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Welcome... to the Velvet Room. What is Persona? Persona is a series of Japanese-style role-playing games developed and published by Atlus. Each game in the Persona series focuses on a group of friends (usually high school students) who fight demons and other supernatural monsters by summoning magical beings called "personas" from within their subconscious mind. Central to the Persona series is the idea that every person has different facets to their identity, different "masks" they wear to face life's challenges, and that each of these masks represents a part of the "real you." For the characters in the games, these facets or masks can manifest as personas, which are associated with the major arcana of the tarot deck and appear as mythological or literary figures, deities, and creatures from urban legends. In every game in the series, new personas are created in a dreamlike place called the Velvet Room, with the help of a long-nosed man named Igor and his various assistants. The Persona series started as a spin-off of Atlus's Megami Tensei series, focusing on more real-world inspired settings, Jungian psychology, and interpersonal relationships. While the Persona series takes place in a shared universe and features many common elements, each game tells a standalone story, and the games can be played in any order. The main games in the Persona series include:  Persona - PS1 (1996, as Revelations: Persona in North America); PSP (2009) The game that started it all. Persona takes place in the fictional town of Mikage-cho. A group of high school students play "the Persona game," an urban legend that will supposedly show them their futures. Instead, four of them are struck by lightning and, while unconscious, meet the masked spirit guide Philemon, who tells them of the power of personas. They wisely go to the hospital for a check-up after this, and to visit their classmate, a sickly girl named Maki. While there, an earthquake happens, the hospital transforms into a labyrinth, and demons attack. The characters awaken to the power of their personas, and the adventure begins. This game has a couple of notable aspects. First, it is the only game in the series with two entirely separate story paths. The first, known as the SEBEC Route, sees the characters travel to an alternate reality version of Mikage-cho, along with an alternate version of Maki, to save the world from being erased by a wish-granting machine. The other, called the Snow Queen Quest, has you staying in the original Mikage-cho and contending with an evil creature from an urban legend called the Snow Queen. The second is the PS1 version's notorious American localization, released under the title Revelations: Persona as Atlus's attempt to start bringing the Megami Tensei series to the west. This version of the game cut the Snow Queen Quest and attempted to Americanize the setting and characters, to... let's go with "wacky" results. The good news is that the PSP rerelease has a faithful translation and restores the Snow Queen Quest. Play that version.   Persona 2: Innocent Sin - PS1 (1999, Japan-only); PSP (2011) Persona 2: Eternal Punishment - PS1 (2000); PSP (2012, Japan-only) Persona 2 is actually two games: Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment. Innocent Sin stars a boy named Tatsuya who attends high school in the fictional seaside city of Sumaru. The adventure begins when, after awakening to the power of their personas, Tatsuya and his friends discover that rumors that become popular around Sumaru have started coming true, including the rumor about a being called the Joker who grants wishes, but who exacts a terrible price. In their quest to stop the Joker, they also recruit two adult allies: a reporter named Maya, and Yukino, one of the party members from the original Persona. Eternal Punishment picks up after the end of Innocent Sin, with Maya taking the central protagonist role and a party of mostly adults for the only time in the series. Frustratingly, only half of the Persona 2 duology was released in English each time it was released. On the PS1, only the second half, Eternal Punishment, got localized, while on the PSP, only the first half did. That said, this does mean that you can play both halves in English. Persona 2 is a favorite of many long-time Persona fans and is very much worth a play.  