Feel free to discuss anything related to the ATLUS game series of Shin Megami Tensei or the Persona series (since they’re a branch of SMT) here. Catherine is also allowed for discussion, since it falls under the SMT category.
That said, who else is excited for the April 4th North American/European release of Persona 5?
I’m really excited for it! I’ve already preordered the Take your heart edition though it kinda sucks that I have to go away on a meeting for two days between the 4-5 of April so I have to wait until I come home to play it…
As for their other games I’ve played both Persona 3 FES and Persona 4 (PS2 version and Golden) and a bit of Catherine. I also have several other of both the Persona and the SMT series I just haven’t gotten around to playing them yet.
I would be hype for persona 5 but i kinda can’t play it 
console generations are bad, guise
I was at one point entertaining the idea of having an smt 3 playthrough with people joining in as each demon with some of my mates but never got round to it. Maybe I’ll get that sorted over Easter break.
They’re good. Royal stamp of approval. 10/10
My experience with SMT (both proper and the offshoots) is very thin to be honest, but I hear a lot of good things about the series. Sadly I’m a Nintendo child, so it’s a bit hard for me to actually play them even if I had any of the games. I did actually follow the story of Catherine through a Let’s Play though, and I quite liked that, both the concept of the story and the concept of the gameplay.
Is discussion of Tokio Mirage Sessions #FE okay here or is the SMT fandom more on the lines of “I don’t want to hear about that game!”? Because that one is the only one I actually played.
its very mixed.
though everyone agrees that the singing section at the very end was dumb and funny and awful, from what i’ve seen. go find it on youtube if you dont know what i mean
Oh I know what you’re talking about, I actually finished the game. (Spoilers for the singing section at the end)FIARU EMBLEM… I’d rather take the sung version from Super Smash Bros. Brawl, thank you very much. The only thing I haven’t done is beat the bonus boss, because, ehh. You know, what I’m most wondering is if TMS get’s @Rabla’s idol seal of approval.
I’m playing Persona 3 FES for the first time right now~ other than that, no experience in MegaTen.
I’m pretty familiar with the Persona series, barring the first two installments. I’ve played Persona 3 FES, 4 and the spinoff Persona Q - Shadow of the Labyrinth. I’ve watched videos of the plot sections of Arena, Ultimax and Dancing All Night.
The mainline Persona games I’ve played are among my top favourite games ever. I got into them when a friend of sorts spoke very highly of Persona 4 and heartily recommended I give it a shot. After we had gone our separate ways, I remembered his suggestion and gave the game a shot, and loved it. Somehow I was instantly absorbed into the atmosphere of the game and I powered through the game in like a week, playing it pretty much all the time since I had nothing else to take care of.
I played Persona 3 a year or two later, if I remember correct. I’m pretty happy I played Persona 4 first - even though I consider the games pretty much equal in quality, the pacing of Persona 3 can be outright horrible at times, whereas Persona 4 is far more consistently interesting. Perhaps Persona 3 was more engaging to me when interesting stuff was happening, but trudging through the many, many levels of Tartarus was a total chore compared to the mechanically similar but thematically much, much more interesting dungeons of Persona 4. The overall plot comes to a screeching halt at times in Persona 3 too, whereas 4 proceeds with a more stable pace. If I hadn’t played Persona 4 first, I’d probably have been much less patient with Persona 3 and enjoyed it much less.
I like how the atmosphere of the Persona games absorbs me so completely that it makes me appreciate music I’d normally dislike or be ambivalent towards. While there’s a lot of tracks in the games’ soundtracks that I’d appreciate on their own, there are a number of tracks that fit the atmosphere so well that even if they’re in styles I normally don’t care about, I start caring about them when I’m playing the games.
One curious thing about the spinoffs is that to me, it seems like they tell the better stories the less they actually try to tell stories. Q focuses mostly on dungeon crawling gameplay and Arena tells a smaller story that’s pretty much comparable to a single dungeon in Persona 4, whereas Ultimax and DAN try to tell a larger, more involved story… but do it so much worse than Q and Arena with their more modest stories. I really cared about Labrys, Zen and Rei by the end of Q and Arena. In Ultimax and DAN, even though much more time is devoted to their stories, the quality of writing felt pretty lackluster. I recall them going way overboard with unsubtle messages about the power of friendship and whatever that made them almost seem like parodies of the series than proper spinoffs, occasionally.
Anyhow, I’m really looking forwards to Persona 5. I’m hoping to some day clear my schedule of everything for about a week, borrow a PS3 from a friend of mine and enjoy some deep-immersion gaming with one of my favourite video game series.
