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Persona Community Thread: The Butterfly Effect

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D

Dantis

Member
Sophia said:
Not even Night Queen?
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It's fine, but it's not something I'd ever listen to outside of the game.

Also, I'm not sure why I drew this, but I'd like to think it was to make TurnipFritters happy.

labrysthumbsup.png
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R

randomkid

Member
I sure picked the right time to peek into this thread. Here are some relevant massive walls of text on the Revelations: Persona soundtrack.

randomkid said:
What's that? An excuse to rave about my favorite underappreciated Megaten soundtrack? Don't mind if I do! And the power’s back so I can finally post this haha.

Revelations: Persona has the best soundtrack in the franchise, probably the best soundtrack ever made. In raw quantitative terms it's ridiculous, 113 songs and 3 hours of music without being looped, and all without doing Persona 2's trick of repeated (but still awesome!) remixes. Two majorly sweet leitmotifs for the two major quests, employed creatively and thoughtfully, four fantastic composers on four discs, cohesive and thematically coherent when by all rights it should feel disjointed as fuck, this is a generous OST!

This is where Meguro got his start, coming up with the Velvet Room theme among a bunch of interstitial tracks, but I'm going to highlight two unsung composers on the soundtrack who are both geniuses.

Hidehito Aoki composed the dungeon music, which is exquisite. Lengthy songs that are moody, elegant, just plain beautiful and get you PUMPED!

The iconic Deva Yuga
Monochrome: School Revisited Dream-like, synthy, catchy, beautiful, quintessential Persona sound.
Pandora's Den (Deepmost Area): The climax at 1:12!
Ice Castle/Black Snow The twists and turns in this one, so effing good.
Sebek Music, Karma Palace 90's music is the best!!!

Misaki Okibe's range is ridiculous, she composed some of the most memorable, interesting tracks in the whole game.

Reverse Dream World: You think you have this song figured out in the first few seconds, but stick around to see where it suddenly veers off to around :30, hilarious and awesome.
Theme of Nemurin's Love: The intro! The power of a simple lovely melody, a little Uematsu-esque.
Augustia's Wood: The save music, so memorable, I love the grumbling.
City 2 Accident: Do you remember wandering the streets in the town, disoriented, listening to this gorgeousness, thinking about how Lunarvale suddenly seemed so scary, like an unsettling dream?
Bar Attacked by Harem Queen: A bit of jazzy beauty.

And most important of all of course, Misaki Okibe is the composer of the Pharmacy Music, featuring vocals by one Hidehito Aoki of all people.

Satomi Tadashi Drugstore Song In our heads forever, teaching us about item use since 1996.

I wish I could find out more about Aoki and Okibe’s other work, vgmdb says they did practically nothing beyond Majin Tensei 2 and an early Atlus fighting game. EDIT: Well, this is incredibly depressing apparently Aoki died in a car accident at the age of 32, ugh.

I will maybe write another post dedicated to the amazing character themes of Kenichi Tsuchiya, who is the secret best Megaten composer, because this post is too long as is. Haven't even touched the prog-rock battle stuff. I'm just saying, you all better recognize. This is the tip of the iceberg here.
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randomkid said:
Okay, here's Revelations: Persona soundtrack love-in Part 2! If I can't do a game playthrough right now a soundtrack walkthrough will have to suffice heh. Last time in Part 1 we discussed the two most underrated composers on the soundtrack, now lets get into the real meat of things with Kenichi Tsuchiya, my favorite and the heart of the game's OST. He composed the two major leitmotifs for the two major quests (Kandori and Snow Queen) and a heap of other central music. Also he's the king of slap bass.

The sign of a good character theme is when you can extrapolate from instrument choice and melody to personality. Here Tsuchiya is the man, no one does it better this side of Uematsu. I hear these songs and I've got a perfect picture in my mind of each cast member. It's what I think of when I think of "videogame music" ha, here are my personal favorites, I could listen to these endlessly.

