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Persona Community Thread |OT7| P5 is nyaow. (Mark all PQ and P4U spoilers!)

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Meia

Member
It's understandable criticism though. The game is a murder mystery, and is students trying to solve it, but also trying to live normal lives. SEES from Persona 3 also dealt with this balancing aspect. There was a lot of lighthearted moments in P4 though, and the crew seems a lot closer to each other than SEES because of it.


But then P4G added new stuff, but only stuff of one variety. Now what was once somewhat balanced(gameplay and tone) shifted drastically in a different direction. Again, it's the original opening vs. Shadow World. Hell, Shadow World features hanging corpses as part of the intro, but it's super stylized set to pop music, there's no feeling like anything serious is what they're going for. "Too Happy" refers to that. :p


To me, I see what they were going for. It's a definitive version of the game, sure, but it's also meant for people who played P4 to come back and play it, so I didn't mind the lighter tone to things.
 
Yeah, Golden unbalances P4's tone moreso in one direction than the other. I'm not sure why that would be an unusual criticism, because it seems entirely valid from my vantage point.
 
Well, I mean, at the moment the only benefit of choosing FES over Portable for me would be having models and maps to look at. While that's nice, the battle system is sort of a hard sell.

And having to talk to an individual party member to access their equipment, while I get why they wanted to do that, is just really inconvenient.
maybe it's just because I started Persona with FES, but by mid-game I was completely used to the battle system and knowing exactly what the AI were going to do, and knowing what tactics forced which moves. Yeah, P3P I'd more user-friendly, but I got used to FES fairly quickly
 
Are you telling me I'm playing the happy version of Persona 4 ;_;

They're more or less the same, and you're probably not going to be able to tell what was added and what wasn't. It's mostly just an argument about preferences between who played which version first and what have you.
 
I disagree that P4G is tonally unbalanced. It's dark when it needs to be, and fills the rest of its story beats with an appropriate tone (the game never gives you the feeling of mood whiplash or abrupt tonal shifts). I mean, it's not like it absolutely has to have a 50/50 balance of happy and serious moments; that would be boring and unpredictable. And hey, if a few goofy scenes are the price to pay to see more interaction between some of my favourite characters in gaming, then that's a small price to pay.

People seem to forget the P3 has a very large amount of dumb lighthearted scenes too. It's not like Golden's additions are treading ground that the series has never set foot on before.
 

wmlk

Member
It was a murder mystery, but I thought the resounding message was the enlightenment that you felt going through the characters' backstories and how great the high school cast was.

Talking to everyone who played the game, they fell in love with great, likeable high school characters and the murder mystery was merely a backdrop to it.

Golden realized what the lasting impression was, and that's why I think it's fitting. Persona 4 vanilla was equally fitting taking it as a whole. Both do different things but both are great.
 

Dantis

Member
There's no such thing as "too happy." That's an oxymoronic phrase.

Well, I mean, it isn't, but that's neither here nor there.

Are you telling me I'm playing the happy version of Persona 4 ;_;

There is a very, very positive tone to pretty much everything added in P4G. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is subjective, obviously, but in my opinion it definitely affects the overall tone of the game.
 
Yeah, I don't get it either. That's a common criticism of Golden too for some reason.
It feels like the game forgets that there's a murder mystery going on, almost like the game puts friendships on a higher priority than solving the case. The balance between the serious tone and the lighthearted tone feels extremely off until you reach the middle of the game, where things start to actually happen, and it's not all friendship and fun. Right after coming out of P3, it felt extremely off to me, but that's how I see it.

I also prefer darker-toned stories, so P4G was already deviating from what I usually enjoy.
 

wmlk

Member
To further illustrate what I mean by Persona 4 Golden being self-aware with its lasting impression, the addition of Snowflakes into the game was extremely fitting and foreshadows the incumbent ending.
 

King Fost

Neo Member
I'm on labyrinth 3 now on PQ.
I actually found the dungeon a pleasant surprise since I always thought a sendup of survivor horror kind of dungeon would be a good addition to a Persona game. It kind of reminds me of Resident Evil where there's some interesting horror themed environments with silly characters and camp. I just wish one of the FoEs was a guy with a sack on his head chasing you with a chainsaw, but the baby FoE looks like an infant version of this guy anyway so whatever, minor quibble.

