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P3 easily has the most well considered of the newer persona plots. The disparate ways that our limited lifespan is handled and reacted to by the major characters emotionally shows a level of nuance and care that neither of the two sequels can match. The fact that Memento Mori, as a phrase serves so well as a theme should not be missed. Although to be fair to 4 and 5, death is something most people do reckon with given it's going to come up in their lives whether they like it or not so both the writers and players are going to have some real connection with at least some of the ideas presented.
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Mar 19, 2023 00:51
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P3/P5 both have noticeable gaps with certain party members (Fuuka and Haru), but I think P3 generally handles its (larger) group better. I do like that P4 still deals with death, though it's more folded in its Social Links (Hierophant, Justice, Hanged Man, Death, to a degree Magician). While I think that P3P FeMC's have the strongest SLs overall, P4 has some really strong bangers. Though nothing has really quite touched the same perspective on Death as P3's Sun.
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Mar 19, 2023 01:42
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I would definitely not say P5 has the best story of the Hashino trilogy, not with an ending that botched and themes just... just left there on the table to die. If P3 is about dealing with the fact that YOU will die someday, P4 is about dealing with the death of others for the rest of your own life. Neeksy fucked around with this message at 03:59 on Mar 19, 2023 |
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Mar 19, 2023 03:56
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Zulily Zoetrope posted:P5 is far and away my favorite, but if we're singling out one thing each game clearly does best, I'd say style/presentation is P5's thing, moreso than story. P5R also has far and away the best dungeoncrawling gameplay. From the custom crafted non-procedural dungeons with actual limited exploration (an improvement over P5) to baton passes, sweeps, and disaster shadows you can argue the visual novel/overworld part and the S-links, and make a very good case for P3 FeMC, and can argue the boss fights (and IMO make a very good case for P4 due to the higher emotional investment in facing your own shadows) P5R takes the dungeon crawl in a walk, with Mementos in Royal being a match for the best the other two games have to offer even before the vehicular homicide spree.
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Mar 19, 2023 04:47
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The first couple Palaces in P5(R) are solid but the bank is a slog even in Royal and the Spaceship and Ship still aren't much better. The dungeoncrawling is fine but the actual dungeons are a bit behind. Admittedly it's been a while since I played Royal but I don't remember Mementos still being that amazing, though in terms of QoL obviously it's a smoother experience than Tartarus or the TV World.
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Mar 19, 2023 04:56
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RenegadeStyle1 posted:I had a question about social links in Persona 5. If you hang out with someone and it doesn't up their social link level is it counting towards some invisible meter or should you only do ones that will go up when you visit them? I assume.the former but wanted to make sure. To follow on from what others have said, make sure you have a persona matching your confidant's arcana in your possession when you hang out with them as well because you will gain a lot more points doing so. e.g. if you are spending time with Ann (Lovers) then head to the Velvet Room and grab a Pixie if you don't already have some other Lovers persona.
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Mar 19, 2023 05:30
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A note is that Moon and Sun will always level-up every time no matter what options you pick.
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Mar 19, 2023 05:58
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Gaius Marius posted:P3 easily has the most well considered of the newer persona plots. The disparate ways that our limited lifespan is handled and reacted to by the major characters emotionally shows a level of nuance and care that neither of the two sequels can match. The fact that Memento Mori, as a phrase serves so well as a theme should not be missed. Although to be fair to 4 and 5, death is something most people do reckon with given it's going to come up in their lives whether they like it or not so both the writers and players are going to have some real connection with at least some of the ideas presented. 
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Mar 19, 2023 07:13
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I'd personally say that P3 has the best character writing of modern Persona - at least for the playable cast - because they didn't need to save the character development for Social Links. I personally liked the actual plot writing of P4 and P5 better, and of course the style and aesthetic of P5 is easily the best of the three. P4 probably has the best Social Links of the three, if you ask me.
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Mar 19, 2023 07:25
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Which Persona has the best (intentional) comedy? P1 feels more like "suicide bad", especially with Snow Queen Quest hammering that in.
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Mar 19, 2023 09:02
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I got a Steam Deck a couple days ago and it's really good for P3P (kind of unsurprisingly). One benefit is that the hilariously lovely AI-upscaled backgrounds look a little less bad on a smaller screen.Alder posted:I live in eternal hope for P6 for FeMC's return but not in this lifetime. One day there will be a TV program that indirectly mentions the P3P FeMC And you'll be thankful for it! This is wrong, the theme of P3 isn't "death bad" but instead something like "nihilism bad" Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 09:25 on Mar 19, 2023 |
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Mar 19, 2023 09:22
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I wouldn't be surprised if there are eventually mods for the Steam version of P3P that have better upscaling on the backgrounds, as well.
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Mar 19, 2023 09:40
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Neeksy posted:Which Persona has the best (intentional) comedy?
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Mar 19, 2023 09:49
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Neeksy posted:Which Persona has the best (intentional) comedy? I mean I actually laughed at this, so I'll say P5. 
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Mar 19, 2023 10:37
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TMS (aka Persona 4.5) was a pretty forgettable game overall, but the one thing I'll say is some of the social link scenes in it made me laugh more than anything in a Persona game ever has.
