Yeah. That's what I meant. Not sure how I got it backwards.
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You pick the characters you use and you use the characters you like.That's all I was saying. I ignored Yukari and Junpei all game because they both pissed me off very quickly and instead used Mitsuru and Akihiko the rest of the game.
The narrative can say whatever it wants, it has no control over the player's feelings. Why would anyone feel any attachment to a person who has been shitty to them for dozens upon dozens of hours, let alone consider them their closest friend?
It wasn't Junpei who cradled you as you died, it was Aigis. He didn't have a special place in the final battle. Where do you get the idea Junpei was especially close to the MC even in just the narrative's own terms?
Edited by Nikkolas on Jul 14th 2020 at 6:55:01 AM
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I dunno, are you under the impression I don't have emotionnal attachment to junpei, and that within the context of p3 I don't consider them the best friend of the mc without any real competition ?
Cause I do. Are you gonna ask me if something is wrong with my brain or could you process the idea I have a legitimate reason for that ?
Also, huh, news flash : I use everyone when playing a persona game, regardless of what I think about them. Not everyone sticks with only the characters they like.
Also, as for his place in the narrative, pretty simply, no one else in the story repeateadly walks up to you, apologize for their shitty behavior and insist that they want to make it up to you by letting you know they've got your back. That's what the archetype of the bro is about, right there. don't try to go "oh but junpei isn't the bro" if your actual point is that you don't mean the same thing.
Edited by Yumil on Jul 14th 2020 at 4:10:23 PM
"when you stare too long into the abyss, Xehanort takes advantage of the distraction to break into your house and steal all your shit."Royal made it even better by giving it an arc that rival junpei's. It's a bit more wonky because it doesn't feel as progressive as junpei who really had scenes of going "what the fuck am i doing" midway through his arc and slowly realizing his issues, but he ends up in the same general endpoint of being the only person with the emotionnal intelligence to point out things the rest of the group doesn't see. Which, to be perfectly fair to ryuji, is a trait Junpei mostly showed in The Answer too.
Edit: Also, it just crossed my mind, but another reason why trying to pretend junpei isn't the bro cause he starts out jealous of you is painfully stupid because... That's exactly the same with yosuke. Only instead of being vocal about it and getting over it quickly, he waits for the end of his social link to admit it and get over it. That's some serious double standard you've got there, nikk.
Edited by Yumil on Jul 14th 2020 at 4:21:51 PM
"when you stare too long into the abyss, Xehanort takes advantage of the distraction to break into your house and steal all your shit."I can flip this back to you and ask why would you consider someone who is consistently shitty to other people your best bro. That screams Protagonist-Centered Morality to me; Junpei is shit because he doesn't start off as the protagonist's best bro, but Yosuke is good because he treats the protagonist better?
Everyone is entitled to their feelings like you said, but this particular bit screams Opinion Myopia.
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.![]()
It's a double standard that .0000001% of Yosuke's character was about him being jealous of you which has no impact on any other interaction with him isn't to be held against him like Junpei's entire character being "I'm a shithead"?
The only person he's shitty to is Kanji and I do hold that against him. But as it's only in a couple scenes, I find it easy to forgive.
And before you come back with "what about the girls?" I've already discussed why his relationship with Chie is mutually aggressive where she's probably instigated and done more harm to him than vice versa and so I don't see his behvior to her as especially negative.
Edited by Nikkolas on Jul 14th 2020 at 7:55:21 AM
I feel like you're being intentionally reductive about Junpei on purpose to support your point; I can understand if you just didn't like him, but now you're straight up plot details.
EDIT: See, and that's what I mean; you're willing to excuse Yosuke's negative traits for flimsy reasons like "it doesn't happen a lot" or "they were both aggressive" but then hold Junpei and Ryuji's negative traits against them despite the fact that they both mostly develop out of them while Yosuke does not.
You're more than entitled to your opinion on who you prefer as a character, but you need a call a spade a spade. I think it's perfectly fair to call the game out Yosuke's behavior and how it never goes anywhere like it did with Junpei.
Nothing wrong with liking Yosuke, but I can fully understand why he's way more divisive than Junpei or Ryuji who lack a lot of his negative traits or just straight up grow out of them.
Edited by BlackYakuzu94 on Jul 14th 2020 at 11:01:04 AM
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.Yeah I'm with Yakuzu. Junpei's shitty but he's shitty in a pretty compelling manner (most importantly, he gets over it). Yosuke is your Butt-Monkey best bro who acts like a misogynistic, homophobic douchebag to no consequence.