Also Wind Corrosion can go fuck it's face, but that's on me being dumb and not using Dekunda like I should.

On another note, is Power Charge impossible to pass down in Fusion? Because I want to fuse Setanta with something but I don't want to give up that skill.
 
There's a couple of scenes that I'm not so fond of, but for the most part I don't really see most of Golden's additional lighthearted scenes taking away from the rest of the game. There were plenty of events like that in the game already, so it's not tonally out of place or anything, and they didn't change or undermine any of the more serious events.

It's much better than retconning part of the original plot in an attempt to add more unnecessary story relevant content anyway.
 

CorvoSol

Member
Are we doing this thumb twiddling about tones again? It's like we can't discuss anything without it coming back to this tired topic.

maybe it's just because I started Persona with FES, but by mid-game I was completely used to the battle system and knowing exactly what the AI were going to do, and knowing what tactics forced which moves. Yeah, P3P I'd more user-friendly, but I got used to FES fairly quickly

And that's fine. I mean, I got used to it in Eternal Punishment, it's just that it's not as clean as it could be, you know? Maybe I'm just missing it, but I think the game would alleviate a lot of my annoyance if I didn't have to enter the commands every fight. I can't believe I'm saying this, but for instance if there was a "Paradigm Deck" like in FFXIII or Gambits like in FFXII that'd help. In fairness, the game's older than those, so I can accept that it was a matter of the concept still being somewhat new.

Still miffed about having to talk to individual party members to change their equipment, though. On paper it sounds nifty but in practice it's kind of a drag.
 

King Fost

Neo Member
To me, the main difference is that P3 has a lot of unintentional comedy while P4 takes the Resident Evil 4 approach and carries itself with a sense of self-aware ironic camp, which is more endearing. P3 attempted to be serious but the Evokers, SEES, fembots, and Persona-using dogs were so ridiculous and over the top that I ended up chortling.
I enjoyed an especially hearty laugh when Ikutsuki crucifies the party for no apparent reason while giving his Bond Villain speech. I don't think that was the reaction the developers intended.

It's the suicide imagery and plot elements mainly that get the "edgy" finger pointed at it. I think the writers did intend to be a bit edgy with those elements but it backfired and made it funny. At least with me, I don't know about you guys.
 
To me, the main difference is that P3 has a lot of unintentional comedy while P4 takes the Resident Evil 4 approach and carries itself with a sense of self-aware ironic camp, which is more endearing. P3 attempted to be serious but the Evokers, SEES, fembots, and Persona-using dogs were so ridiculous and over the top that I ended up chortling.
I enjoyed an especially hearty laugh when Ikutsuki crucifies the party for no apparent reason while giving his Bond Villain speech. I don't think that was the reaction the developers intended.

It's the suicide imagery and plot elements mainly that get the "edgy" finger pointed at it. I think the writers did intend to be a bit edgy with those elements but it backfired and made it funny. At least with me, I don't know about you guys.
I didn't find P3 as humorous as you did, but I totally agree about the self-aware camp in P4. It was absolutely endearing in every way, whereas there were times when P3s "edge" could feel a bit heavy-handed.
 
To me, the main difference is that P3 has a lot of unintentional comedy while P4 takes the Resident Evil 4 approach and carries itself with a sense of self-aware ironic camp, which is more endearing. P3 attempted to be serious but the Evokers, SEES, fembots, and Persona-using dogs were so ridiculous and over the top that I ended up chortling.
I enjoyed an especially hearty laugh when Ikutsuki crucifies the party for no apparent reason while giving his Bond Villain speech. I don't think that was the reaction the developers intended.

It's the suicide imagery and plot elements mainly that get the "edgy" finger pointed at it. I think the writers did intend to be a bit edgy with those elements but it backfired and made it funny. At least with me, I don't know about you guys.

Honestly, I didn't even find it funny. I just thought they were trying too hard.
 
Maybe it's because i don't play too many JRPG's to know of these "cliches", but at no point did i find P3's plot funny or edgy. In fact, i enjoyed all of it
 
Are we doing this thumb twiddling about tones again? It's like we can't discuss anything without it coming back to this tired topic.

