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Post by enomus on Apr 14, 2017 3:05:54 GMT 1
These are just short notes and thoughts on the game, not a playthrough
13/04/17 1
Bought the game today. Dealing with PSN to download it was very unpleasant. I connected my game to the internet. Hopefully this doesn't ruin the game.
As usual for the series, the intro video makes 0 sense. Though I like the way it uses colors. Characters in the main menu are using masks. I expect this to be a thing throughout the game. Also, it has an actual clock, which is a nice touch.
New game.
Same narrator as Catherine if I'm not mistaken. Interesting that it lets you not agree and then it doesn't let you start the game.
Why the fuck did a casino transform into a shadow? This game is doing some very in medias res thing which is very different from previous games. You already start with your persona, your friends/party members, and doing stuff instead of doing nothing for the first 2 hours of P4. Presumably the drug they gave him is the same persona blocking stuff from P3 or the detectives would be dead. I assume the MC is very powerful, because he was tanking Agidynes like they're nothing in the tutorial fight and because they needed 500 swat guys to arrest him.
Every time there's a cutscene the PS4 shows a big "recording paused because we're japanese" sign which blocks a lot of the screen.
Butterfly + aria of the soul = back to form? The music so far wasn't so impressive.
Ok so they're trying to do some meta thing with the intro + the "mysterious voice" (probably Igor's assistant) talking about "game" and winning/losing. Anyway looks like we're back to the start of the game now and I spent over 30 minutes in what should've been a 10 minute introduction.
I must say this is an effective way of starting the game.
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Post by enomus on Apr 14, 2017 5:25:18 GMT 1
Part 2
Turned off network in hopes the annoying message will disappear.
I love how contemporary this game feels. P3 was set in a big city, but that game was released a very long time ago (and wasn't that big). 4 was in a small countryside city. This game is set in a big metropolis, and it makes sure to show that in the first scene. Theres also a bunch of using smartphones, which Im guess I will have a better opportunity to talk about later.
I find it funny that after getting out of the train, the game gives me these goals: 1. head to my new lodging 2. get out of the subway station
Random NPC in the street talks about the economy going down and the population aging.
So in Japan if you get a criminal record as a teenager you're sent to live with some random guy in another city? MC in prinoner clothes looks a lot like the kid from P3, only older. Why does Igor's voice change every game?
So the Velvet Room's state reflects the state of the person's heart. Why was Minato's heart an elevator and Yu's heart a limo?
Cute teacher. The theme of fate is showing up a lot.
First day of school. Turns out the metropolis is Tokyo like I suspected from the intro scene. The train station actually looks like a real station. I wouldve gotten there super late considering how long I took to find the ginza line. Why are we still doing silent protagonist in 2017? MC has no personality.
The mask appears when MC gets the persona, then he tries to remove it but he starts bleeding/screaming in pain from the process. PS4 still shows me things like "can't take screenshots now" what a dick.
Glad this game has upped the realism in the "teenagers being terrible" end.
Even in the little goals thing at the top of the screen the fate theme is reinforced. The use of phrases like [Live a honest student life] and [Obediently return home] all strike an authoritative tone.
Saved game at the rooftop
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Post by enomus on Apr 15, 2017 20:41:19 GMT 1
15/04
Game didn't save my settings for some reason. I gotta say I really don't like this music that's playing in the school. It's not bad, but it just doesn't compare to the stuff we had in P3 and P4 for "everyday themes".
These loli characters are really annoying. Can I get Elizabeth back please? Why does Igor's voice change every game?
After the Velvet room scene my PS4 switched to a screen that said
"Downloading application data... 11/20 GB (3 hours left)"
I guess that's it for today
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Post by enomus on Apr 16, 2017 23:57:40 GMT 1
16/04
First proper day of school.
In P4 you enter the shadow world through TVs, and here it's through a phone app. Keeping things modern imo
Ryuji is really dumb omg. Cat character is cool though, actually knows whats going on and doesn't have an annoying voice like another animal themed character I can point at.
Ok seriously, "Captain Kidd"? And he's a pirate with a skull for a head?
It's very weird that the scene with ann didn't start a social link.
Small spoilers below I guess.
The Ann getting her persona thing really bothered me. The whole scene leading to it had really not great writing, the dialogue felt uninspiring and unsurprising. She took the whole using persona to fight thing to naturally even though she never saw it before. How did she even know to take off the mask? Why does her battle outfit feature latex, heels boots and show her boobs? And her weapon's a whip? And she sticks her ass out when it's her turn?
