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Persona Community Thread |OT2| Burn My Thread

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S

ScraftyDevil

Banned
P2IS is good. I was able to play it no problem. You may want to just watch a playthrough of EP though unless you can stomach the awkward, outdated mechanics. Either way, be sure to experience both in some way.

On an unrelated note, TLoU is really visceral and satisfying. I just got my favourite kill ever: (first third-ish spoilers)
during the bit when you need to take on a group of hunters who have set up Bill-style mine tripwires all over a block, I was down to only 3 shotgun shells, an arrow and a handful of pistol rounds. I crept into an abandoned shop and noticed one of the aforementioned tripwires, then threw a bottle to attract the last shotgun-armed hunter. When he ducked under the tripwire to investigate the noise, I tossed a brick at the mine and blew him halfway across the room. "Survive and endure, huh?" said Ellie, signalling that the last enemy had been killed.
I felt like such a baller.
 
P

PK Gaming

Member
ScraftyDevil said:
Sliding doors > having to replay the game several times because you missed a single seemingly insignificant choice that screwed the rest of your playthrough over.

Both games have their fatal flaws, but VLR wins overall for me because its writing is sharper and less reliant on prose, and has more effective and less ridiculous inane twists (although in 999's defense, it was kind of
screwed over by the cultural barrier
). Both games are essentially down one character for most of the story, and I overall prefer VLR's cast (<3 K) to 999's (999 admittedly had the better villain though).

I could write a long, spoiler-laden paper on how I feel VLR is the better overall game, but I respect the opinions of those who prefer 999. VLR is not an inherently inferior game though.
Click to expand...

House-Sad-Head-Nod.gif


The VLR cast is mad underrated.
 
B

brianmcdoogle

Member
Yup, I made that app. Glad you enjoy it.

And, I am a lurker. I only played 3 and 4 and when you guys start on innocent sin and whatnot, I run away. One of these days I will just use a FAQ and beat it.
 
M

Marche90

Member
brianmcdoogle said:
Yup, I made that app. Glad you enjoy it.

And, I am a lurker. I only played 3 and 4 and when you guys start on innocent sin and whatnot, I run away. One of these days I will just use a FAQ and beat it.
Click to expand...

Don't worry, you're not alone.
:(

One of these days I will return to it (PSone edition). Just not now; my anime backlog has grown stupidly big now, and still haven't finished Xenoblade yet. Dem sidequests
 
M

Meia

Member
I tried liking Xenoblade, I really did. The characters clicked, I was alright with the story, but after playing WoW for 6 years I was burned out on the quest system in the game when I started. :p


I'm beginning to think more and more for us new people to the series 2:IS PSP is the one to really start with. Good mechanics, great characters, great story. Most of the important stuff from 1 doesn't show up til ES I'm guessing, cause there wasn't that much in IS.
 
F

FluxWaveZ

Member
Meia said:
Most of the important stuff from 1 doesn't show up til ES I'm guessing, cause there wasn't that much in IS.
Click to expand...

Nothing from P1 is really "important" when it comes to P2, but it's fun to see all of the significant cameos or callbacks. Going from P1 to P2:IS, it was fun seeing Yukino, the teacher, the principal and other references to St. Hermelin.
 
M

Meia

Member
FluxWaveZ said:
Nothing from P1 is really "important" when it comes to P2, but it's fun to see all of the significant cameos or callbacks. Going from P1 to P2:IS, it was fun seeing Yukino, the teacher, the principal and other references to St. Hermelin.
Click to expand...


It is and it made me happier to have played 1, but then I realized that you only really feel that in the first place in the game, and not really anywhere else.


In reality, because I felt I had to stagger through 1 first before getting to IS it took me way longer to attempt IS than it probably should, and once I started I couldn't stop. I almost think new people to the older games should ignore 1. Though then playing IS, seeing how it ends, and telling them to go play 1 before EP may be more cruel.
 
C

Cheska

Member
Meia said:
It is and it made me happier to have played 1, but then I realized that you only really feel that in the first place in the game, and not really anywhere else.