@nikk See, it's funny you call double standard there, because you carry a hell of one there.
Yosuke isn't just a shitty friend to kanji, he's a shitty friend to everyone that is not Yu. He makes insulting remarks in some fashion or another Kanji, Rise, Yukiko, Teddie and even Naoto in one instance. The only exception is Rise because he literally simps for her. And I just played p4g, let me tell you : It's NOT in juste couple scenes, it's in basically every "lighthearted" scenes, which there are about 20 or so in golden.
And I know, Yukiko and Chie are terrible in return, but that's not a great point to make. Yes, the cast of p4, when a comedy scene is playing, is a cast of unlikeable asshole cruel to each other. That's not a point in favor of Yosuke, that's point against the cast of P4 as a whole.
On the other hand, you may need to replay Persona 3 because Junpei being jealous of you is 5% of his character. It's only present at the beginning of the game, after which he quickly realizes his own limitation and inability to lead, and more improtantly than that, while he is envious of your position as a leader he's perfectly friendly most of the time even when he's at his worst, and he quickly overtly admits to his own weaknesses, apologize to the player and swears to do better. He comparably spends less time being jealous of you than Yosuke spends time insulting Kanji.
actually, no, better than that. less time than you seem to believe Yosuke spends time insulting kanji.
The junpei whose point of his character is "I'm a dickhead" only exists in your head, to be blunt.
Junpei's character isn't about a single thing in particular, that's what's great about him : he's the one who feels the most like a tri dimensionnal human you meet and become accointed with, but occasionnaly butt heads with really hard on some things, but those arguments end up making you closer to each other and become great friends because your friendship grew from the dispute instead of breaking. Missing that aspect of junpei is either opinion myopia, or simply missing the entire thing persona 3 was saying with him.
Yeah, I said about as much a couple posts ago.
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and Yakuzu pointed, it may be worth pointing out, Junpei ultimately grows out of all his issues regardless of whether or not you hold this issues as worse than Yosuke. Yosuke never changes his ways or realizes in any capacity he said terrible things.
Edited by Yumil on Jul 14th 2020 at 5:23:54 PM
"when you stare too long into the abyss, Xehanort takes advantage of the distraction to break into your house and steal all your shit."![]()
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Isn't it one of the most cited complaints of P4 that the Social Links are divorced from the main game? In fact I've seen Yosuke's S Link in particular brought up a lot in this regard with his leaving behind the memory of Saki supposedly not jiving with cutscenes in the main plot. People feel like the Yosuke in his S Link is drastically different from the one you see in the rest of the game. So I don't think I'm being unfair here to say Yosuke being jealous of you in his final S Link is a thoroughly minor and easily overlooked component of his character whereas it's central to Junpei's character that he's jealous of you.
But I don't care about the IT being shitty to each other in gag scenes because the game doesn't care, either. But it seems like everyone on this forum is obsessed with those scenes to the exclusion of everything else, at least when it comes to Yosuke. You bring up him being shitty to Teddie. Shitty how? By giving him a home and work? By selflessly looking out for him?
This is the stuff P4 is mostly composed of and the stuff the game actually values but all anyone remembers are gag scenes that the game is explicitly dismissive of.
This is the stuff P4 is mostly composed of and the stuff the game actually values but all anyone remembers are gag scenes that the game is explicitly dismissive of.
It's probably because there's way too many to the point of overpowering the parts where you remember they're friends. Chie and Yosuke are awful to each other so often you tend to forget that when Chie was confronted by her Shadow Yosuke told it to piss off and kicked the shit out of it to save her.
Like P5's big Wacky Anime Antics scene was Ryuji performing a not Heroic Sacrifice and getting beaten up for it by the girls. That's one scene in a 100 hour game and you still get people complaining about it because that's how rancid those tired, stale anime tropes are.
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I'm sorry, what was that you JUST SAID about "The narrative can say whatever it wants, it has no control over the player's feelings. Why would anyone feel any attachment to a person who has been shitty to them for dozens upon dozens of hours, let alone consider them their closest friend?" about p3 ?
Yeah that, but towards p4. What the game thinks has no bearing on the fact that the IT is a bunch of terrible human beings I wouldn't want for friends in real life in their dumber moments. If you think I should brush it off, then by the same token you should brush off your issues with junpei because the game tells you he's your bro.
