Error2k4 said:
:lol but seriously shouta I played Persona 2 the one that came here, and I don't really get why you are saying it's better than Nocturne or DDS. Persona 2 battle system can't hold a candle to SMT:N or DDS the story in DDS and SMT:N is better than in Persona 2, the music is also better maybe I should play it again because I apperantly missed something that makes Persona 2 greater than one of the best RPGs this gen.
The only place you may have it right is in music because I don't recall IS and EP having particularly good soundtracks.
Other than that, IS and EP are far better than Nocturne or the two DDS games in story and gameplay.
Nocturne's story is non-existant and is basically a game that asks you whether or not you believe in this philosphy without any expounding on the subject with story related events (and if they did, it was generally terribly weak).
DDS falls totally flat on its face in the second game when they instead of working a political/character story they shifted the entire meaning of the two games into an allegory of Buddhism. They unravel everything in a giant bumble of techno-jargon in the first half of DDS2. The only time the game's story was actually remotely interesting to me was when they did the more personal content between the characters but even then that content is fairly minimal overall.
Persona 2 actually has an actual story behind some of the philosphical mumbo-jumbo and paces/unravels it in a much more interesting manner. You also have fleshed characters who have clear reasons for the way they act and feel rather than the often vague and, at times, very simplistic DDS characters.
As for gameplay, the only thing that Nocturne and DDS bring to the table is the Press Turn system and that is actual a positive and negative. I mean, it's a pretty inventive twist but ultimately, it forces you to implore a specific set of strategies and tactics to defeat each boss encounter and dungeon. It's horribly frustrating when you're trying to develop a plan of attack that isn't the one intended or have to use. This is especially true for some of the upper-end bosses and secret in DDS2 where if you do anything outside of a specific strategy, you're totally boned.
Persona 2 on the other hand implores everything that Nocturne and DDS does except the Press-Turn system and instead uses a pretty straightforward turn-based battle system. You have the Persona system which basically acts like Demons in Nocturne and the Mantra system of DDS. You have a much more advanced version of demon persuasion that you see in Nocturne. Then there's the out of battle system like the pretty neat Rumor System that ends up being woefully underused, and probably a few other things I'm forgetting.
The best part of it all is that I can actually use a strategy that I come up with =P.