In reality, because I felt I had to stagger through 1 first before getting to IS it took me way longer to attempt IS than it probably should, and once I started I couldn't stop. I almost think new people to the older games should ignore 1. Though then playing IS, seeing how it ends, and telling them to go play 1 before EP may be more cruel.
Click to expand...

I have no idea how people can actually enjoy Persona 1 anymore, it's so archaic and pales in comparison to the rest of the series. Playing the P2 saga is already a little on the tough side simply because the mechanics are so different from 3 and 4 which is admittedly where a lot of people started with the series.
 
B

buddha0991

Member
Cheska said:
I have no idea how people can actually enjoy Persona 1 anymore, it's so archaic and pales in comparison to the rest of the series. Playing the P2 saga is already a little on the tough side simply because the mechanics are so different from 3 and 4 which is admittedly where a lot of people started with the series.
Click to expand...

P2EP > P2 IS > P4 > P1 > P3

1352596692887.jpg
 
B

buddha0991

Member
Cheska said:
Buuuurn! It's surprising to see people dislike Persona 3 since that's what made me fall in love with the series. I wonder how different 4 would have been if the reception to 3/FES would have been poor.
Click to expand...

I love all games in the series, but when P3 original was released, I was crushed and put off to the series, it is not what i was expecting at all. I gave it another chance with P3FES after P4 made me love the series again, and had a better time, but guess what other controversial opinion I hold?

The Answer > The Journey, and P4 is The Journey done right.

1352596692887.jpg

1352596692887.jpg


While people who like 1 and 2 and other Megaten's can certainly like P3/4, you do get the sense that they were made for a different audience. I kind of hope P5 can manage to cater to both of them. Though, these days, even the P3 crowd and P4 crowd are considered different to each other, hah.
 
L

Lunar15

Member
Meia said:
I tried liking Xenoblade, I really did. The characters clicked, I was alright with the story, but after playing WoW for 6 years I was burned out on the quest system in the game when I started. :p
Click to expand...

Just don't do side-quests. Totally skip-able. It's the worst kind of filler. They put so much of those into each area, when really, they're pointless and you can just move through the game at a decent pace without them. They're not even fun quests, it's just ask the guy something then go fight 3 wolves. No creativity required.

The main game itself is good though, and I enjoyed it greatly once I told myself to completely ignore the pointless quests.

I also liked that it tried to do some "social link" stuff with your party, but I could never really do it on a consistent basis. Also the game's story, while good in the beginning, devolves into generic anime bullshit by the end, which really depressed me. It started out pretty strong and dashed some tropes early, but a lot of those tropes come trudging on back in the worst way possible.
 
J

jaxword

Member
buddha0991 said:
While people who like 1 and 2 and other Megaten's can certainly like P3/4, you do get the sense that they were made for a different audience.
Click to expand...

They totally were, and it's a sign of the changing jrpg audience. Final Fantasy and to a lesser degree Dragon Quest all show this. It's all about the feeling of achievement and reward.

Pretty obvious to see that the early audiences were people who LIKED grinding and repetitive battles for the reward of stat levels up. The story and general gameplay/story segregation was pretty secondary to that gameplay aspect. Which was fine, it was 20 years ago.

Now, the audiences legitimately want to have more than that; the reward is the story, the characters, the spectacles of the flashy graphics, the love interests, etc. The SNES FFs and DQs were the first to experiment with this, and now almost 2 decades later, people want to be able to mix and match characters they like rather than just for pure stats.

The new Persona team has clearly realized this and developed a clever way to make the "reward" come from different angles. Instead of grinding away for 2 hours, you can flirt with girls or talk to friends. This doesn't mean the battles are removed totally, but it means there's diversity and less dependance on it since you can get that reward another way.

To be blunt: Modern Jrpgs are aimed to have an audience wider than people who had the spare time to grind away for hours.



Tangentially, I am playing Persona 1 for the first time after playing 3, 4 and 2. It's not fun. It's a chore. Random battles are a relic, and the encounter rate is absurdly high. The characters are pretty boring and, frankly, the writing is too. It shows its age from when it was made, when this was the norm for jrpgs and players accepted it.
 
