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darkabomination Since: Mar, 2012
#61076: Mar 12th 2021 at 6:07:49 AM

That's the kinda thing you only get with experience in the franchise, I think. Play an SMT or spinoff once, and and you're basically more prepared for every other game without a tutorial. The randomized dungeons really hurt the puzzle solving and complex layouts that make the franchise levels such a highlight, though. I just do them all in one go, and get it over with.

KarkatTheDalek Not as angry as the name would suggest. from Somwhere in Time/Space Since: Mar, 2012 Relationship Status: You're a beautiful woman, probably
Not as angry as the name would suggest.
#61077: Mar 12th 2021 at 7:24:26 AM

I do an even/odd days pattern (unless its raining) ... only exception is december where I do an even/odd

Is that recommended even when you don’t have to rescue someone?

Oh God! Natural light!
Zeldalover Since: Oct, 2020
#61078: Mar 12th 2021 at 10:09:53 AM

If you finish the december dungeon the game auto skips to the 24th

[up] I generally saved the victim before the deadline so I spent most of the rest of the days doing s links... On rainy days however there are very few s link so I generally spent those days grinding... at least up until late november (the last party member you get is available even on rainy days though you have to have max courage and intelligence to do their route... which I did get and didmax their social link but unfortunately I was already... well never mind).

Edited by Zeldalover on Mar 12th 2021 at 10:17:14 AM

KarkatTheDalek Not as angry as the name would suggest. from Somwhere in Time/Space Since: Mar, 2012 Relationship Status: You're a beautiful woman, probably
Not as angry as the name would suggest.
#61079: Mar 12th 2021 at 10:11:57 AM

Okay, but I was more asking if it’s recommended to go dungeon crawling when someone hasn’t been kidnapped.

Oh God! Natural light!
Zeldalover Since: Oct, 2020
#61080: Mar 12th 2021 at 10:18:18 AM

If you want to level up party members then yeah also the dungeons get extra boss fights that are basically souped up enemies (If you wish to max out courage I reccomend doing these)... On the topic of the courage stat thats always bugged me... going swimming increases courage yet aside from the bonus bosses crawling around in the representations of troubled psyches and fighting physichal manifestations of existential crises doesnt.

Edited by Zeldalover on Mar 12th 2021 at 10:29:49 AM

asterism from the place I'm at Since: Apr, 2011 Relationship Status: Hoping Senpai notices me
#61081: Mar 12th 2021 at 10:39:49 AM

plot twist narukami is scared of the sea

Bewitching Eyes
KarkatTheDalek Not as angry as the name would suggest. from Somwhere in Time/Space Since: Mar, 2012 Relationship Status: You're a beautiful woman, probably
Not as angry as the name would suggest.
#61082: Mar 12th 2021 at 12:21:47 PM

It occurs to me that’s it’s almost a shame Persona 5 is set many years after 4 - I can’t help feel like Chie would be thrilled to have Makoto as a senpai.

Oh God! Natural light!
lu127 Paper Master from 異界 Since: Sep, 2011 Relationship Status: Crazy Cat Lady
#61083: Mar 12th 2021 at 3:21:39 PM

I would never do all S. Links on a first playthrough. It drags the game down and makes it annoying. Instead, I take the story and the twists in slowly, as well as enjoying the dungeon crawling. The first playthrough has that unknown element of puzzle-solving, since you must deal with the combat with limited resources.

I do a full S-link run on NG+, where it's really easy (in P4, I didn't even need a guide). I don't have to worry about the dungeons since I can plow through them in a day and I have higher social skills. NG+ in Persona goes by really quickly and S. link time management is the actual challenge in NG+. That way, I can enjoy the game's various systems much better.

"If you aren't him, then you apparently got your brain from the same discount retailer, so..." - Fighteer
VeryMelon Since: Jul, 2011 Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
#61084: Mar 12th 2021 at 3:39:47 PM

[up]That's the way these games are MEANT to be played, do what you want first then use new game plus to complete all the social links without hassle. The desire to conquer the time manage systems combined with the aging gamer's lack of free time is why so many people just wait for guides nowadays.

Yumil Mad Archivist Since: Mar, 2016
Mad Archivist
#61085: Mar 13th 2021 at 3:16:09 AM

I mean, if the way the game is meant to be played is geniunely "play this 60-80 hours rpg twice to get all the good bits rather than trying to get all of it on a single playtrhough" , it's quite frankly shit design and i'm not surprised most people end up preferring their way to play it.

(emphasis on "is meant to be played", if you like it better that way more power to you, just so we're clear)

Especially in the case of p5. P3 and 4 I could kinda sorta get, since the social links are more part of the atmosphere of the game, but in 5 ? The social links and the memento requests ARE persona 5, just as much if not more than the main plot to me. Why whould I NOT do all of them on a single playthrough ? I'd just like the game less.