Persona 3 - PS2 (2007) Persona 3 FES - PS2 (2008) Persona 3 Portable - PSP (2010) Persona 3 Reload - PS4, PS5, Xbox, PC (2024) Persona 3 tells the story of a transfer student in the fictional city of Iwatodai who finds himself leading a team of persona-users called SEES (Special Extracurricular Execution Squad). SEES explores a phenomenon called the Dark Hour, a supernatural 25th hour of every day where most people are transmogrified into coffins. Only some people remain aware and able to fight the strange monsters called shadows that are emerging from Tartarus, a towering labyrinth that appears during the Dark Hour. SEES seeks to end the Dark Hour and stop shadows from preying on innocents. In a radical shift for the series, Persona 3 fuses life sim elements with dungeon crawling. Your character lives as a normal high school student during the day, developing relationships with those around him and his teammates, while exploring Tartarus and fighting shadows at night. You follow a daily schedule, choosing how to spend your time each day to increase your social stats, develop relationships (called Social Links, each associated with one of the major arcana and which help in creating new personas), and get enough battle experience to face the monthly boss shadows that appear. This life sim/dungeon crawler fusion has become the model for the Persona series, further iterated on in the future games. Persona 3 FES is an expanded rerelease of the original that came out a year later and features a playable epilogue chapter called "The Answer." Persona 3 Portable is a remake of the game for the PSP that tells the story in a more visual novel-like style and adds an entirely new route through the story starring a female protagonist. Persona 3 Reload is a modern remake released in 2024.  Persona 4 - PS2 (2008) Persona 4 Golden - PS Vita (2012), PC (2020) In Persona 4, your main character is a transfer student from Tokyo who goes to live with his uncle and cousin in the small rural town of Inaba for a year while his parents are overseas for work. Soon after you arrive, you and your new friends try out an urban legend called the Midnight Channel which claims that if you stare at a TV at midnight while it's raining, you'll see your soulmate. Instead, it seems that people who appear on the Midnight Channel soon end up murdered. Not only that, your main character discovers he can use TVs as a portal to enter a strange world inside the TV, where he and his friends gain the power of personas and realize they can save people from being murdered. Persona 4 follows a similar structure to Persona 3, in which you live as a normal high school student while working with your friends to rescue kidnapping victims and solve the murder case. Persona 4 has a notably lighter tone than previous games in the series, despite being a serious murder mystery at its heart, with a strong focus on the main characters facing their inner demons, learning to accept their flaws, and figuring out their own identities. Persona 4 Golden is an expanded rerelease that was exclusive to the PS Vita until mid-2020, when it was released on PC. Golden features quality-of-life improvements, new story scenes and places to visit, and an extra dungeon that takes place towards the end of the game.  Persona 5 - PS3/PS4 (2017) Persona 5 Royal - PS4 (2020) The latest main series game, Persona 5 begins with the main character being sent to Tokyo on a year-long probation after being arrested for assault (and nobody seems to care that he had a drat good reason). Soon after arriving in Tokyo, the protagonist discovers that an app on his phone allows him to enter the Metaverse, a world of the collective unconscious, where he and his friends meet a talking cat and learn that they can change the hearts of evil people by stealing a symbolic "treasure" from inside a person's personal Palace (a dungeon in the Metaverse created by their strong, twisted desires). They form the Phantom Thieves, a group dedicated to taking down criminals whose power and status lets them act like they're above the law, and begin to make a name for themselves as vigilantes. Persona 5 continues the life sim/dungeon crawler fusion that started with Persona 3, but features hand-designed dungeons with light stealth and puzzle elements, and an expanded social link system called Confidants, where your social contacts provide benefits that help you infiltrate Palaces or manage your time during the life sim segments. Persona 5 Royal is an expanded rerelease with more quality of life features and a refined, more tactical combat system, along with new places to visit, new activities, new characters, and an entirely new story arc that takes place after the end of the original game. Harrow fucked around with this message at 20:28 on Apr 18, 2024 |
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Feb 21, 2021 00:42
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Want to learn about spinoffs? Harlock's got you covered:Harlock posted:Merchandising! Merchandising! Where the real Persona money is made.  Persona 5 Strikers - PS4, Switch, PC (2021) Persona 5 Strikers is a little different from the other spinoff games. This time, it's a road trip sequel to Persona 5 in the form of an action-RPG with musou elements. The Phantom Thieves embark on a road trip for summer vacation a few months after the end of Persona 5. It turns out someone else is stealing hearts all across Japan and the cops are blaming the Phantom Thieves, which leads to them getting roped into one more job. While it has a linear story more like an actual Persona game than a musou, it also has action-RPG combat that involves fighting hordes of enemies and switching between characters you control. Persona 5 Strikers also has its own dedicated thread right over here! Frequently Asked Questions I'm new to the series. Where should I start? (Updated 2024) While you can start