Going back to the interrogation all the time is really annoying.
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Post by enomus on Apr 18, 2017 3:46:36 GMT 1
17/04
These kids are gonna get expelled from school soon, how can they have time to fuck around with preparations? Doctor has great legs imo
Ok so about to get expelled = 2 weeks from now.
Anyway I did the rest of the linear part, got the Death social link and saved.
The linear part of this game was way better than P3 or P4
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Post by enomus on Apr 19, 2017 14:36:22 GMT 1
18/04
Did a lot of dungeoning. The stealth system was a good idea imo. It puts a lot of order to what felt like a "random" system, because now you have reliable methods for getting the jump on shadows or to avoid fighting. Just wish hiding had better controls. The dungeon is very long, but when you have 3 characters with Dia right out the gate you can honestly keep going forever. The only sad part is those 3 can only use physical attacks.
I am VERY annoyed that you need to spend one entire day to go to the dungeon, then another morning just to send a calling card, then another entire day just to kill a single boss.
Nitpicks: Why is Succubus Moon arcana? Why do characters say they're getting tired when you ask how they are in the dungeon? This one really triggered me.
After that I did normal gameplay for a while. Advancing Takemi and Ryuji slinks, though I spent a lot of time just upping my social stats. Feels like Im not using my time as effectively as I could. I really love the music that plays in Shibuya.
Also, who the fuck rents DVDs in 2017?
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Post by enomus on Apr 19, 2017 17:39:51 GMT 1
19/04 Part 1
A lot of time to play P5 today.
The Backstreets music to changed to have vocals now? It sounds very nice. Actually seems like that song's for the entire city at night.
I went studying with Ann, which probably wouldve raised my slink points, except I still haven't started her slink. I played all the way until the midterms were done, tomorrow we're going to the art thing. If I had started her slink, shouldn't this whole thing have happened differently?
The topic of the first slink event seemed to be that she thought she was being stalked, and now we know what's going on with that.
Lunch and then gonna play more
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Post by enomus on Apr 20, 2017 2:18:17 GMT 1
19/04 Part 2
Why have I suddenly lost all freedom? The game has been on rails ever since the midterms. Even before them, the week between that and the confession has had most days taken by story events.
I went to the next dungeon as soon as the linear part ended, so it felt like it was even longer. This dungeon took not just one full day, but TWO full days. And Im still gonna spend another day going there again, another half day for a half card, and another full day to kill a boss
Also, it was very obvious Yusuke was gonna get a Persona the moment your party only had 3 members. I like that this character uses more refined language than anyone else his age.
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Post by enomus on Apr 20, 2017 9:39:05 GMT 1
I havent been as detailed in these last entries as I would like to. Turns out writing these takes away time I could use to play the game.
Im kinda worried for this game. Im worried that they decided that the "social sim" aspect of the game should take a backseat to fixed story content. I mean Im fine with removing a few days from my calendar every once in a while, every game in the series does this, but this one is doing it a bit too much.
And then theres the fact that going to the dungeon takes a full day, and you need to do it twice per cycle, plus half a day to send a calling card. And you also need to go in there a few more times to do sidequests, which I thibk Im only gonna do when I have like 5 of them.
I feel like Im falling behind on my social links. I spent a lot of time upping my social stats in probably not the most efficient ways, and yet there still slinks I cant progress in for noy having enough social stats. This is partly an effect of the game being new and so the info online isn't as good as what you woulf find for the older games. I hope I can not suck too much at this because I really dont want to have to do a new game+.
I need more guts to start the gun guy slink and proficiency to get the beef bowl job to get the politician slink. My Ann slink is coming very late because it took me so long to get lvl2 kindness, but at least now I can spam that.
Sometime soon-ish Im gonna need lvl4 charm to advance in the death social link, and btw she might be my waifu for this game
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Post by enomus on Apr 21, 2017 2:21:38 GMT 1
20/04
Dungeon, then calling card then I killed the boss.
Im starting Ann's social link now. I wonder if it's different because I started it after the whole Madarame thing. Im kinda shipping her with Yusuku tbh although there's a 50% chance Yusuke is gay.
After that I did a bunch of social stuff. Here are some problems I have with this game:
As a BR, some things in this game are to relate to. The politician character's 3 bad things when he was in the congress-equivalent are 1) missing a work day to take a personal vacation 2) losing a small amount of money 3) telling someone they're in idiot. And they he never won any elections again for 20 years. In BR those 3 things would add up to basically nothing.
