I don't even understand this argument. You're plugging your ears and shouting SMT SMT SMT SMT SMT while enforcing the usual garbage about how new Persona fans literally cannot understand what makes P2 enjoyable to actually play because you can't actually find an argument in favour of P2 without putting down people who like games that aren't chores to play, especially at the lengths of time that a game like P2 expects you to put into it. Your argument has essentially boiled down to, like, four things:
1) People started on P3 can't
understand the
beauty of P2's game mechanics.
2) Other PSX RPGs that people love were similarly dated and they did stuff like 'attack' and 'spells', how is that any different from P2? So, let's throw them under the bus even though the question was
never about them in the first place.
3) SMT SMT SMT SMT SMT SMT SMT
4) If all other points fail, retreat into MY OPINIONS ARE BULLETPROOF YOU CAN'T REFUTE ANY OF THEM BECAUSE NOBODY IS WRONG AND NOBODY NEEDS TO BE CHALLENGED.
To the first, that's just common sense. People playing better games (and I will clarify game, before you jump down my throat) in the same franchise can feel disappointed when another game in the same franchise does not meet those expectations.
To the second, this is a strawman at its' finest (or worst, really). You're propping up something that was never being discussed in the first place and trying to argue something that was never in question. Putting aside the insane reduction going on in your head when you say 'you attack and cast spells, therefore it's completely the same', nobody cares about what FF7 did or didn't do, nobody was even
thinking about FF7 with regards to the argument and P2 until you complained about the people putting that game on the pedestal while P2
unfairly languishes at a lower rung. It is a dead end and a non-argument.
Three, just get that SMT elitist garbage out of here. It does not matter when P2 released, we have played P2 thus I think we can say from some amount of authority on what it was like to play. You don't have to have played P2 when it first released or whatever (because you're so much cooler than those new fans) to recognize (or fail to recognize) that there are some fundamental issues to the game, and how desensitized you are to those issues does not matter. P2 is not some magical masterpiece of a game that somehow got worse to people as time left it behind.
Four is just dumb. Why even bother starting shit if you're just going to retreat to the ivory tower of OPINIONS when someone actually retaliates? Commit, or don't.
It's not even that people can't play games that have archaic game mechanics either. Soul Hackers is a big example of a game that has dated as fuck mechanics, but remains enjoyable despite that. It still has interesting ideas and a core hook that makes actually playing it feel less like a chore and more like an actual video game.
Even by the standards of SMT, P2 isn't just dull, it's
elementary. It is, fundamentally, the closest ever that SMT has ever gotten to a run of the mill JRPG with run of the mill mechanics. Central ideas like Press Turn or any of its' variations are nowhere to be seen in the game, there are tons of different elements that you probably never actually need, and the most depth to be found is deciding who goes first in what order and a system that
constantly encourages nothing but mindless trial and error. That is what the fusion spell system is, trial and error. There's no rhyme or reason to how spells cooperate with each other to fuse, the game just expects you to keep throwing shit at a wall and wait till it makes sense. That's what P2EP's negotiation and tarot card system is, ultimately. Trial and error is a core tenet of P2's experience as a game and
that's not fun. Fine, it doesn't bother you? Alright. But clearly it
bothers a lot of people and insisting that there is nothing wrong is just being childishly, willfully ignorant.
I think it says a lot more in this argument that people who dislike P2IS and EP's game mechanics actually have things to say and explain about why they dislike it and what, exactly, is wrong with it when the principal party trying to defend it in its' entirety is doing anything but. To every issue and point, it's just "well, it didn't bother
me" and "it's SMT!" rather than any point of actual substance or, indeed, an adequate defense of P2 from a mechanical standpoint.
And to be clear, I have nothing but praise for P2's narrative and characters, bar some of the issues I held, mostly near the end of IS, but it is
not a fun experience to actually go through. And I wish it were. Really, that's why people tend to be so critical of the mechanics. Because there is a much better game lurking in P2 that could have been attractive from so much more than a simple narrative standpoint.
I don't need to refute them because they're your opinions.
Oh, so argument conceded?
no seriously what the hell is this
