Shin Megami Tensei and Persona

[Ogremindes]

For those wondering about the title: Shin Megami Tensei is a series of post apocalyptic JPRGs heavy in occult and religious imagery created by Atlus and notable for being "evil pokemon" (you collect and summon "demons", which in this case includes all manner of mythological creatures, such as angels), and for having the player make choices on the Law/Chaos axis, rather than good and evil. The series has many spin-offs, most notably Persona.
The Persona games are JRPGs set in High School, modern times (well, P1 is set in '99), and instead of demons the characters summon their "persona", which is a symbolic manifestation of their "true self", which happens to take the form of a SMT demon. The more recent games of the Persona series including dating sim elements, which works much better than it sounds on paper. Persona has it's own spin-offs, P4 Arena, and now Persona Q. The SMT games as a whole are pretty consistently high-quality, high difficulty and unforgiving, with the newer Persona games being some of the more accessible games in the greater Megami Tensei series.

Preamble out of the way, having gotten my copy of Persona Q a couple of days ago I thought it would be a good time to see If we could get a general MegaTen thread going.

Looking at my collection, there's a lot of SMT games for 3DS that I haven't gotten around to playing: SMT4, Soul Hackers, Devil Survivor Overclocked and DS2 are all in my pile. And now I've been playing Persona Q I want to go back to P3.

On with Persona Q, the Etrian Odyssey-style crossover between Persona 3 and 4. I never played much EO, but I recognise the map tools and the FOEs. I expect other mechanics, such as binds, come from the same. It does make for some odd redundancy, such as with Agility Bind and Sukunda (one debuffs agility, the other debuffs agility differently). I wasn't expecting so much Etrian, as it wasn't really there in Strange Journey.

I've gotten to the second floor second station of Labyrinth 2 now, with a couple of days of pretty heavy play. The game's hard, but that was expected. I've only wiped once, but I've had to run back to the Nurse's Office with my tail between my legs on more than one occasion. I have a need to get all the gear upgrades for all my characters (all 19), so I've been on a fair few runs through labyrinth 1 for cash.

My biggest problem in the game so far is trying to maintain a good stable of Personas. I just can't seem to get good inheritance when fusing up, and they level as slow as ever and with no s-link bonus to help things along. I like that Shinji is getting some screentime (he really didn't get enough in P3), and that Reach out to the Truth played when the P4 team joined (I chose to play as the P3 protagonist)

Anyway, this thread is now open. If you've been playing something SMT and want to talk about it, or have questions about anything in the series, or want to tell me just how much PQ is or isn't EO, please chime in.

[Comet]

SMT IV finally arrived in Europe, so I've been playing that. I like the story so far, framing the whole thing as a continuous dungeon crawl or journey to the centre of the earth is a neat idea. Though I hope things get a bit more serious/weird later on, since that's what I've always enjoyed about SMT. So far it's been a pretty standard adventure, though there have been enough quirky elements and mysteries to keep me playing.

And I have to admit that I'm enjoying the lower difficulty compared to some other STM titles. The challenging gameplay is one of the things that makes the series so enjoyable, but getting to explore the world without having to stress too much about what's behind the corner is a nice change of pace.

Has anybody played Devil Survivor 2, by the way? I really enjoyed the first one, should I go ahead and look for the sequel once I'm done with SMT IV?

[Ryuho Tsugu]

I'm finding PQ to be pretty difficult so far; ability costs are high (28 MP for Zionga? seriously?), damage is high (nobody on my back row can take more than one hit), and the RNG hates me (I lost my first run at the You in Wonderland boss when Naoto got slapped with Agility Bind and subsequently whiffed Mabufu—after that it was a losing fight of attrition). In fact, I'm finding it worse than SMT4, and that was a game where I got TPK'd in my third ever battle thanks to a crit from a Lham Dearg on my MC.

I got through EQ4 somehow, so I can probably do PQ too... but I'm shelving it in favor of the new Pokemon games for now.

[Calemyr]

I don't have a 3DS and little interest in buying another overpriced and under-supplied paperweight (I don't regret buying a Vita, but one paperweight per generation is enough, thank you). Frankly it kinda ticks me off that a pair of PS2 exclusive games (with PSP and PSV upgrade ports) has what seems like a critical chapter locked away on a completely separate system.

I do hope it's good, but I hope you'll forgive me if I also hope it's not the chapter that actually starts to resolve stuff. I'll be watching this thread to know what you think of it.

[tyckspoon]

I don't have a 3DS and little interest in buying another overpriced and under-supplied paperweight (I don't regret buying a Vita, but one paperweight per generation is enough, thank you). Frankly it kinda ticks me off that a pair of PS2 exclusive games (with PSP and PSV upgrade ports) has what seems like a critical chapter locked away on a completely separate system.


So you're not annoyed about the part of the story that is contained in Persona Arena, then? The series was never going to stay stuck on PS2 if it was going to go anywhere after P4, after all.

Re: Strange Journey - Strange Journey is actually a throwback to SMT 1 and 2 (those games had more overworld, but practically speaking all of the actual meat of the game took place in first-person tile dungeons.) You don't get a lot of Etrian Odyssey in it because that's not where the inspiration comes from except in as much as EO is the premier modern dungeon exploring game.



Has anybody played Devil Survivor 2, by the way? I really enjoyed the first one, should I go ahead and look for the sequel once I'm done with SMT IV?

I got about 80% through it before my habit of never finishing a game kicked in, which is a good bit more than I did of Devil Survivor (no Bel fights with that annoying 'only the main character can do damage' thing helped.) I'd say yeah, go look for it.

[Calemyr]

So you're not annoyed about the part of the story that is contained in Persona Arena, then? The series was never going to stay stuck on PS2 if it was going to go anywhere after P4, after all.

It's funny, I almost added "At least P4Arena was available on PS3", but decided against it. The Persona series has been always been a PS exclusive. It's one of the reasons I favor those consoles.

[A Rainy Knight]

Has anybody played Devil Survivor 2, by the way? I really enjoyed the first one, should I go ahead and look for the sequel once I'm done with SMT IV?

DS2 is really fun. You get a better variety of party members during the length of the week, and I thought the figurehead for the Chaos route was particularly convincing and charismatic in this one, in his own sociopathic way. The final boss will make you sweat a bit with some questionably fair tactics, but I overall enjoyed it even more than the first game.

The protagonist also gets the most amazing dialogue choices at times.
http://noisyprotagonist.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/desu2-silly-protagonist.jpg


I'm finding PQ to be pretty difficult so far; ability costs are high (28 MP for Zionga? seriously?), damage is high (nobody on my back row can take more than one hit), and the RNG hates me (I lost my first run at the You in Wonderland boss when Naoto got slapped with Agility Bind and subsequently whiffed Mabufu—after that it was a losing fight of attrition). In fact, I'm finding it worse than SMT4, and that was a game where I got TPK'd in my third ever battle thanks to a crit from a Lham Dearg on my MC.

Casters got the short end of the stick in Persona Q. HP is much, much easier to replenish than SP (Fuuka's navi skill is amazing in drawn-out fights), and physical skills can strike elemental weaknesses just as well as spells.

I've been running a party of
Shinjiro/Junpei/Aigis
P3MC/Ken
and it's been working pretty well so far. In random battles, the front line just pumps out physical damage while the back line shuts enemies down with ailments/binds/Hama/Mudo. Bestial Roar has been a great skill on Shinjiro, since it actually makes his Teardrop line of skills useful. I just give Ken a persona with Impure Reach and Toxic Slice, and he just fishes for criticals the whole time during boss battles and tries to keep the enemy poisoned.

[Ryuho Tsugu]

Casters got the short end of the stick in Persona Q. HP is much, much easier to replenish than SP (Fuuka's navi skill is amazing in drawn-out fights), and physical skills can strike elemental weaknesses just as well as spells.

I've been running a party of
Shinjiro/Junpei/Aigis
P3MC/Ken
and it's been working pretty well so far. In random battles, the front line just pumps out physical damage while the back line shuts enemies down with ailments/binds/Hama/Mudo. Bestial Roar has been a great skill on Shinjiro, since it actually makes his Teardrop line of skills useful. I just give Ken a persona with Impure Reach and Toxic Slice, and he just fishes for criticals the whole time during boss battles and tries to keep the enemy poisoned.

I'm not sure how I feel about casting from HP when nobody can take more than one hit, though.

When I left off, my party was P4 Hero, Chie, and Kanji in the front using regular attacks, Yukiko in back because she has the Media card, and Naoto in back for Hama/Mudo. I wonder if it would be worth it to try killing more Card Soldiers in hope of obtaining overleveled Personas.

[Zevox]

Has anybody played Devil Survivor 2, by the way? I really enjoyed the first one, should I go ahead and look for the sequel once I'm done with SMT IV?
Devil Survivor 2 is pretty good. I haven't played it in a while, but I vaguely recall there being some gameplay improvements from the first game. I do think that the first one has the stronger story though, since 2 is basically a fusion of DS1 and another SMT game (won't specify which one lest it give away spoilers, but everyone who's played both probably know what I'm talking about). But that's not to say that 2's isn't good itself - it does that plot better than the other SMT game in question in my mind - just that I found it disappointing that it wasn't more original.

If you're going to get it though, you may as well wait for the enhanced re-release for the 3DS, DS2: Record Breaker. That's supposedly coming to NA sometime early in 2015.

[Mx.Silver]

Currently playing through Persona 1 on the Vita, as per my 'play the entire series' goal I adopted after P4G. Doing the main/SEBEC route with Reiji as 5th team member so as to avoid doubling-up if/when I go back for the Snow Queen route (which is looking quite promising due to Masao/'Mark' not being a required party member for it).

It's an alright game, but not one I'd make much effort to recommend.
The Persona series seems required to have at least one stupid thing about it's combat system, and in 1's case this takes the form of the combat grid. Which you cannot move around on during battles, because if you could then it wouldn't be the stupid thing about the combat system. Instead you have a very small list of customisable formations, which you set out of battle, and can switch too during battle provided none of your party are hit by one of the many, many, status effects that prevent them from moving. This is a particular problem if you get caught off-guard* because that flips your formation in addition to giving the monsters a free shot on you.

The main consequence of this system is that melee attacks extremely unreliable for the most part. As a result, the megaten tradition of magic being the obviously superior offensive option is alive and well (since most spells can hit anywhere on the field). It does try to mitigate this with the guns, which usually have a deep enough target area to be useful. In fact, depending on your stats, guns can potentially out-damage spells if you can't exploit weakness. Of course, given that you need to spam spells to unlock your persona abilities you're still going to be using magic most of the time anyway.
On the subject of weaknesses, the game pre-dates the megaten convention of hitting a weakness giving a bonus action. This is just as well, because the sheer amount of separate attack types/elements for weakness purposes is ridiculous (at least 20 from what I've seen, including differentiating between 'sword' and 'two-handed sword' for reasons I cannot begin to comprehend). Status effects are in a similar situation. I suspect a designer got carried away and nobody bothered to tell them to stop.


So yeah, not really a shining example of elegance in design. Still, if you plan around it you can more or less get by.
The story (at least the SEBEC line, at least) is mostly adaquate, little that stands out as good or bad. Has a lot less character-emphasis than the later titles do, but on the other hand the fact that it isn't trying to be about character psychology does make the somewhat simplistic, black-and-white morality a bit less awkward than it was in P4G.


*one of those obviously terrible design choices that were nonetheless ubiquitous in 90s games.

[Ogremindes]

I'm finding PQ to be pretty difficult so far; ability costs are high (28 MP for Zionga? seriously?), damage is high (nobody on my back row can take more than one hit), and the RNG hates me...

I'm not sure how I feel about casting from HP when nobody can take more than one hit, though.

When I left off, my party was P4 Hero, Chie, and Kanji in the front using regular attacks, Yukiko in back because she has the Media card, and Naoto in back for Hama/Mudo. I wonder if it would be worth it to try killing more Card Soldiers in hope of obtaining overleveled Personas.

I've never had problems with durability. Probably because I started with P3 hero and Fuuka's regen spell, now that I think of it. I guess the idea with spell costs is to set up by getting into boost and then letting loose with the bigger spells, I don't know how you'd do that, unless there's spells that put you in boost later on. Maybe crit buffs?


I don't have a 3DS and little interest in buying another overpriced and under-supplied paperweight...
The 3ds library is pretty damn good, even before considering the DS library on top of it.


Re: Strange Journey - Strange Journey is actually a throwback to SMT 1 and 2 (those games had more overworld, but practically speaking all of the actual meat of the game took place in first-person tile dungeons.) You don't get a lot of Etrian Odyssey in it because that's not where the inspiration comes from except in as much as EO is the premier modern dungeon exploring game.
All I knew going into Strange Journey was that it's a SMT game built on the EO engine. That's about all I knew about PQ going in, too.


If you're going to get it though, you may as well wait for the enhanced re-release for the 3DS, DS2: Record Breaker. That's supposedly coming to NA sometime early in 2015.
Oh, I didn't see any indication of that getting brought over last I checked. Nice.


Currently playing through Persona 1 on the Vita, as per my 'play the entire series' goal I adopted after P4G...
I want to do that, but the translated P2:EP isn't on the EU PSN:smallfrown:. The unavailability of that game is why I never played Innocent Sin on PSP. I might do it anyway, I'm getting a Playstation TV, and I believe I can play all the other main Personas on it.

[Ogremindes]

My biggest problem in the game so far is trying to maintain a good stable of Personas. I just can't seem to get good inheritance when fusing up, and they level as slow as ever and with no s-link bonus to help things along.

I just unlocked Sacrifice Fusion. Hell yes.

[RagingKrikkit]

I picked up P4 for the Vita and SMT4 on 3DS a few months ago, and while I haven't gotten very far in either (partly on account of having about 200 other games after my attention at the same time), I have been impressed with them, Persona for its exploration of the insides of a person's head, and SMT for its, shall we say, unique interpretation of theology.

[StabbityRabbit]

I've never played a Persona game before and they seem interesting, but there are a lot of games in this series. To the point where I'm overwhelmed by all the products.

Would it be a safe bet to jump into the series with Persona 5? These sound like games I would love but with all the current titles the series is kind of intimidating to me.

[Mx.Silver]

I want to do that, but the translated P2:EP isn't on the EU PSN:smallfrown:. The unavailability of that game is why I never played Innocent Sin on PSP. I might do it anyway, I'm getting a Playstation TV, and I believe I can play all the other main Personas on it.
Yeah, I've obviously had to leave that one off the list but 'plan to play all the series except Eternal Punishment because it's not available and probably never will be' takes too long to type.


I picked up P4 for the Vita and SMT4 on 3DS a few months ago, and while I haven't gotten very far in either (partly on account of having about 200 other games after my attention at the same time), I have been impressed with them, Persona for its exploration of the insides of a person's head, and SMT for its, shall we say, unique interpretation of theology.

The psychological parts of P4 are probably both its best and its worst. They're probably the best sections of the game, but suffer due to where they're placed in the storyline (they're largely the big character conflict resolutions, but occur around when you first meet the characters and so lack a lot of build-up and development) as well as from the game's tendency to play things safe (do not expect Psychonauts or anything beyond that).

[Cristo Meyers]

Would it be a safe bet to jump into the series with Persona 5? These sound like games I would love but with all the current titles the series is kind of intimidating to me.

Most likely.

Each game is relatively self-contained (excluding the Arena games). For example: 3 and 4 share continuity, but if you played 4 without playing 3 you're not going to miss out on much really. I doubt 5 is going to break that trend.

[StabbityRabbit]

Most likely.

Each game is relatively self-contained (excluding the Arena games). For example: 3 and 4 share continuity, but if you played 4 without playing 3 you're not going to miss out on much really. I doubt 5 is going to break that trend.

Good to know. Well, it looks like I will start eagerly awaiting Persona 5.

[Zevox]

I've never played a Persona game before and they seem interesting, but there are a lot of games in this series. To the point where I'm overwhelmed by all the products.

