Is there a point to buying Persona if I'm not really into dating/romancing in video games?

is there a point to buying Persona if I'm not really into dating/romancing in video games?

Some people are saying it's a visual novel first and rpg second. What's the Sup Forumserdict?

>ome people are saying it's a visual novel first and rpg second.
The only people who say that are mainline fans trying to show how hardcore they are by only playing the Atlus games with no social simulation elements. The game has a large amount of RPG content and the social aspects aren't even like a visual novel. I have never played a visual novel where time management is a mechanic and the goal is to make friends with as many people as possible. People love to act like it's Waifus The Game but you can play the entire thing and experience 99 percent of the content without ever touching dating simulator shit. You can't even date more than half the social links.

Romancing optional, friendshipping not.

imagine a bizarro world where persona was a spinoff of a bigger series that was more focused on gameplay and not vn sol stuff.

No, at least not P5. It's got a terrible story and the combat's a joke.

I love the series. I'd say its about 50/50 of VN/RPG. The VN part does have a sizable impact on the RPG part. Its pretty much required to hang out with your teammates so they perform well in the RPG part, but you can just friendzone everyone with no consequence or just skip through the dating cutscenes. The biggest potential kicker about the RPG part (for 3/4/5) is that the dungeons are pretty linear.

I disagree. The point of Persona is the dating/social links, as seen by the numerous threads talking about the characters. Persona games are no better than your basic jrpg, with mediocre gameplay and shitty pacing. If you want to play a better jrpg, pick up the SMT games.

It has the best combat in the series and it's customizable as fuck. What more do you want in a turn based jrpg?

Romancing is 100% optional.

"Socialising" is more or less mandatory if you want to play the game properly and unlock the better things.

Game is worth it though, amazing artstyle and soundtrack makes it very atmospheric and gives you a strange sense of nostalgia occasionally

I don't get why people say the dating/romance aspect is so big. It's a tiny footnote in the grand scale of the game. Most of the game is spent interacting with people and exploring dungeons while romance is entirely optional.

Because for the videogame community Interacting with people = romance.

See bethesda.

Because they need a reason to shit on it

No, don't bother then.

Persona games are PEGI 12 VNs tacked onto very mediocre JRPGs

This is a perfect example of what said

It's an RPG. People really over-emphasize the waifu stuff here. If you didn't know anything about Mass Effect and you came on here in 2010 you would think the entirety of Mass Effect 2 was about dating Tali.

The social link stuff is literally just dialogue scenes with characters that you would have in any other game like this, It's just tied to an exp bonus you get for fusing monsters. "Dating" is like a handful of dialogue scenes. It makes up like 20 minutes probably of the 70 hours it takes to beat the game, and you don't actually have to date anyone, it's just an optional thing with some characters as you go through their story arcs.

The game is split between dungeon crawling and an overworld where you have dialogue events and cutscenes that lead to gameplay bonuses or just plot progression. It's not a visual novel, it's not a dating sim. If that's the case then FF7 is a visual novel/dating sim because you can date characters in that and there are scenes where you talk to people.

Dating/Romancing is a comparatively miniscule element in these games. It's an excellent RPG and the waifu stuff is just one of the side activities you can partake in (you don't have to at all).

It's just an anime take on SMT to me. I enjoy waifus as part of the game but the story/gameplay are the main focus.

fpbp

The gameplay in the mainline SMT series is just as great/mediocre as the ones found within Persona. The only difference is that there's more time spent in actual combat. Prove me wrong

There's 0 team building in Persona except for loading one dude up with abilities.

Parties are smaller

No negotiation

This is true for modern SMT, too, but no MAG management.

I should mention that I actually like Persona, but yes, it's weaker than SMT in the combat department.

Persona 5 brought back negotiations, you can pick what abilities you want your party members to have (and unlock a few other functions via slinks and gun customization), and yeah MAG is still gone.

Yes. The dating element of it is so minimal that it's a small wonder people latch onto it the way they do.

tpwp

There's hardly a dating aspect and can be avoided entirely. Don't worry about that shit.

It's weaker than SMT if we're just talking about combat within a vacuum, but the gameplay in Persona is fun to me because of the mix of the daily life VN stuff and the dungeon crawling and the way they intermingle. It still is weaker as combat goes, but as gameplay goes it has its own appeal, it's not necessarily better or worse than the structure of an SMT game, but it's different.

The romance is extremely shallow and hardly the biggest thing in the game. It's a social sim first and rpg second. If you're not interested in the social sim part, then Persona isn't for you

it's a turbo normified version of SMT, just play SMT IV or Nocturne

>falling this hard for the waifu meme

The dating sim stuff is entirely optional. It's smart to do the social link stuff to make friends with the characters but you don't have to do it and can focus on grinding other shit instead. It's a very minor part of a huge RPG.

Don't listen to contrarian faggots OP.
99% of them are NeoFAGGOTS that have no taste and would rather play another shitty WE WUZ Naughty Dog game.

The biggest thing is if you are fine with more than half the game being dialogue. If not you'd be better off playing SMT. I like both

if you like other jrpgs you're already in the target audience, because jrpgs already rely on relating to your party members to be enjoyable. persona just incorporates it into the gameplay loop.

if you want a pure dungeon crawler, obviously this isnt it.

Romance is completly optional in those games (well, at least in P4 an P5) so if you are not into it you can ignore it.
However if you don't like text-heavy games with lots and lots of dialogue you will get overwhelmed quickly. Despite what you may read on this board, Persona is not a game for everyone

On the contrary, you'd be disappointed if you were into dating/romancing in games because Persona barely acknowledges your relationship status.