D

Daimaou

Member
I feel so alone in the fact that Persona 1 is still probably my favorite, even if it's just because of nostalgia for it. It and EarthBound struck me in a really formative time in my life, and really informed my taste in games going forward. They just felt so different from other RPGs in terms of style and atmosphere.

buddha0991 said:
The Answer > The Journey, and P4 is The Journey done right.
Click to expand...

You've said this before and I still have no idea what you mean by it. The Answer is just The Journey without the day to day social sim, defaulted to hard. Considering P4 obviously has the social system and it's easier than P3 on normal...?
 
T

Trigger

Member
The only thing I liked about the Answer was how it handled the concept of "what now?" after heroes defeat a powerful enemy and dealing with loss. Otherwise it's just a long slog of combat without much reward.
 
S

ScraftyDevil

Banned
Trigger said:
The only thing I liked about the Answer was how it handled the concept of "what now?" after heroes defeat a powerful enemy and dealing with loss. Otherwise it's just a long slog of combat without much reward.
Click to expand...

The endgame boss battles are their own reward.

Just out of curiosity, what was each of your favourite Answer boss battles?
As much as I like Erebus and his awesome theme, Junpei was my favourite (big surprise), because since he was paired up with Koromaru (who obviously can't speak), he got the most development out of any member of SEES (especially considering Yukari and arguably Mistruru actually regressed character-wise).
 
M

Meia

Member
ScraftyDevil said:
The endgame boss battles are their own reward.

Just out of curiosity, what was each of your favourite Answer boss battles?
As much as I like Erebus and his awesome theme, Junpei was my favourite (big surprise), because since he was paired up with Koromaru (who obviously can't speak), he got the most development out of any member of SEES (especially considering Yukari and arguably Mistruru actually regressed character-wise).
Click to expand...


I'd probably give the edge to
Yukari and Mitsuru honestly. I didn't like what they did with Yukari, but Mitsuru doing what she does at the end, and the reasoning, actually shows her growth as a person from how she started in 3, which is great. Yukari was the opposite, though I can totally understand her reasoning. Everyone she cares about deeply dies. Disliked mother, father dies, only other person after she opens her heart up to also dies(why her social link being maxed has to be canon or her actions in the Answer don't make sense), she doesn't take it very well. It's a good representation of the Lovers reversed really. When I think about Heartfelt Cry, it's always this battle I picture for this reason.
 
M

Marche90

Member
Sophia said:
The expressions are just plain weird to begin with too. Case in point. It makes her look like she's hyperactive. It's also opposite of Soejima's style. His characters usually soften up as a means of gentle expression.
Click to expand...

Is it wrong if I like those expressions? :p

Not that I would prefer these to her normal expressions, mind you, but I still liked them.
 
P

PK Gaming

Member
ScraftyDevil said:
The endgame boss battles are their own reward.

Just out of curiosity, what was each of your favourite Answer boss battles?
As much as I like Erebus and his awesome theme, Junpei was my favourite (big surprise), because since he was paired up with Koromaru (who obviously can't speak), he got the most development out of any member of SEES (especially considering Yukari and arguably Mistruru actually regressed character-wise).
Click to expand...

I wasn't very fond of
Erebus
but I gotta say the
SEES
bosses were great, even if they were a bit contrived.
I honestly can't pick a favorite, I liked all 3 about the same. Spiteful!Yukari was great.
 
B

buddha0991

Member
Daimaou said:
You've said this before and I still have no idea what you mean by it. The Answer is just The Journey without the day to day social sim, defaulted to hard. Considering P4 obviously has the social system and it's easier than P3 on normal...?
Click to expand...

