Persona series

I may use this as my new crazy laugh thing

So, after many delays,I've got Golden finally finished.

I didn't mean to like the epilogue as much I did. Or Marie. I'm sorry.

I'm not sorry for saying the new version of Never More is absolutely amazing, though.

edited 14th Aug '15 11:57:41 AM by Pulse

Technically it's not new, the Reincarnation cd came out before golden I think

Yeah, that version is really good. Kinda annoyed neither version of Never More is in the Hee!Hee!Ho player :/.

Indeed. Hee!Hee!Ho! isn't such a music king after all.

Welp, I'm going to get cracking at NG+ soonish- Being both stupid and crazy, I'm plotting to eventually have every Skill Card registered along with all the other, more standard completion stuff.

edited 14th Aug '15 8:58:49 PM by Pulse

Marie herself is mostly fine. I just hate the Hollow Forest.

Skill cards aren't terribly difficult to get. Especially with the cafe. I don't know why you'd bother though.

Ah, I've got issues where I take "there's X number of whatsits to find" as a personal challenge. Skill Cards are a smidge annoying because you either have to subject yourself to the whims of the RNG or lose a day at the cafe to get the collection finished, too.

edited 14th Aug '15 9:19:02 PM by Pulse

Don't feel bad; I did a "Perfect Compendium Run" of SMTIV.

You poor soul.

Was that aimed at me? I don't mean I leveled them all to 99 or anything, I just got all their skills and then registered.

edited 14th Aug '15 9:32:09 PM by HamburgerTime

Got all their skills? That's actually worse than what I was thinking.

edited 14th Aug '15 9:36:08 PM by Moth13

What did you think I was thinking?

Found this.

Atlus really struck gold with the conception of Social Links and the calendar system- You spend at least half your real-time and a vast majority of the year's days interacting with the cast, and every choice you make has a degree of urgency to it, since, no matter what, the end is rapidly approaching every time you do anything. It helps that the character writing is, overall, at worst above-par and often quite excellent.

That article hits on two major points. One, Persona is a Urban Fantasy series, which makes it a) different than the standard High Fantasy a la Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, etc, and b) more relatable, since it's about teenagers navigating real-world high school rather than adventurers questing across a fictional setting. It fills a different niche than those other games do — but while those other games have a ton of competition, Persona doesn't have much else trying to do what it does.

Two, Persona is just really well executed. The characters are solid, the writing is great, and the fact that it's broken up into social links means that players can pick which stories they want to see, rather than having to slog through stuff they don't care about in order to get to the content they want. Actually, it reminds me a little bit of Lost Odyssey and it's "Thousand Years of Dreams" is a collection of short stories (each an event from a different point in the past of the resident thousand-year-old immortal), and they're really really good. The fact that, like Persona's social links, they're broken up into bite-sized chunks instead of being strung out across an entire epic plotline helps keep things feeling fresh instead of getting bogged down by its own weight.

Hell, even the fantastical elements tie back into everything- Personas are personality characteristics given form and Shadows are Shadows in the Jungian sense.

This describes everyone in P3, though....

Joking aside, the fact that Persona is pretty down to earth is probably it's selling point.

The series isn't really keen on destiny, though- Big things are almost always the result of choices rather than metaphysical forces outside the control of anyone. As Igor says- "You must abide by your contract, and assume responsibility for any decisions you may make."

And yet no matter what you do he still dies at the end of the year.

Due to a choice that he made. You even get to select the attack to seal Nyx way.

edited 16th Aug '15 12:58:11 AM by KarkatTheDalek

I mean, no, in a meta sense there's not many choices, but that comes with territory of being a work of fiction that isn't stupidly broad. The character is not making choices, but the person they represent is.

edited 16th Aug '15 1:34:54 AM by Pulse

...Sorry?

I agree with you. That was me reinforcing your point. I'm sorry, I got ramble-y.

edited 16th Aug '15 1:39:00 AM by Pulse

Karkat: Choose to seal Nyx, you die. Choose to kill Ryoji instead, you die. Fail at any point, you die. Refuse to even try, you die. Minato has no way to survive the year. Not really.

It's almost like death is inevitable or something.

Clearly should have never come to the city where the Arcana Shadows lie

It's all Grampa Kirijo's fault, anyway.