Ryuji's priorities are wrong. He is more concerned with the phantom thieves gaining fame and prestige than anything else, certainly more than actually helping people.
Probably my biggest problem with this game: by saying that some people's desires are distorted, when everyone has desires, is to say that others have desires that are not; tat are "normal". Distorted desires are obviously coded evil. And with palaces and metaverse "pockets" existing, there is a surefire fail-safe test for whether or not someone has distorted desires. In other words, this game's philosophical position is that morality has objective answers, that there is zero subjectivity to whether or not something or someone is right or wrong. Given my personal philosophy, I intensely disagree with this.
In Persona 4, you had to face your shadow yourself. No one else could do it for you. Sure they might help with defeating the shadow's "monster form", but in the end you had to accept it yourself. That was a personal process. That is what "I'll face myself" means. A shadow was a manifestation of the aspects of who you are which you were in denial of (not necessarily good or evil, right or wrong). Facing it meant coming to terms with them, which means growing as a person. In this game, a shadow is a glorified evil super villain version of someone, right down to the "gloat about all my evil deeds while I evil laugh at you" scene with Medarame. Then someone goes in, beats the crap out of your shadow and then it has a moment of consciousness, not because it regrets or comes to terms with anything, but because it doesn't want to die. Then it goes back to the original person, who had no involvement in anything up to this point, and they face their shadow. It is forced upon them. This is not a person growing, it is more similar to a person being brainwashed into suddenly there is a completely different person in that body.
After that there's the school trip, which I guess is the start of the next very long linear period before the next target. The guy in the first day has red eyes, so I guess he must be related to Makoto and the Investigator woman. Also, Ryuji is really stupid.
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Post by enomus on Apr 22, 2017 18:08:02 GMT 1
I played a lot yesterday (21/04) but my power ran out and I lost everything I'd written. So here's a condensed version.
I played up until almost the end of the 3rd villain's cycle. Im going to state where Im up to at the beginning of every post to make avoiding spoilers more easily.
Everything the detective guy said on TV was correct.
I like how Makoto straight up tells you your g isn't high enough to hang out with her. Reminds me of a certain SAT meme. She's OP in combat because she joined like 3 levels above my party.
Did the dungeon, card and boss before doing any of the social stuff. Social stats are still being annoying to me, I wonder if there's something I missed in being effective with them. I got Ann's slink to rank 9. Up until 8 her slink was lame, all you do is tag along with her for frivolous girl stuff. However the 9th event was quite impactful. Very good event. I chose the romance option even though he's totally not waifu material. Honestly, I have a hard time believing she would fall in love with MC, but that's how romance in games operates.
Advanced a variety of slinks: lovers, emperor, priestess, devil, sun, temperance. Finally got to advance the Ryuji slink after he took months to figure out where this guy drinks. I think the voice acting on Ohya (journalist girl) is amazing. That is exactly how I think that person would sound.
Im now getting "you can't take screenshots now" notifications seemingly at random.
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Post by enomus on Apr 23, 2017 16:27:35 GMT 1
Really wish this site saved what you wrote like old FS did. I forgot to post before turning my computer off yesterday.
Here's a run down:
Completed the Temperance slink. This lets me not waste my evening when going to dungeons, though I still cant use my evenings when the story doesnt want me to. I went for the romance option even though I see no romance there.
Did the linear bits then walked into the next dungeon. Played about halfway through it.
Here's an easter egg: one of the books in Futaba's room has what looks like the Aperture Science logo on the cover. Though could easily be just a coincidence.
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Post by enomus on Apr 24, 2017 3:32:21 GMT 1
23/04
Finished the dungeon, did the boss, then a bit of social links. Not that much playtime today.
I'm really confused by the ethnicity of Futaba's mom. I expected them to go something like she has two personalities in her, one is Futaba and one is Alibaba. That's why you can only speak to one of them, and she asks to steal the heart of the other.
This game is more similar to P3 than to P4 in a lot of ways, namely in the structure and the balance of main story content and side story content.
Im about to enter another phase of social stats being a problem.