Exactly, no day to day Half baked social life, no terrible pacing with months of nothing happening, no weirdly forced romance paths for female characters and not even being able to befriend your male team mates, no forced tired mechanic, just some good old dungeon crawling, even if the dungeons aren't complex or anything. Hard should not be auto locked though, limiting the player base of the mode seems silly. Also, The Answer doesn't fix my complaint of the entire game taking place in one repetitive, randomly generated with limited variant dungeon. P4 has way more thought and care put into it's social sim, you get rewards for slinking with your party members, and CAN slink your male teammates and go for non romance path with your female teammates, relieving the system of it's creepier aspects found in 3. The pacing got a shot in the arm and moves at a brisker pace, though P4 Golden sort of messes it up a bit. What P4G does is add even more stuff to do that is not combat or slinking, shifting away from a social sim thing to more of a life sim. There is no more tired mechanic, instead SP is greatly limited for a while, you can get by with proper management and skill, which is better than just randomly getting tired. The dungeon layouts are sill mediocre, but the dungeons themselves are much more interesting, and along with the music playing, you get a warped view into character's hidden selves. The bosses, for the most part are better designed, even if they are easier. I may have missed something, but overall, that explains my stance. The Answer and P4 have their own problems, but they just fit my taste better than P3 The Journey, and I'd say overall P4 is a better game than P3, I wish it was harder and the end game better, but yea.
 
S

Sophia

Member
ShmeebAlina said:
http://maoh.dengeki.com/try/p4u/08/13.html

The one on the left here freakin' killed me, hahaha!
Click to expand...

Oh god. YANDERE ROBOT EVERYONE RUN AAAH O_O

The artist draws Mitsuru pretty well tho.

buddha0991 said:
Exactly, no day to day Half baked social life, no terrible pacing with months of nothing happening, no weirdly forced romance paths for female characters and not even being able to befriend your male team mates, no forced tired mechanic, just some good old dungeon crawling, even if the dungeons aren't complex or anything. Hard should not be auto locked though, limiting the player base of the mode seems silly. Also, The Answer doesn't fix my complaint of the entire game taking place in one repetitive, randomly generated with limited variant dungeon. P4 has way more thought and care put into it's social sim, you get rewards for slinking with your party members, and CAN slink your male teammates and go for non romance path with your female teammates, relieving the system of it's creepier aspects found in 3. The pacing got a shot in the arm and moves at a brisker pace, though P4 Golden sort of messes it up a bit. What P4G does is add even more stuff to do that is not combat or slinking, shifting away from a social sim thing to more of a life sim. There is no more tired mechanic, instead SP is greatly limited for a while, you can get by with proper management and skill, which is better than just randomly getting tired. The dungeon layouts are sill mediocre, but the dungeons themselves are much more interesting, and along with the music playing, you get a warped view into character's hidden selves. The bosses, for the most part are better designed, even if they are easier. I may have missed something, but overall, that explains my stance. The Answer and P4 have their own problems, but they just fit my taste better than P3 The Journey, and I'd say overall P4 is a better game than P3, I wish it was harder and the end game better, but yea.
Click to expand...

Whoa whoa whoa. Let's not pretend that's any better than the tired mechanic. The SP mechanic system has all the same flaws but with the benefit of creating an Unstable Equilibrium thanks to being exploitable by the player. Better players will simply be unfazed by it by the end of Yukiko's dungeon, and not-so-great players will just get screwed over faster.
 
E

Exodist

Member
Just a question for people who have played Persona 2. So basically I was recently playing Persona 1 on the PSP. It was okay, but the exp system was completely shit and meant that in the end I just gave up because I couldn't be bothered to grind anymore (for reference, I got to the last boss with MC at level 50 and my party at 40, I get into the fight and she just batters me with this paralyse thing, so I just quit because I can't be bothered to grind). So anyway, is the experience system the same in Persona 2? I read the battles have changed, and the annoying Persona system is still intact, but I can live with that. I just wanna know if you get the same EXP for every party member or if its split up again.
 