I'm sorry if i'm fueling a long-past debate, because i really don't mean it. I've only lurked here for about a month here-and-there before actually signing up, so i had no idea this was a heated issue
 

Setsu00

Member
Anyone remember the PersonaGAF cycle from earlier threads? I think we have something new to add to it! >_>;

This would also be the chance to get rid of the "Recommend Dantis anime he won't watch anyway" point since that didn't happen in like three threads.
 

Dantis

Member
This thread is taking a weird turn.

You guys are literally sat complaining about conversations from like two years ago, that you haven't even read.


Very odd.
 

Baliis

Member
I'm on labyrinth 3 now on PQ.
I actually found the dungeon a pleasant surprise since I always thought a sendup of survivor horror kind of dungeon would be a good addition to a Persona game. It kind of reminds me of Resident Evil where there's some interesting horror themed environments with silly characters and camp. I just wish one of the FoEs was a guy with a sack on his head chasing you with a chainsaw, but the baby FoE looks like an infant version of this guy anyway so whatever, minor quibble.

I really dig the third dungeon, I just wish the FOEs were stronger. I could beat them the second I walked into the dungeon which really removes a lot of the tension in the puzzles.
 
I really dig the third dungeon, I just wish the FOEs were stronger. I could beat them the second I walked into the dungeon which really removes a lot of the tension in the puzzles.

I must be really underpowered then, i can't kill them, but the random encounters are easy (discounting the fact that Naoto already 1-shots them all), if you don't count corrosion

I'm lvl 34 at the moment
 

PK Gaming

Member
It's understandable criticism though. The game is a murder mystery, and is students trying to solve it, but also trying to live normal lives. SEES from Persona 3 also dealt with this balancing aspect. There was a lot of lighthearted moments in P4 though, and the crew seems a lot closer to each other than SEES because of it.


But then P4G added new stuff, but only stuff of one variety. Now what was once somewhat balanced(gameplay and tone) shifted drastically in a different direction. Again, it's the original opening vs. Shadow World. Hell, Shadow World features hanging corpses as part of the intro, but it's super stylized set to pop music, there's no feeling like anything serious is what they're going for. "Too Happy" refers to that. :p


To me, I see what they were going for. It's a definitive version of the game, sure, but it's also meant for people who played P4 to come back and play it, so I didn't mind the lighter tone to things.

It's easier to write and implement something an event like... Operation Up Close and Personal than an event that leans on darkness or drama. In fact, it could be dangerous to implement that kind of scene in P4G. The fluffy slice of life scenes are inconsequential in the long run, and tonally similar to other slice of scenes that are interspersed throughout P4, so I have no problem with them.

That's kind of funny coming from the guy complaining about FES's battle system.

In his defense, it's the first time playing through The Answer. There's no hard rule against sharing your own experience, even if it's about something that's been talked to death.
 

Baliis

Member
I must be really underpowered then, i can't kill them, but the random encounters are easy (discounting the fact that Naoto already 1-shots them all), if you don't count corrosion

I'm lvl 34 at the moment

Well, is really more the fault of how broken status effects are.
Panic is way too OP if you can keep it up. I just use the P3 MC with a panic status weapon.
 
I'm on the same dungeon. I was playing with headphones on and the second FOE type scared the shit out of me.
The
pop-up
FOE's scared the shit out of me last night, and I wasn't even wearing headphones this time. It also doesn't help that it was nearly midnight and I was in bed when it happened
 

todd360

Member
I haven't posted here in a while. I've been trying to forget about persona until we get more news for 5. So hyped for next week. Hope we actually get some news.
 

VegiHam

Member
Hello persona people. I was going to hold off on joining y'all for P5 hype till I was done with the Persona games I already have; but I need to ask a question: is finishing Persona Q worth it?

Cus I've been running in circles for hours today trying to get a door to open. This is one of the most frustrating implementations of a puzzle I've ever seen in a game; it gives you way to much opportunity to screw yourself over and die. Finally made my way to a boss who took more than 40 turns to kill and then he revived himself to half health and wiped me out. So yeah, I'm feeling super annoyed now.

Thing is though I love these characters and this series and I really want to see where this story goes; but that's a whole day of my life spent repeatedly escaping FOEs that I won't get back. So yeah, figured the community would be the people to ask: should I push on? And if so, how? Or should I just give up play something else?
 
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