Would it be a safe bet to jump into the series with Persona 5? These sound like games I would love but with all the current titles the series is kind of intimidating to me.
Up until recently the Persona games have been all stand-alone. Persona 1 and 2 have some small connections to each other from my understanding (I only played a little bit of each before giving up on them myself), but only passing reference as easter egg moments in future games. Persona 3 and 4 are actually quite different from the first two, but are only connected by one sequence in 4 where you visit the area where most of 3 took place, which is again more of an easter egg than anything - nice if you've played the other game, not a big deal if you haven't. You can readily pick up any of those games without having played the others.

It's only in the Arena titles that continuity becomes a thing, as those bring together the casts from 3 and 4 and take place after both. Those I wouldn't recommend playing the story mode of unless you've played both Persona 3 and 4 - though if you're a fighting game fan, they're still very good games even if you don't play the story mode. Though obviously even then they're best if you have, since then you know who all the characters are.

[Ogremindes]

I just beat the second labyrinth. That was much more my style of boss, a gimmick boss that's easy if you do it right, rather than just an overpowered monster.

[Tono]

I definitely definitely recommend playing Persona 1 before Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment. While you could probably get by without it the games are made with assumption that you are at the minimum slightly familiar with 1 and its events. At least, that was my impression when I played them. (I also head canon that the events in Revelations causes everything else to happen, but that may just be me. I dunno.)

[Happy Gravity]

Persona Q: I hate Labyrinth 3.

I am certain that I am horribly over-leveled now due to having to wander around while trying to figure out those stupid puzzles.

Thank goodness it's over. Next Labyrinth looks more straightforward.

[Hytheter]

So over the last week I've been playing SMT 4, my first venture into the series, and for the most part I've really enjoyed it.

But now that I'm close to the end I feel like I've been cheated and the ending path I'm on is at odds with the decisions I made beforehand.


It was evident from the start that it was gonna be a multiple endings kind of game; many contrasting dialogue choices, Walter and Jonathan holding opposing viewpoints on pretty much everything, etc.

As the game progressed it became clear that there wasn't really a "good" side. The demons are violent and selfish, the church and angels are oppressive and discriminate against Tokyo's "unclean ones" who are really just other humans. It's order vs chaos as opposed to good vs evil. Since I was basically taking the Good Guy approach, I felt inclined to take a middling approach.

But most of the game choices don't really support that. Generally, the options that lean you towards Order are things like being polite, honest and not just killing everyone. Meanwhile the chaos leaning options are things like being and also teaming up with Lilith to unleash a horde of demons and turn the world into a cruel "might makes right" dystopia, and otherwise being an ******* to people. Again, I was taking the Good Guy approach so naturally I tended towards the former, even though I thought that the angels I was helping were probably evil too.

And then the dumb thing happens. Gabriel brings me back to Mikado after an adventure into two alternate Tokyos and politely informs me that it's time to annihilate an entire city of so-called "filth". Oh and I don't get a choice here, of course. Because my actions up until now - aka being nice to people and preventing various calamities - I am now locked into this path. The game that previously gave me an inconsequential choice between introducing myself and remaining silent, is now denying me the choice to not commit goddamn genocide.

Next thing I know I'm fighting Isabeau to the death because she opposes what I'm doing, when in reality I completely agree with her! She slits her own throat at the end too, that's lovely.

tl;dr I'm locked into a story path that I completely disagree with, because of a series of minor and totally unrelated decisions I made earlier in the story. It's incredibly frustrating and has basically spoiled the game for me.

[Ogremindes]

So over the last week I've been playing SMT 4, my first venture into the series, and for the most part I've really enjoyed it.

But now that I'm close to the end I feel like I've been cheated and the ending path I'm on is at odds with the decisions I made beforehand.


It was evident from the start that it was gonna be a multiple endings kind of game; many contrasting dialogue choices, Walter and Jonathan holding opposing viewpoints on pretty much everything, etc.

As the game progressed it became clear that there wasn't really a "good" side. The demons are violent and selfish, the church and angels are oppressive and discriminate against Tokyo's "unclean ones" who are really just other humans. It's order vs chaos as opposed to good vs evil. Since I was basically taking the Good Guy approach, I felt inclined to take a middling approach.

But most of the game choices don't really support that. Generally, the options that lean you towards Order are things like being polite, honest and not just killing everyone. Meanwhile the chaos leaning options are things like being and also teaming up with Lilith to unleash a horde of demons and turn the world into a cruel "might makes right" dystopia, and otherwise being an ******* to people. Again, I was taking the Good Guy approach so naturally I tended towards the former, even though I thought that the angels I was helping were probably evil too.

And then the dumb thing happens. Gabriel brings me back to Mikado after an adventure into two alternate Tokyos and politely informs me that it's time to annihilate an entire city of so-called "filth". Oh and I don't get a choice here, of course. Because my actions up until now - aka being nice to people and preventing various calamities - I am now locked into this path. The game that previously gave me an inconsequential choice between introducing myself and remaining silent, is now denying me the choice to not commit goddamn genocide.

Next thing I know I'm fighting Isabeau to the death because she opposes what I'm doing, when in reality I completely agree with her! She slits her own throat at the end too, that's lovely.

tl;dr I'm locked into a story path that I completely disagree with, because of a series of minor and totally unrelated decisions I made earlier in the story. It's incredibly frustrating and has basically spoiled the game for me.

I'm yet to play 4 myself, but in past SMT games the Neutral path is something of a secret ending, not just taking a non-committal stance but going out of your way to discover a 'third option' before the point of no return.

[Zevox]

Yeah, the way the game handles determining which ending you get is extremely frustrating.
Essentially, there's an alignment meter that you cannot ever see - talking with certain people will let you know whether you're currently in the "order," "chaos," or "neutral" portion of it, but only if you know that their otherwise-innocuous remark about your reputation means that, and it won't tell you how far into that direction you are. Some of the later-game choices have a particularly big impact on it, but a great many small dialogue choices add to it as well, so it's very hard to manipulate. Add onto this that the neutral score is extremely narrow - between plus and minus eight out of 100 possible in either direction, if memory serves - and it becomes very hard to hit the neutral ending. I actually had to take the Nothing ending several times to re-start and try to run through the game again (using NG+ to start at a high level and with my end-game demons available), using a guide after the first time, trying to hit it, because I always want to get the neutral endings in SMT, since the order and chaos endings are always awful.

And even when I finally got it, actually completing the neutral ending was such a pain that I decided to just give up on the game instead of finish it. How much of a pain? You need to complete every side-quest in the game. No joke, that's an actual requirement to proceed once you get onto the neutral ending path (as you might have guessed, the ending path becomes locked in after you finish the two alternate futures and chat with the Whites about their plan). And seeing as I had re-run the game multiple times by that point, you can probably guess how many side-quests I was doing in that run up until that time.

Now, this sort of thing actually is pretty normal for the mainline SMT series - the law v chaos dynamic is in every game, and there are traditionally endings for each extreme plus a neutral ending, and the neutral ending is generally the hardest to get. But even by SMT standards, getting the neutral ending in 4 is absurdly difficult: it basically requires either ridiculous luck or a guide, and not even all the guides are reliable (hence my needing more than two tries to get it), and then once you do get onto it, it throws that extra barrier at you just for the hell of it. It was definitely my biggest complaint with the game.


I'm yet to play 4 myself, but in past SMT games the Neutral path is something of a secret ending, not just taking a non-committal stance but going out of your way to discover a 'third option' before the point of no return.
It is not like that in SMT4. Check the first paragraph of my spoiler - it won't actually give any plot details, but does explain how the game determines your ending path.

[Hytheter]

(as you might have guessed, the ending path becomes locked in after you finish the two alternate futures and chat with the Whites about their plan)

Yeah, when they asked what I'd do I said "destroy the current order" and they said "it's too late for you to walk that path!" and I knew then I was permanently stuck on what was probably a horrible mistake.

So you're saying the other games are a little easier to get the Neutral ending? It might be worth checking them out then. I don't think I'll bother finishing this one; not only has the path I've taken disheartened me somewhat, but the dungeon I'm in now - Hall of Eternity - has one my most hated dungeon design elements, the old patience testing "go in a door and come out another door in the same or previous room until you find the right ones in the right order" trick. I just cannot ****ing stand those.

[Ryuho Tsugu]

re obtaining the Neutral ending: at least it isn't Fiend hunting. That's one callback the devs should have left in the bad old days.

[tyckspoon]

So over the last week I've been playing SMT 4, my first venture into the series, and for the most part I've really enjoyed it.

But now that I'm close to the end I feel like I've been cheated and the ending path I'm on is at odds with the decisions I made beforehand.


tl;dr I'm locked into a story path that I completely disagree with, because of a series of minor and totally unrelated decisions I made earlier in the story. It's incredibly frustrating and has basically spoiled the game for me.

This is basically Shin Megami's Thing, plotwise, but the games are usually a lot clearer about what sort of philosophy you're supporting. Not the best introduction to it, it sounds like, but

Chaos pretty much breaks down to Rule of the Strongest and is associated with what are classically considered 'demons', so Chaos-aligned characters tend to be pretty crude. Order is Rule via Hierarchy (with places in the hierarchy determined by.. strength, often. You get a lot of wrapping around to a more Chaotic viewpoint.) and is associated with angels. Order-aligned characters are often a lot more appealing on the surface, but neither extreme is very pleasant in the end. Which is why there is usually the third option, Neutrality, which is.. well, the 'easy' Neutral is wussing out, not picking a side between Order and Chaos, and getting stomped on by both. The games tend to make you feel bad if you wind up on this path. And then there's 'true' Neutral, where you actively reject the plans of both Order and Chaos. This is usually the path that involves letting humanity continue to be humanity instead of transforming or becoming subordinate to Order or Chaos... oh, yeah. The world is usually about done with a cycle and ripe for recreation. The main character deciding what the new world will be is also an SMT Thing.

SMT 3 (titled as Nocturne, usually not numbered) has a bit of an interesting change on these. The options you can align yourself with are still basically Order/Chaos aligned, but they're a bit more nuanced and it's easier to see how somebody might prefer them; the Order philosophy, IIRC, is basically a solipsistic paradise where nobody has to be troubled by interacting with other beings any more.

[Zevox]

So you're saying the other games are a little easier to get the Neutral ending? It might be worth checking them out then.
The couple of main-series entries that I've played, yes. Which would be Nocturne (where what would normally be considered the "neutral" ending is acquired by picking certain dialogue options when talking to a specific character, then rejecting each of the alternate endings - still something you might miss if you don't know the details, but a lot easier to get than in SMT 4 even if you don't), and Strange Journey (which has an alignment meter like SMT 4, but a more forgiving one where you have a lot more leeway to be able to take the neutral path when the point of no return hits - this one I actually did get the neutral ending without knowing the details of exactly how it worked). I don't know if it's easier in the earlier games, which never got released outside Japan.

There's also the Devil Survivor spin-off series, which keeps some of the same ideas in its endings, but makes them work much better and seem a lot more sane, in addition to making each option reasonably easy to unlock.


SMT 3 (titled as Nocturne, usually not numbered) has a bit of an interesting change on these. The options you can align yourself with are still basically Order/Chaos aligned, but they're a bit more nuanced and it's easier to see how somebody might prefer them; the Order philosophy, IIRC, is basically a solipsistic paradise where nobody has to be troubled by interacting with other beings any more.
Actually, that was an additional third option that doesn't track with the normal SMT endings. The Order-equivalent ending was the "world of stillness" one that the obvious main villain who caused the apocalypse in the first place was championing.

[Jermell]

So over the last week I've been playing SMT 4, my first venture into the series, and for the most part I've really enjoyed it.

But now that I'm close to the end I feel like I've been cheated and the ending path I'm on is at odds with the decisions I made beforehand.


It was evident from the start that it was gonna be a multiple endings kind of game; many contrasting dialogue choices, Walter and Jonathan holding opposing viewpoints on pretty much everything, etc.

As the game progressed it became clear that there wasn't really a "good" side. The demons are violent and selfish, the church and angels are oppressive and discriminate against Tokyo's "unclean ones" who are really just other humans. It's order vs chaos as opposed to good vs evil. Since I was basically taking the Good Guy approach, I felt inclined to take a middling approach.

But most of the game choices don't really support that. Generally, the options that lean you towards Order are things like being polite, honest and not just killing everyone. Meanwhile the chaos leaning options are things like being and also teaming up with Lilith to unleash a horde of demons and turn the world into a cruel "might makes right" dystopia, and otherwise being an ******* to people. Again, I was taking the Good Guy approach so naturally I tended towards the former, even though I thought that the angels I was helping were probably evil too.

And then the dumb thing happens. Gabriel brings me back to Mikado after an adventure into two alternate Tokyos and politely informs me that it's time to annihilate an entire city of so-called "filth". Oh and I don't get a choice here, of course. Because my actions up until now - aka being nice to people and preventing various calamities - I am now locked into this path. The game that previously gave me an inconsequential choice between introducing myself and remaining silent, is now denying me the choice to not commit goddamn genocide.

Next thing I know I'm fighting Isabeau to the death because she opposes what I'm doing, when in reality I completely agree with her! She slits her own throat at the end too, that's lovely.

tl;dr I'm locked into a story path that I completely disagree with, because of a series of minor and totally unrelated decisions I made earlier in the story. It's incredibly frustrating and has basically spoiled the game for me.

The neutral path is the only one I've beaten the game on. It was hard enough that I just didn't wanna do it anymore.
As soon as I saw the angels I knew I didn't want to go down that path so I looked up a guide. Annddd I pretty much had to be a **** at every. single. opportunity from then on out. "Sure Lilith I'll help you kill humanity. No Walter that's not sociopathic at all". :smallannoyed: And then what do I get? I have to kill friggin Beelzebub and his megidoloan spam. I had to level grind 15 levels and find the exact team comp to resist disease, increase max hp, and lay the smack down on him. Still it did feel good to have a reasonably good ending.

[Zevox]

So, I got Persona Q for Christmas.

Why didn't I get this when it came out again? Even not being far enough into it to judge the Etrian Odyssey game style (I've never played that series), I can tell it'll be worth playing just for the character interactions alone. It's always so much fun just seeing these characters together.

I went with the Persona 4 group, though I really wish I didn't have to choose, as it was a tough choice. I can't imagine the game is short enough for starting two files, one for each, and playing them simultaneously to be workable, though. My party at the start here is Yu, Chie, Yosuke, Naoto, and Yukiko, but I've barely started at this point, so we'll see if that changes. Kinda disappointed that it seems like characters you don't bring with you get no experience though - that'll make it rough to keep everyone leveled, and I may just have to ignore some characters.

Also, in a first for me, I think I'll be watching that opening every time I turn the game on. I just love it: the wonderful music, the cinematic of the two groups meeting and befriending each other, the sudden turn to dark imagery as if to say "in case the bright colors and happy people made you forget, this is still a Shin Megami Tensei spin-off." The music in the game in general is great so far too - though that tends to be true of Persona games, but still, always a pleasure.

[TamerBill]

I went with the Persona 4 group, though I really wish I didn't have to choose, as it was a tough choice. I can't imagine the game is short enough for starting two files, one for each, and playing them simultaneously to be workable, though. My party at the start here is Yu, Chie, Yosuke, Naoto, and Yukiko, but I've barely started at this point, so we'll see if that changes. Kinda disappointed that it seems like characters you don't bring with you get no experience though - that'll make it rough to keep everyone leveled, and I may just have to ignore some characters.

Characters you don't use still get full EXP from quests, and there are Growth accessories you can buy to give them a share of battle EXP. Keeping everyone leveled isn't really feasible, though, because you'll be getting all of the P3 characters too, shortly before the end of the first labyrinth.

[Ogremindes]

Characters you don't use still get full EXP from quests, and there are Growth accessories you can buy to give them a share of battle EXP. Keeping everyone leveled isn't really feasible, though, because you'll be getting all of the P3 characters too, shortly before the end of the first labyrinth.

I've been levelling all my guys evenly (exept Zen/Rei, who I put Growth accessories on and left at base. The lack of persona makes them less interesting to use, to my mind). It's not been problematic, except for the times when the 4 lowest make an imbalanced team. But even then sub-personas cover a lot of that.

