Persona series

I like to think that, if any of these characters had middle names, they would start with the same letter as their Arcana. Like Goro J. Akechi, Ryuji C. Sakamoto, Ann L. Takamaki, Yuskue E. Kitagawa, etc.

I wonder what you'd do with Igor, Caroline, Justine, and Morgana.

Those characters don't have last names and Morgana already starts with M.

Also, Adachi would have two middle names. Tohru J. H. Adachi.

So I'm playing P 4 G NG+, this time without the intent of skipping Marie. I still don't have the third round of Teddie's Quiz Show or whatever is on PBS that's below the main game. Are they part of the Golden ending?

Been playing through the story of P 4 A and P 4 AU in the process of learning the game, so I thought I'd drop my thoughts here :

P 4 A's story is honestly pretty great. Like, it uses a bunch of plot contrivances to justify the fighting tournament structure of the game, but it does some actually meaningful things with it.

Aside from the fact that it brings into cannon the fact that personas can turn back into shadows, should their owner lose their resolve, which is great since it realy furthers the idea that your shadow is the core part of you can't accept and as such dealing with it is an everyday thing, not a one-and-done deal, the fact you can play every character's story gives them all their own little perspective on the events and highlights some neat differences in their characters.

Should their Shadow come out again, Yosuke, Chie and Yukiko would need their friends to avoid doing the same mistake again, and acknowledge that the thing that changed for them isn' that they got rid of their weakness, they merely found friends who made bearing it so much easier, while Kanji would just beat the shit out of it without either accepting nor rejecting it, which makes sense since his own issues really was social stigma rather than character flaw, and he's past caring about this.

It's also the game that kickstarts the plotline of Elizabeth wanting to get rid of Erebus for good, and. I still don't ever want for persona to undo the death of p3's MC, since it would contradict the key theme of p3, but. I get the engagement for it, because it's Elizabeth's Journey, and it's really nice to see a velvet attendant develop the drive to accomplish something and so forth. And it reads more to me as trying to make sure his sacrifice never goes to waste, so that's fine by me.

We also get to see a glimpse of what would p4-shadows of the SEES look like, which is a neat bonus.

It's also great to see the various people take their turn at being the lead character. Depending of whose story it is, Labrys doesn't take quite the same lesson to snap out of her depression. And it's really cool to see people like Kanji, Yosuke or Chie actually have to try their hand at making an emotionnal, motivanionnal speech to other people when it's more of Yu thing.

Yosuke going " So what if you're a machine ? One of my friends is a Shadow" is really great.

The fact they even manage to tie some of the fighting tournament aspect into Labrys's backstory also makes the contrivances easier to swallow, so while it's inherently a very repetitive story with not much of actual plot developments, it's really really great on the character work side.

P 4 AU's story comparably felt a lot less repetitive, but a lot weaker in this area since there was only two stories, and Sho isn't really a very interesting character until right at the very end when the game finally decides to make him mildly more complex than laughing asshole. While it was a lot less repetitive, the bulk of it ranges from mostly okay, with some occasionally great scenes here and there - Shadow labrys becoming her own person, down to having asterius as an actual persona and protecting Labrys is all kind of amazing, Kanji meeting Koromaru is adorable, Rise developing combat capabilities is pretty badass, etc.

Adachi's episode is really strong though, mostly because he's the perspective character through all of it, making it closer to a p4A story.

I know Omega said that Labrys punching the shit out of Kagutsuchi is a lot more appropriate than Yu and Adachi teaming up to destroy him, and. While I can agree that thematically, Labrys should be the one to take that thing down, I think the game's production values just all around fall short to do justice to that sequence ? The Kagutsuchi gameplay fight is one of the worse thing of both games hands down, and after that, he just up and dies there on the p3 side. It's Lame.

Yu and Adachi teaming up for the finishing blow isn't as thematic than Labrys destroying what's pretty much her personnal devil, but it's a very meaningful scene for the story of p4, as it shows the culmination of the path Adachi has chosen for himself following his defeat. While it's a bit out of nowhere in the p4 side, in episode Adachi it's just pretty much all around the strongest conclusion to the story.