with any game in the series, I'd personally recommend starting with either Persona 3 Reload or Persona 5 Royal. They're both great games with distinct styles, memorable characters, and excellent music, while having enough quality-of-life features that some of the series's more complex elements (like persona fusion and time management) can be eased into. Persona 4 Golden is also a good starting place, but might feel a little more dated than the two more recent games. But any game in the series is a good starting point and you'll find people who started with and were hooked by every one of them. Maybe the only one I wouldn't recommend as a starting point nowadays is the first game, which can be fairly rough as a newcomer, especially with its high random encounter rate. It's still a good game and worth playing (hell, it was the first one I played, and the Revelations: Persona version, at that!), but if you want to start with one of the older, non-life sim games, I'd recommend Persona 2 instead. Do I have to play all the games in order? Definitely not! With the exception of the Persona 2 duology, every game tells a completely standalone story. The games all take place in a shared world, but connections between them are almost always minor and never plot-critical. You can jump right in with any game and not be missing anything. Life Sim Tips and Tricks As stated before, the mainline Persona games after Persona 3 feature prominent life sim elements where you follow a daily schedule, attend school, and develop relationships with both your party members and other people around the game's setting. The time management and time limits can seem to be stressful at first, so this section has some tips to help you manage it.
Harrow fucked around with this message at 20:37 on Apr 18, 2024 |
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Feb 21, 2021 00:42
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Arist posted:kanji is my friend 
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Feb 21, 2021 00:46
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If you have ideas for FAQs and answers please suggest them. I'm gonna probably update the second post tomorrow morning with info about spinoffs and a "where should I start??" FAQ question.
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Feb 21, 2021 00:57
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Spiffster posted:No welcome to the velvet room message? ah poo poo that's what's missing!!
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Feb 21, 2021 01:23
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Added a couple questions to the FAQ. If you can think of others (or anything to add to the answers there) let me know!
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Feb 21, 2021 01:32
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That's a good one, I'll add that when I'm back at my computer. It's definitely important to max party members in 4 and 5 and I'd recommend focusing on that if you're feeling overwhelmed. There's also one confidant in Royal that unlocks an entire extra month of the game and a different ending and it isn't immediately obvious that it's that important. Maybe something like: max your party members and if a character has a non-standard major arcana, try to max that too? With a link to a list of the normal Rider-Waite arcana for reference. For Persona 5-specific advice, the Fortune and Temperance confidants have very powerful perks that can help a ton with time management. Harrow fucked around with this message at 02:20 on Feb 21, 2021 |
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Feb 21, 2021 02:18
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Maybe a section with life sim tips, then? Don't stress about maxing every social link, recommendations for social links to prioritize, and something about what social stats do and why they matter?
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Feb 21, 2021 02:29
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Simply Simon posted:I've seen some FAQs that recommend reloading whenever you don't get an extra random stat up for crafting lockpics in P5R, at a like 12% chance, and that's absurd, don't do that. Yeah this is extremely not necessary in P5R. I think I know the guide you're talking about and it has like a full month and a half of free time at the end.
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Feb 21, 2021 02:34
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I've only ever maxed all social links in Persona 5 and P5R. I cut it very close in vanilla P5--I didn't realize it would be possible until the last three weeks of the game and I just barely pulled it off. It was easier in P5R since I already knew about how great Chihaya and Kawakami are for time management optimizing. I've never even tried in P3, it seems insanely daunting.
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Feb 21, 2021 03:13
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How is Persona Q2? I clearly love Persona and I also love Etrian Odyssey, but Q1 kinda lost me halfway through. I've heard Q2 is better, though?