I just beat the 3rd Labyrinth after getting distracted by The Talos Principle (really good, BTW) for about a week. Pretty simple boss, though that may just be because Impure Reach is really damn good, so all three spent most of the fight asleep, and most of what got through that was eaten by Holy Blessing or Masukukaja.

[JBPuffin]

I saw Q in the store today, but I needed a new 3ds charger to play and it was just outside my price range. I just needed 10 more dollars :smallsigh:.

I do love the Persona universe, although I'm not such a fan of how Persona 4 basically required a certain set of actions, and since it's the only one I've played any part of I don't know what to expect if I get Q. That said, the ideas and the characters are pretty darn awesome, and the fricken' anime had me stay up until 5 am to finish it in one sitting, and you better believe i cried my eyes out. Best. TV series. Of short length. Evar.

So, maybe I'll be getting Q sometime this month. Until then, carry on.

[Ogremindes]

Persona 4 basically required a certain set of actions...
Not sure what you're meaning there.

[Hytheter]

Well, I got Persona 3 from the Playstation store since I keep hearing glowing praise for it. And it was like $10, so why not?

I'm up to the second "ordeal", or 2 full months of in-game time. It's definitely a fun game so far - and it's got a totally different feel from SMT4 - with a lot unusual quirks. I don't think I've ever played a game that rewards going to the toilet, or allows you to procrastinate from schoolwork by playing an online game (both options mysteriously take an entire day and night to complete though...).

You can simulate procrastinating by playing video games while actually procrastinating by playing video games. What a time to be alive!

Trying to balance the fighting of scary monsters with the mundane matters of High School and teenage social life is way more engaging (and challenging) than I ever would have expected. I have no idea if I'm actually up to scratch at this point.

I'm a bit sick of watching the characters shoot themselves in the face repeatedly though. I'd prefer it if once you summoned your Persona in a battle it hung around instead of disappearing immediately after the attack. But at least my first assumption, that Yukari was suicidal, turned out to be wrong.
I also wish I'd known in advance that the characters all had Japanese names like "Junpei" and "Mitsuru" so I could have called mine something other than Richard...
I also much prefer SMT4's skill inheritance when fusing demons/personas. In fact, the whole fusion process is a lot simpler in SMT4, with a much cleaner interface, but I guess that's what years of additional polish get you.

Overall it's a good game. Hopefully it doesn't screw me over at the end like SMT4 did, but I have a feeling there's a great many hours before I'll find that out.
Unfortunately Persona 4 isn't available on the PS store here, so I don't know if I'll ever get to play that one unless I somehow track down a disc. Is it worth it? It's my understanding that 3 and 4 are both held in pretty high esteem. How do they compare?

[Ogremindes]

...I also much prefer SMT4's skill inheritance when fusing demons/personas. In fact, the whole fusion process is a lot simpler in SMT4, with a much cleaner interface, but I guess that's what years of additional polish get you.

Overall it's a good game. Hopefully it doesn't screw me over at the end like SMT4 did, but I have a feeling there's a great many hours before I'll find that out.
Unfortunately Persona 4 isn't available on the PS store here, so I don't know if I'll ever get to play that one unless I somehow track down a disc. Is it worth it? It's my understanding that 3 and 4 are both held in pretty high esteem. How do they compare?

I assume you're on a PS3. The alternative would be PSP, I suppose, but that seems less likely.
Persona 4 Golden for Vita/PlaystationTV has non-random inheritance, but not the original PS2 version.
The Persona games don't have the branching story of mainline SMT, so you don't have to worry about that.
The only version of P4 on the PS Store is P4G, which was worth getting a Vita for, for me personally. (Vita/PSTV has a version of every main Persona game that was released in english. Except P2 Eternal Punishment, which is in a weird state.)
P4 is an iterative improvement over P3. It's similar to but better in every objective sense than P3, with a very different tone and direct control of your characters.

[Zevox]

So, I got to the end of first Labyrinth in Persona Q today.

You know, I never was a big fan of Persona 3's fight theme, but damn if it wasn't awesome hearing it play when the P3 characters showed up in that scene anyway. Very nice entrance - and kinda makes me want to see things from the P3 perspective just to see the P4 cast's equivalent, which I presume will be playing "Reach Out to the Truth."

But yeah, wow, that's a lot of characters I've got to choose from now. Kinda hard to make up my mind, honestly. I think what I'm going to go with is rotating P3 and P4 characters in certain party roles, like:
Front-line physical character: Chie/Shinjiro
Front-line Phys/Caster: Yosuke/Mitsuru
Back-row caster/support: Naoto/Ken
Back-row healer/caster: Yukiko/Yukari

But then that doesn't include Minato, and I feel like I should be using him. And I do also kinda want to try Aigis, since she's the only back-row character who is based more on physical attacks. I don't know how many characters I can really keep leveled, though...

It is nice that the P3 characters actually showed up at a higher level than my current party, though. No need to drop everyone right away to get them leveled up. I do need to get them sub-personas, though, I suppose...


I also much prefer SMT4's skill inheritance when fusing demons/personas. In fact, the whole fusion process is a lot simpler in SMT4, with a much cleaner interface, but I guess that's what years of additional polish get you.
Basically, yes. The SMT franchise, spin-offs like Persona included, used randomized inheritance for a long time. It was the Devil Survivor games that first started to let you pick what demons inherited, and it seems to be becoming standard. So far the only Persona games which have it are Persona 4 Golden (which is Vita-exclusive) and Persona Q, however.


Unfortunately Persona 4 isn't available on the PS store here, so I don't know if I'll ever get to play that one unless I somehow track down a disc. Is it worth it? It's my understanding that 3 and 4 are both held in pretty high esteem. How do they compare?
I personally consider the two my favorite games of all time, and can't really pick between them for a single one to get that title. Mechanically Persona 4 has some improvements compared to 3, primarily in allowing you to directly control your teammates - but the PSP version of Persona 3 adds that to it anyway. As far as story and characters go, I can't pick between them.

So yeah, if you end up liking Persona 3, I'd certainly recommend 4, if you can find it for a non-insane price. Playing both also kind of opens up the option of trying their sequel/spin-offs, Persona 4 Arena and Persona Q, since those involve the casts of both games, and Arena in particular picks up after the stories of each have concluded.


The Persona games don't have the branching story of mainline SMT, so you don't have to worry about that.
Well, not in the same way, anyway. Each does include a good and bad ending, but in Persona 3 in particular how you get each is incredibly obvious and telegraphed a good month in advance. In Persona 4 it's a bit trickier, and there is a third ending, the True Ending, which is really what you should shoot for over just the normal "good" ending, but it's still nothing like the Shin Megami Tensei games.

[Ogremindes]

But then that doesn't include Minato, and I feel like I should be using him. And I do also kinda want to try Aigis, since she's the only back-row character who is based more on physical attacks. I don't know how many characters I can really keep leveled, though...

I've been cycling through everyone (except Zen and Rei, who had been sidelined with a Growth accessory. They're actually a bit higher levelled than most of my team because of that, and since that got some damn good gear in Labyrinth 4 I'm gonna start using them again once everyone else catches up) and haven't felt underleveled. MC is a good 10 levels above everyone else, though.

Just got through 4:3 in PQ. That was a rough one, the end was as complex as anything in The Talos Principle by my reckoning, and I was still in a monster-bashing mindset. Still, the payoff for finishing the level was pretty fantastic. I wonder how that scene happens in the P4 path, as it was P3-centric for me on the P3 path. Kinda dreading the next floor as there is plenty of scope to be even more complicated.

[Hytheter]

Damn it. It's really frustrating when you're close to the end of a long battle/tartarus run and everyone's at full health, only for the opponent to use a move that drops you, and only you, in a single shot, thus resulting in a game over despite the fact that you still have three able combatants left who could theoretically be carrying revival items.

Aside from that I'm getting through the game at a solid pace. There are supposedly 4 Full Moon Shadows remaining, but seeing as there are 22 Major Arcana rather than 12 I suspect that's not really the case...

[Ogremindes]

Damn it. It's really frustrating when you're close to the end of a long battle/tartarus run and everyone's at full health, only for the opponent to use a move that drops you, and only you, in a single shot, thus resulting in a game over despite the fact that you still have three able combatants left who could theoretically be carrying revival items.

Yeah, I learned to avoid leaving a persona with weaknesses that the enemies of that section can majorly exploit equipped while running around and to never ever have a light or dark weakness while moving in the field.

I remember in SMT 3 running into a group of Nyx demons near the end of the game, they got to act first. The sleep spell Dormina came out and hit my MC, then Eternal Rest, an instakill on everyone asleep. I was in spitting distance of the end boss, too.

The risk of that sort of thing happening was kinda what made the Press Turn System (and Persona 3's battle system, which is derived from Press Turn) great. It's high risk/high reward: If you know what you're doing you can trounce opponents handily, but if you screw up, such as by having the wrong weaknesses in play or neglecting to buy homunculi, you can lose very fast too.

[tyckspoon]

Damn it. It's really frustrating when you're close to the end of a long battle/tartarus run and everyone's at full health, only for the opponent to use a move that drops you, and only you, in a single shot, thus resulting in a game over despite the fact that you still have three able combatants left who could theoretically be carrying revival items.


I'ma spoil this for the sake of not remembering where exactly in the story you'd be and for not ruining one of the main plot points, but in P3 Game Overing when MC goes down is arguably a very story-relevant mechanic (it's *also* hideously annoying, not gonna defend that, and I hated how it made Dark/Light weak or even just not-resistant Persona incredibly dangerous to use.)

P3's MC is carrying the Death Arcana, the biggest baddest piece of the Full Moon Shadows the group has been fighting. MC dies, the Shadow gets released early before it gets humanized by exposure to SEES and MC's other friends (and before they've toughened up in Tartarus enough to be able to take it down), Nyx gets called, BAD END.

As for SMT3, aside from just being there for the sake of SMT's traditional difficulty, I think the idea is that all or most of the demons there aren't really that loyal to the main character. If he goes down, they're just going to leave him for dead and get the heck out of there.. or try to consume his body for its energy themselves. Probably covers everything except that one Pixie that joins you at the start of the game.

[Zevox]

Aside from that I'm getting through the game at a solid pace. There are supposedly 4 Full Moon Shadows remaining, but seeing as there are 22 Major Arcana rather than 12 I suspect that's not really the case...
No, there isn't a full moon shadow for all of the arcanas, only for 1-12. There is a reason for that - you'll see.

Also, tyckspoon's spoiler pertains to something that you don't learn until a while after even defeating the last full moon shadow, so I wouldn't open that.

[Hytheter]

edit: uh this post was in response to Ogre, didn't expect there to be two new posts in the time I spent typing...

I do quite enjoy the combat system and I don't mind high risk high reward things to an extent, but when the matter of which character gets targeted means the difference between being totally fine and a complete loss it feels kind of cheap. I much preferred in SMT4 where losing your character was a huge setback, but your surviving demons still had a chance to turn the battle around. It was still pretty risky combat - an unlucky miss/crit/poor choice can result in devastating retaliation and battles can turn around in an instant - but as long as someone's still standing there's still a chance.

Having weaknesses to attacks hasn't been my problem. Maybe I've just been lucky so far, but I almost never get hit by an attack I'm weak to. The big killers for me have been powerful physical attacks, especially after the opponents attack has been boosted in some way. Kill Rush in particular used to drop me a lot. Mudo is also terrifying - it almost never works, but there's always the chance that it might. Like when you've been working your way up through Tartarus and the next terminal is on the next floor but uh oh I missed that shadow and now they have advantage and they used Mamudo and F***!!!!

[Calemyr]

Question for folks who play Q: Is it meant to be canon, the way the Arena games are? Because those games did include some game-changing events, such as Elizibeth attaining the Fool Arcana and the discovery of Labrys. I've always wondered if they were ever going to address the current situation of P3's protagonist.

That said, I've seen youtube videos of the various outcomes of Q's group date dungeon... Wow. Some of that is awkward, some of it is cute, and a lot of it is really, really funny.

[TamerBill]

Question for folks who play Q: Is it meant to be canon, the way the Arena games are? Because those games did include some game-changing events, such as Elizibeth attaining the Fool Arcana and the discovery of Labrys. I've always wondered if they were ever going to address the current situation of P3's protagonist.

That said, I've seen youtube videos of the various outcomes of Q's group date dungeon... Wow. Some of that is awkward, some of it is cute, and a lot of it is really, really funny.

Eh, it's 'canon' in massive finger quotes. It takes place during the original games, so of course nobody gets to remember any of it and nobody gets any growth out of it.

[Zevox]

Question for folks who play Q: Is it meant to be canon, the way the Arena games are? Because those games did include some game-changing events, such as Elizibeth attaining the Fool Arcana and the discovery of Labrys. I've always wondered if they were ever going to address the current situation of P3's protagonist.
I would assume not. The story setup has the groups being brought to the mysterious labyrinth area via the Velvet Room during the culture festival (for the P4 side - not sure for the P3 side, though given who's present at the time it has to be during a certain approximately one-month period for them, and they do explicitly say that the two were brought from different points in time). Since in Arena the two groups have never met before, it's kind of impossible for that to be in canon with the Arena games.

[Tono]

I would assume not. The story setup has the groups being brought to the mysterious labyrinth area via the Velvet Room during the culture festival (for the P4 side - not sure for the P3 side, though given who's present at the time it has to be during a certain approximately one-month period for them, and they do explicitly say that the two were brought from different points in time). Since in Arena the two groups have never met before, it's kind of impossible for that to be in canon with the Arena games.
Not really;
The only one who isn't mind wiped is P3MC, and since he becomes the seal before arena, it works.
Lazy? Yes. But it works.

[Svata]

Oh, good, there's a thread for this. Playing PQ right now, and good god, the third dungeon labyrinth is brutal. Three or enemies all going after only one character, Masukunda, Wind Corrosion, Magarula. My people all miss. Tarukaja on an enemy, Magarula, Magarula. Death.

[Ogremindes]

Oh, good, there's a thread for this. Playing PQ right now, and good god, the third dungeon labyrinth is brutal. Three or enemies all going after only one character, Masukunda, Wind Corrosion, Magarula. My people all miss. Tarukaja on an enemy, Magarula, Magarula. Death.

Get yourself some Impure Reach. Once you have that skill status skills rock. Locking the enemy down with sleep or panic works great right through that Labyrinth. I can't remember when Extract Skill Card unlocks, but the source of the Impure Reach card is Incubus, which, if you've got it in the Compendium with that skill, means you can get Impure Reach cards at 50k a pop, which is not bad. Not that Impure Reach is hard to come across on Sub-Personas, but it's nice to get those tentarafoos powered up without committing to status sub-personas.

Surprising no one, there's a Labyrinth 5. For the first time I'm feeling underleveled, my metric for which is when my mid-speed characters act, which presently is after the enemies most of the time. At least I have ready access to Growth 2 accessories now, so getting my whole team up is much less trouble.

I wish P3 MC didn't get the short end of the stick in terms of defences so much: (minor event spoiler)After the persona upgrade event Yu gets resistance to everything except dark and null light, P3 MC gets resistance to fire/ice/wind/elec, null light and is still weak to dark :(. At least P3 MC gets Debilitate, Yu only gets Heat Riser, which is nowhere near as good and costs the same.

Y'know, this is the only SMT game where I've been discarding the Charge spells. They just cost too much MP, along with the cost of the 'dyne spells. I can see Power Charge been useful as you can cast it on a Boost, but even if you cast Mind Charge on boost you still have to eat the cost of the 'dyne after. And with Power Charge you're probably better off with a crit buff.

Also, I was disappointed that Teddie doesn't have a special voice clip when summoning Alice.

[Calemyr]

Not really;
The only one who isn't mind wiped is P3MC, and since he becomes the seal before arena, it works.
Lazy? Yes. But it works.

Actually, that makes sense if they're ever planning on storming the gate he guards. While everyone else has formed these strong bonds, at least he'll know who they are and trust them even if they've only heard stories of him. And Elizibeth makes it quite clear that breaking him free is a high priority for her in Arena, to the point that she makes a hobby of brutally killing nihil demons like Erebus any time they reform.