At least personally, it's not even a case of not having enough time to play the game twice - it's just that going through all of the story again takes out all of the point of it. Doesn't matter than replaying the game might be way faster the second time, I was already bored enough by p5's ng+ that I stopped after the first palace and never went back to it again.

Ditto for dungeons. It's not like plowing through them in a single day is hard in the first place in a new game, save for the first one and maybe second one, and A) i'm pretty sure that doing that dungeon in two days rather than one isn't a dealbreaker for completion, and B) again, that's also part of the fun as far as i'm concerned, to make it to the end while running on fumes.

I'd also argue that the fact that with good time management, all of this is possible in a single playtrhough, means treating the time management as one big puzzle and trying to beat it is very much part of the intended game design to make both ways to play the game valid, because if it wasn't they'd just lock more stuff behind ng+ the way they do with the fights against the velvet attendants.

Edited by Yumil on Mar 13th 2021 at 12:41:43 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."
HalfFaust Since: Jan, 2019
#61086: Mar 13th 2021 at 3:57:19 AM

Meanwhile, I'm still on my P4G NG+ and I just got the accomplice ending. Damn... It's a nice idea, given that every other ending is just "the gang solves the mystery, but maybe not all of it", it is a very different feeling. However, it doesn't really sit perfectly, since you kind of have to act wildly out of character to actually get it.

darkabomination Since: Mar, 2012
#61087: Mar 13th 2021 at 7:48:46 AM

I like they had to make up their own arcana to make that Link work, since it wasn't in the vanilla game.

KarkatTheDalek Not as angry as the name would suggest. from Somwhere in Time/Space Since: Mar, 2012 Relationship Status: You're a beautiful woman, probably
Not as angry as the name would suggest.
#61088: Mar 13th 2021 at 6:54:12 PM

Hey, how long does Ai’s Social Link take to activate? I got my Courage high enough and told her I’d be willing to meet up with her, but she hadn’t contacted me.

Edit; NVM, got it.

Edited by KarkatTheDalek on Mar 13th 2021 at 10:49:07 AM

Oh God! Natural light!
Zeldalover Since: Oct, 2020
#61089: Mar 13th 2021 at 11:58:52 PM

That's the kinda thing you only get with experience in the franchise, I think. Play an SMT or spinoff once, and and you're basically more prepared for every other game without a tutorial. The randomized dungeons really hurt the puzzle solving and complex layouts that make the franchise levels such a highlight, though. I just do them all in one go, and get it over with.

On that note whats the best possible game to serve as a transition from persona to the rest o the franchise?

Makir Since: Feb, 2017
#61090: Mar 14th 2021 at 1:42:46 AM

[up] Nocturne or Digital Devil Saga.

darkabomination Since: Mar, 2012
#61091: Mar 14th 2021 at 7:23:36 AM

Digital Devil Saga has a lot to recommend. It's firmly got the pitch dark atmosphere of Mega Ten, but it's got a cast of characters you can care about over time. It's like Nocturne without the brutality and minimalism. It's drastically easier than most games in the series and lacks some traditional elements like talking to demons.

The Nocturne update coming out is also looking good, adding skill inheritance and voice acting might help it reach a wider audience.

Zeldalover Since: Oct, 2020
#61092: Mar 14th 2021 at 2:13:08 PM

succesfully created samael. How do i create the other 4 necessary personas to create lucifer

asterism from the place I'm at Since: Apr, 2011 Relationship Status: Hoping Senpai notices me
MorningStar1337 The Encounter that ended the Dogma from 🤔 Since: Nov, 2012
The Encounter that ended the Dogma
#61094: Mar 14th 2021 at 5:27:33 PM

[up]I'm assuming P4 and its only appearances in the Persona games are that and 5 and the latter is Shido's Shadow and thus an NPC

EDIT: Wait Samael is in 3 as well, hold on.

EDIT 2: Assuming 3, its Helel, Beelzebub, Satan & Abaddon. I think. The former I think needs Michael and Asura.

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Mar 14th 2021 at 5:33:12 AM

Lionheart0 Since: Oct, 2009 Relationship Status: I'm just a hunk-a, hunk-a burnin' love
#61095: Mar 15th 2021 at 11:33:31 AM

I've been enjoying Persona 5 Strikers for the most part. Admittedly, I've been playing on easy, so I haven't been running into the Artificial Difficulty so many others seem to have experienced.

You know in hindsight, I still feel like it was a missed opportunity not to make Sae a playable character. What she and Makoto went through in 5 is so parallel to Zenkichi and Akane it would've been nice to see Sae play off of Zenkichi.

darkabomination Since: Mar, 2012
#61096: Mar 15th 2021 at 12:10:34 PM

Having a sibling pair in a party would be neat.Give them exclusive buffs, like Makoto raising Sae's attack at the cost of her own defense.