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Feb 21, 2021 03:22
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Solaris 2.0 posted:As I mention in the previous thread but what’s the best advice for fighting Shido ? Did you max out the Strength confidant? If so, Abaddon is super helpful in the fight for debuffing the boss and dealing damage. If you haven't maxed Strength, it takes no in-game time and as long as you have the money to do some fusion you can do it all at once. Debilitate makes a huge difference. IIRC he uses a lot of physical attacks early that you can reflect with Tetrakarn and then magical attacks later that you can reflect with Makarakarn.
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Feb 21, 2021 03:26
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Mirello posted:Hey I have a question: It fixed some of the most blatant clunker lines but it still has its stumbles and a good number of lines that are fairly stilted. It's noticeably improved but not 100% fixed.
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Feb 21, 2021 03:43
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Hot take: Marie... is okay I guess
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Feb 21, 2021 03:52
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Beat me to the spinoffs, I'll add that to the OP later, thanks!
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Feb 21, 2021 04:10
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Item Getter posted:Nice OP, and glad to see a Persona thread separated from the main SMT thread since it was usually just 90% the same conversations about Persona 3-5 repeating over there. Good catch, I forgot to mention that. Done.
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Feb 21, 2021 05:17
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As questionable as the translation is for P5, the dub is fantastic and the cast work really hard to make it work. Special shout out to Max Mittelman as Ryuji, just a perfect performance. (Speaking of FF7R, he plays Red XIII and similarly nails it.)
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Feb 21, 2021 05:38
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Solaris 2.0 posted:Yea Reddit said the same thing, but I...have been lax on maxing out confidants. You maxed Councillor, right?
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Feb 21, 2021 06:07
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This is the 25th anniversary year for Persona and Atlus has said they have some big announcements coming so it's possible more PC ports are in the works.
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Feb 21, 2021 06:15
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ROFL Octopus posted:That’s what can make the whole experience downright surreal, like with a proven actor like D.C. Douglas reading lines like “I’ll continue to do my best to answer your expectations of me.” I appreciate that Royal fixes some of the worst lines but it also ended up making lines that were bad but less remarkable now stand out. New Royal content has some hosed up translations sometimes too. There's this one amazing moment where Joker offers to share an umbrella with Yoshizawa and one of the options that should have been translated as "Want to share?" is instead "You want a piece of this?"
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Feb 21, 2021 06:28
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Terper posted:Hm... it sounds like you might have done a variety of things in hiding in your hometown, but you will behave yourself in this thread. That's one of the ones they fixed in Royal, thankfully. What a clunker of a line.
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Feb 21, 2021 06:49
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NikkolasKing posted:I dunno, Cherami Leigh (Makoto) is a pretty big anime "standard" anime voice-actress who I've been hearing since 2011 or 2012 because Fairy Tail. I love her performances but I don't think she's special compared to other dub VAs like the P3 and P4 crew. (Although it has to be said, Liam O'Brien has improved dramatically since those mid 2000 days. You look at P3 or his early Naruto work as Gaara and it's...not great.) I like Makoto a lot, though I also just have a lot of affection for all of the Phantom Thieves. I think she's still my favorite Joker romance option even in Royal. Somehow it just seems right narratively to pair them, maybe just because Makoto kind of steps into a co-lead role after she joins. Harrow fucked around with this message at 07:43 on Feb 21, 2021 |
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Feb 21, 2021 07:41
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I'm hoping that the 25th anniversary announcements include a bunch of ports of the older games, especially to Switch and PC. At the very least it seems like a very obvious move to port P4G to Switch. What I'd love would be an English translation of Persona 2: Eternal Punishment PSP and then port the Persona 2 duology to Switch or something like that, but that seems a bit less likely than ports of versions of 3, 4, and 5.
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Feb 21, 2021 17:30
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I added this to the post below the OP. Anyone else have any tips to add? (Updated)Harrow posted:Life Sim Tips and Tricks Harrow fucked around with this message at 20:00 on Feb 21, 2021 |
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Feb 21, 2021 18:13
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Arist posted:Two notes: First, you might want to include Faith and Justice for Royal, because those don't block off progression but are good and also missable. Oh right, it's not December 3, it's before defeating the December dungeon's boss. I'll update that. I also added Justice and Faith, and a general recommendation to prioritize party member social links in P4 and 5. Harrow fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Feb 21, 2021 |
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Feb 21, 2021 18:19
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lunar detritus posted:Something I didn't know until recently is that getting a good result in the exams not only gives you charm and some social link points, it also gives you a multiplier for all (school?) social links points until the next exam week. That's a good tip, too. Added it (and updated the quoted version on this page for reference).