[Hytheter]

Maxing out the female social links in Persona 3 makes me feel kinda dirty. Had a "special moment" with Yuko and Yukari in I think the same week, and I've already started on Mitsuru. Gotta get those Big Boss Personas somehow though right?

It looks like I won't have time to complete all my links though. The Promised Day is in 3 weeks and there are still so many left hanging... Is it viable to max them all without some sort of imformed strategy from the get go?
It's a shame there aren't many opportunities to improve social links at night, since I don't have anything else to do but grind Tartarus for yen and experience now.

[tyckspoon]

It looks like I won't have time to complete all my links though. The Promised Day is in 3 weeks and there are still so many left hanging... Is it viable to max them all without some sort of imformed strategy from the get go?
It's a shame there aren't many opportunities to improve social links at night, since I don't have anything else to do but grind Tartarus for yen and experience now.

Not really. You have to chart out everybody's availability and hit everything on a very precise timetable. It's easier on a new game+, since you keep your personal qualities and don't have to balance finding time to study any more, and if you're playing the rerelease version or the PSP version a couple extra links were moved to night to make things less strict. But you're not really meant to perfect complete all the links your first play, I think.

[Ogremindes]

Maxing out the female social links in Persona 3 makes me feel kinda dirty. Had a "special moment" with Yuko and Yukari in I think the same week, and I've already started on Mitsuru. Gotta get those Big Boss Personas somehow though right?

It looks like I won't have time to complete all my links though. The Promised Day is in 3 weeks and there are still so many left hanging... Is it viable to max them all without some sort of imformed strategy from the get go?
It's a shame there aren't many opportunities to improve social links at night, since I don't have anything else to do but grind Tartarus for yen and experience now.
It is not. The margin for error on a 100 percent run is pretty small (and best left for new game+). Anyway, if it was easy to 100% the time management aspect wouldn't be interesting.

In P4 you get a choice of friends or lovers paths on the relevant s-links, so less of a harem, unless you're into that, I guess.

[Zevox]

Maxing out the female social links in Persona 3 makes me feel kinda dirty. Had a "special moment" with Yuko and Yukari in I think the same week, and I've already started on Mitsuru. Gotta get those Big Boss Personas somehow though right?
Yeah, sadly the social links with female friends automatically go romantic in P3, with no alternative. They do change that in 4, making it your choice whether the relationship goes that way or stays just platonic. And they included that for the female protagonist in P3 Portable* - though strangely they didn't rework the romances for the male protagonist to include it while they were at it.

*Which is a very good thing, because Ken is romanceable in P3P. Yes, I'm serious; no, I don't know why they'd do that. But thank heaven they didn't make it automatic like the original version.


It looks like I won't have time to complete all my links though. The Promised Day is in 3 weeks and there are still so many left hanging... Is it viable to max them all without some sort of imformed strategy from the get go?
It's a shame there aren't many opportunities to improve social links at night, since I don't have anything else to do but grind Tartarus for yen and experience now.
It's possible but very unlikely, especially on a first play-through, since you also need to spend time building your social stats up. In New Game+ it's more feasible, since your stats carry over, which frees up a surprising amount of time, especially early in the game.

I do find I'm typically able to max all but one or two in a play-through without following a strict guide myself, even without using NG+ (which I usually don't, since it trivializes combat for a long time), but I definitely didn't get that close my first time through either game.

[Hytheter]

*Which is a very good thing, because Ken is romanceable in P3P. Yes, I'm serious; no, I don't know why they'd do that. But thank heaven they didn't make it automatic like the original version.

...god dammit Japan



I do find I'm typically able to max all but one or two in a play-through without following a strict guide myself, even without using NG+ (which I usually don't, since it trivializes combat for a long time), but I definitely didn't get that close my first time through either game.

How many times have you played it through? I don't think I'd have the patience to play it through again.

[Zevox]

How many times have you played it through? I don't think I'd have the patience to play it through again.
I think I've done two or three times in FES and once in Portable so far. I occasionally replay each of P3 and P4, since they're my favorite games. Usually only one of them in a year though - they are very long. I've only once finished one of them in under 100 hours. Which isn't something that I mind, but it does mean that when I re-play one of them I don't have much free time left for newer games for a long while.

[Hytheter]

Yeah, even if I could sit through 100 hours of the plot unfolding again I don't think I could stomach another hundred hours worth of my allies doing stupid things in battles.
Pretty sure someone said Persona 4 gives you direct control though, so that'll be nice if I ever get my hands on a copy.

[Anima]

The portable version allows you full control of your team as well.

[Svata]

Yeah, even if I could sit through 100 hours of the plot unfolding again I don't think I could stomach another hundred hours worth of my allies doing stupid things in battles.
Pretty sure someone said Persona 4 gives you direct control though, so that'll be nice if I ever get my hands on a copy.

Eh, its not so bad the second time. You retain your level, even though everyone else loses theirs, so what you do is just run around in the bonus section of tartarus (seperate door to enter within the lobby, it also sticks around in NG+, can't remember the name, its been a while), and thunder reign everything into oblivion, returning to the lobby to refill SP until you're tired, and everyone should be at level 65+ in a matter of in-game weeks and can reliably stomp everything for several months.

[Cristo Meyers]

Yeah, even if I could sit through 100 hours of the plot unfolding again I don't think I could stomach another hundred hours worth of my allies doing stupid things in battles.
Pretty sure someone said Persona 4 gives you direct control though, so that'll be nice if I ever get my hands on a copy.

Is P4 no longer on the PSN? That's how I got my copy.

[Hytheter]

Is P4 no longer on the PSN? That's how I got my copy.

Not in Australia, at least not for PS3. You can get it on PSP but I don't have one.

[Svata]

Persona Q question:

Is it just me or was the kind doctor a lot easier than either of the first two bosses?

[Ogremindes]

Persona Q question:

Is it just me or was the kind doctor a lot easier than either of the first two bosses?

It wasn't hard, I kept the fight locked down with sleep, but Merciful Clergyman was also easy if you followed the rules.

[Svata]

Poison Breath, Decay Circle, and Scarecrow carried the battle for me (summon ghost and megidola helped too, especially as the people with those also had wind skills). Sleep doesn't help my party too much. And yeah, I guess the clergyman was pretty easy too.


Also, just to note, Aigis with rakshasha is a physically defensive monster. Immunity Wall+ Swordbreaker + Life Wall makes the party laugh off physical attacks.

[Hytheter]

Wait, are status moves actually useful?
That has not been my experience so far. Or is it different in that game?

[Svata]

So very different. Status moves will carry difficult fights in PQ, where as in P3/FES/P3P they're fairly useless. Damn Marin Karin.

[Ogremindes]

Wait, are status moves actually useful?
That has not been my experience so far. Or is it different in that game?

In P3, or pretty much any SMT game, the spells Sukunda and Masukukaja (agility down, group agility up) are some of the best spells in the game. But the regular status effect spells, not so hot in P3. In PQ you can buff the success rate of status effects pretty substantially with the Impure Reach passive (I hear they're pretty useful in P4, I never used them in my playthrough because I assumed they wouldn't do much).

Damn Marin Karin.
Set Mitsuru's tactics to knock down. Seriously, it's like everyone who had a problem with indirect control never opened the tactics menu outside that one part of the final boss.

[Hytheter]

In P3, or pretty much any SMT game, the spells Sukunda and Masukukaja (agility down, group agility up) are some of the best spells in the game.
Well, by status moves I mean the ones that apply conditions like Poison, Rage etc. The bosses are rarely if ever affected, and the smaller enemy fights are over too quick for them to matter. The stat changers are pretty good though. Marakukaja (boosts party's defense) has been a great boon. In fact the Persona that has it for me, Nandi, has been incredibly useful in general actually. I just wish they had localised names, or at least a way to check what an inactive persona's skills do in battle.



Set Mitsuru's tactics to knock down. Seriously, it's like everyone who had a problem with indirect control never opened the tactics menu outside that one part of the final boss.

Yeah but having to set tactics in every battle is really bloody annoying. And even then, the tactics aren't really perfect. Knock Down has been pretty useful at times though.
Although, there was one boss fight in which Marin Karin actually worked twice, setting two of the three big shadows against each other. So they aren't toally useless I guess.

[Svata]

In P3, or pretty much any SMT game, the spells Sukunda and Masukukaja (agility down, group agility up) are some of the best spells in the game. But the regular status effect spells, not so hot in P3. In PQ you can buff the success rate of status effects pretty substantially with the Impure Reach passive (I hear they're pretty useful in P4, I never used them in my playthrough because I assumed they wouldn't do much).

Yeah, the buff/debuff spells were pretty decent, especially in auto-ma variety, but the others were bad. When I said status moves I meant one that inflicted a status (sleep/fear/charm/panic). Sorry for any confusion.


Set Mitsuru's tactics to knock down. Seriously, it's like everyone who had a problem with indirect control never opened the tactics menu outside that one part of the final boss.

I was 95% joking, and I generally did do that.

[Ogremindes]

Yeah but having to set tactics in every battle is really bloody annoying. And even then, the tactics aren't really perfect.

You don't have to. There's a tactics section in the somewhere in the menus (it's been a while, OK?) where you can set each character's default tactics.

[tyckspoon]

Yeah, the buff/debuff spells were pretty decent, especially in auto-ma variety, but the others were bad. When I said status moves I meant one that inflicted a status (sleep/fear/charm/panic). Sorry for any confusion.


I recall the status spells being fairly useful in P3, at least for certain blocks of Tartarus and even a couple of bosses (there's also the hilarity of insta-killing the one Wheel of Fortune shadow if you were good at manipulating the results and bought along the auto-kill Feared enemies skill.) Sure, they weren't good for *everything*, but when you were going through a block that included big physical bruisers that happened to be Weak to Status.. well, confusion or charm or sleep was pretty handy.

The buff/debuff spells generally depend on whether a particular game has them as permanent/longer-lasting or not. If they're permanent until dispelled, they're pretty much the god strategy; stack up everything you've got, debuff the enemy as far as they can go, and you can just about set the turns on auto until the fight ends in your inevitable victory (which is why all the later bosses in these games carry the spells that wipe those effects.) If they're short duration, it's often not worth the time it takes to buff up since you barely get your stacks running before they fall off. Can still be worthwhile hitting the boss with agility/power debuffs, tho, especially if you have one of the -2 stage skills.

[Hytheter]

Whew, finally finished Persona 3, clocking in at level 99 and 99 hours. Suffice to say, I greatly enjoyed most of said hours - I can definitely see why this game is so highly regarded.


Nyx was a lot easier to beat than I expected. The Reaper was a far more arduous task - one which I only completed at all because he wasted so many turns doing pointless things. But I guess they couldn't really make any of the full moon bosses too difficult in case it stops progression entirely. Still, it felt like a lot of my grinding in Monad was a waste of time. I was excited when Messiah got Enduring Soul, only to see it never go off...

Unfortunately I didn't come close to maxing all the social links. Mitsuru, Maya and Maiko were close, but a bunch of others were barely past the first level if I found them at all. I would've given my classmates more time if I'd known how often I wouldn't be able to meet with them (around exams, vacations etc), but that's on me I guess. I still feel there should've been more chances to continue links at night though. I'm pretty sure there were only two, and once I'd maxed those and my social stats there wasn't a lot to do at night but grind in Tartarus. And like I said, I feel like I already spent more time in Tartarus than was necessary.

The ending made me well up a bit. The player character dying wasn't nearly as tragic as everyone losing their memories, so when they finally recalled it was pretty touching. Just a shame about the animated cutscenes; the art style is pretty meh and kinda takes away from everything else.

All in all, definitely a top pick.

[Zevox]

Nyx was a lot easier to beat than I expected. The Reaper was a far more arduous task - one which I only completed at all because he wasted so many turns doing pointless things. But I guess they couldn't really make any of the full moon bosses too difficult in case it stops progression entirely. Still, it felt like a lot of my grinding in Monad was a waste of time. I was excited when Messiah got Enduring Soul, only to see it never go off...
Yeah, Nyx is intended to be tackled around the mid-70s to low-80s of levels, specifically so that you don't need to do a lot of grinding to beat her. Going into Monad is mostly useful for prepping for the ultimate bonus boss, but that requires playing New Game+ to even be available to fight.


The ending made me well up a bit. The player character dying wasn't nearly as tragic as everyone losing their memories, so when they finally recalled it was pretty touching. Just a shame about the animated cutscenes; the art style is pretty meh and kinda takes away from everything else.
The animated bits do feel a bit low in quality, I've gotta agree there. Hopefully Persona 5 will be better in that respect, now that the series has garnered the decent amount of popularity that it has, and can probably be considered Atlus' biggest brand now. (Obviously Shin Megami Tensei is a larger one in terms of number of products out there, but I think it's safe to say that Persona has eclipsed its popularity at this point.)

And yeah, the PC dying is ultimately the only way that could end, isn't it? Persona 3 is nothing if not an examination of death in all the various ways it impacts people, and what more fitting end to such a work than a heroic sacrifice death by the main character?

[lord_khaine]

As for SMT3, aside from just being there for the sake of SMT's traditional difficulty, I think the idea is that all or most of the demons there aren't really that loyal to the main character. If he goes down, they're just going to leave him for dead and get the heck out of there.. or try to consume his body for its energy themselves. Probably covers everything except that one Pixie that joins you at the start of the game.

I really loved Nocturnes gameplay, difficulty and tactical gameplay. Is there a SMT4 thats worth playing..?

Og anything very simular under another name thats worth mentioning..?

[Hytheter]

Aaand now I've started playing "The Answer", which I forgot was there. There's definitely some fishy goings on here...



Yeah, Nyx is intended to be tackled around the mid-70s to low-80s of levels, specifically so that you don't need to do a lot of grinding to beat her. Going into Monad is mostly useful for prepping for the ultimate bonus boss, but that requires playing New Game+ to even be available to fight.
...
And yeah, the PC dying is ultimately the only way that could end, isn't it? Persona 3 is nothing if not an examination of death in all the various ways it impacts people, and what more fitting end to such a work than a heroic sacrifice death by the main character?

Haha 70s to 80s? I way overdid it then. I thought the Reaper was supposed to be a metric to go by for facing Nyx, but it must have been closer to the last guardian.
But yeah, the ending was definitely appropriate given the affiliations with certain arcana...

You mentioned Persona 5, which reminds me: I can start getting excited for that now! Now that I've played another Persona game, that is. Same goes for SMTxFire Emblem now that I've had a bit of a go at both series.
Before then I'm gonna try and finish the Answer, and then see if I can get my hands on P4 and it's spinoffs.

[Ogremindes]

Whew, finally finished Persona 3, clocking in at level 99 and 99 hours. Suffice to say, I greatly enjoyed most of said hours - I can definitely see why this game is so highly regarded.


Nyx was a lot easier to beat than I expected. The Reaper was a far more arduous task - one which I only completed at all because he wasted so many turns doing pointless things. But I guess they couldn't really make any of the full moon bosses too difficult in case it stops progression entirely. Still, it felt like a lot of my grinding in Monad was a waste of time. I was excited when Messiah got Enduring Soul, only to see it never go off...

Unfortunately I didn't come close to maxing all the social links. Mitsuru, Maya and Maiko were close, but a bunch of others were barely past the first level if I found them at all. I would've given my classmates more time if I'd known how often I wouldn't be able to meet with them (around exams, vacations etc), but that's on me I guess. I still feel there should've been more chances to continue links at night though. I'm pretty sure there were only two, and once I'd maxed those and my social stats there wasn't a lot to do at night but grind in Tartarus. And like I said, I feel like I already spent more time in Tartarus than was necessary.

The ending made me well up a bit. The player character dying wasn't nearly as tragic as everyone losing their memories, so when they finally recalled it was pretty touching. Just a shame about the animated cutscenes; the art style is pretty meh and kinda takes away from everything else.

All in all, definitely a top pick.

Heh, just listening to the ending theme has that effect on me. The ending was pretty perfect, I thought. Enough so that I ended up passing on The Answer, since I felt like an epilogue would only diminish from it. My opinion's not changed, but next time I will play it since they took that continuation and ran with it.