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Post by enomus on Apr 24, 2017 12:53:20 GMT 1
Further thoughts on Futaba's dungeon:
Ok so people with palaces are not all evil. But regardless, there is a set of behaviors/values/desires which the game considers normal. People are objectively normal or not normal, and you can tell if someones not normal because they have a palace. I still don't like that idea, but at least thats way better than objective good/evil. Still, so far the only palaces we've seen are from evil people or people suffering from mental illness.
Here's a question: if she faced her shadow, opened her eyes to the truth and got her persona, isn't what we wanted to achieve done? Do we really need to kill the boss and steal the treasure? I guess defeating the boss does still have symbolic value.
A pyramid is a great choice to set the palace in. We've been to a museum, a bank and an ancient pyramid, all of which fit very well with the thief thing. But it also fits with Futaba, not just because it is a place you put dead people in. There are many places which would've fit the tomb criteria. Egyptian religion has a very strong belief in afterlife. Some part of her surely saw her death as a means to be reunited with her mom.
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Post by enomus on Apr 26, 2017 4:48:03 GMT 1
24/04 and 25/04
Didn't play that much. Just did more social link stuff and played until the start of the next fixed story events bit.
I actually spent a decent amount of time upping my social stats. There arent that many slinks I can progress in right now, especially in the daytime period. I already completed Ann and Ryuji, and needed charm for Makoto and Takemi and Proficiency for Yusuke. I also will need kindness soon so I upped that as well. I wonder if this is normal for this period of the game.
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Post by enomus on Apr 27, 2017 22:32:13 GMT 1
Japanese high schools take kids to Hawaii for school trips?
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Post by enomus on Apr 28, 2017 6:15:16 GMT 1
27/04
Updating for a few days all it once because there wasnt much stuff.
Completed the Death, Sun and Devil social links. Went into mementos to unlock the Fortune and Tower slinks. I shouldve unlocked Fortune way earlier, maybe then I wouldn't be struggling with social stats so much.
Still can't start the Futaba slink. After that there was the school trip.
Why does everyone in Hawaii speak Japanese, even the people who are obviously not Japanese?
In the Ann chat I picked the funny option: I told her I like smart girls, to make fun of her low g.
Then I spent the day with Makoto. The waifu tier list so far is something like this:
Takemi>>Makoto>>>>>Mid tiers>>>>>Ohya>>>Ann
So of the options I had, she was clearly the max EV one.
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Post by enomus on May 2, 2017 12:46:00 GMT 1
Didnt play that much recently because of Kiev major. Heres an update.
Did the okumura dungeon. After feeling like the boss in Futaba's was tol easy I upped the difficulty to hard, plus the game thinks Im underleveled. The boss here was hard, I beat it by fusing personas with all the skills I needed and messing with equipments a bit, and by making better decisions in battle. The first part of the fight is really annoying, eventually I had a script to beat it but it still adds 10 minutes to the fight every time. The second part was annoying too but manageable once I realized what I had to do survive the special attack. I hate that for a lot of people, the natural answer to hardships in a game like this is to grind levels until the problem goes away.
I really like Haru's outfit.
I only just learned that you can level up your social stats without spending time by drinking juice on sundays. Why did no one tell me? More importantly: how come of all the sources I looked into, only the 5th even mentioned this? This is not the only instance where the info I found online for this game was bad or just strictly incorrect.
Did a bit more "normal gameplay" after that. For some reason doing the dungeons always lines up better right at the start of these open periods.
I think I might actually be able to complete all the social links (other than hanged man which Im completely ignoring) depending on how much more time there still is in the game. Heres what I still have to do
Almost complete slinks: Emperor, Priestess, Star
Less than halfway through: Hermit, Hierophant, Tower, Fortune
Havent even started yet: Empress
I also need to reach 5 in kindness (though I think Im close) and proficiency (probably not close) and pay one last visit to mementos for all the requests Ill get.
That being said I dont think I actually have that much more time so idk. Im about at the start of october, the current deadline is about to end to theres an incoming story part.
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Post by enomus on May 4, 2017 4:49:35 GMT 1
03/05
Shouldn't that scene where you help Haru with her flowers be the start of that slink? She even talked about making a deal.
Lol at them going to "Destinyland". Haru is kinda like the batsman in that she has the superpower of infinite money.
Lots of story events today. I won't talk about each of them individually, that being said this post should be considered spoilers.