D

Daimaou

Member
buddha0991 said:
Exactly, no day to day Half baked social life, no terrible pacing with months of nothing happening, no weirdly forced romance paths for female characters and not even being able to befriend your male team mates, no forced tired mechanic, just some good old dungeon crawling, even if the dungeons aren't complex or anything. Hard should not be auto locked though, limiting the player base of the mode seems silly. Also, The Answer doesn't fix my complaint of the entire game taking place in one repetitive, randomly generated with limited variant dungeon. P4 has way more thought and care put into it's social sim, you get rewards for slinking with your party members, and CAN slink your male teammates and go for non romance path with your female teammates, relieving the system of it's creepier aspects found in 3. The pacing got a shot in the arm and moves at a brisker pace, though P4 Golden sort of messes it up a bit. What P4G does is add even more stuff to do that is not combat or slinking, shifting away from a social sim thing to more of a life sim. There is no more tired mechanic, instead SP is greatly limited for a while, you can get by with proper management and skill, which is better than just randomly getting tired. The dungeon layouts are sill mediocre, but the dungeons themselves are much more interesting, and along with the music playing, you get a warped view into character's hidden selves. The bosses, for the most part are better designed, even if they are easier. I may have missed something, but overall, that explains my stance. The Answer and P4 have their own problems, but they just fit my taste better than P3 The Journey, and I'd say overall P4 is a better game than P3, I wish it was harder and the end game better, but yea.
Click to expand...

I agree that P4 refines a lot of things wrong with P3's systems, but what I'm confused by is equating P4 to The Answer. It's a stripped down, harder P3. P4 isn't The Answer done right, it's The Journey done right.

That said, I probably prefer the tone and atmosphere of P3 to P4.
 
B

buddha0991

Member
^must have been a typo then, my bad lol, I'm in my phone after all :p

Wait I just checked my post and I equate to the journey, wut

Sophia said:
Oh god.Whoa whoa whoa. Let's not pretend that's any better than the tired mechanic. The SP mechanic system has all the same flaws but with the benefit of creating an Unstable Equilibrium thanks to being exploitable by the player. Better players will simply be unfazed by it by the end of Yukiko's dungeon, and not-so-great players will just get screwed over faster.
Click to expand...

No arguement there, both games would be better without either, but if I HAD to pick, I would pick a system that screws over many players over one that screws over every player.
 
F

FluxWaveZ

Member
Sophia said:
The expressions are just plain weird to begin with too. Case in point. It makes her look like she's hyperactive. It's also opposite of Soejima's style. His characters usually soften up as a means of gentle expression.
Click to expand...

The expressions are pretty normal in the full manga, especially in the battle scenes.

Her eyes are too wide, though.
 
S

Sophia

Member
buddha0991 said:
No arguement there, both games would be better without either, but if I HAD to pick, I would pick a system that screws over many players over one that screws over every player.
Click to expand...

I'd pick the system that's fair to everyone. Persona 4's SP system is one of it's worst aspects, because by the end game nobody is bothered by it (just liked tiredness), where it makes the early game almost unfairly hard to beginner players.

I doubt anyone would favor P4's system over P3's if you could see the actual fatigue level of the party members versus having to guess.

Exodist said:
Just a question for people who have played Persona 2. So basically I was recently playing Persona 1 on the PSP. It was okay, but the exp system was completely shit and meant that in the end I just gave up because I couldn't be bothered to grind anymore (for reference, I got to the last boss with MC at level 50 and my party at 40, I get into the fight and she just batters me with this paralyse thing, so I just quit because I can't be bothered to grind). So anyway, is the experience system the same in Persona 2? I read the battles have changed, and the annoying Persona system is still intact, but I can live with that. I just wanna know if you get the same EXP for every party member or if its split up again.
Click to expand...

32077.jpg


Pretty standard experience system in P2, honestly. Everyone gets a roughly equal share. Nothing like the XP system in Persona 1.
 
M

Meia

Member
Exodist said:
Just a question for people who have played Persona 2. So basically I was recently playing Persona 1 on the PSP. It was okay, but the exp system was completely shit and meant that in the end I just gave up because I couldn't be bothered to grind anymore (for reference, I got to the last boss with MC at level 50 and my party at 40, I get into the fight and she just batters me with this paralyse thing, so I just quit because I can't be bothered to grind). So anyway, is the experience system the same in Persona 2? I read the battles have changed, and the annoying Persona system is still intact, but I can live with that. I just wanna know if you get the same EXP for every party member or if its split up again.
Click to expand...


