feel crappy to take the cool initial persona design and dump them in the trash for a basic demon design like the protagonist has to every time. I kinda miss how the Personas and demon designs were different so it felt like they were special and not simply spectral versions of the encounter mobs. Sure they used a few demons as Personas, but generally you got a neat variety of designs in 1-2.5, even though it resulted in fewer summonable personas. Honestly I think they need to reduce the number of personas so they can make them more interesting in visual design and to reduce the velvet room trips and constant fusing and discarding.
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Feb 12, 2023 05:44
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Zulily Zoetrope posted:Meanwhile, Akechi does have the same power, but he uses it for personal gain instead of for others, so he has no close bonds. This gives him only two personas, with Loki being born from his own shadow, like Joker's Arsène and everyone else's one persona, and Robin Hood from his public-facing "detective prince" persona. Futaba theorizes this when his second persona is first revealed, and Yaldy B confirms that he gave Akechi the Wild Card and no further guidance as a prank, specifically to spite Igor. Akechi always had the ability to switch between his two personas, but he doesn't do it in November because he's keeping Loki a secret, and he doesn't do it in January because he doesn't feel like it. He could theoretically learn to pick up some of the lovecraftian horrors lounging around the final palace, but it's probably not as easy as Joker makes it seem, and also it involves asking for help. I choose to believe it is as easy as Joker makes it look, but like you said doing it would require asking for help and Akechi would suffer in Hell forever in order to avoid showing a split second of vulnerability.
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Feb 12, 2023 05:58
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Neeksy posted:Honestly I think they need to reduce the number of personas so they can make them more interesting in visual design and to reduce the velvet room trips and constant fusing and discarding. I'm not sure you understand what the essence of SMT is
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Feb 12, 2023 06:03
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If anything the person roster should be doubled and include every demon previous featured in SMT.
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Feb 12, 2023 06:11
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They should just give everyone a different Jack Frost persona.
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Feb 12, 2023 06:11
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ApplesandOranges posted:They should just give everyone a different Jack Frost persona. One of your party members has Jack Frost as a person and instead of getting a personalized redesign like all common demon -> party member's personas get it's just normal Jack Frost.
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Feb 12, 2023 06:13
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZO-L3w3cgwM&t=50s
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Feb 12, 2023 06:20
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Arist posted:I'm not sure you understand what the essence of SMT is Pokemon with Jungian Characteristics
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Feb 12, 2023 06:20
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The Jungian poo poo is all Persona, SMT at large is all about recruiting a ton of diverse demons and throwing them away for new ones
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Feb 12, 2023 06:21
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There's a sort of Jungian undertone with broader SMT, at least in the vague sense of "why are all these demons random poo poo from religion and mythology?"
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Feb 12, 2023 06:23
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"and also the mothman for some reason?"
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Feb 12, 2023 06:25
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ApplesandOranges posted:They should just give everyone a different Jack Frost persona. Alternate Heehoifcation social link routes for everyone which give them a cosplaying Jack Frost as their mastered Persona.
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Feb 12, 2023 06:26
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The protagonist's ultimate Persona is, naturally, Jack-Of-All-Stats.
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Feb 12, 2023 06:36
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YaketySass posted:P6's protagonist should either have a single romance option, or be aggressively celibate IMO they should allow other options, but make the player directly choose whether they should even have a romantic tone (instead of the more typical "the character is obviously interested in you and you're just choosing whether to reciprocate"). So a situation where all the s-links are fully platonic unless you explicitly indicate that you want to pursue otherwise. Some are already like this (like most the adult options in P5*), but most others aren't. * Age gap aside, I kind of like the way the Chihaya one works, where she obviously flirts with you, but the relative directness/tone of it makes it feel more normal/casual than the "character is silently in deep love with Joker and you will be crushing them by staying platonic" feeling some of the others have.
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Feb 12, 2023 06:58
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My memory is fuzzy but Chie's SL is kinda like that, right? She only expresses romantic interest if you do first.
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Feb 12, 2023 07:06
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I actually think P5 is pretty good at that at having most confidant relationships being schrödinger flirts, where you can contextually read most interactions as entirely platonic or not. At least compared to previous entries. I'd say only Haru and I guess Futaba are obviously silently into Joker. E: ApplesandOranges posted:My memory is fuzzy but Chie's SL is kinda like that, right? She only expresses romantic interest if you do first. She does do the ol' "blush, awkward pause" a couple times. I forget the exact context, but I don't think it was an entirely platonic vibe. Nothing comes of it unless you explicitly ask her out, though, and she is not upset that you don't pick the "will you be my girlfriend?" dialogue choice. Zulily Zoetrope fucked around with this message at 07:29 on Feb 12, 2023 |
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Feb 12, 2023 07:13
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