Here's something that really bothers me about this game: the heavy amount of foreshadowing it does. It's almost impossible to be surprised by any of the turns in the story because they just keep foreshadowing everything. I saw the thing where they get framed and their popularity drops coming from a mile away, as did everyone I suppose. It's nice at the beginning, because it saves the game from having the slow start of nothing happening that plagues other games. With the interrogation scenes you assure the impatient player that stuff is going to happen, which is good. But moving forward, these scenes keep happening, and then there's the scenes with the SIU director guy. There are just so many scenes. Then there's that bald guy, which we've known is evil since forever now, ever since that elevator scene where MC remembers his face. Except MC still doesn't know who the guy is. There's probably going to be a third villain that will show up out of nowhere too.
The scene with Futaba and Sojiro was really good. She really is the MVP of the game. Great voice acting as well. Here's a thought I had, that those two are very similar to Nanako and Dojima. Is this just a coincidence, or has Atlus identified this as a +EV formula? Tough on the outside but kind middle-aged man + a girl child + family tragedy + girl gets very affected by it psychologically + man has trouble dealing with it/her. There has even been a dungeon for each. Even the nature of the family tragedy is similar.
For the school festival I chose to spend my time with Makoto, who was once again the max EV choice available. I had reached her rank 9 slink just before the story parts started, where I picked the romance option. She is good waifu material imo unlike Ann. Anyway that scene was very cute, I wonder if it was different though because of the romance. Probably not I guess.
Akechi is 6 levels above my party imo.
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Post by enomus on May 7, 2017 5:14:31 GMT 1
This is spoiler land territory
Haru's laugh is so cute.
I expected the game would use Futaba calling Sojiro "dad" as a turning point in their relationship + deliver emotional impact to the player. It happened, but not really in the way I expected. She was under pressure because of the cops, it's almost like it was forced. It did still affect Sojiro a lot though so it's cool. The last slink event at the church I did not expect, but it felt just so right. Only thing I dont get is why it had to be a church, and not like a shinto shrine or something (Im not 100% sure on what they typically do with dead people in Japan). Perhaps this is to make the western audience relate more to the game?
Having to take two days for this dungeon is complete BS. It made sense for Madarame and Futaba to have a barrier in the palace you need to do something irl to get rid of. Not here. I mean, a courtroom? Those are literally open to the public. Anyone can just walk in at any time if they want. Makes no sense for her cognition to block it off. Other than that her dungeon's pretty cool, probably the best one so far. And the music is amazing.
Its funny that there are mini-bosses in this game that are easier if you use only MC instead of 4 characters. Now that I have rank 10 Moon, I dont even miss out on xp when I do that.
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Post by enomus on May 8, 2017 5:19:40 GMT 1
7/5
Who in the fuck thought putting Lucifer in the Star arcana was a good idea? Chihaya's voice is really annoying.
In Hiero rank 10 Futaba goes back to calling Sojiro by name, but she calls him dad when he's not around. I decided not to romance Futaba surprisingly, I guess because I'm not into children. But I'd like to see them having a brother/sister relationship, not a sex fucking relationship. (Not mutually exclusive in Japan but you get the point).
Full spoilers.
Im back to the start of the game. The turns in this part of the story actually surprised me, probably because they weren't foreshadowed 10 times. But this day was a giant ass cutscene, they put two savepoints in the middle and it still didn't feel like enough.
This whole briefcase thing annoyed me so much. If MC was gonna be the decoy, why did Ryuji give him the treasure? Getting the treasure out should be the priority and MC was the least likely to make it. Then he's carrying the briefcase around, they even talk about getting it back when they meet up. Then in the next scene you're no longer carrying any briefcase. What? It matters less with the reveal that it was fake later but still.
Anyway how does captured in palace = captured irl? They explained it later but it really confused me at first. Honestly though bringing in the police to the metaverse still feels weird to me, I mean they could see the casino right? How are you gonna explain to all those 500 cops what the hell was going on there?
Ok so I thought the game started in media res and then you went back in time. But actually everything up to this point has been a memory, kinda like Final Fantasy X (only less stupid because you're not retelling the story to the people who just experienced it first hand). They also do the same thing they did in Persona 3 and 4, where at a crucial point in the story someone asks you a question and if you answer wrong you get a shit ending. So you gotta take 10 seconds of google if you want to get the actual good ending.
So Akechi being evil really got me by surprise. I did catch the thing of him understanding Morgana's voice back then, but I just interpreted it as "oh I guess he's gonna get a persona sometime". I really like how Sae became the protagonist for a short while. I find it hard to believe that drug would leave MC's memory completely intact, except for the parts specifically related to the plot twist they wanted to do. You could say maybe there were other parts of the memory compromised, but I'm 100% sure "unreliable narrator MC" is not going to get explored any further.