I don't see why you want to single out teddie for that one since Yosuke behaves like he does with everyone elese : insulting remakrs that are pointedly not taken for laughs from the receiveng end. The fact that Yosuke also does good things for teddie doesn't cancel it out. Broken clocks are right twice a day.
As for the bit of Yosuke's SL being disconnected from the main plot, I don't think the problem is about him mourning Saki. It's that this social link showcases yosuke when he's not in a comedy scene, and in a comedy scene he's pretty alright as a character. In fact, he's really really good up to after knaji is rescued in the main game. But since after that point the game throws a bunch of comedy scenes at you it's weird to do Yosuke's SL and remember the game thinks he's not an asshole.
So no, I don't think it's okay to disregard Yosuke's SL because his SL is the best part, most consistent part of his character. I'd rather disregard main plot yosuke, thanks very much.
As for "oh but why does everyone always talk about comedy scenes" I am this close to link back to the post where I pointed my issues with the game because if you had read it you may have noticed I point out that after Rise's rescue, the game becomes nothing but "comedy" for 4 straight months before it's finally time to catch Adachi.
We all think about the shitty comedy in P4 because that's what the latter half of P4 is about. Shitty comedy with barely a serious scene to balance it out. As a result everything before it feels like a happy accident. That's a problem that simply doesn't exist in the other two personas.
I don't shit on persona 4 out of some kind of personnal pleasure to shit on a game you like. It's a game I liked too. I shit on it because the terrible comedy coupled with the pacing problems of the game actually harmed my appreciation of the game. What's so hard to understand about that ?
Edited by Yumil on Jul 14th 2020 at 5:55:12 PM
"when you stare too long into the abyss, Xehanort takes advantage of the distraction to break into your house and steal all your shit."Because I don't see these flaws and I never have. I can't recall if you were posting in here 3 years ago when I first played P 4 G but I know for a fact I had all these arguments back then, too. I heard the exact same "these people all hate each other" criticisms. But I don't understand this viewpoint and I know I'm not crazy because everyone loved P4 then and they still love P4 now so it clearly isn't just me who fails to perceive this alleged awfulness in the Investigation Team.
And let's all be honest here, this thread does shit on P4 a lot and definitely more than P3 or 5.
"Everyone loves p4" That's just simply not true. I'm gonna make this very simple : the first opinion I ever heard about persona before I even really knew what persona was, at the time the only thing I knew about it was that I'll face myself was cool, is "P4 is shit and completely fails to capture what made P3 work".
P4 has always had a pretty big part of the persona fanbase that shat on the game. Trying to pretend like we're the madmen seeing things that aren't there isn't going to work.
And that's not even getting into the more petty criticism like people having Hype Backlash after the wave of spinofs.
As for this specific thread, P3 gets shat on less because simply less people have played it. Of the three mainline games, I'm pretty confident that if there is only one of the three the average poster here hasn't played, it's 3. That's what comes with still being the most obscure of the 3 persona games, just like if you look outside of this forum you'll find not that many people shitting on 3.
5 used to get nearly as bad as 4 did, for a while here. In fact, before royale, plenty of people were praising 4 over 5 here. Nowadays those people seem to have either moved on to other franchises, or softened their stance now that Royale came out.
But as far as I can see, the reason 4 gets shat on that much, regardless of whehter it's here, in other places, now or three years ago, if P5 is loved or not, is that 4 suffers from structural weaknesses in the way 3 or 5 simply doesn't.
I don't think I'm being unreasonable, or wrong, to say that the problems I listed here about p4's structural problems exists and I didn't made them up
. I don't ask you to agree with the idea they ruin the game since that's not how arguing works, but I think there's largely enough room to at least understand where the p4 detractors come from, recognize those things they point out exist, and still like the game.
Hell, I still like 4 in spite of the doorstopper I made against it, I just think that the issues I listed hold it back.
Edited by Yumil on Jul 14th 2020 at 6:36:06 PM
"when you stare too long into the abyss, Xehanort takes advantage of the distraction to break into your house and steal all your shit."If you already loved P4 to begin with then of course you're not going to be able to understand the criticisms people have, especially if you're unwilling to understand why people criticize it to begin with.
People criticize 3 and 5 plenty in this thread, the only difference is that people can accept the games for what they are despite their flaws.
Meanwhile, you directly admitted that you can't see 4's flaws or try to downplay them and act if they aren't a big deal.