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Feb 21, 2021 19:58
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The P4 anime has some fun with that social link in one of the early episodes. In general the P4 anime does a great job adapting social links into episode-specific arcs, often by mashing them up so they end up interacting in ways they don't in the game.
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Feb 21, 2021 21:12
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Baton Pass is the thing I miss from P5 when I go back and play P4G. It was a really big battle system improvement in P5 that got even better in Royal. That said P4G plays just fine without it. It's just an adjustment to get used to not being able to pass your 1 More to someone else. Oh, and be careful because the button you use to open the skills menu in combat in P5 is the one that initiates auto-battle in P4 and no that didn't get me killed when I started P4G again why would you ask 
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Feb 22, 2021 02:03
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ROFL Octopus posted:Being able to access every battle option in Persona 5 with a single button press is really slick and I miss it when I play any other JRPG. Yeah, I hope that menu design catches on more. Hell, Super Mario RPG did it all the way back on the SNES. Recently, Yakuza: Like a Dragon has the same battle menu setup, which I really appreciated. Gaius Marius posted:It's really nice but then it kills me when the animations are so slow, It's one of the reasons I still mostly prefer the pre 3d rpg's It is definitely noticeably slower-paced in battle compared to P5. Having the characters in P5 pre-summon their personas when you press the triangle button is a huge time save and feels really slick.
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Feb 22, 2021 03:25
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I suspect Persona 6 might be a ways off if only because it's going to have a new director--Katsura Hashino has moved on from the Persona team to do other things. There's a chance the series might take a new direction with that change, though at the same time I don't expect a change quite as drastic as Persona 3, if only because the series is now mega-popular and Atlus is likely unwilling to redo the whole formula just to do something new. Probably the biggest areas of graphical improvement would be in even fancier lighting and making even bigger, more detailed places to explore. I could see trying to have more detailed facial animation, too. That said, Persona 5 does already look absolutely fantastic, and in a way that I think is going to age very well because it's almost entirely down to art and style. It's like how Final Fantasy XII, despite being a PS2 game, still looks fantastic. You could upscale it to 1080p in an emulator and do nothing else and it looks almost as good as the HD remaster. Harrow fucked around with this message at 15:50 on Feb 22, 2021 |
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Feb 22, 2021 15:48
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Yeah, that's sort of how it goes with personas in the modern Persona games. Because the protagonist is the only one who can change personas and they want to give you the freedom to create personas with mix-and-match skill sets, there ultimately isn't a ton that sets each one apart. Something that I sort of like is that some personas can pick up individual identities just because you've seen them multiple times throughout the games and you know what their deal is. There are personas that always have unique, un-inheritable skills like Alice (Die for Me!) or Yoshitsune (Hassou Tobi), but there are also personas where it's like "this persona always has this really useful ability so I know to be excited when I get to fuse it" like Trumpeter with Debilitate. The earlier games in the series had fewer personas overall and also let every character change personas. It also made a persona's arcana really important because every character had different arcana affinities, which meant certain personas would be better-suited to certain characters but you could still mix and match if you wanted to. I've sort of wanted that kind of system to return, but at the same time I think there are advantages to the way modern Persona does it, too. It is kind of cool how every party member except your protagonist has a persona that is their persona and strongly identified with them. And the party-building aspect that the earlier games used persona-switching for is instead handled by letting you pick your party members. In Persona 1 and 2, you'd only ever have five party members and couldn't freely switch them. You might get a choice as to who fills that fifth slot but it's a one-time choice and that's it.