I'm coming up to the end of PQ. I'm on the last 2 floors, which are both massive and intertwined. I'll probably take some time to fuze up some really nice versions of my favorite personas. Though I did start doing that in P3P and never finished that run... Speaking of, I want to play some P3 when I'm done.

Now I just have to decide whether I want to play FES or P3P. I would definitely call FES the definitive version, if only because The Answer is essential to the ongoing meta-plot. P3P has a bunch of extra content, but some the mechanical additions are kinda game-breaking, and I like indirect control (and If I'm not mistaken the AI of party members is less capable in P3P, so direct control isn't really optional).

[Svata]

Stuck on the first floor of the forth stratum labyrinth. Torch goes out one step before either of the braziers near it, and I have no clue where to go or what to do. So I'm level grinding so I'll be better able to face off with Elizabeth again.

I liked the anime cutscenes, and yeah, Nyx's avatar was rather easy. [REDACTED] in P4 was a much more satysfying final boss, when at max level. (though I was playing on "very hard" that time through.) Back to P3. Didn't much care for the answer, as it undid a ton of character development (they had gotten their memories back at the very end, so there's no excuse for it). MC dying was sad as hell, though, but, admittedly less shocking than Shinjiro's death. Side note, PQ is a tough game to sit through, knowing both of them are gonna die, especially with the references to the groups wanting to meet up again sometime in the future. The persona series is the only games that ever made me cry, though (other than from rage/frustration at the game, but that's a completely different emotional response).

[Zevox]

I really loved Nocturnes gameplay, difficulty and tactical gameplay. Is there a SMT4 thats worth playing..?

Og anything very simular under another name thats worth mentioning..?
There is a Shin Megami Tensei 4. It's a 3DS game, released about a year and a half ago now. Personally, I wound up giving up completing it, due to the ridiculous requirements they put on getting the neutral ending, but otherwise it's fairly good, about what you'd expect from the main series of SMT if you've ever played another entry in it.

There's also the DS title Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, which is basically SMT in first-person dungeon crawler form. It's what Persona Q most reminds me of, actually.


Aaand now I've started playing "The Answer", which I forgot was there. There's definitely some fishy goings on here...
Oh boy, The Answer. Truth be told, I never finished that. Got a decent ways into it, but the fact that it's nothing but a ceaseless dungeon grind, and much harder than the main game at that, eventually wore me down. I wound up just looking up the story cutscenes on youtube instead.


The persona series is the only games that ever made me cry, though (other than from rage/frustration at the game, but that's a completely different emotional response).
Persona is almost the only one for me as well - the only other is Mass Effect 3, when I saw the renegade ending of Tuchanka.

But Persona has managed it multiple times, so yeah, no contest in the end.
Shinjiro's death.
Chidori's death.
Chidori surviving but losing her memories. (Didn't actually see this version until my third or fourth time through the game, even.)
Nanako's death (which I genuinely thought would be permanent, given P3's track record on the matter).
Labrys' story, from about the point where the scientists say they're going to scrub her sisters' memories from her systems onward.
Labrys and Aigis' talk in the ending of Aigis' chapter of Arena.
Labrys visits the grave of her "mother" in Ultimax.

Yeah, Labrys' story really gets to me. There may not be anything remotely original about it, but damn if the writers didn't take that story and make the best out of it that they possibly could.

[Cristo Meyers]

You mentioned Persona 5, which reminds me: I can start getting excited for that now! Now that I've played another Persona game, that is. Same goes for SMTxFire Emblem now that I've had a bit of a go at both series.

I wish we had more info than just 2015 for P5. I'm really looking forward to that.



Oh boy, The Answer. Truth be told, I never finished that. Got a decent ways into it, but the fact that it's nothing but a ceaseless dungeon grind, and much harder than the main game at that, eventually wore me down. I wound up just looking up the story cutscenes on youtube instead.

Same here. I never even considered trying it, honestly. P3 FES was already nearly 100 hours, and now you want to ramp up the difficulty and send me through a DLC epilogue that is the worst parts of P3 over and over? No thanks.



Persona is almost the only one for me as well - the only other is Mass Effect 3, when I saw the renegade ending of Tuchanka.

But Persona has managed it multiple times, so yeah, no contest in the end.
Shinjiro's death.
Chidori's death.
Chidori surviving but losing her memories. (Didn't actually see this version until my third or fourth time through the game, even.)
Nanako's death (which I genuinely thought would be permanent, given P3's track record on the matter).
Labrys' story, from about the point where the scientists say they're going to scrub her sisters' memories from her systems onward.
Labrys and Aigis' talk in the ending of Aigis' chapter of Arena.
Labrys visits the grave of her "mother" in Ultimax.

Yeah, Labrys' story really gets to me. There may not be anything remotely original about it, but damn if the writers didn't take that story and make the best out of it that they possibly could.

Ah, Nanako. I knew what was going to happen going in because I'd read the TVTropes page way back when (no reason to believe I'd ever get my hands on the game at the time, so why not), but it still got to me. The Walking Dead S1 was the only other game to inspire the same feeling of 'Do. Not. *&#!. With. My. Little. Girl.'

I just finished P4 Arena Ultimax today. A lot of good story-telling in there, though I think the P3 version of events is better than the P4.

I don't mind Yu and his friends being the focus (though I definitely didn't much care for Chie's new voice actor, or Igor's), but given the opportunity I'll take a separate but related entry in the arc rather than a direct sequel to P4. The P3 version made things seem more like the arena games were Labrys' story, rather than 'Yu and his friends save the day again.'

I also did note that the P3 epilogue seemed to be hinting that Chidori surviving was canon. Not sure I agree with it being that way, though.

[Hytheter]

Yeah I might not bother finishing the Answer. It's pretty frustrating not having all the stuff I was relying on before. Fuuka's powers are gone (really took Escape Route for granted), there's no Compendium, nothing boosts fused personas making them even less enticing than before. And even though I couldn't really expect otherwise, it's pretty jarring having everyone crammed back down to level 30 when they were in the 90s before along with all my equipment and money being gone.
I don't mind the dungeon crawling or increased difficulty that much but combined with the other factors it's a bit exhausting.

But hey, maybe I'll get bored and play it anyway.

[Ogremindes]

Stuck on the first floor of the forth stratum labyrinth. Torch goes out one step before either of the braziers near it, and I have no clue where to go or what to do. So I'm level grinding so I'll be better able to face off with Elizabeth again.

Obviously the the correct path is there, but it is always very precise. IIRC you can take 9 steps with the flame, with it going out on the 10th. Going through doors, secret or otherwise, doesn't make the flame burn down. Just carefully count out the steps on your paths and you should be able to find the right way, as long as your map's good and you haven't missed any secret doors.

[Ogremindes]

I just finished Persona Q. I ended up not grinding to finish up my Compendium or to make super-personas, probably just as well, as I found the final bosses to be hard but manageable, as in I was able to work out what I needed to do without getting game over, but was still cursing the 'unfairness'.

Heh, Persona music is good enough that even though this was relatively poorly written and story light, I still teared up a bit at the end. Great game, even if spellslingers were hard done by. (Even tier 4 damage spells (Niflheim, etc.) couldn't match severe physical attacks, and were prohibitively expensive to cast. And phys had a full range of elemental attacks to boot.)

[Svata]

Obviously the the correct path is there, but it is always very precise. IIRC you can take 9 steps with the flame, with it going out on the 10th. Going through doors, secret or otherwise, doesn't make the flame burn down. Just carefully count out the steps on your paths and you should be able to find the right way, as long as your map's good and you haven't missed any secret doors.

Screwed up mapping. Put a wall over where a door should have been. Oops.

[lord_khaine]

There is a Shin Megami Tensei 4. It's a 3DS game, released about a year and a half ago now. Personally, I wound up giving up completing it, due to the ridiculous requirements they put on getting the neutral ending, but otherwise it's fairly good, about what you'd expect from the main series of SMT if you've ever played another entry in it.

There's also the DS title Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, which is basically SMT in first-person dungeon crawler form. It's what Persona Q most reminds me of, actually.

Alright, thanks a lot. Had hoped there would be something to the PS, but perhaps i can find an emulator to check it out.

[Ogremindes]

Alright, thanks a lot. Had hoped there would be something to the PS, but perhaps i can find an emulator to check it out.

There's the Digital Devil Saga games on PS2, which use Nocturne's battle mechanics but a preset cast of characters and a more standard JRPG structure. P3's battle mechanics are a close relation, too, but a very different game in other aspects.

[Ogremindes]

I was listening to the Persona 3 soundtrack, and I realized 2 things. Firstly, I am so ready to play that game again, I just need to decide whether to go through the trouble of hooking my PS2 back up (I kinda assumed that PS2 classics would show up sooner rather than later on the PS4, so I put the PS4 in the spot my PS2 had, and it's a pain in the ass to hook up anything to that TV because of how I have the wires), or to make do with P3P.

Secondly, I realized that most (maybe an exaggeration, but a lot)of the soundtrack is variations on one song, which is pretty cool.

[Svata]

FES is available on the PSN for $10 on the PS3, so I assume its available on the PS4 as well...

[Cristo Meyers]

FES is available on the PSN for $10 on the PS3, so I assume its available on the PS4 as well...

Nope.

There's actually very little carry-over between the two systems at present. Something to do with the different programming requirements between the PS3 and 4 I think. I can't remember the exact reason...

[Ogremindes]

Yeah, and it's now looking like they'll have the old games only on their streaming service, which unless Sony makes deals with ISPs to have their stuff unmetred sounds unusable to me. At least I can disconnect my 360 to make room now with few regrets. Almost everything I have for it is on Steam now.

[Ogremindes]

I've got my PS2 hooked up again, a new wireless controller off ebay and FES in the drive. Time to get this started.:smallsmile:

[goto124]

This thread existed? I should've looked harder instead of starting a new thread about Persona 3 asking whether Yukari Takeba's Social Links were badly affected by Japanese culture, causing frustration for Western players trying not to break the Social Links.

If I extend it to include all characters and all different versions of Shin Megami Tensei, does anyone remember examples of culture or morality clash, if those existed at all?

[Ogremindes]

I've got my PS2 hooked up again, a new wireless controller off ebay and FES in the drive. Time to get this started.:smallsmile:
*Sigh* Nevermind that controller, it puts my thumbs about 30 degrees away from what is natural in order to use the thumbsticks. Maybe the even cheaper one that looks like it's the same shape as the Sony controller will be better. But that's not arriving anytime soon, so I've got a janky setup to get my dualshock 2 across the room.


This thread existed? I should've looked harder instead of starting a new thread about Persona 3 asking whether Yukari Takeba's Social Links were badly affected by Japanese culture, causing frustration for Western players trying not to break the Social Links.

If I extend it to include all characters and all different versions of Shin Megami Tensei, does anyone remember examples of culture or morality clash, if those existed at all?

In P3 there's The Devil S-link, which has a very... self-focused philosophy. I think The Tower was somewhat odd, too. But I think that's more to do with those characters, rather than differences between eastern and western culture. Nothing else jumps out at me, I think since SMT usually has a modern setting traditional cultural values don't really come into the games in those ways. There's probably minor things in many SMTs that you might not understand or just miss because it's referencing Japanese folklore, but I can't think of any big things.

[Zevox]

This thread existed? I should've looked harder instead of starting a new thread about Persona 3 asking whether Yukari Takeba's Social Links were badly affected by Japanese culture, causing frustration for Western players trying not to break the Social Links.

If I extend it to include all characters and all different versions of Shin Megami Tensei, does anyone remember examples of culture or morality clash, if those existed at all?
The main series of Shin Megami Tensei doesn't really focus on its story enough to have things like that happen, I'd say. It also endlessly repeats the same themes as far morality, or perhaps ethics, are concerned: order versus chaos is the central dichotomy, with YHVH's angels on the order side and Lucifer's demons on the chaos side. Each is taken to its extreme - order is tyrannical, while chaos amounts to might-makes-right. This tends to make the neutral endings of the games the most sane one, where you take neither side and just try to save the world as it is.

[Ogremindes]

P4 may be superior to P3 in any objective sense, but P3, P3FES in particular, I think is my favorite game of all time. I'm just feeling happy playing it again.:smallsmile:

[Ogremindes]

*Sigh* Nevermind that controller, it puts my thumbs about 30 degrees away from what is natural in order to use the thumbsticks. Maybe the even cheaper one that looks like it's the same shape as the Sony controller will be better. But that's not arriving anytime soon, so I've got a janky setup to get my dualshock 2 across the room.

*slaps forehead* Extension cord, dumbass.

So, for people who've played P3: Favorite music in the game? Let's exclude The Answer. Mine's Living With Determination (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F15FiDW_D5k) (Both versions (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRYSk12SZvw)). I like how the song changes as you go further in the game.

[Calemyr]

*slaps forehead* Extension cord, dumbass.

So, for people who've played P3: Favorite music in the game? Let's exclude The Answer. Mine's Living With Determination (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F15FiDW_D5k) (Both versions (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRYSk12SZvw)). I like how the song changes as you go further in the game.

P3: Battle for Everyone's Soul, definitely. It turns the operatic music of the Velvet Room into the backdrop for a clash of epic proportions.
P4: Heaven. The entire level is something else, but the upbeat song about a funeral veil just adds to it.
Arena: Too many. The first game came with an exceptional soundtrack, many of which remain on the music thumb drive for my car. Wandering Wolf, though, is probably my favorite.

[Zevox]

So, for people who've played P3: Favorite music in the game? Let's exclude The Answer. Mine's Living With Determination (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F15FiDW_D5k) (Both versions (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRYSk12SZvw)). I like how the song changes as you go further in the game.
Eh, I guess the map theme (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVcfwg_vXFY). I like the beat to it, and it was always kind of fun to hear. The female MC's equivalent (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSCcTynjPeo) is good too, though I prefer the male one.

I was never nearly as fond of P3's music as P4's though.

Edit: Oh, if we're doing P4 and Arena too? P4 is easy: Reach Out to the Truth (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bG6PPQyxyI) and Never More (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK8dacA2CBI), and Genesis (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhQILQgkClo&t=6m40s) when it finally gets to its triumphant ending.

Arena and Ultimax? Oh god, all of it. Yu's Reach Out to the Truth remix (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBa1rjbkDHw), Aigis' Heartful Cry (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TZhLHneXyg), Naoto's Seeker of Truth (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Bqv6ZMWLdA), Mitsuru's Missions for the Brillaint Executioner (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utwcIlVaee4), Akihiko's The Wandering Wolf (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0SpO70YYjQ), The Arena (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3Dqanj4ThI), Ultimax's main theme Break Out of... (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PM5L9Zyk3UQ), Rise's Twinkle Star (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7L5zs9ynsmE), and I'd better stop myself before I track down links to pretty much every song from those games.

[Hytheter]

I didn't really like Persona 3's soundtrack all that much. There were a couple of cool ones, a lot of ok/meh ones, and nearly every track was repeated so much that I eventually came to hate them.
If I had to pick a favorite I'd probably say "The Battle For Everyone's Souls". The reprise of the opera from "Poem..." (another stand out) was a nice touch to the final battle. "Mass Destruction" also gets points for being catchy as all hell. I just wish I didn't have to hear it thousands of times.

In other news, I've started playing Persona 4 now. Direct control makes me so happy. The changes to the battle system regarding area moves and getting "1-more"s are a nice boon at times, but also makes certain opponents a lot more challenging. I really like that enemies don't get back up after you hit them too, it makes All Out Attacks way easier and prevents you from stun locking things (which could be effective but also felt kinda dirty).
I've gotta ask though: What happened to Elizabeth, and how does Igor pull all these babes anyway?

[Zevox]

I've gotta ask though: What happened to Elizabeth, and how does Igor pull all these babes anyway?
Spoiler for P3's "The Answer":
She leaves the Velvet Room on her own, going looking for a way to save Minato (the P3 main character), whose soul is acting as a seal on Nyx.
The exact origins of Elizabeth, Margaret, and their brother Theodore* are unknown, just like Igor and the Velvet Room themselves. All that we know is that they're residents there, consider Igor their master, and work to help his guests.