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Mar 19, 2023 11:27
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Lol
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Mar 19, 2023 11:31
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Item Getter posted:TMS (aka Persona 4.5) was a pretty forgettable game overall, but the one thing I'll say is some of the social link scenes in it made me laugh more than anything in a Persona game ever has. There's a really good series of texts if you take a long time looking for that drat cat for Tsubasa, where she thinks she's spotted it and is following it, gets distracted by crêpes, makes up an excuse that a crêpe will help her focus and could serve as bait, making it totally fine that she stopped to get one, and finally goes "well it wasn't a cat at all, it was a raccoon, and it stole my crêpe and ran off  "Though for best comedy, I'd definitely have to say Yukiko and her impeccable comedic timing. 
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Mar 19, 2023 14:09
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ApplesandOranges posted:I mean I actually laughed at this, so I'll say P5. 
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Mar 19, 2023 18:50
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I think P2 has some really good comedic moments that shouldn't go unmentioned, such as the bathroom fight with the cosplayer girl, starting a fire in said bathroom, Ulala getting a little too into her 'fake' fight with Baofu, Eikichi and his dad, the party sneaking up behind a villain as he tries to win us over and punching him in the back of the head, etc.
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Mar 19, 2023 21:07
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Speaking of the old Persona games, which version of the first one is best to play if I wanted to revisit it? I know the psp one has some music/sounds issues but is it otherwise a straight upgrade?
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Mar 19, 2023 21:18
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The PS1 localization is... uh... 
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Mar 19, 2023 21:50
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Hel posted:Speaking of the old Persona games, which version of the first one is best to play if I wanted to revisit it? I know the psp one has some music/sounds issues but is it otherwise a straight upgrade? There's a patched iso to import the PS1 soundtrack into the PSP version, although I believe it's not 100% perfect at matching the PS1 version because of some cueing issues or some such thing.
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Mar 19, 2023 22:29
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ApplesandOranges posted:I mean I actually laughed at this, so I'll say P5.  Also, agreed on the point that the story isn't P5's strongest point, although the extra Royal content redeems the original's shortcomings a lot goethe.cx fucked around with this message at 22:38 on Mar 19, 2023 |
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Mar 19, 2023 22:35
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Hel posted:Speaking of the old Persona games, which version of the first one is best to play if I wanted to revisit it? I know the psp one has some music/sounds issues but is it otherwise a straight upgrade? Do you want a competent localization that doesn't change everyone's race and cuts out half the game? Because the PSP is really your only option unless you want to see Mark dancing crazy.
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Mar 19, 2023 22:36
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ApplesandOranges posted:The first couple Palaces in P5(R) are solid but the bank is a slog even in Royal and the Spaceship and Ship still aren't much better. I'm not saying that Mementos is good (it isn't) or the P5R dungeons are amazing (they aren't). I'm saying that the TV world is bad and Tartarus is terrible as dungeons go.
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Mar 20, 2023 02:04
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i like tartarus but i kind of have a "thing" for very generic dungeon crawl levels
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Mar 20, 2023 02:06
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ApplesandOranges posted:I mean I actually laughed at this, so I'll say P5. The best is the one where Yusuke researches Medjed and everyone is just silent in response for a bit until someone (I think Makoto?) is like "Thank you."
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Mar 20, 2023 02:10
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Having one musical theme for a dungeon that builds up in instrumentation as you get to higher floors was a cool idea in Nocturne and DDS, but maybe not such a good idea when the dungeon is 300 floors and the only dungeon in the game. (that you spend more than 3 minutes in)
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Mar 20, 2023 05:39
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At least Fuuka lets you change the music, though it's annoying that the game doesn't remember this change each time you go back to Tartarus.
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Mar 20, 2023 05:43
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Neeksy posted:I think P2 has some really good comedic moments that shouldn't go unmentioned, such as the bathroom fight with the cosplayer girl, starting a fire in said bathroom, Ulala getting a little too into her 'fake' fight with Baofu, Eikichi and his dad, the party sneaking up behind a villain as he tries to win us over and punching him in the back of the head, etc. Don't forget watching the light fade from Jun's eyes as the party brings him to Maya's messy apartment and he realizes his role model/big sister figure is a disaster of a human being. Or him being excited when she tells the party she knows how to pilot an airboat and then almost capsizing it seconds later. 
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Mar 20, 2023 08:23
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amigolupus posted:Don't forget watching the light fade from Jun's eyes as the party brings him to Maya's messy apartment and he realizes his role model/big sister figure is a disaster of a human being. Or him being excited when she tells the party she knows how to pilot an airboat and then almost capsizing it seconds later. There's also a bunch of funny side plots, like if you are regular about checking in with Sevens students during the early parts of the game, a guy who wished to be better at baseball gets his wish twisted by a classmate who spreads a rumor that it was a robotic implant, causing the guy to start turning into a robot and breaking down entirely, with the classmate going "SEE IT WAS RIGHT!" in the best case of confirmation bias.