Finally, I just all around love to see that time has passed for the p3 gang. Reading the story of those guys, you really get the sense that persona 3 is over, in the past, and everyone in the cas has kept living and changing ever since. The cast has been allowed to move forward, which, on top of just being really nice in and of itself, really resonates with the themes of the Answer, which was to move on from your grief after reaching acceptance. I hope the p4 gang will get a similar treatment if a Persona 5 Arena ever rolls out.

Also, despite a very dumb intro cutscene, Akihiko's character isn't actually all that flanderized by the game, and I felt it did pretty much everyone justice, so that too is great.

Now to go back to the lab and learn how to D-grab harder with Kanji.

Edited by Yumil on Aug 8th 2020 at 5:16:19 PM

Yeah, pretty much agreed with you there. Ultimax is less repetitive, but also weaker overall. Both Sho and Kagutsuchi aren't as good villains as Labrys and her shadow. Sho is too bratty and Minazuki's plan is too...stupid. Like Akechi's plan. In the end, Minazuki is just an enabler to Sho's tantrum. Their background have potential, but it's wasted in Ultimax IMO. Kagutsuchi is generic doomsday villain and is the weakest part of the story.

Adachi episode is so good, I agree. Seeing things from a "villain"'s POV is a good change of pace, and his snarkiness is top notch.

Now you need to go and watch Dancing All Night's story.

I'm half-serious actually. The ones you said about P3 cast growing up, I feel that's a bit similar to how P4 cast in DAN is. The story is less about the scoobies themselves, but about the new people.

I like crossovers or loose sequels that catch everyone up. the 2 games are realy cool for bringing back most of 1's cast as supporting characters or even as party members.

It helps as said above that moving on from grief and the passage of time are major themes in 3, so it's especially satisfying to see them all further grow up.

Will say I wish Persona's plots could go as crazy as Persona 1 and 2's did. The whole Conspiracy Theory arc would be downright topical these days, and I'd love another shot at beating down Der Fuhrer or something similarly ridiculous.

...By which I mean give us Cyborg Zombie Ivan the Terrible.

Thankfully Devil Survivor's serving to scratch a similar itch.

Yeah it would be awesome to beat the shit out of Hitler with Personas.

Persona 2 Remaster for the PS 5.

Except its like the Final Fantasy 7 Remake, and instead of just Hitler, we beat the shit out of the entire Axis Powers leadership with Personas.

Could we add Stalin and Mao Zedong?

We probably won't get a game where you can beat up a former Japanese emperor.

Morgana won't let Joker do anything.

But we did beat the shit out of the Japanese prime minister candidate who had the Imperial Japan symbol on his outfit.

That's pretty gutsy for a country that doesn't like to mention it's imperial past.

Here is a thing

5/Royal spoilers

20 hours into Persona 5 Royal, and I’m loving it.

HA!

And now for some cursed mods. Drake Bell Chie, Peter Griffin Dojima, Emo Nanako, and Dio Brando Yu, among others.

Edited by Smasher on Aug 10th 2020 at 2:22:44 PM

Yeah, I figure the line up would more look like Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo.

That would be really cool.

And for historical accuracy, Mussolini should go first.

25 hours in

This game is consuming my life

Welcome to Persona 5 addiction, my friend.

I've never played much or any of the spinoffs but when you look at just the main games, the fact something like Aigis exists in the same world as P4 and 5 is intenely strange. 4 and 5 have done their best to make the world as mundane and normal as possible, separated from the obligatory supernatural zone which infects the real world at the end. But until then, it's just small town Japan or Tokyo same as anybody in the real world would see it.

Only there's combat cyborgs. Did we fail to mention that.

And I'm just ignoring the NO's mad science stuff from P 2 EP. That is even more out there. The series has progressively tried to "normalize" things as much as possible.

Edited by Nikkolas on Aug 19th 2020 at 1:06:07 AM

About to fight kaneshiro

Wish me luck