Honestly, even in 1 the personas you made were more important than the level you were at. I did grind to 62 at least with Maki so she could use her ultimate persona(which was the only one in that game worth anything btw), and everyone else I just made sure had personas that were strong to magic and had Megidolaon(some having Mediarahn as well).


Much the same thing happens in 2:IS in terms of personas. It's more important to figure out how to do the most powerful fusion skills though, and which personas have which abilities to use said skills. There's a very good non-spoiler walkthrough that goes into that, including which cards to farm in an area for which personas. It almost made it a story mode walkthrough, and given the characters and story, I greatly appreciated. It's stuff I could have figured out on my own though if I knew which fusion spells to use and then looked at a persona skill list.


Biggest change from 1 to 2 is no annoying grid system, which almost killed 1 for me. Otherwise things are similar, but you want to use fusion spells. Have I mentioned fusion spells? :p


EDIT:

And to me, the SP system from 4 was the same as the tired system from 3, so they both wash for me. Both punish you early, both aren't noticeable late, both are somewhat exploitable to make managing them easier(4 buying TAP sodas early vs 3 always using the bathroom the day you go to Tartarus so you're in "great" status). Hell, if anything 4 could have been harder since you couldn't exploit knocking enemies down just to force them to lose a turn.
 
S

ScraftyDevil

Banned
PK Gaming said:
I wasn't very fond of
Erebus
but I gotta say the
SEES
bosses were great, even if they were a bit contrived.
I honestly can't pick a favorite, I liked all 3 about the same. Spiteful!Yukari was great.
Click to expand...

I like Erebus' design, music and principle more than the boss itself. The entire dichotomy of Erebus as the manifestation of human will and Nyx as the manifestation of human ideals was really neat, and his design is unsettling without seeming ridiculous, which a few other SMT bosses suffer from. You can't tell me that his music isn't awesome either. I like it for the same reason that I love The Almighty: it's not overly "epic" but is still awesome and pulse-pounding.
 
E

Exodist

Member
Meia said:
Honestly, even in 1 the personas you made were more important than the level you were at. I did grind to 62 at least with Maki so she could use her ultimate persona(which was the only one in that game worth anything btw), and everyone else I just made sure had personas that were strong to magic and had Megidolaon(some having Mediarahn as well).


Much the same thing happens in 2:IS in terms of personas. It's more important to figure out how to do the most powerful fusion skills though, and which personas have which abilities to use said skills. There's a very good non-spoiler walkthrough that goes into that, including which cards to farm in an area for which personas. It almost made it a story mode walkthrough, and given the characters and story, I greatly appreciated. It's stuff I could have figured out on my own though if I knew which fusion spells to use and then looked at a persona skill list.


Biggest change from 1 to 2 is no annoying grid system, which almost killed 1 for me. Otherwise things are similar, but you want to use fusion spells. Have I mentioned fusion spells? :p
Click to expand...

I don't think my personas were particularly bad at that stage. I had Megidolaon and mediarama and diarama set for healing. It just did too much damage. It spammed the multi target paralyse and that was it, it hit 4 people, 4 paralysed, and then I was dead next turn. It was basically halving my characters HP in one go. I know Personas are important, but at that point it just felt I was severely underleveled more than anything, which was frustrating as I managed to get to the end of the game with no problems at all. Then suddenly this annoying as hell final boss. The game was okay but honestly I don't care that much to bother to finish it. But I look forward to trying 2 anyway.
 
D

Daimaou

Member
buddha0991 said:
^must have been a typo then, my bad lol, I'm in my phone after all :p

Wait I just checked my post and I equate to the journey, wut
Click to expand...

Yeah, I just checked it again and apparently I can't read. Disregard.

I think you may have switched them in IRC the other day, which is what made me think you said the same thing here? Or maybe I'm illiterate. Hard to say.
 
M

Meia

Member
buddha0991 said:
Meia did you give EP another shot? :D
Click to expand...


It's lodged firmly in backlog status atm. Doing LoU now, probably 999 next, EP will be after that(I'd have it beaten by now if I could figure out how to not have turn orders reset all willy nilly instead of being in the area
just after the hospital
).
 
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