My thoughts on the Persona series (so far)

Played FES a couple of years ago, and now I'm finally coming around to P4 as I might want to get a PS4 in the future if it's jailbroken. I beat FES but I wasn't in love with it, especially after my 60 hour save got wiped. The only way I got through that game is using turbo speed on the emulator most of the time. I still payed attention to the story, initially I really liked the atmosphere, and the gameplay and presentation did not seem too bad. It felt mysterious and I liked the night time adventure/city theme they had going on.

I noticed it sort of felt like it was inspired by Evangelion, shadows and angels seem sort of similar in how the big bad shadows invade every month or so, and the design of the shadows reminds me of Evangelion's usages of masks. Plus they had similar characters, Yukari who is a redhead but isn't a massive cunt, yet still distant to people because of her family issues. And then Aigis who was the emotionless robot type, sort of like Rei. I did not like Aigis though, in a game full of fanservice and self-fellatio she was just too much and left a bad impression on me. And the thing to really top it off is that they both literally had the same character, Ryoji and Kaworu. They even had the same JP voice actor apparently.

But yeah the music was awesome, atmosphere started strong but got stale by the end, cool ending, but the gameplay is a bit shallow especially now that I'm playing Nocturne, SJ, and DDS. I'd give it an light 8.

1/2 cont

don't bother, nobody cares

2/2

So far Persona 4 has not been as fun as Persona 3. The characters have gotten more tropey and the atmosphere is really just too much. I know Scooby-doo gets thrown out a lot but the TV world just can't match to real-life in creating an actually interesting atmosphere. I've only done a couple of the S-links so far, but they seem okay, but I just don't like the main cast. None of them. I don't like how they faced their shadows, it was so shallow. And that everyone is just super friendly and connected to eachother. So I think I'm going to stop playing this one, especially since the most interesting parts of the game (Dojima and Adachi) rarely ever show up and it's just a grind of inferior gameplay to better games. Also I don't really like the J-pop/j-rock OST, P3's trip-hop vibe was just right.

Yukiko is a bit bland, I get that she is suppose to be the traditional japanese woman type but she the characterization they've given her so far has been very surface level and bland. Sort of like Aigis, she is just too tropey of a character. Chie is just kind of boring. Same with Yosuke, they're not unique enough, they're just there. And the gameplay is basically the same, grind a boring dungeon for a long time for the reward of the somewhat interesting or funny character interaction or characterization that only sometimes occurs. I'm thinking of dropping it in order to dedicate my time to Nocturne (which I am currently playing), or DDS, or maybe trying P1 or P2.

Also how does P5 compare? Is it a return to P3's more realistic edge in atmosphere?

I might have opinions worthy to someone. What do you think about the Evangelion angle?

this isn't new

But yeah overall only SMT game I beat was P3, impressions so far:

Nocturne - Hard to get into initially but once I got immersed it's been a blast. I look up fusion guides though.

SJ - Way too many random encounters but really interesting atmosphere. I just wish it was a 3D title like Nocturne. The new battle system makes the game harder.

P3 - Pretty good

P4 - Same thing but a little bit worse and I'm not catching on, there isn't enough mystery or plot.

DDS - Have barely touched but I can tell I'm going to really enjoy it when I get around to it.

Bump

Anyone want to have any discussion?

Probably not. What you're saying is no different from what the majority of Sup Forums is saying, so you won't get many (you)s

How do i get into P2, heard the story was interesting but the gameplay is a fucking chore

I would just put Persona 4 on hold and finish Nocturne
Especially if you play persona games back to back, they seem to get into a repetitive cycle though the combat of the SMT games don't help either.
Persona 5 doesn't go back to the realistic dark mysterious edge, but rather realism edge. Everyone's got some taboo shit that's fucked up type of Edge

Make way for the best persona game.

Get a persona with estoma, also play P1 first

Yeah I didn't delete it or anything, I meant that I am mostly just gonna drop it for now. I still have had my fill of VN-fusion games like AA, DR, Zero Escape, and Persona 3, so a pure gameplay-driven game like Nocturne is my main focus right now.

My fucking nigger

What discussion do you want? For me to say I disagree and point out that P4 > IS > FES > EP > P1 >>>>>>> P3P?

As for P5, I've only finished the first dungeon, but it does not have a dark atmosphere at all. Which is fine in my book, P3 set itself up with having a dark atmosphere, but wasn't even that dark. Barely darker than P4, and not as dark as IS and EP.

Can I just put the game to easy mode and ignore negotiations?

I feel it. I'm just not vibing on P4's atmosphere so far. It's still a good game, but I want more story and less padding of s-links and grinding. I want a new mystery channel every week with new characters. I just think P4 is wasted potential so far, they could have done so much with the TV world (even though I'm not too far to tell if they will). If P4 had you jumping through TV channels, from sports to sci-fi to mystery to comedy, that would be the shit. Especially if there were different characters in each different channel or episode, instead of that stupid bear.