You're operating from a limited viewpoint because you can't fathom why people don't like 4. Like I said, it's a bad case of Opinion Myopia.
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.![]()
Obviously I don't literally mean everyone. Just some hyperbole to express the fact the vast majority love the game in a very strong way and obviously aren't having their experience about this video game of loving anime friends ruined by the idea all the anime friends are assholes who hate one another.
So how does this happen? We play the same game, we see the same scenes, we experience the same writing, but we come away with polar opposite perceptions. How is it that so many find the IT heartwarming and lovable and yet a few people insist they are garbage assholes who are just awful to one another?
Is it myopic
? Maybe. But how else can you express your frustration at the fact other people clearly misunderstood everything about the game?
If you hate the game because of its homophobia, I understand. Its fatshaming, I understand. These are clear flaws I also detest and I will hold it against nobody if these and other things of a similar nature put them off the game. But the stuff we've been discussing? I don't get that at all.
Edited by Nikkolas on Jul 14th 2020 at 10:06:55 AM
4 has always been a very popular game and you still have plenty of people who like it but there's no such thing as a piece of media with a 100% approval rating. But even putting that aside, there's always been plenty to criticize 4 about. Even if you ignore the humor scenes (and we'll get back to those in a second), there's plenty of other iffy stuff like the weak execution of the main theme, flubbing of LGBT issues (even when they weren't trying to comment on those issues), and most of the S-Links being underwhelming. I didn't read all of Yumil's earlier posts but I think he gets at some of the deeper issues the game has.
Of course, a lot of those criticisms can be made towards P3 and to some extent P5. The social links in P3 are also mostly bad, and it has some unique problems of its own like the fact that you are forced to date girls to progress their SL's undermines the overall point of the game. I know I was pretty critical of P5 for a long time because I felt its main narrative and characterization were underwhelming (not to mention the script being bloated), and to some extent I still feel that way, but in the end I felt that regardless of my criticisms it was still a game I mostly enjoyed playing and overall was pretty good, so I decided to ease off it a little; there's definitely JRPG's with worse writing out there. You can admit something is flawed and still like it.
I mean, what you just described is the nature of opinions. You're always going to get people who have wildly varying reactions to different things. If you don't personally care about the comedy scenes or they don't affect your enjoyment of the game that much, that's fine, but you can't expect other people are going to feel the same way, especially now when a lot of those scenes have aged badly.
Edited by Draghinazzo on Jul 14th 2020 at 1:13:51 PM
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There's a simple answer to that, which that people have different sensibilities about things and no one enjoys something for exactly the same reasons someone else enjoys it. It's human nature. But I will say, however, that I can understand the frustration at times, but it's something you just have to accept, because most often, if you get truly down to it, it's not that they don't understand, it's that they think the fiction undermines itself too much to accept it the way it's presented.
That's why I'm of the board it's ultimately more interesting to try to understand why people see the game this differently than go against the difference in opinion, because it tells you a lot about how they think in general, and by extension, how YOU think for it not to bother you. That, and trying to understand what bothers/works for people in a work of fiction helps having a better understanding of fiction in general and is all around good food for the critical mind.
I'm gonna take advantage of the discussion going here to link Shamus Young's excellent two articles on the concept of "trusting the writer" and "story collapse" as I think they make for very interesting reads about the subject.
While it is based on "plot holes" and internal consistency of the narrative, you can take a lot of what he says and apply it tonal and emotionnal stuff. If someone gets something out of that link, that's great.
(It also leads to an article of film crit hulk that's interesting in it's own right but that's a lot to read in one go.)
Edited by Yumil on Jul 14th 2020 at 7:16:55 PM
"when you stare too long into the abyss, Xehanort takes advantage of the distraction to break into your house and steal all your shit."

None of what you said contradicts the fact that junpei's arc is about becoming the best bud. No one said the character of the best bud had to start out this way. If anything, the fact that junpei gets progressively better over the game is what makes him so much better than yosuke who degrades and becomes a worse friend instead. (yeah, just because he never stops being your bro specifically doesn't mean much when he treats everyone else pretty bad.)
Also, unless you're playing Femc, you don't ever really get all that close to akihiko so that comparison feels painfully forced.
Edited by Yumil on Jul 14th 2020 at 3:51:14 PM
"when you stare too long into the abyss, Xehanort takes advantage of the distraction to break into your house and steal all your shit."