*He first appeared as alternative to Elizabeth for the female protagonist in P3 Portable, and has since shown up alongside his sisters in Arena Ultimax and Persona Q.

[Calemyr]

I didn't really like Persona 3's soundtrack all that much. There were a couple of cool ones, a lot of ok/meh ones, and nearly every track was repeated so much that I eventually came to hate them.
If I had to pick a favorite I'd probably say "The Battle For Everyone's Souls". The reprise of the opera from "Poem..." (another stand out) was a nice touch to the final battle. "Mass Destruction" also gets points for being catchy as all hell. I just wish I didn't have to hear it thousands of times.

In other news, I've started playing Persona 4 now. Direct control makes me so happy. The changes to the battle system regarding area moves and getting "1-more"s are a nice boon at times, but also makes certain opponents a lot more challenging. I really like that enemies don't get back up after you hit them too, it makes All Out Attacks way easier and prevents you from stun locking things (which could be effective but also felt kinda dirty).
I've gotta ask though: What happened to Elizabeth, and how does Igor pull all these babes anyway?

As Zevox says, Elizabeth has gone on a quest to save the P3 hero. She shows up in Arena to figure out how the Wild Card ability works and ultimately picks up the Fool Arcana for her efforts (indicating she's about to go on a journey). At the beginning of her section of Arena, she's shown hunting and destroying nihilistic personifications like Erebus in order to keep Minato safe until she can figure out how to break him loose. She's quite clearly smitten with him (other female P3 characters are very fond of him, but don't show any real romantic affection).

I suppose the canon romances for the games are Elizabeth (P3) and Marie (P4 Golden), if the Arena games are any indication.

[TamerBill]

I suppose the canon romances for the games are Elizabeth (P3) and Marie (P4 Golden), if the Arena games are any indication.

The Answer offers Yukari and Aegis as canon for P3.

[Calemyr]

The Answer offers Yukari and Aegis as canon for P3.

In so far as they want him back at any cost, I guess. I don't know how much of that was romantic emotion and how much of it was just a strong bond. Of course, given that Minato was intrinsically incapable of platonic relationships with the female species (seriously, even his teacher...), it's hard to say there could be a bond without a romantic relationship.

[Inspector Valin]

Well, jumped into Persona with Q: Shadows of the Labyrinth. I.... really haven't played any Persona games before, but have been enjoying this one so far. :smallwink: I like the cast, I like the action and the mystery, and it's gotten me interested in the wider series. Unfortunately, I don't have access to many other consoles. I might be able to secure something, but do you guys have any particular recommendations for where I go from here?

[tyckspoon]

Well, jumped into Persona with Q: Shadows of the Labyrinth. I.... really haven't played any Persona games before, but have been enjoying this one so far. :smallwink: I like the cast, I like the action and the mystery, and it's gotten me interested in the wider series. Unfortunately, I don't have access to many other consoles. I might be able to secure something, but do you guys have any particular recommendations for where I go from here?

A Playstation 2 (or early-model backwards compatible Playstation 3) would be your best bet; that would give you access to Persona 3 FES (the rerelease/special edition) and Persona 4. If you happen to have a PSP you can look for Persona 3 Portable (the even specialer edition which makes the battle system a bit more like P4) , and Persona 4 Golden (special edition of P4) on Playstation Vita. I wouldn't worry too much about the two games that make up Persona 2 or the original Persona, but if you happen to run across them those are both playable on Playstation or a Playstation 2.

Somebody more familiar with Sony's digital distribution options would have to explain if any of these are available on various versions of the Play Station Network store as downloadable games.

Oh, and Persona Arena is apparently pretty good? I have neither a PS3 nor an interest in fighting games, but if you have either or especially both it's probably worth getting that too.

[Cristo Meyers]

Somebody more familiar with Sony's digital distribution options would have to explain if any of these are available on various versions of the Play Station Network store as downloadable games.


Persona 3: FES and Persona 4 are both available on the PSN in the US.

[Calemyr]

Your best bet of all of them would be to get a Playstation Vita. Ports of Persona 1, Persona 2 (Innocent Sin) and Persona 3 are available on PSP and Persona 4 Golden is available on PS Vita. Since you can buy PSP games through the Playstation Network and download them onto a Vita, you can get 4 out of 6 games. The only two you can't get some version of are Persona 2: Eternal Punishment (PSX exclusive) and Persona Q, which you already have.



Oh, and Persona Arena is apparently pretty good? I have neither a PS3 nor an interest in fighting games, but if you have either or especially both it's probably worth getting that too.

The Arena games are BlazBlue style fighting games (naturally, as they were made by the same company). The games tell a story that connects the P3 and P4 cast and it's actually a pretty interesting story. Personally, I can't play that style of fighting game well, so I end up just turning down the difficulty and cheesing cheap moves to get from one story segment to the next, but I'm playing the game for the story not the fighting. It includes some interesting elements, and I love the joke paths in the first Arena game. The second game has a better story telling engine, and has the first game as DLC content, so you can play the original story with the new engine.

All told, Arena is either a fighting game you'll love, a visual novel you'll enjoy, or a bonus bit of story you'll be as happy as not watching on YouTube. It really depends on the player.

[Inspector Valin]

Hmm.... noted, thank you! That leaves the Vita my best bet, I don't have access to a TV. I'll look into picking one up. :smallwink:

[Calemyr]

I'm still holding out hope that we'll get the PSP port of Eternal Punishment eventually, but there's apparently some copyright issues that are really screwing it up.

Fortunately Innocent Sin works well without Eternal Punishment, while Eternal Punishment makes much less sense without Innocent Sin. See, on the PSX we only got Punishment, due to one of the playable characters in Sin turning out to be gay. Not that big an issue anymore, so it got ported easily. Since the world of Punishment is built around the consequences of Sin, however, it can be hard to follow - especially since some of the characters are treated more as cameos than starring characters.

I do have to note that each game has its own style and they each play a bit differently. P1 and P2 are largely the same, but very different from 3 and 4. P3P (P3's PSP version) guts a lot of walking around outside of dungeons to save space, and ends up feeling like a visual novel more than a game when not in dungeons, but it adds a lot of extra material and an entire alternative version where the main character is a girl, with fairly different social circles. P4 Golden, on the other hand is everything P4 was and more.

[Inspector Valin]

I've been riding with the main characters of 4 in Q, so it seems like a smart starting place. The main obstacle's just the fact that I don't have a valid console, but I've seen enough of the Vita to know it's something I'd definitely like to pick up.

[Calemyr]

I really like 4. The characters are fascinating, the controls are better, and the side features are more numerous and pretty cool. It's also the most pleasant story about hunting a serial killer that I've ever witnessed.

If that's your favorite cast, I'd absolutely recommend the Vita. Golden just adds too much to the game, and removes some real frustrations the P3 engine had, removing the randomness from fusing personas and giving you items that can teach a persona an ability (and thus not have to make a persona when you find a new ability you like). One catch, though, is that it does make things kinda easy. By level 50 I had my original persona's stats to 99 and given him skills to cover his weakness and make him effective against most anything. Not by cheating or exploiting anything, just by using him as my preferred persona and getting pretty good at the card game you sometimes get post-battle. Since Yu's persona is Izunagi and looks completely badass, I don't see this as much of a downside.

[Ogremindes]

Hmm.... noted, thank you! That leaves the Vita my best bet, I don't have access to a TV. I'll look into picking one up. :smallwink:
If that situation is likely to change, there's also the Playstation TV, which is a fair bit less expensive than a Vita not actually much cheaper if you don't already have a controller. Huh.

Other things to note are that Persona Q is an Etrian Oddessy game with Persona elements (those elements seem to be the parts that grabbed you), that Persona Q is a bit spoily for P3 and P4 (not on major plot-points, mind), and that Persona is part of the broader SMT series which has several other entries on the DS and 3DS, the Devil Survivor games probably being the most immediately interesting.

[Zevox]

I suppose the canon romances for the games are Elizabeth (P3) and Marie (P4 Golden), if the Arena games are any indication.
I wouldn't assume so. Just because they're smitten with Minato and Yu doesn't mean the feelings are reciprocated. I know Elizabeth is attracted to Minato in P3 regardless of whether you reciprocate, and while I've not played P4 Golden I wouldn't be surprised if the same is true of Marie. And while we obviously can't say about Minato, I don't recall anything in Yu's conversations with Marie in Ultimax indicating that he shared her feelings.

Persona Q also seems to dance around the subject in general, leaving it open whether you're actually involved with anyone.


The Answer offers Yukari and Aegis as canon for P3.
Aigis is always attracted to the P3 MC - even the female one. Initially for reasons connected to the plot, later because the attraction just doesn't go away after that plot point gets revealed.


Oh, and Persona Arena is apparently pretty good? I have neither a PS3 nor an interest in fighting games, but if you have either or especially both it's probably worth getting that too.
Very much so, if you're at all interested in fighting games. If you're not into the genre at all though, then as Calemyr said, you're probably just as well off watching the story modes on youtube.


Persona Q is a bit spoily for P3 and P4 (not on major plot-points, mind)
Yeah, that thought crossed my mind when reading Valin's posts. It definitely gives away character details, which can be a bit of a big deal, particularly for Kanji and Naoto. I know I've already seen it mention Ken's backstory (though not give the full thing), too. Which does kinda make Persona Q not the best place to start with the series.


and that Persona is part of the broader SMT series which has several other entries on the DS and 3DS, the Devil Survivor games probably being the most immediately interesting.
Actually, it technically isn't. While it obviously takes some gameplay elements from the SMT series, that's it. The Shin Megami Tensei title was never even attached to the series in Japan - Atlus added it for NA releases, ironically because they thought it would help sales. You'll notice the title has been dropped from more recent Persona games, starting with Golden and including all of the spin-offs now, since the series has achieved some popularity in its own right.

That said, the SMT games are generally still good too, especially the Devil Survivor ones.

[Ogremindes]

Actually, it technically isn't. While it obviously takes some gameplay elements from the SMT series, that's it. The Shin Megami Tensei title was never even attached to the series in Japan - Atlus added it for NA releases, ironically because they thought it would help sales. You'll notice the title has been dropped from more recent Persona games, starting with Golden and including all of the spin-offs now, since the series has achieved some popularity in its own right.

I think it is more informative and helpful to call Persona part of MegaTen than not. Also, the japanese names for the SMT spinoffs more often than not don't have "Megami Tensei" in the title. Are you seriously going to argue that "Megami Ibunroku" should be considered separate to Megami Tensei?

Also: http://xkcd.com/1475/.

[Zevox]

I think it is more informative and helpful to call Persona part of MegaTen than not.
I've come to question that, honestly. Aside from certain elements of the turn-based gameplay and the design of the demons/Personas, the two ultimately have little in common. The post-apocalyptic dungeon crawl that is the hallmark of the SMT series doesn't really bear much resemblance to the Persona games, especially post-P3.


Are you seriously going to argue that "Megami Ibunroku" should be considered separate to Megami Tensei?
Related but separate - they have more in common than SMT and Persona, but there's enough different that the different name in Japan is entirely understandable.

[Ogremindes]

I've come to question that, honestly. Aside from certain elements of the turn-based gameplay and the design of the demons/Personas, the two ultimately have little in common. The post-apocalyptic dungeon crawl that is the hallmark of the SMT series doesn't really bear much resemblance to the Persona games, especially post-P3.

I wouldn't call P4 further removed from mainline SMT than Devil Survivor or Raidou Kuzunoha. The mechanics of P4's dungeon crawling side are still pretty close to SMT3, even if the thematics could barely be further removed.

Also, at this point I would consider mainline SMT to really be another sub-series of MegaTen with the same standing as Persona or Devil Survivor. Since the decisions that made Strange Journey not be SMT4, mainline SMT is as much as specific thing as the spin-offs that grew into their own series.

[Hytheter]

Aaargh ew what the hell
Why does the Shadow Rise boss have to make those awful squelching noises?
Also the dungeons in this game have a really poor size:content ratio. Way too many long, empty corridors that lead to dead ends.

Still thoroughly enjoying it though.
Currently at the Mitsuo boss. I thought I had him when suddenly "Mitsuo has leveled up!", so it's back to grinding for a bit. I'm looking forward to whatever comes next though. Mitsuo obviously isn't the primary threat (if he even really is the culprit) but I'm betting his defeat will soon lead to some major insight on who's really behind it all and what the whole deal is here anyway.

I'm going on a long train trip tomorrow so I've decided to download Persona Q to keep me occupied. I guess I'm kinda going all in with this series haha.

[tonberrian]

Personally, I feel that if they're willing to share spell names and art assets, they deserve to be under the same MegaTen umbrella. I'd certainly put Pokken Tournament in with Pokemon, despite them being entirely different genres.

[Ogremindes]

Yay, I have an extension cord for my DS2 controller. That's a much better idea than buying a ****ty knock-off wireless controller and hoping it works well enough. Now I should be able to play FES with no more technical issues getting in the way. Time to take it from the top.

[Slayn82]

Fortunately Innocent Sin works well without Eternal Punishment, while Eternal Punishment makes much less sense without Innocent Sin. See, on the PSX we only got Punishment, due to one of the playable characters in Sin turning out to be gay. Not that big an issue anymore, so it got ported easily. Since the world of Punishment is built around the consequences of Sin, however, it can be hard to follow - especially since some of the characters are treated more as cameos than starring characters.


I played Eterna Punishment back in the early 2000s without knowing there was a previous game, and just realizing that after more than 2/3rds of the game. The history makes can flow and make sense by itself, but if you also played Innocent Sin, you get a lot of "gotcha" moments. And Baofu is still my favorite characther in the whole series. It was interesting to have the history flow around actual adults for once - othen than Tatsuya.

[Calemyr]

I played Eterna Punishment back in the early 2000s without knowing there was a previous game, and just realizing that after more than 2/3rds of the game. The history makes can flow and make sense by itself, but if you also played Innocent Sin, you get a lot of "gotcha" moments. And Baofu is still my favorite characther in the whole series. It was interesting to have the history flow around actual adults for once - othen than Tatsuya.

Baofu rocked. Takes a badass to weaponize a coin toss. Apparently they reverse cameo'd him into the PSP port of Innocent Sin, where he's the broken drunk he supposedly was before he becomes Baofu.

[Ogremindes]

Huh, that's not how it's supposed to work. P3F looks way better than I remember it being. Aren't old favorite games supposed to look like crap when you come back to them? I guess my memory of the visuals must mostly come from P3P.

Also, that first Tartarus boss was rough... up until the analyze went though and Yukari knocked them all down. I was kinda panicking 'cause they absorbed all the magic I was throwing at them (and my physical skills weren't doing much) and hit hard.

[Zevox]

I don't have time to leave comments about it right now, but we got a real trailer for Persona 5 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc_9r4wifFc) today. Enjoy.

[Calemyr]

I don't have time to leave comments about it right now, but we got a real trailer for Persona 5 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc_9r4wifFc) today. Enjoy.