I’ve played Persona 4 up to the true end as well as Persona 1 on PSP. Currently I am playing through Persona 3. “Currently” meaning this playthrough has been going on for three years, stopped half a year ago in December and finding it really hard to get the motivation to keep going. Question to you people who’ve played it: still worth it?
are you on easy?
if not, totally worth it. just don’t be afraid to look up a few boss strats for the tartarus bosses, namely the intrepid knight, the natural dancer, the sleeping table and the jotun of grief.
also, don’t excessively grind for the final boss else itll be too easy. take it on around lv 75-90, not 99
I am asking in terms of story. Is it worth the wait? As far as I can tell I’ve gone as far up as I can go and now have to wait until the plot happens. And no, not on easy.
At least to me, there were suitable emotional payoffs compared to the time I spent on the game, but I’m pretty forgiving of bad pacing, I suppose. And if you’re taking long breaks, it might be that the strong moments won’t be as strong anymore if some emotional investment has vanished if the big picture isn’t fresh in your mind anymore. Plus, getting annoyed by the slow pacing can also poison your enjoyment of the better parts when they finally come, so…
I’d say “don’t force it”. If it’s feeling like an annoying slog, you could drop it and do something else. You will be missing out on some good stuff, in my opinion, but there’s plenty of other good stuff in the world you could be enjoying instead. I guess that if you don’t have anything else in your backlog right now that you feel like you’d rather be doing, and you aren’t too annoyed by the poor pacing yet, you could continue giving it a chance… but there’s little point in forcing yourself to do it if you don’t really feel like it.
oh yeah, don’t play the answer, its k but not amazing story. tho plz finish the main game its great
I felt like there was some missed potential in The Answer, but overall it was a nice epilogue to the main story. I’d say it’s well worth it to watch the cutscenes from Youtube after finishing the main story, at least. I’ve never felt like gameplay is the strong point of the Persona series, so I don’t think one would miss anything valuable gameplay-wise by not actually playing The Answer, since it’s basically more of the same stuff you’ve probably already gotten tired of by the end of the main story. I personally grinded through the actual gameplay portions of The Answer by listening to audiobooks and barely focusing on the game itself at all outside some boss battles.
I suppose there’s some value in actually playing it instead of just watching videos in that some gameplay between cutscenes helps the story flow better, but the problem is there’s way too much repetitive gameplay between the story bits. Also if you play it yourself you can talk to characters between the sub-dungeons and see dialogue that might not be on any videos that just have the main cutscenes. Still, unless you actually really enjoy the gameplay, I’m not sure if I’d recommend it unless you have something to distract you from the endless grind.
I played Persona 4 Golden a while ago, and enjoyed it quite a bit. I’ll certainly play 5 when I can, and I have 3 loaded up to be played when I can find the time, should be a lot of fun.
I haven’t beaten it and probably won’t for a while now since I packed my Wii U away to make room for my Switch in my setup.
But yes, it does have my seal of approval. Kiria is Best Girl. Reincarnation is super good but my favourite track is Tiki’s Beastie Game. Eleonora is shit.
oh and the game is fun too.
It’s always the archers, isn’t it?
But yeah Persona 5 is fun, I don’t know if I’ll pick up the EN version on launch day but I really need to sit down and play through that again. I wasn’t that far into my NG+ so maybe I’ll just jump over to EN instead of continuing that.
Let’s all talk about how SmT4 Apocalypse/FINAL has a difficult and rewarding final boss battle against **** in both the good and bad endings
Someone teach me how to spoiler tag, though tbh you know what I’m talking about if you’ve played the game so I’m sure it’s not 100% necessary
U fukin wot m8?
I don’t think I’ve had a more rewarding victory over a boss in any game outside SMT and Persona themselves than in those games. Seriously, it’s just so fucking good that feeling when you trash the crazy hard bosses.
Also you probs made the mistake I made on my first run and never used marakukaja, that shit saves your ass in big boss fights in Persona
In mainline though without Defence buffs and attack debuffs applied bosses will be one shotting you basically every turn. Go try that if you think Persona 3 had tough and sometimes unfair bosses.
Though seriously, there were a few unfair moments in Persona 3, namely forcing you to take an electric weak team member against the electric boss, forcing you to take in your high heal on only 1 target user against the charm boss, Elizabeth Theodore and Margaret not telling you their Battle conditions and most of all the Natural Dancer with it’s reflect phys spam, charm spam and wind magic spam. That battle is easier to do solo, lest your AI team members ruin everything by getting charmed
/bipolar.rant