Mary/Maki: Cheerful, just a hint of melancholy in the notes, love that slap bass.
Yuki: Starts a bit slow, but soon we learn that Yuki's cool but determined.
Alana: The song tells me she's brassy, energetic, fun.
Chris/Reiji: Dangerous, exciting, a bad-ass delinquent.
Elly/Ellen: Classy, elegant, confident.

Then we've got the incredible battle music.

Battle: YEAH! A battle theme that never gets old. I love how the concluding drums always seem to hit JUST right no matter when the battle ends.
Midboss Battle: Awakening Legend: Even better, this is what people who love to call music EPIC are talking about right? Serious "some shit is about to go down" music.
Boss Theme: This is prog-rock right? I don't listen to prog-rock so I am just guessing. Whatever, I love this.

And some miscellaneous awesomeness:

Snow Queen Ending: Why is this song not up??? I guess I have to link to the credits then. Timestamped right before that sweet bass starts, and then the "chorus" hits at 4:30 and I start swooning. I still can't believe North Americans were deprived of this!
City 2, City 1 Post Disaster, Both of these songs sound very "Shin Megami Tensei" to me, without even ever having heard a single song from SMT1&2. A grim, very 90s sort of cyberpunk sound for traversal, it's fantastic.

I could keep the Tsuchiya love going but I should give a shout out to Meguro. I mentioned before that he got his start with this OST. Mostly he composed cool interstitial cutscene music (and also three of the endings!) but you can already see the first funky signs of the guy we all love. Really though he deserves a special shout out for the Velvet Room theme, appearing here for the first time. I loved it before hundreds of hours of fusion led me to merely like it.
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Also this is what I said about the PSP soundtrack:

I mean, the Persona PSP remake soundtrack was fine for what it was, I like a lot of tracks on it, it's just, I don't even understand how anyone can make the case that it wasn't a downgrade to the OG masterpiece. Even in raw quantitative terms, you're going from 113 tracks and 187 minutes of music, to 67 tracks and like, 64 minutes of music. And I think just about every single track on the original is superior to the new version, whether it's instrument choices, melodies, complexity, general vibe or whatever.There's just no comparison.

There's one new track on the PSP version that I feel does a great job at capturing the original game's atmosphere, that's the new Karma Palace theme (which also plays in the subway for no reason, so much unnecessary track reuse haha)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXaMNAJl-6E
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In conclusion, as usual, a lot of "PersonaGAF" is so wrong it hurts
 
cj_iwakura

cj_iwakura

Member
It says a lot that Persona PS1 has something like a four disc soundtrack, condensed into one for the PSP release. P2 has a two discer, and it's the pride of my OST collection.


Dantis: a day devoted to Hatsune Miku, vocaloid spokesperson/digital goddess.
 
L

Levito

Banned
It would be way embarrassing, but the idea of seeing 20,000+ weeboo's screaming "OMG RISE-CHAN PLEASE COME HAVE STEAK WITH ME!!!" is would hilarity incarnate.
 
D

Daimaou

Member
If it were near me, I'd consider going just for the novelty. I wouldn't travel very far to see it, though, especially since she only has one song.
 
S

Squire

Banned
What do you guys generally think of other RPG franchises? I've always been turned off by Tales art style and the dated-looking gameplay.
 
cj_iwakura

cj_iwakura

Member
Inorigo said:
What do you guys generally think of other RPG franchises? I've always been turned off by Tales art style and the dated-looking gameplay.
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My tastes are all over the place. I love some mainstream stuff most dislike(FFXIII), and I dislike a lot of stuff people love(anything Idea Factory makes[that isn't a VN], FFX).

I played Tales of Symphonia. Fun combat, good story, god-tier art, ending went nowhere.

I bought a Gamecube for that game, because I figured it was the closest thing we'd get to a localized Sakura Wars(re: Kousuke Fujishima art).