I still need to play P2, because those "rumors coming alive" storyline seems like it's exactly what I'm looking for.

>I still need to play P2, because those "rumors coming alive" storyline seems like it's exactly what I'm looking for.

I'd say play P5 first man. Those first two persona games do not play like the rest of the series, nor do they play like the smt games you listed.

Need a PS4 for that. I'll get around to playing it in a year or two.

>I noticed it sort of felt like it was inspired by Evangelion
Kill yourself, OP.

I'm surprised you liked P3, if you're complaining about P4's story. I mean preferring P3's story is one thing, but your complaint is that there's not more story in P4 - when there's no story in P3 for 70% of the game.
But it sounds like it's just not for you. Jumping through channels seems like a neat idea, but that doesn't really line up with the story of the game.
Make sure when you're thinking of "rumours coming alive" you just mean storywise. Because I see people here go on about "instead of social links, P2 has a rumour system". Two things wrong with that: 1. IS and EP are very different in their strengths, putting them together as P2 and praising them both for the same things makes me think you haven't played them. 2. The rumour system is nowhere near close to what social links are, and it's pretty underwhelming. Much better in EP than IS, but never partiuclarly exceptional.
That said the rumour stuff gets pretty crazy at times, so if you don't mind the games playing very differently to P3/4/5 I would still recommend them. Just bear in mind that the combat really is not what you'd be playing for.

I just preferred it because the atmosphere was more of my thing, when I first played P3 it felt mysterious and modern, which are traits that I like a lot. P4 is just way too tame for me. If I wanted a more light-hearted mystery/adventure game with life elements I'd play Shenmue or Yakuza.

What is P2's battle system like? Is it dissimilar to both press turn, SJ's alignment combo system, or later Persona games?

Bumping this question.

It's traditional (at least that's how I'd describe it) in that attaking a weakness does extra damage - you don't get extra turns or anything. You also get 'fusion spells' which are skills that you can choose to use if characters cast spells in a certain order. I presume they do more damage, but I've heard people claim otherwise - I just used them to get through the battles faster.
There is also negotiation - which is very different to other negotiation systems in the series (except Persona 1's). It is tied to getting new Persona's, as getting certain reactions out of demons gives you 'cards' which you can exchange for Personas of the card's arcana.
I see plenty of people claim P2 is hard and the new Persona games are really easy. They are talking out of their ass, or may be mentally challenged. Battles are much easier in the older games, and if you come up against a difficult enemy, you can just rely on negotiation to get out of it easily. I died a couple of times in P1 (light/death skills work differently and can be a bitch when a few enemies use them), never in IS, and I think 3 times in EP (2 of which against the hardest boss in the series - very out of place compared to the rest of the game). You don't play the older games for difficulty, and I doubt for the battle system.

I can't get into P3 cause the main character looks like a faggot.

I played P2 IS, P3 FES, P4, P5.

I'll leave P2 out of this since it's a very different game.

Personally, I think P5 is definitely the most polished and refined game in the series. It just has a shit ton of work behind it and it shows in the care for everything. It's the "best crafted" persona game for sure. It had a lot of great ideas to improve on the basic formula and did it with care and polish.

Thinking back on it though, I think P3 was really fucking amazing for its time. For being the first game to invent this structure that's still used today, but also for its unique atmosphere, music, design... The story had a strong theme and everything supported it. Its biggest problem in my opinion is the lack of pacing compared to the newer games, with fewer story events and big stretches of time where no story events happen at all. Personally I don't mind the random dungeon, but I see how people may dislike it.

P4 was basically "P3 but better" in structure, pacing (as in amount of story events) etc, but the overall story, style, theme, atmosphere just weren't on the same level for me compared to P3. Plus, for how good it was, it was still a "more of the same", so it didn't have the same impact. Its best thing was the character interactions inside the party.

Overall, personally I'd say P3 deserves recognition for being the most innovative, influential and it had a unique atmosphere, theme and setting, but it suffers from being the pioneer.

P5 is the best for polish, general quality, it has its own unique style that's pretty original and mnaged to polish and change up the P3 mechanics as much as it's reasonable to wish while staying true to them.

P4 is probably my least favorite, but that's not saying much, because I still consider all 3 of them better than 99% of other games. It just suffers from being a more of the same of P3 while also not being as polished as P5. Its best point is character interactions.

Overall, my favorite series and 3 amazing games.

Why no P2 EP?

It's shit.

P2 IS lacked a lot of the stuff that makes Persona really interesting to me. Style, music, general structure... I also fucking hate random encounters. The characters/story were ok, but the rest was meh and since these are 70+ hours games I didn't feel like playing another one on top of IS.

I agree.

Cool blog, upvoted!

>P3P that low
>P4 that high
>IS above EP

Sir, do you have brain problems?

>P3P anywhere but the bottom
Dyspraxia is nothing compared to your aspergers