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Feb 22, 2021 18:08
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A couple special "one day only" things in P5R that are worth mentioning to anyone starting: - Bring Yusuke to the jazz club on 9/4 and he can learn Charge. (You could also bring Ryuji but he'll naturally learn that later so it's kind of a waste) - Bring Makoto to the jazz club on 9/25 and she can learn Concentrate. (Same as above for Ann--she'll learn it naturally later) Both of those abilities take characters who are already pretty useful and make them some of the best party members. You can especially do some wild poo poo with Charge on Yusuke with his gimmick of having physical attacks that power up after a Baton Pass. Have him Charge up, then have someone else pass the baton to him and watch him just annihilate an enemy. Also persona traits are a cool addition in Royal. Ryuji's is extra-bonkers--with his top-tier persona he has a chance to make anyone on the team's physical attack do +80% damage. Ryuji and Yusuke on a team together just wreck poo poo. Also it is very fun to watch Ryuji's trait make Joker's Charged-up Hassou Tobi do an extra 80% damage sometimes. Harrow fucked around with this message at 18:31 on Feb 22, 2021 |
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Feb 22, 2021 18:28
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I was amused by how much like a Persona 4 arc Futaba's dungeon ended up being. She's the only one of the team to gain a persona by reconciling with and accepting her shadow and, like the P4 characters, how long it takes for her to recover from the experience depends entirely on how far before the deadline you finish her dungeon
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Feb 22, 2021 20:18
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Now that there's a dedicated Persona thread I'd like to point out how crazy good the openings for the Persona 5 anime are. They write a lot of checks the anime can't cash but I'm glad the anime exists because both of these songs rock. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HU_Z8RKo_Ow (full song here) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH23LPDKxtM (full song here) The first credits theme for the anime is really nice, too.
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Feb 22, 2021 21:01
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Ostentatious posted:Honestly I preferred the characters in p4 to p5 I think a lot of people agree with this. Personally I think I like the P5 cast better, but only by a slim margin. They're both fantastic casts. (also gently caress Yosuke)
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Feb 23, 2021 01:46
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tithin posted:What's this about traits? Every persona now has an extra passive skill called a trait and some of them are pretty cool. They can be passed on with fusion, too. Some of them are small or situational (like Foul Odor, which makes it easier to land a status ailment after a baton pass), others are pretty huge (like one that lets you use ambush-only skills any time). Party member traits tend to be about synergy and providing a passive benefit to the team. Everyone's healing spells are stronger when Morgana's on the team, Makoto makes it easier to land elemental status effects for everyone, Ann sometimes lowers SP costs for everyone, Ryuji has a chance to boost someone's physical attack damage, etc. That's what makes Ryuji and Yusuke an insanely good combo. Give them both Charge (Ryuji naturally from leveling, and Yusuke from the jazz club) and now you have a physical bulldozer team.
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Feb 23, 2021 04:16
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RillAkBea posted:It always felt like "haha he's so in love, that's cute" to me, but I think the dub/localization makes him come off a little creepy. Yeah, I think it's supposed to come off as Morgana just being smitten. I think it mostly works but also I'm comparing him to Yosuke, the previous Magician arcana character, who is a huge perv.
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Feb 23, 2021 04:24
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Ytlaya posted:One other thing that I didn't really notice much at first is that P5 is notably scarce when it comes to non-party-member school s-links. I think the only one is Mishima. This is very much intentional in P5. Everyone at Shujin thinks Joker is some dangerous delinquent and wants nothing to do with him, so nobody invites you to join any clubs or anything like that. The only confidants your age are either party members, outcasts who are even less cool (Mishima), or go to a different school (Hifumi).
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Feb 23, 2021 14:40
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Endorph posted:i remember koromaru because rookie mistake shuji, rookie mistake It's like you've never been an anime villain before
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Feb 23, 2021 14:51
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The P4G epilogue is kind of funny because a lot of it feels like everyone hasn't seen you since you left, but at the same time, Persona 4 Dancing takes place in April and Arena in May and both are canon so it's really only been a month or so It's a cute epilogue though and I like it.
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Feb 23, 2021 15:25
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