Yumil Mad Archivist Since: Mar, 2016
Mad Archivist
#61097: Mar 15th 2021 at 1:50:10 PM

Finished p5s. Well, still got the post-game to go, but that's beyond the point.

    Gameplay 
On the gameplay side, I'll reiterate what I said in my first impressions when ~Chariot asked : I deeply disagree with the reviewer's point that your teammates are worthless and bad at dodging stuff – they're really fucking good at staying alive and managing their S Ps, most likely better than you'll be for most of the game. The worst AI teammate is by far Joker because the Ai doesn't seem to know what to do with it's movepool, but that's it. I also disagree with the idea there's no reason to play anything else than joker – Sure joker has boundless potential, but for any given situation, he's only as good as far as you're willing build him a persona tailored to the situation, and most of the time it's easier said than done. Like yeah, there were times where I'd be fighting a tough optional boss whose attacks were almost entirely ice-based and having joker fight with an ice-immune persona trivialized the whole battle, but more often than not I found that joker's theoretical potential didn't translate so easily to actual combat performance.

On the opposite side, Yusuke, Zenkichi and Haru may not be useful in ALL situations, but whenever they can, exploiting their playstyle makes them far more capable of soloing bosses or encounters than Joker ever could if he's unable to just stone-wall the enemy's attacks.

Yusuke can just delete enemy moves out of the game. It's easily the best defensive option, one that joker cannot acquire, that plays a big role into evening the playing field with optional bosses, and exploiting his counter moves also rewards you by buffing all his other moves – to the point I'm willing to say ice weakness is one of the worst weaknesses to have for a boss in this game – Yusuke mashing XXXYYYYYYYY~ can melt the boss's shields and transition into a 1 more faster than they can wind up for another attack. The fact he comes bundled with the masukukaja move line also compliments extremely well his playstyle, and it gets to the point where sometimes you just walk up into an unfavorable encounter and start pressing Square twice and suddenly you get an all-out-attack prompt because you chain-critted an enemy.

Kinda same applies for Haru where if a boss is weak to psychic I find it very hard to put an argument to play as joker whose ability to exploit that weakness will mostly be limited to using precious S Ps or a not particularly flashy combo finisher, when you could be playing haru and do square, square, hold triangle and watch the bosses shield melt and lands like 5 whole all-out-attacks before killing the boss.

Zenkichi is another case of "exploiting his playstyle rewards you far more often than playing elemental rock paper scissors with joker". His kit synergizes extremely well with some of the late-game skills that allows you to riposte into a 1 more when you auto-dodge an attack, since him having heat riser makes him able to just facetank attacks, where he'll either dodge them and stun the boss in riposte, or just all around shrug off the damage thanks to the increased defense and his regen passive.

I'm not sold on ALL characters (I could never do anything with sofia, didn't liked playing morgana and hated the fact that too many moves of Makoto were a variation of her riding her bike) but I feel like many of the reviewer's issue with the gameplay come from thinking joker is the only character worth playing – especially the thing about "the game maps too many actions on a single button" – that one is a problem that is very much exacerbated by joker's kit and is nearly nonexistent on other characters.

    plot 
On the plot side, I really like the group dynamic overall – the comedy is absolutely on point outside of that one bath scene everyone already shat on, and Zenkichi is an absolute joy to follow – it feels like all of the writing of the game went into that guy and he's really a cut above everything else.

I also like that overall the game just gets p5 right – it understands the themes the original game was going for and understand the nuance that has to go into articulating the point. The confrontation with the thieves and Not-Tony Stark in particular was a good articulation of what doesn't work with the criticism that because what the thieves do falls under the purview of brainwashing, it's automatically immoral.

The sympathetic jail rulers were a neat compliment to that – I don't think it was particularly clever, as the mementos targets in 5 already covered that and did a better job at selling some of the best dialogues in the game to me, but I appreciate it reaffirms the idea that what matters about the phantom thieves, what makes the ideal appealing isn't that they take revenge upon those who wronged them, but that they save victims, and even give a chance to the abusers to atone and do the right thing. In a weird way, it gives more sense to the fallout of the okumura plotline of the original, to me – that the arc wasn't trying to say that the thieves let the fame get to their head per say, but that they were starting to thinks of their job as less helping victims and more taking down big shots – which would have been the first step that leads down the road of what Not Stark does.

That being said, I really don't like that it rehashes so much of both p5 and royale. The first third of the game gets away with it by focusing on thieves that were legitimately underdeveloped in the original and it does a great job at fleshing them out, which does vindicate it's formulaic nature, but the last third just kinda becomes a derivative medley of plot points of late p5 and p5r's third semester. Actually, I'm pretty sure elaborating upon that would spoil royale to people who didn't played it, or spoil scramble for people who played royale.