The animated scene where your teammates hear the news was really badly handled by the localization. I have subtitles turned on for these scenes obviously, and they showed up when the characters talked, but no subtitles for the news on TV. And since my audio was in Japanese, I could not follow what they were saying. I mean it's obvious what they are talking about and the specifics don't matter here, but still, would it have hurt to put some subtitles on?
The scene where they explain everything was a bit too much. The plan was smart, really show how high Makoto's g is. And Futaba's. However the scene was so long and it just felt like a giant information dump, at the same time I don't see a way of not having that. The characters really doubled down on the important points, so perhaps the thing could've been made shorter, but given the complexity of the thing the writers preferred to make sure everyone could follow what happened.
The final scene between Shido and Akechi was interesting. I was fully expecting Shido to (try to) kill him since he knew too much and he didn't need him anymore, though even if he planned that doing it on the spot would be a bad idea (hard to seem innocent when someone gets shot in your office). Still Im expecting one of them to turn on the other, unless our party deals with both before that happens. Akechi saying he helped him because he believed in his ideals, then that he didnt want anything in particular from him and was gonna go back to his studies but he had plans for the future? Come on.
Also, Satan in Judgement arcana?
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Post by enomus on May 8, 2017 12:39:49 GMT 1
Oh and I forgot to mention a couple of things
Igor talked again about how it's a game. Im 100% sure at this point they're not going to do anything meta, so what is the point of this?
The game keeps telling you (especially caroline and justine) that you need to keep your allies (slinks) in mind and they will help you overcome the evil and stuff. Are they spoiling they spoiling the end of the game?
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Post by enomus on May 11, 2017 5:16:25 GMT 1
10/05
This post is actually for the past 2 or 3 days. Spoilers
Did the remaining slinks. Im romancing Chihaya as well, but god is her voice annoying. Looks like Ill finish the game with all social links max, except for Hanged Man. I was going to completely ignore Hanged but I ended up getting the necessary guts rank midway through November, so now I'm doing it. But I doubt I'll complete it in time. I did most of the Strength slink in one go, that thing costs so much money.
Another reason I didn't romance Futaba I forgot to mention, is that my mind associated her with Nanako who is 4 years old. If she wasn't child enough before, she definitely is with that association.
After that I went into the dungeon. Haru is clearly a coffe person, so why does her all out attack animation has her drinking tea? Of course it doesn't show what drink it is, but the table/chair setup, the cup and the flowers in the background all indicate tea. I enjoyed this dungeon's statues "puzzles", and the shadows patterns were such that I could avoid having to fight them entirely quite easily. Though the statue rooms were good, they also felt unnecessary. There is no logic connecting these rooms with the rest of the stuff that's in the Palace, they just feel like they were put there to pad things out.
Overall this was a good dungeon, but there is one big problem with it. The safe room distribution is really bad. From the first safe room, you go into the purple hall, do a bunch of stuff to get your membership card, then go into a restaurant, fight a miniboss, then go through a big statue room before your next safe room. There should've been a safe room in the restaurant, especially considering there's a miniboss there.
But the biggest fault this dungeon has is the sequence at the end. From one safe room, you go into a miniboss fight, into another miniboss fight, which looks like it's the last thing of the palace. He's the last letter you gotta collect and people start talking about the calling card. And then you walk a bit, and suddenly another boss fight!
This is bad design because 1) No chance to save the game in between all these fights 2) The total accumulated no save time gets way too big here 3) Player is lead to believe he doesn't need to heal up, and then walk into the boss fight with an almost dead party (happened to me)
Anyway the fight itself and the story were very good. I really like the bond between MC and Akechi, given how comparatively little time these two had it is surprisingly well developed. After this he is probably my favorite or second favorite character in this game.
The fight was cool, unfortunately I feel it was a bit too easy. It was about the same difficulty, perhaps even easier than some of the minibosses in this palace. And I used all my guns bullets on the minibosses.
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Post by enomus on May 13, 2017 14:31:40 GMT 1
12/05
Two more thoughts about the thing with Akechi: If you die in the metaverse, no one's ever going to find your body right? When it was revealed that he was evil, my mind went to the Justice social link. If he was evil all along, then in all of his interactions with MC he was being deceitful, so his thing with MC was all but a lie, a fake friendship. And it feels weird to have relationships based on lies as a slink in a Persona game, especially when the game emphasizes so much that nurturing friendships is important and it leads to personal growth etc. However in the later scene, it became clear that although he was hiding his intentions, there was still a bit of "truth" to those interactions.