...and then when a Sakura Wars game gets localized, no one buys it!
 
C

cjkeats

Member
Inorigo said:
What do you guys generally think of other RPG franchises? I've always been turned off by Tales art style and the dated-looking gameplay.
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I've always wanted to like the tales series, but I always get bored realy fast. Happened with Symphonia, and Abyss. Graces F however got me hooked for a long time until I got distracted by something else. I still want to go back and finish it. I'm still gonna get Xilla and try it though too.
Final Fantasy is pretty much the same for me. Only one or two of the games hooked me in for more than a few hours.

I'm always up to try just about any game series, but few of them stick.
 
cj_iwakura

cj_iwakura

Member
If you're really into the mature/occult vibe of Persona and SMT games, the best series that isn't made by Atlus is easily Shadow Hearts.
 
M

Meia

Member
I was a MASSIVE Squaresoft fan when they were actually called that, and things kind of spiraled out of control from there. I have persona 4 as my top RPG, followed closely by FFVI, Chrono Trigger an equally close 3, and Star Ocean 2 probably rounds out my top 4, if I'm being honest.


After the PSX era, Square kind of went down the crapper. Thankfully, that's when I found out about Atlus.


I've had a few Tales games in my collection. Had the GCN one I never played(did play and love Skies of Arcadia though), though I have tried Tales of Vesperia on the 360 in the last year, and loved the characters. To me, characters are first in an RPG, narrative is important, but it's secondary.

Characters are why I rank SO2 so high. The Private Action system, which at the time I thought was freaking brilliant, highlights this idea. Just that your party, ya know, kind of all goes their own way in towns and does their own thing is something I don't think I've seen in other RPGs after that, and I don't know why. Throw in that I love when characters interact with each other(both in PAs and the idea that if one character likes another and sees them fall in battle, they fall into a rage), and it's why I rank it so highly. Sadly, the other SO games seem all kinds of terrible, so yeah, that franchise is also dead to me.
 
C

cjkeats

Member
cj_iwakura said:
If you're really into the mature/occult vibe of Persona and SMT games, the best series that isn't made by Atlus is easily Shadow Hearts.
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Always wanted to try those back in that era, but could never find them, living in a small town and all.
I should try and get those online when I have more time. Unless they come to PS2 classics. I won't hold my breath.
 
T

TWILT

Banned
Inorigo said:
What do you guys generally think of other RPG franchises? I've always been turned off by Tales art style and the dated-looking gameplay.
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While I'm looking forward to Xillia, the only other Tales game I've played was Graces f. I wouldn't say it was awful (I managed to complete it somehow), but I disliked everything about the game (especially the story and characters) barring the combat system. Hoping Xillia is different; I want to like this franchise...

As for other RPG franchises...:
  • Still love a bunch of franchises like Fire Emblem, Pokemon, Souls games.
  • TWEWY, Valkyria Chronicles, Dark Souls, and Xenoblade are probably my favorite RPGs this gen.
  • I stopped liking Final Fantasy games after X, though XII was okay. VII is still my fav.
 
A

Astra

Member
TWILT said:
While I'm looking forward Xillia, the only other Tales game I've played was Graces f. I wouldn't say it was awful (I managed to complete it somehow), but I disliked everything about the game (especially the story and characters) barring the combat system. Hoping Xillia is different; I want to like this franchise...

As for other RPG franchises...:
  • Still love a bunch of franchises like Fire Emblem, Pokemon, Souls games.
  • TWEWY, Valkyria Chronicles, Dark Souls, and Xenoblade are probably my favorite RPGs this gen.
  • I stopped liking Final Fantasy games after X, though XII was okay. VII is still my fav.
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You have good taste, sir.

Yeah, Graces is easily the worst Tales story I've ever experienced. If you can, play Vesperia and/or Abyss. Though Abyss has pacing issues, and the story was really dragged on. Still, I really liked most of the characters.
 
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