Thank you that, that was quite a sight. Possibly quite informative, too:
I remember it being announced a good while ago that P5's theme would be "Freedom" in much the same way P3 and P4 were about "Sacrifice" and "Truth" respectively.
* We see what is probably our initial quartet, like Misato/Yukari/Junpei/Mitsuru in 3 and Yu/Yosuke/Chie/Teddie in 4.
* Main character is a gun wielder, and seems to be very agile compared to his predecessors. Seems to be a bit more dubious as well - is he a burglar or a spy?
* Girl with twintails, reminds me of Alana/Ayase from Persona 1. Sits in front of the main character in class.
* Guy with red hair who seems a natural pick for the goof-off/lancer role Junpei and Yosuke had in previous games. Shown using a length of pipe as a weapon.
* Cat creature that seems to shift between normal housecat and bubble-headed mascot. Shown participating in an all-out attack, but may be command like Teddi was.
* All characters appear in a combat sequence dressed in infiltration gear, like a catsuit or a kato mask.
* Game appears much more active than previous games. Shows the main character doing some platforming on chandeliers and some very flashy stealth moves. Unclear if those are common elements or just minigames.
* A golden-eyed version of the main character is shown engulfing himself in the blue flames from the previous mini-trailer.
* The winged man is actually shown here, the mini-trailer only of someone looking a bit like him in the reflections of the main character's eyes.
* Combining the two trailers suggests that the winged man is actually an alternate (true?) form of the golden eyed doppelganger. The winged man's reflection in the mini-trailer was apparently during the scene with the flash of blue fire, while Golden-eye erupts into blue flames in the longer one. Likely the blue flames represent a transformation into the winged man. Possibly they're keeping the alter-ego Shadows from P4 (which were used quite effectively in my opinion), and the main character's shadow is loose and running amok. That would mean that his winged form would be the main character's primary persona (like Orpheus and Izanagi). The concept of Alter-ego Shadows using Persona was explored in the P4 Arena games, so it isn't out of the realm of possibility.
* For some reason, the combat costumes have a "masquerade" feel to them that puts me in mind of the Persona 2 games, Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment. The main character's mask in particular reminds me of Joker-Sama. Either way, they appear far more thematic than they do practical.
* Igor is back (Yay!), this time with what appear to be twins as his assistants. We don't get a good look at the Velvet room, but it reminded me of a cliche private investigator's office. Not sure why, though.
* Wish I could read Japanese, just so I could translate the questions at the beginning.
* School scenes return. I had hoped P5 would be based in college, but apparently we're still in high school. The scenes appear more dynamic, however, as the teacher throws something at the main character for sleeping in class.

All that said, never trust a trailer. We'll see just how much of it is the truth in the end.


Yeah, if I wasn't already salivating at another Persona game, this would rung the Pavlovian bell.

[A Rainy Knight]

Wish I could read Japanese, just so I could translate the questions at the beginning.

待ち受けるのは・・・栄光か？！
Is what awaits them... glory?!

それとも・・・破滅か？！
Or is it... destruction?!

[Calemyr]

待ち受けるのは・・・栄光か？！
Is what awaits them... glory?!

それとも・・・破滅か？！
Or is it... destruction?!

Ah, well... that's less than useful. Still, consider my curiosity satisfied. Thank you.

[Zevox]

Thank you that, that was quite a sight. Possibly quite informative, too:
Indeed. I'm going to speculate that the whole thing with the group acting like burglars and wearing those kinda crazy outfits is something that only happens in the game's "other world" - whatever its equivalent of the Dark Hour or TV World is. I'd say it looks like they're going with a mask motif for things, too, probably related to how the "other world" operates and how the group summons their personas.

Looking elsewhere on the internet, apparently we have names for the characters. The blonde guy is Ryuji Sakamoto, the girl is Anzu Takamaki, and the cat is Morgana (so, I'd assume the cat is female).

Our glimpse of Igor and the Velvet Room made me think of a prison, rather than a PI office. Which I think fits with the previous teasing at a "slavery" theme to the game. I wonder if Igor's new assistants will be part of the existing family as well, or unrelated to Elizabeth, Margaret, and Theo?

I do notice that some design elements from Catherine seem to have made their way into the game. The bar we briefly see the group at looks very much like the one from that game, and Anzu looks fairly reminiscent of Catherine herself.

Interesting note: in the one fight scene we briefly see, it looks like the enemies aren't the kind of Shadows from the previous two games. They're demons/personas: Sandman and Pyro Jack, specifically. So that's a definite change.

Lastly, I've gotta say I liked the music. Not exactly the next "Reach Out to the Truth" or anything, but very promising. Not that I expected anything less, after Persona 4, the Arena games, and Persona Q, but still great to get a sample of what we're in for there and already like it quite a bit.

I really hope the game does end up getting released this year for us. Supposedly it's still scheduled for such, but it being pushed back in Japan and still having no specific release date there (from originally being scheduled for holiday last year) makes me think it might end up a 2016 release for the rest of the world.

[TamerBill]

Main character is a gun wielder, and seems to be very agile compared to his predecessors. Seems to be a bit more dubious as well - is he a burglar or a spy?

Actually all the party members have some form of gun as well as a melee weapon. Even the cat has a slingshot.


We don't get a good look at the Velvet room, but it reminded me of a cliche private investigator's office. Not sure why, though.

It's a jail, the attendants are wardens. Want emancipation?

[Ogremindes]

Hmm, I think I'll skip checking out trailers and such. The only thing I needed to find out was "am I really going to have to buy a PS3 this year?", and that, thankfully, was answered in the negative. So long as I pay enough attention to know when pre-orders become available, I'm good. I already knew I was going to pre-order, anyway.

In P3, I've been playing with more of a mind to efficient time use than I have in the past, and the condition system is a good deal more interesting than I gave it credit for. I had thought it as nothing more than a way to keep the player from dungeon crawling too long (and that P4's handling of it was better, i.e. just not having free heals), but the fact that condition ties into the time management aspect does make it something you need to pay attention too when worrying about that stuff, at least early on.

[Zevox]

Hmm, I think I'll skip checking out trailers and such. The only thing I needed to find out was "am I really going to have to buy a PS3 this year?", and that, thankfully, was answered in the negative.
You could get a PS4 instead, if you were so inclined. It was announced a little while ago that it's coming to that as well.

[Ogremindes]

You could get a PS4 instead, if you were so inclined. It was announced a little while ago that it's coming to that as well.

Yeah I know, that's why 'negative'. I already have a PS4, not much used, but it's there. P5 will be the most use it's ever seen, by far.

[Zevox]

Yeah I know, that's why 'negative'. I already have a PS4, not much used, but it's there. P5 will be the most use it's ever seen, by far.
Ah, okay then. Didn't realize that.

I've gotten a reasonable amount of use out of mine already since picking it up a couple months ago, personally. Dragon Age: Inquisition, Guilty Gear Xrd, and InFamous: Second Son (plus its not-quite-DLC, First Light). Might be a little bit before my next big use for it though I guess - Batman: Arkham Knight apparently got moved back to be a mid-year release instead of an early one when I wasn't looking.

[Hytheter]

The new trailer looks awesome.

I'm guessing that this time around, users will physically transform into their personas rather than just summoning them. That would explain the blue fire animation at the end, as well as the fight against Sandman and Pyro Jack.

The graphics look super nice too, especially compared to the glitchy P4 that I'm playing.

Speaking of which
Adachi! I knew it! Somehow? I don't know if I subconsciously picked up on some foreshadowing or just made a lucky guess, but I always had a feeling he was somehow behind it. Actually, I also suspected that Itsutsuki was somehow misleading SEES in P3 too.

I also knew that Naoto was a girl, but I doubt anyone was legitimately surprised by that "revelation".

The Music in "Heaven" is really nice.

[Cristo Meyers]

Speaking of which
Adachi! I knew it! Somehow? I don't know if I subconsciously picked up on some foreshadowing or just made a lucky guess, but I always had a feeling he was somehow behind it. Actually, I also suspected that Itsutsuki was somehow misleading SEES in P3 too.

I also knew that Naoto was a girl, but I doubt anyone was legitimately surprised by that "revelation".

The Music in "Heaven" is really nice.

I had the exact same reaction the first time I saw Naoto.

I'll caveat that I knew Naoto was a cross-dressing woman before playing the game, but I honestly can't say that I would've been surprised even for a second.

[Zevox]

I also knew that Naoto was a girl, but I doubt anyone was legitimately surprised by that "revelation".
I happened across that spoiler online while in the middle of playing the game, but I don't think I'd have figured it out without that, actually. I had noticed the more feminine tone to her voice, but I'd dismissed it as nothing too unusual for a Japanese game. Androgynous characters aren't anything new in anime-style games, after all, and she doesn't do anything in particular to give herself away before being kidnapped other than being disinterested in her female fans, and that can be put down to being very work-oriented, which she very much so is anyway. Kinda like Akihiko in that respect, actually.

[Hytheter]

I happened across that spoiler online while in the middle of playing the game, but I don't think I'd have figured it out without that, actually. I had noticed the more feminine tone to her voice, but I'd dismissed it as nothing too unusual for a Japanese game. Androgynous characters aren't anything new in anime-style games, after all, and she doesn't do anything in particular to give herself away before being kidnapped other than being disinterested in her female fans, and that can be put down to being very work-oriented, which she very much so is anyway. Kinda like Akihiko in that respect, actually.

Eh, I think her voice and face both push past the borders of androgyny. It was actually a little frustrating watching the cast (especially Kanji) act as though she was male when I'm sitting there thinking "are you people stupid?"

I like the new way that the party members unlock their new personas though. Although I think I'm way too close to the end to unlock Kanji and Naoto's in time since they are both currently at rank 1...

Persona Q is pretty cool so far, though I haven't progressed much. The art style is kind of adorable, and while the characters seem to have been flanderised a little it's mostly pretty funny and I wasn't expecting it to be 100% serious anyway.
The only thing that bothers me is that Elizabeth's voice and manner of speaking seem very different.

[Calemyr]

Eh, I think her voice and face both push past the borders of androgyny. It was actually a little frustrating watching the cast (especially Kanji) act as though she was male when I'm sitting there thinking "are you people stupid?"

I like the new way that the party members unlock their new personas though. Although I think I'm way too close to the end to unlock Kanji and Naoto's in time since they are both currently at rank 1...

Persona Q is pretty cool so far, though I haven't progressed much. The art style is kind of adorable, and while the characters seem to have been flanderised a little it's mostly pretty funny and I wasn't expecting it to be 100% serious anyway.
The only thing that bothers me is that Elizabeth's voice and manner of speaking seem very different.

In fairness, it's simply a bunch of mixed signals. Naoto regularly wears male clothing (male uniforms, outfits and hats typically considered masculine, etc), pitches her voice down when playing the "Detective Prince", binds her chest to a point where she must have difficulty breathing, and uses phraseology that is fairly masculine. It's apparently more understandable in japan, as the language uses some different words depending on the speaker's gender. In short, Naoto has a reputation as a guy, dresses like a guy, talks like a guy, and tries to sound like a guy (which, as a child trying to be acknowledged by adults, isn't even that strange - male or female, she's want to sound older and more masculine than she visibly is). All the up-front evidence suggests she's a guy, albeit a guy who is trying to sound more mature in order to obtain respect. Most characters have very little direct interaction with her before her secret is revealed, either, so there's not much opportunity for them to see something's up. The player, on the other hand, sees all the interactions and doesn't experience most of the faked evidence due to a presentation style that skips the subtle clues that would mislead a person in real life, while the art style isn't discreet enough to lie effectively.

As for Elizabeth, what's off with her? I saw her version of the group date on YouTube and seemed pretty darn spot on for an early P3 version of Elizabeth, brimming with third hand knowledge and zero first hand experience. She changes quite a lot throughout P3 and the Arenas, such that her World Arcana self and her Fool Arcana self are quite different.

[Philemonite]

Kinda late to the party, but this thread is awesome. In case my name and avatar didn't give it away, I am a huge fan of Persona and MegaTen in general. And although I spent last year and a half mostly on persona my favorite part is DDS. And before I say something meaningful, a shameless self-promotion. I run a persona PbP game that has been going on for almost a year and a half. The game uses my own system and has a very stable player base, so anyone interested should check out or new home here (http://velvetdoor.proboards.com/) (we recently moved from Giantitp). It's a very friendly community, and we accept all those who are interested.
And now for the actual SMT/Persona stuff.
That trailer is awesome, and apparently, it is creating a huge amount of hype across the known Internet. And it looks like it is going to be awesome, I especially like the cat mascot. And you should all spread the hype wherever you go, because it definitely deserves it.:smallwink:

[Hytheter]

As for Elizabeth, what's off with her? I saw her version of the group date on YouTube and seemed pretty darn spot on for an early P3 version of Elizabeth, brimming with third hand knowledge and zero first hand experience.

It's not the dialogue that seems off but the... intonation I guess? In Persona 3 it wasn't just the words she said that were peculiar but the way she said them, while in PQ she sounds pretty normal.

[Leliel]

I suddenly realize that the protagonists of P5 are natural antagonists of P4's.

Will someone please draw Naoto as Inspector Zenigata attempting to chase them down?

[Zevox]

I suddenly realize that the protagonists of P5 are natural antagonists of P4's.
Depending on how things are actually portrayed, there may be some truth to that. Which could make things pretty interesting when the P5 cast inevitably gets added to the Arena series. :smallamused:

[Ogremindes]

Just took down Change Relic at lvl12. Not much fun, ended up just going in with Yukari and using Alp for resists, very slowly whittling down it's health with normal attacks. Stumbled 7 times, 3 in a row. Never crit once. First time (I had Akihiko and Junpei, but they got KO'd), I managed to get ambushed on the next floor, got wiped with Mabufu spam and had to do it over:smallfurious: I should've levelled up to 15, I think there's a wind resist persona at that level.

[Hytheter]

First time (I had Akihiko and Junpei, but they got KO'd), I managed to get ambushed on the next floor, got wiped with Mabufu spam and had to do it over:smallfurious:

I usually make a point of saving directly after bosses for exactly that reason.

[Zevox]

So, a thought that occurred to me when watching the Persona 5 trailer again: we're shown the date at one point, Monday the 11th of April, and that should allow us to check what year the game is set in. Assuming they're still moving the timeline forward and not jumping ahead too far, the answer is 2016.

Which means, assuming that our next Arena game does indeed start adding the P5 cast into things and that it takes place after the ending of P5, that there will be a five-year gap between the events of Arena/Ultimax and the next title. That's quite a bit of time for the other characters to be growing up - more than the P3 cast had between their adventure and Arena/Ultimax, which was only two years - which could be very interesting.

It will become hard to justify Koromaru still being alive, though, given he was supposed to be a relatively old dog even by the time of Arena/Ultimax, and dogs just don't have that long of a lifespan.

[Calemyr]

So, a thought that occurred to me when watching the Persona 5 trailer again: we're shown the date at one point, Monday the 11th of April, and that should allow us to check what year the game is set in. Assuming they're still moving the timeline forward and not jumping ahead too far, the answer is 2016.

Which means, assuming that our next Arena game does indeed start adding the P5 cast into things and that it takes place after the ending of P5, that there will be a five-year gap between the events of Arena/Ultimax and the next title. That's quite a bit of time for the other characters to be growing up - more than the P3 cast had between their adventure and Arena/Ultimax, which was only two years - which could be very interesting.

It will become hard to justify Koromaru still being alive, though, given he was supposed to be a relatively old dog even by the time of Arena/Ultimax, and dogs just don't have that long of a lifespan.

Koromaru probably wouldn't make it in that case. Ken wouldn't need the support and the loss of his best friend would make for an interesting side arc for him.

Five years would put Yu and co just on the grad side of college - or in their final year for Rise. Kanji probably never went or is cramming four years into 6, while Naoto would probably knuckle down and graduate in three. Using American college as a framework, of course. Not entirely sure how colleges work in Japan. That said, one of the coolest bits of the Arena series has been to see the P3/P4 cast mature a little. Where would it go from here? Junpei getting married and dreading what his wife is going to do to him now that he's caught up in another investigation. Mitsuru developing a sense of fashion (or at least the sense to listen to those who would question a fur coat over a black leather catsuit). Akihiko actually growing up and taking responsibilities seriously (though probably not putting a shirt on - think of the fangirls!). Yukiko, Chie, and Marie forming a supernatural city watch over Inaba... Possibly Yu struggling with a lack of direction - he's a natural leader with nothing to lead and no goals to pursue*. Maybe he joins the Shadow Operatives?

But, yeah, P5 does seem to have a thematic clash with the last two. Sacrifice and Truth seem rather mature, putting the the world before personal desires or beliefs. Freedom, however? Strikes me as rebellious, selfish, and destructive. At least if not tempered, that is. Somehow I get the feeling that the P5 cast will be working counter to the world instead of to save it. Might even tie back to the old SMT alignments: Shadow Operatives representing Order, P5 representing Chaos, and the Investigation Team representing Neutrality (Truth doesn't care about Order or Chaos - Truth is, and the world simply has to deal with that).