I sent the calling card. This time the whole thing takes 1 day instead of 2, which I am thankful for. The whole calling card scene(s) confused me a bit though. The party acted all surprised at Futaba's idea, but they had to have shot that video sometime right? Thats not something that just gets done instantly. The video opens with a cat logo that spins sometimes and stays on the screen for a really long time. This bothered me because 1) The cat logo looks stupid 2) That's bad branding. You really want to have only one logo.
Also why did they show themselves in the video? It just makes the job of the police and other enemies much easier, by showing everyone exactly how many there are, and even the gender of most. And why did they have to be in costume? Really the video should've just been a disembodied voice, and maybe show MC (in mask) so Shido knows he didn't die after all.
The music for the first fight was very boring thankfully it got a lot better in the second. I can't help but feel underwhelmed by the visual of Shadow Shido, he just turns into a really muscly dude and then gets some color later when you anger him. Kinda looks like The Thing, except not intimidating. This boss was probably the hardest in the game so far, very enjoyable battle. I really like the flow of the combat that I'm doing with my party.
The thing with Ryuji was kinda silly because it was obvious he wasn't gonna die. But they still made it enjoyable somewhat.
This last month is really boring. Im already done with all the slinks so there's basically nothing left to do. Just wait for Hanged Man to be up to business again and do jack in the meanwhile. Also they changed the town theme for mornings which was really good. Changing the music for the last month is something that P3 and P4 also did, but in those games 1) It made sense with the plot 2) It made sense thematically 3) The music change was really good
While P5 achieves 1), it fails at 2) and especially on 3). This song is just not good, especially not for this context. Also why do I need to keep pretending I'm dead even after defeating Shadow Shido?
I went into Mementos for one single request, but this one said it was S+ difficulty. The boss is coded to only attack when it has ATK+, so if you cast Tarunda every turn it will cast Tarukaja every turn and never deal damage to you.
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Post by enomus on May 14, 2017 5:00:27 GMT 1
Akechi said something about his power to do Metaverse stuff and and use personas was thanks to the gods. Shadow Shido said that he was chosen by God to rule Japan or something like that. Plural non-capital vs singular and capital g. I would love to read into this but honestly it's probably just a translation thing.
Managed to max the Hanged Man slink on the last night available. The Shido confession scene wasn't nearly as dramatic as the others, but that's on purpose. This being a Persona game there's probably still going to be another villain, which will probably be a god or something. That is to say there is still more Shido incoming.
Study group scene: why have everyone on the same table when they have multiple tables available? And why are 2nd and 3rd years studying together, and together with a child that's not even in HS and Yusuke who clearly doesn't need it? I really liked this scene, a it's a change of tone from what had been going on for the last many hours of the game.
Actually there still a few more days thrown around, I thought Shido confession would be the last. Well not that there's anything to do with these few remaining days. By the way you don't need to put quotation marks on "collective unconsciousness", that's a real term people use. Morgana had the lamest rank 10 slink in the game. And if there's going to be a shadow Morgana, shouldnt his Persona only upgrade after that's been defeated?
So they put the final boss at the end of Mementos it seems. I was gonna say this is just like Persona 3 with Tartarus, but they made this a cool looking dungeon instead of 50 more floors of randomly generated mementos. However the thematic stuff that's going on in this place is VERY Persona 3.
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Post by enomus on May 15, 2017 15:15:11 GMT 1
14/05 A lot of story stuff happened yesterday, I want to comment on them all but that's a lot of writing. Here are the main points so I don't forget anything later Losing the game Igor quote Caroline and Justine fight Butterfly voice Lavenza Fake Igor The game plot point Velvet room = real place Area outside Velvet room = ? New Igor Double in media res Annoying dungeon Velvet room sucks Best Quote
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Post by enomus on May 16, 2017 3:58:24 GMT 1
Life Will Change is a great song and all, but Im kinda disappointed to hear it here. Was really hoping there'd be a new song. These minibosses have very predictable AI. That's probably something that's not entirely new but it just became so obvious now. I defeated all of them with 90+% of the damage dealt being their own stuff reflected back at them. There is a lot of talk about God lately, especially in the previous story dump. Here's an opinion: Could they be talking about christianity? At first I thought God was a translation thing, but now it is clear that they knew what they were doing. Capital G and singular strongly implies monotheism. And the evil thing clearly sees itself as above the rest, so if it is a god, it must think itself the only one. Why christianity? The choice of shadows for this last series of minibosses, plus their dialogue, seems to suggest it. And the talk from Shido about being chosen by God is then a clear reference to this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_right_of_kingsAnd considering the market the game would come to in its western release, it is clearly the one to pick out of the monotheist religions, since it would hit much closer to home to most players. The god's evilness, plus the whole thing about people wanting to be controlled and give up their freedoms... could the game's position be that christianity does those things to people? However, the first mention of this at all was with Shadow Shido. Isn't it weird to introduce a whole new thematic thread this late into the game? I saved right before the final boss. Hopefully things will become more clear with the ending.
