Persona/Shin Megami Tensei Series Discussion

Off-Topic
#8

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.

#9

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?

#10

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

#11

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.

#12

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.

#13

oh yeah, don’t play the answer, its k but not amazing story. tho plz finish the main game its great

#14

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.

#15

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.

#16

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.

#17

It’s always the archers, isn’t it?

#18

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.

#19

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

#20

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

#21

Happy to oblige, King:

Step 1:

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Click this little cog here.

Step 2:

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Click on "Blur Spoiler".

Done.

Alternatively, just type [spoiler]Enter your spoiler here.[/spoiler]

This would show up as Enter your spoiler here.

#22

I’ve never played the mainline SMT games, so I can’t say anything about those, but when it comes to Persona, I feel like the combat system just isn’t deep enough to last through an 80 hour JRPG without getting somewhat dull. It is adequate in that battles never started feeling agonizingly tedious, but grinding for the bossfights or just clearing the latter levels of Tartarus still felt like a chore.

The bosses are difficult, sure, and beating them can be satisfying, but I guess I’ve never felt that amazing about beating bosses in turn based RPGs. Perhaps it just isn’t my thing. When playing RPGs, I’m almost always far more interested in the story and the characters than the battle system. The gameplay between story sections definitely serves a purpose, but it isn’t the main draw for me. And if there’s too much of it and the battle system isn’t deep enough, it will eventually start feeling like more of an annoyance, at least outside boss battles. And usually, the amount of time spent fighting random battles is far greater than the amount of time spent fighting bosses.

#23

Oh yeah the encounter rate in Persona is pretty high, though I got good at getting away from shadows pretty fast and despite taking up axes and hammers after they became available (which are the hardest weapons to get preemptive strikes with) I still became pretty good at it quite quickly.

Though tbh towards the end of the game I found myself buffing Thor in the arcade to crazy levels and not doing any social links because I’d done all the evening ones and I had maxed my social stats. Really wish there was more to do in the evenings other than mindlessly push Strength, Speed and Luck to 99 on all your personal, that did feel shallow

If you wanted something interesting to do, try making certain specialty personas (or in mainline, demons obviously) such as Surt with full Ragnarok, Fire Boost, Fire Amp, getting a Michael with a 98% critical rate Heaven’s Blade after using Rebellion and Revolution, or my personal favourite, making a Beelzebub thst was invincible to all except almighty. Yes, that IS possible - he needs nulls or better on strike, Slash, Fire, ice and Light and you’re done which is only 5 skill slots leaving open 3 more for anything else. I think I got mine with something trashy like Maragion, Megidola and Samarecarm, which meant I had an invincible revive bot.
And despite all that, the game can still sometimes wreck me with random encounters and it feels fair when it does (excluding the times I listed above).

Not sure if that’s your cuppa tea but it’s definitely admirable that ATLUS made a game that resistant to being cheesed

#24

You can either play Strange Journey on the DS or SMT4 on the 3DS, they’re both pretty amazing.

Edit:

I love Persona. What I’ve played from the mainline is amazing in terms of combat but not the story, though. P4G is my favorite game of all time (if we don’t count VNs, in which case The House In Fata Morgana ties for the first place with it).

Really hyped for P5 but I don’t have a PS3 or PS4 so ;_;

#25

Should make sure you’re aware the EN version of Persona 5 is only on PS4. PS3 version isn’t localized.

Just in case you consider an impulse purchase or somethin, haha.

#26

I thought they were releasing P5 on the PS3, but you couldn’t get the cool collector’s edition of it unless it was the PS4 version (ie the Morgana plush, the OST, the bag, the collector’s box, and so forth)? Between Disgaea 5 on the Switch and P5 on the PS4, I will be one very broke gamer. :'D

My first ventures into the series was with roleplaying with two characters from Persona 4, and since I had a PSP, I picked up P3P, not knowing how to properly manage my Slinks, so as FeMC, I only had Junpei’s, Koromaru’s, Fuuka’s, the little girl’s, the old couple’s, the Sun boy’s, the one council person’s, the library girl’s, Ryoji’s, and Rio’s. (These don’t really count as spoilers since you can easily find them anywhere, and I’m not stating what happened in them). Oh, if I’d only known you could have started Yukari’s the day you could freely choose… I think it’s a pretty fun game but the countless times when my whole PARTY is Charmed and hitting each other/healing the enemies and when I’ve beat a huge boss but get slaughtered by a little mook getting lucky with a Hama/Mudo with no Homunculus, it’s enough to make you regret life decisions, and the only other game that’s done that to me is Love Live with its rage-inducing gameplay. (And Nintendo games like Mario and Yoshi.)