[[spoilers for royale]]

But it really ticks me off that ichinose ripped off all of the superficial elements of Takuto of that dorky scientist that offers snakcs as a way to socialize, helps the protag but turns out to be the final villain, has good intentions but is too wrapped in a trauma they're running from to realize their errors, but that they missed the two most important points that made takuto refreshing – that he was actually willing to just sit down and have a six hours philosophical argument rather than a fistfight if the thieves would just agree to that instead of playing the "you couldn't understand" card, and that Takuto never had a slight bit of ill intent in his dialogue to actually get his point across. Strikers decided that doing takuto again but with sociopathic gloating and playing the holier than you card was apparently the best course of action and I strongly dislike it, and I think I'll even hate it if this is the canon the franchise decides to go with in the future.

[[end of the spoilers]]

I'm also mixed on the complete lack of confidants in this. On one hand, extended focus on the thieves does a great job at fleshing them out and goes a long way to sell the roadtrip feel, but on the other hand, it does feel like the game could have used more downtime at some points with people more external to all of the plot.

    closing ramblings 
The gameplay has a kinda weird thing going on where the first two jails are pretty fucking huge, then the third flies by before you can really process it's over, then the fourth and fifth are just outright short to the point you notice while playing, and then the sixth jails is like the size of the previous three stacked together, what the fuck. And then the two jails after that are back to being small again. What's up with that uneven distribution ?

I'm mixed on the OST too. You are stronger is an absolute killer of an opening, but aside from that, I feel like too much of the tracks try to go for MOAR POWEEEEEEEEEER, especially the remixes, and it loses all the feel that made the originals works – I found myself hating the remix of blooming villain where everything sounds kinda the same now compared to the very clear demarcation between the buildup and the drop. Rivers in the desert is another case of "tries to outdo the original but doesn't capture what made it work in the long run", and Counterstrike and Dardevil have this weird thing going on where I absolutely love the first minute of the track and then it feels like the track fucks off to hell and emerges back into a completely unrelated track I give less than zero fucks about.

It still managed to nail a couple of great tracks so it's not a complete wash, though.

This is certainly one of the most rehash games I've been given to play, as I really spend most of the game looking at stuff and being like "oh yeah, they did that already before", sometimes even with the characters commenting on that and the plot unfolding exactly like last time, which certainly takes some oomph out of it, but it's still a very good continuation to 5's story and I'm glad it got made. A good 8/10 for me and a must play for people who aren't allergic to muso gameplay and liked the original p5.

Welp, guess that leaves the postgame to do now. Wonder how long it'll take to see the end of it.

Edited by Yumil on Mar 15th 2021 at 9:51:43 AM

"when you stare too long into the abyss, Xehanort takes advantage of the distraction to break into your house and steal all your shit."
KarkatTheDalek Not as angry as the name would suggest. from Somwhere in Time/Space Since: Mar, 2012 Relationship Status: You're a beautiful woman, probably
Not as angry as the name would suggest.
#61098: Mar 17th 2021 at 2:02:58 PM

Okay, so I’m on Sunday, 9/18 now in Persona 4. I’ve just unlocked Naoto’s dungeon, and will head there once I’ve beaten the stripclub’s Bonus Boss and have grinder a bit in Void Quest. Here’s how my Social Links stack up (not counting ones that are automatic like Teddy).

Magician: 6

Priestess: 6

Empress: 5 (will probably do the next rank today, once I’ve gotten some more money for the Compendium)

Emperor: 5

Hierophant: 9

Lovers: 5

Chariot: 6

Justice: 9

Hermit: 7 (almost finished with the quest for rank 8)

Strength: 6

Hanged Man: 4

Death: 3

Temperance: 4

Devil: 5

Moon: 3

Sun: 6

Jester: 4

Aeon: 5

Still don’t have Tower yet - I only just got my Understanding to Rank 4.

How do you guys think I’m doing? Any tips?

Oh God! Natural light!
Zeldalover Since: Oct, 2020
#61099: Mar 18th 2021 at 8:27:50 AM

I mean I didnt really bother with Margaret or the fox so of course my stats around that part of the game are going to be very different. Also where are your courage and intelligence stats at. Theres a social link coming up that requires both to be maxed out

If you want the true ending I reccomend focusing on Aeon

Edited by Zeldalover on Mar 18th 2021 at 8:29:24 AM

Weirdguy149 Former King from Lumiose City Since: Jul, 2014 Relationship Status: I'd jump in front of a train for ya!
Former King
#61100: Mar 18th 2021 at 8:29:53 AM

Intelligence tends to come from answering the teachers’ questions correctly.

The legend has returned.

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