Edit: You know, the more I think about, the more I would really love to see Yu Narukami pull a Peggy Carter. "You know, back then it was all so... well... easy. It didn't seem like it at the time, but it was. We had a problem to solve, we had personal investments in the case. And no matter how hard it got - and sometimes things got really hard - it became simple after a while. Watch the Midnight Channel, search for the victim, beat the hell out of their shadow when it inevitably went berserk, rinse and repeat. Now... I just find myself waiting for what happens next - or rather what doesn't happen next. Igor used to love telling me I was a Fool on his journey, but what does a Fool do when that journey's over?"

[Zevox]

Koromaru probably wouldn't make it in that case. Ken wouldn't need the support and the loss of his best friend would make for an interesting side arc for him.
True, but that would also mean he'd need a serious overhaul to how he plays within the Arena games, since he and Koro worked as a "puppeteer"-style character. Unless they introduced another dog that had basically the same abilities as Koromaru, anyway.


Akihiko actually growing up and taking responsibilities seriously (though probably not putting a shirt on - think of the fangirls!).
Oh, we already know where he's going in that respect, thanks to the ending of Ultimax. Police, remember?


Possibly Yu struggling with a lack of direction - he's a natural leader with nothing to lead and no goals to pursue*. Maybe he joins the Shadow Operatives?
He wants to track down Sho post-Ultimax and try to help him further. I imagine that plot hook will play into the next game.


But, yeah, P5 does seem to have a thematic clash with the last two. Sacrifice and Truth seem rather mature, putting the the world before personal desires or beliefs. Freedom, however? Strikes me as rebellious, selfish, and destructive. At least if not tempered, that is. Somehow I get the feeling that the P5 cast will be working counter to the world instead of to save it.
Seems like quite a bit of conclusion-jumping there at this point I'd say. The group's style and methods might clash with the P3 and P4 casts' based on the little snippets we see in the trailer, but I sincerely doubt they won't be doing something good for the world.

[ThePhantom]

Honestly, Koromaru is one of the things that doesn't make sense. He has a persona, but he's a DOG. Every other entity that has one is either human, made to be like human, or a part of the human psyche. How does he have one? Is he the smartest dog in the world? It just doesn't match what's shown to us.

[Hytheter]

So as well as Elizabeth, Margaret sounds quite different in Persona Q. Whereas she spoke in a very professional tone of voice in P4, in PQ she just sounds bored...

Still, I'm getting a lot of enjoyment out of the game especially now that the parties have met up and their interactions have begun.

Oh, I don't know if I mentioned it, but after tripping over both of the worse endings I finally got the true ending for Persona 4. Now I'm ready for P5. :D

[Calemyr]

Honestly, Koromaru is one of the things that doesn't make sense. He has a persona, but he's a DOG. Every other entity that has one is either human, made to be like human, or a part of the human psyche. How does he have one? Is he the smartest dog in the world? It just doesn't match what's shown to us.

I believe they say in P3 that animals can are presumed to have the potential for Persona as well, but Persona users are absurdly rare among humans, much less animals. From what we've seen, it takes a very specific combination of circumstances to activate it, usually either divine intervention or extreme psychological stress countered by strong resolve during times of exposure to a demon-rich or Shadow-rich environment like the Deva World, TV World, or Dark Hour. (Though artificial Persona users like Mitsuru, Strega, and Aigis's family are exceptions.) Very few animals ever fall into a circumstance that checks all the boxes. Koro was protecting the site where his master died from shadows during the Dark Hour. Psychological stress, strong resolve, exposure to Shadows, Cerberus is summoned. Koro isn't breaking any rules, I believe, other than possibly probability. Even then, one in a million chances can still happen.

I must admit, I'm quite curious about Morgana. Is she (and I'm going to assume it's a she based on the name) an awakened cat like Koro or an awakened Shadow like Teddie? Is she an outsider like Phil, Nyar, and Igor? An artificial Persona user like Mitsuru or Aigis? A combination of any or all of these? The way she seems to bounce between normal cat appearance and Sly Cooper fangirl during the trailer suggests a lot of interesting possibilities.

[Philemonite]

I must admit, I'm quite curious about Morgana. Is she (and I'm going to assume it's a she based on the name) an awakened cat like Koro or an awakened Shadow like Teddie? Is she an outsider like Phil, Nyar, and Igor? An artificial Persona user like Mitsuru or Aigis? A combination of any or all of these? The way she seems to bounce between normal cat appearance and Sly Cooper fangirl during the trailer suggests a lot of interesting possibilities.

There are rumors that Morgana is actually male, but nothing has been confirmed. The only thing we know is that Morgana plays a big role in the story, that was stated in an interview.
Personally, I think she was an ordinary cat that got possessed by an outsider. Either way, she is my favorite P5 character so far. As long as she doesn't start using cat puns.

[TamerBill]

We've got a decent-quality shot of the MC's persona now, so meet Arsene (http://i.imgur.com/0jv7Suf.jpg), Yveltal's classier cousin.

One detail you might not have noticed: his top hat appears to also be a gun barrel.

[tonberrian]

We've got a decent-quality shot of the MC's persona now, so meet Arsene (http://i.imgur.com/0jv7Suf.jpg), Yveltal's classier cousin.

One detail you might not have noticed: his top hat appears to also be a gun barrel.

Reference to Arsène Lupin maybe?

[TamerBill]

Reference to Arsène Lupin maybe?

No doubt about it, they've already admitted that Lupin III was an influence on the game.

[Calemyr]

No doubt about it, they've already admitted that Lupin III was an influence on the game.

Oh, I really hope that comes out in the basic tone of the main character:
Makoto: "Meh, whataver."
Yu: "Everybody calm the hell down!"
New Guy: "Oh jeez. Oh mommy. Oh crap!"

[Ogremindes]

I got the Persona 3, Persona 4, Persona Q, FES, P3P and Golden OSTs for my birthday. :)

[Ogremindes]

Just got my first fusion accident in my P3F playthrough. Mithra became Narcissus with Magaru, Mazio, Maragi, Auto-Sukukaja, Survive Dark, some charm skills no one cares about and a heart item. Pretty damn useful at this point of the game. :smallsmile:

Funnily enough, I think this is the first time I've had a fusion accident give me a lower base level persona/demon.

Also, typing a list of SMT spells on a tablet with auto correct is obnoxious.

[Hytheter]

I had an accident in P4 that was some 20 levels lower than the intended Persona and everything else I owned at the time.

I was pretty pissed.

[Calemyr]

The worst one I've had is trying to create a really difficult shaped fusion with a skill for Margaret. Think it was Trumpeter, don't remember fore sure. Took positively ages to get the skill from a persona that had it to one of the elements of the fusion. Then it took another age and a half to get the persona to accept the skill. Finally got it to inherit the skill and what did I get? Legion. Freaking Legion. Yeah... that one got me leetle bit annoyed.

Now I play P4 Golden. My persona are gods and skill inheritance doesn't suck the life out of the game. I live in a much happier place, now.

[Ogremindes]

Huh. Marin Karin just won me a pretty rough boss fight against Intrepid Knight. So much for not caring about charm skills.

[tonberrian]

Am I the only person that obsessively saves before each fusion?

[Mx.Silver]

Now I play P4 Golden. My persona are gods and skill inheritance doesn't suck the life out of the game. I live in a much happier place, now.

Sadly, fusion accidents are very much present in P4G. And still just as annoying. Speaking from experience here.

[Zevox]

Am I the only person that obsessively saves before each fusion?
Not every individual fusion, but before each time I go into the Velvet Room to do fusing, for sure. Partly because of Fusion Accidents, even though they're so rare I get like 1-2 per play-through at most, partly in case I mess something else up.

[Cristo Meyers]

Not every individual fusion, but before each time I go into the Velvet Room to do fusing, for sure. Partly because of Fusion Accidents, even though they're so rare I get like 1-2 per play-through at most, partly in case I mess something else up.

Same here. Messing around with Fusion to get the necessary skills for Margaret was enough of a pain, the last thing I wanted was to lose that because of a Fusion Accident.

[tyckspoon]

Huh. Marin Karin just won me a pretty rough boss fight against Intrepid Knight. So much for not caring about charm skills.

Yeah, this happens several times in P3. There's a few Tartarus guardians that are best handled through status effects, there's at least one that is really an incredible pain if you don't have the right status *defense*, and if you don't have/aren't willing to burn the SP or HP to employ overkill in your attacks you eventually start getting normal Shadow groups that are way, way easier to deal with if you can hit them with a mass charm or confusion.

[Calemyr]

Sadly, fusion accidents are very much present in P4G. And still just as annoying. Speaking from experience here.

They are a thing. Yes indeed. What isn't at thing is spending the better part of an hour to get a monster to inherit the skills you want, then have an accident. And it doesn't matter if you save before the fusion, you STILL have to fiddle with things until the inheritance is just right. Or you have to spend three times as long filling your component personas with uninheritable noise.

In Golden, a fusion accident only costs you a few minutes (if you save beforehand). In P4, a fusion accident can cost you an hour of stepping through the process only to back out when the final result fails to learn the vital skill(s). Depending on your luck, of course, and the skills in play.

[Ogremindes]

Huh. Listening to the PQ OST, I'm kinda shocked how much I didn't notice the music. I'm usually pretty cognizant of the soundtrack of a game, but I somehow failed to notice that the boss theme was pretty much straight up Master of Tartarus with lyrics. And I worked out how the ending of a rather forgettable main story got me to tear up a bit: the ending theme was a mashup of pretty much every sad song from P3 and P4.

[Zevox]

Huh. Listening to the PQ OST, I'm kinda shocked how much I didn't notice the music.
You didn't? Huh. Honestly, I watch the intro almost every time I turn the game on, mostly for the music. And I really like the battle theme (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpM6wyE7Gx8) (P4 version because that's the side I'm playing as - don't like the P3 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsaJybNstBw) variation as much, though I guess that may be as much because I'm used the P4 version as anything else). The fight music for bosses and FOEs has been good too.

[Ogremindes]

You didn't? Huh. Honestly, I watch the intro almost every time I turn the game on, mostly for the music. And I really like the battle theme (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpM6wyE7Gx8) (P4 version because that's the side I'm playing as - don't like the P3 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsaJybNstBw) variation as much, though I guess that may be as much because I'm used the P4 version as anything else). The fight music for bosses and FOEs has been good too.

Oh, I enjoyed the music, certainly. I'm just shocked at how little I realized what I was listening to. I mean, how on earth did I not hear Master of Tartarus in the boss theme? It's not like the boss fights go by super-fast.

The P4 version of the battle theme is pretty fantastic. I haven't heard it in context (I went P3 path), but I really liked it when it came up in the OST.

[Zevox]

Speaking of Persona music, I just stumbled on the opening (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3jw89oIjmQ) of Persona 4: Dancing All Night on Youtube today, and it's pretty good. I won't be getting the game myself - partially because I don't have a Vita anyway, partially because Rythm games aren't my thing regardless - but if it's giving us some new music like that, I'm pretty happy it exists anyway.

[Ogremindes]

I wish I could find an instrumental version of Mass Destruction, as I feel like there's at least a couple of other songs in the P3 soundtrack that use it's melody but I don't have the musical ear to isolate the melody from the lyrics.

[Zevox]

Well, I finally finished up Persona Q today.

Wow, Chronos was possibly the hardest final boss I've seen in a Persona game - definitely the hardest since Nyx, anyway. (Note that I never finished 1 or 2, so I can't compare their final bosses here, only 3 and 4.) I barely made it through him on my first try, which I did not expect after he pulled that full healing trick of his. A couple of turns longer and I'd have lost for sure though: I was out of sp-restoring and revival items, my characters with resurrection magic had too little sp to use it anymore, and everyone still alive had a death timer going at 3 or less, mostly less (only Yu had 3).

I had hoped to do the final boss with a thematic team of Yu, Minato, Mitsuru, Yukari, and Yukiko - the three team leaders (because let's be honest, as much as Minato is the combat leader of P3, Mitsuru is the real leader outside of Tartarus) plus the two super caster/healers. Unfortunately, I found that wasn't viable - without weaknesses to exploit for boosts casters burn sp too fast, so I wound up using a team of Yu, Chie, Shinjiro, Aigis, and Yukiko (still need a healer, after all, and Aigis is the only back-row physical fighter anyway). And even then, as mentioned, barely succeeded.

Story-wise, I think the game goes overboard on the speeches about friendship and people changing each other towards the end there, but even among those it has a good moment or two - I liked Naoto's talk about how much she had come to admire Mitsuru, for instance. Other than that, not bad, and it serves as a good enough excuse to get the two teams together. Oh, and the plot that ran throughout the dungeons, with Kanji being concerned about Ken, was actually very good. Guess I shouldn't be surprised that Kanji and Naoto get the best character moments though, they are pretty much the series' strongest characters. The memory-erasing at the end is kind of lame though - I really just wish this was simply non-canon, so they didn't need such an excuse, and could start treating it as a separate continuity if they ever do a sequel.

Gameplay-wise I kinda like the weird balance it strikes, with high sp costs mitigated by the boost system and sub-personas giving everyone some sp that gets automatically restored after each fight. Also, I was shocked by how useful light and dark magic were in this one. So many enemies were weak to them, to the point that I started keeping Hamaon, Mudoon, or both on my caster personas, and Naoto was practically my MVP for random shadow fights. In the last couple of dungeons there were some enemy groups she could one-shot with just Mahamaon or Mamudoon, which I don't think I've ever had happen in any other Persona game. And one thing that I hope they bring from this game into the main series is Navigator powers - it was very nice seeing Rise get to contribute during battle other than by scanning things (Spotlight is so useful that I can't imagine why I'd ever put Fuuka on combat support duty).

Also, I already loved the music for the game anyway, but the themes for the final two (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5IftkVs6ro) bosses (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzAScczx_oo) were fantastic. This series just seems to have the best music all the time, doesn't it?
So, yeah, obviously I definitely liked it. Not as great as P3/4 themselves, but not being as good as my two favorite games ever isn't exactly a problem. I wish I had picked it up when it came out rather than waiting for Christmas - I'd definitely grab a sequel on release, if such a thing ever happens.

[Ogremindes]

Yeah, it was a rough boss. I can't judge the relative difficulty, since I'm only starting to kick the over levelling habit, but as I mentioned earlier I was cursing the unfairness of the fight the whole time but still won, which is pretty much ideal difficulty for a final boss, to my mind.

The hardest part for me was the elemental shields. Not an unfamiliar mechanic, but having to survive all of them at once was more than I felt like I could handle. And of course my attacks weren't evenly distributed across the elements

I reckon the P3/P4 crossover space has at least one more game in it. Yu has a promise to keep to Minato after all.

[Zevox]

Yeah, it was a rough boss. I can't judge the relative difficulty, since I'm only starting to kick the over levelling habit, but as I mentioned earlier I was cursing the unfairness of the fight the whole time but still won, which is pretty much ideal difficulty for a final boss, to my mind.

The hardest part for me was the elemental shields. Not an unfamiliar mechanic, but having to survive all of them at once was more than I felt like I could handle. And of course my attacks weren't evenly distributed across the elements
I actually had no trouble with the shields - well, once I came back with the physical team and knew I had to kill them all at once, anyway. They weren't doing enough to me to cause me real trouble. Sometimes they'd just miss (I kept Masukukaja up most of the time), sometimes they'd be negated (Yu in the front row with Odin as his sub-persona [Runic Shield] and Aigis in the back [Aegis Shield]), and whenever they struck Yu they weren't doing much since Izanagi-no-Okami has resistance to everything. Yukiko could keep up with that no problem, especially since she could get boosted while those were around to get the occasional free Mediarahan.


I reckon the P3/P4 crossover space has at least one more game in it. Yu has a promise to keep to Minato after all.
Oh, I'm sure we'll get more Arena in any event - Sho Minazuki was left as a dangling plot thread for a reason, I'm sure. I suspect that won't be until after Persona 5 though, since they've all but run out of P3/4 characters to add to the roster without bringing back the dead (I think Theodore and Fuuka are the only ones left). Persona Q, we'll see, but if it was reasonably successful I wouldn't be surprised to see a sequel sometime, either with just the 3/4 cast or with 5's as well.