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Mar 20, 2023 08:51
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amigolupus posted:Don't forget watching the light fade from Jun's eyes as the party brings him to Maya's messy apartment and he realizes his role model/big sister figure is a disaster of a human being. Or him being excited when she tells the party she knows how to pilot an airboat and then almost capsizing it seconds later. It's a shame Maya lost her personality in Eternal Punishment, even if I get why.
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Mar 20, 2023 16:38
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Zulily Zoetrope posted:How so? I barely know anything about the male MC or his implied personality, but from my understanding (major P3 spoilers), he's kind of gloomy and serious while the female MC is bubbly and cheerful, and they're obviously both determined friends who manage to fully internalize the inevitability of death and carry on regardless. Of those, I'm far more compelled by the one who insists on having as much of a good time as she can until the end and going out with a smile than I am by the direct Jesus analogue. I also think that makes her a better fit for the ____Sun____ social link that I assume is the one everyone is alluding to as the best. It's also one of the thematic elements that more or less gets re-written after the original PS2 version, and the female protagonist's Fortune social link casts the relationship in a completely different and thematically weaker "forbidden love" context. I absolutely understand from a player's standpoint preferring later versions of the game for quality of life reasons. And I also think that in general the social links of the original vanilla P3 feature some of the weakest social link writing and design from all of the later Persona games (almost all of the original P3 social links feel more like overlong conversations awkwardly broken up into ten segments instead of ten episodes from a complete story). But the original version of P3 hangs together better thematically than any of the later versions.
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Mar 20, 2023 21:56
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That's a nifty concept in theory, but it's the bad kind of meta IMO; it really only works if you don't take the logical next step to stop and consider "Wait, if the game is aware of this, why are all my relationships with women so weird?", because the only answer you can possibly come to is "the game is badly written."
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Mar 20, 2023 22:03
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If they're gonna try to do stuff like that, giving you a nameable silent protagonist and insisting that they contain all the multitudes of endless possibility within them really undermines what they're going for. Personally, the game works a lot better for me if the protagonist is someone it's possible to give a poo poo about.
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Mar 20, 2023 22:07
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That is a cool and interesting read, and I genuinely appreciate you posting it, but also I hate it and don't want to play as the dude who sucks. I don't even like the P4 protagonist and you can almost fully gloss over his worst qualities.
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Mar 20, 2023 22:11
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I mean yeah, P3, particularly in its original version, is a resolutely downbeat game. And I absolutely understand why a lot of people would prefer to play something not so relentlessly grim. And apparently so does Atlus—because every subsequent Persona title, and for that matter successive versions of P3, has softened things. But I kinda like the clarity. Everyone is, one way or another, kinda a hot mess. We're not perfectly-centered zen masters interacting with each other in perfect harmony. And so we suffer, and we cause suffering. And so we (collectively) move toward our (collective) destruction, intentionally or not. Any resolution to this that doesn't ultimately resemble a Law or Chaos hero's agenda in a mainline megaten game (that is, simply exterminate all the "bad" people or just let chaos reign and let survival of the fittest sort 'em out) has to accommodate the nature of people as they are: fundamentally flawed. The pairing of the protagonist with the Nyx Avatar suggests that there are two possible resolutions given people as they are: ultimate destruction, or a synthesis of all the disparate and often conflicting parts of ourselves into a transformed, unified whole. And again, this is just barely subtextual, as it's very nearly explicitly spelled out in Edogawa's lectures and, for example, Igor's exposition in the final visit to the Velvet Room.
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Mar 20, 2023 23:10
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That's fine, but it's also not actually a response to anything anyone said. Grimness is not the issue. For me, the issue is that Persona 3 is a game that seems to actively resist any attempt I make to invest myself in any part of it, down to the protagonist being textually awful.
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Mar 20, 2023 23:15
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The female MC is textually cool! Other characters will point out that even though she is generally friendly and easy-going, she gets really assertive and confrontational when the situation calls for it, and the worst anyone has to say is that they worry she is pushing herself too hard. E: If this means Ryoji just sucks for their own reasons and the story is thematically weaker, I am ok with that. Zulily Zoetrope fucked around with this message at 23:31 on Mar 20, 2023 |
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Mar 20, 2023 23:27
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I haven't actually gotten around to playing P3 but it sounds like it has a rather organic morality system of sorts to it. Be a manipulative psycho and benefit from having a deep web of social links, or tell people what they need to hear rather than what they want to hear and deal with the consequences of them being slow to warm up to you as a result. From a pure gameplay perspective it's not like most social links in a Persona game even have that much of an impact beyond completionism. Of course in practice it sounds like it has a healthy dose of Hashino being Weird About Women, so it's probably better in concept than it is in execution. Other games also give you choices between what is easy and what is right, and in practice it means that people unthinkingly choose the "right" option and then grumble about not being allowed to play with the cool toys (see stealth games like Dishonored etc that give you a bad ending if you kill too many people, where some games define "too many" as "greater than zero, even though there is an entire battalion of dudes actively using lethal force against you"). I feel like the social link system of Persona might actually be one of the rare ways in which this system can work, especially since it doesn't really hard-gate any content behind the "bad" choices, it just makes you choose what "good" content you want rather than simply getting all of it.
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Mar 21, 2023 00:06
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