It took me a while, but I got P4 Golden and I definitely liked the changes to battle and especially Slinks, so that you aren’t forced to date girls and cheat on them just to have your Slinks maxed like MaMC in P3, and you can spend time with people at night so you don’t waste a perfectly good day getting that dreaded “You feel your relationship will grow soon…” The only dungeons that really tested my patience there were Heaven (mostly because it was like getting Charmed all over again) and the bonus dungeon where I couldn’t make my characters dress up in fun costumes. And I feel that the thing for the True end wasn’t so well-written, just tacked on to try to wrap up the parallels and to bring home the “True Incarnation of the Goddess” that’s in the name of the series, but that’s me. Me, I very much liked most of the characters you get to know (save for Chie and Yosuke), which was part of what makes P4 so great to me. Also the whole ability to go “Screw everybody, I’m petting a cat all day and night after school.”

Me, I personally like fighting games even if they don’t like me, so the gameplay for Arena and Ultimax was really good (and I cried so hard in Labrys’ story). The story for Ultimax, I think everybody who’s played it can agree was absolutely weak, and the DLC stories were better (though it’s easy to be better than a bad story). It’s a result of trying to put three full games out in one year, and it’s a shame, especially since the engine for the gameplay was so much better than Arena and you had about three times as many characters as the original Arena in it (fun fact though: The Arena games run on a BlazBlue engine, while Golden Fantasia runs on a Melty Blood engine). At least the Ultimax manga seems to be set on fixing the story. (Another fun fact: Labrys and I have the same birthday, which you can see which character you’ll be fighting next! Yu ain’t got a birthday, whoops.)

I’ve followed playthroughs of Q and own Q myself, but I haven’t played it since the first day I got it since a monster killed Koromaru and I started crying, since in P3P, he was one of my strongest party members who never got statuses besides anger and never died (and because I love dogs).I also followed a playthrough of DAN and own the game, but since the interface for the rhythm part looks confusing, I haven’t played it. Miku is still best Anti-Shadow Suppression Weapon, though!

And the only non-Persona SMT game I’ve played is Catherine, and I honestly don’t know how I came to suck at block puzzles so badly. I came for the story and the perfect character that is Catherine, and even own the OST for the series, but I can’t even finish the game.

#27

A mega-ten thread? Yay!

Like many modern MegaTen fans I discovered Atlus through the existence of Persona 3. I saw a friend playing it at a time when I basically had not played video games in a year or more and I was instantly hyped.
I didn’t play anything until Persona 4, which is now one of my all time favorite games. I have beaten it 4 or 5 times now three times on the PS2 and 2 times on Vita.

For this community if someone was looking for a MegaTen game to play after Persona I would suggest Devil Survivor. It is an SRPG that has a lot of really good moral dilemmas in it that effect the story in fairly significant ways. The premise is that you are stuck in small section of Tokyo with demons appearing. Japan has stationed military guards around the perimiter and no one is allowed to leave - you have to survive until the guard is lifted or otherwise get home. Part of the play is done with a time management system that is used to create a real sense of weight to who you chose to help at any given moment. The strategy aspects aren’t amazing - kind of a basic grid set up with minimal tactical options, but the game play as it is is solid enough to be interesting and challenging at times.

There is a Devil Survivor 2 as well - it got an anime and stuff and sold better - but I personally like 1 better. The scale was smaller so in that way the stakes hit home emotionally a lot stronger for me.

From MegaTen also played Persona 3 Portable, Persona 1 for PSP, Persona Innocent Sin Devil Summoner 2, Strange Journey (particularly good), IV, Persona Q (LOVE IT), P4 Dancing all night, and both P4 Arena games.