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Post by enomus on May 21, 2017 1:15:46 GMT 1
Something I forgot to mention in the above post: the evil god calls itself Holy Grail, which obviously points at christianity.
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Time for that post I promised on 14/05. I will discuss the events of the bit story segment.
I started writing at butterfly, because I had written the previous part and lost it and didn't want to do it again. I'll write it eventually though.
In Persona 1, which I played for only about 2 hours, the game opens with a quote from Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi:
[Once, I dreamt I was a butterfly. I forgot myself and knew only my happiness as a butterfly. Soon, I awoke, and I was myself again. Did I dream that I was a butterfly? Or do I now dream that I am a man? Yet there is a distinction between myself and the butterfly. This is the transformation of the physical.]
I can't really tell what is the significance of this in the context of Persona 1, as I've not played it nearly enough. What's important is that this butterfly thing stuck with the series. In Persona 3, the game shows a blue butterfly in a few points during the game, such as the intro. (I can't recall what the other points are and doing this through YT would take forever). When they do, the game will just show them briefly on the screen and say nothing about it. I think they're also in Persona 4, but I'm not sure.
In this game, they have a more prominent role. At the start of the game, a butterfly will show up next to MC and tell him he needs to remember and win the game etc. Then there are no more butterflies until this scene, where the same one shows up again talking. This time it's half blue-ish half transparent. And it the voice of Lavenza (somehow? how can she still be "alive" and talk through a butterfly?).
Then you fuse Caroline and Justine, their decapitation each release a bunch of blue-er shinier butterflies which fuse to form Lavenza. So what is the meaning of all these butterflies?
Honestly, I don't really know. I would say it's probably just an aesthetic thing, they think butterflies look good and using them like this is cool, without a deeper meaning, however I wouldn't be surprised if there was something deeper going on here. But if they do mean something, it would probably take a lot of cross-referencing Persona games to find out, and that would take forever. And you can't just search for "Persona butterfly" because no one pays attention to these details.
I really like Lavenza just because I disliked Caroline (especially) and Justine so much.
Oh and there was a game going on all along between the evil god and Igor. So all the talk about winning the game and losing the game was diegetic and completely not meta. (It's still meta just less meta). This also means that this game's plot is a double in media res.
They tell you that the Metaverse/Mementos "ate up" the Velvet Room and that it is the Quarentine Cell in the prison place. Ok, but I thought the Velvet room was a place that existed "between dream and reality, mind and matter". I always thought of it as something metaphysical, which existed only in MC's mind. I mean you often visit it during your dreams, and when you go into it in the day you look to others like you're just staring into nothing and non-responsive. If it were an actual place, that physically exists, wouldn't your body need to be moved there every time you visit? So that part makes no sense in my head.
While we're at it, what the hell is that space outside the Velvet Room? There's nothing that's plain wrong with it - if we accept that the VR is a real place, it makes sense for an area outside of it to exist as well. But, doesn't it feel weird? I always thought of it as a self contained thing with no connection to other places. And it feels weird that have that many people in the VR as well. Usually it's just you, Igor and his assistant(s). Not to mention the area's design/map is awfully convinient. It just had the exact number of cells to match your party, why? That makes way more sense if the space is metaphysical, but it's not.
The part where you talk to your party members was clever. Unfortunately you can't save during it, even though you should because you have complete control of your character otherwise. That's -EV. The chats with your friends start feeling a bit same-y by the end, but they are still good. Give them the inspiration to not give up, and remember what they are fighting for (like FF7). I went to Makoto first, and she had the best of these chats. Including the best quote in the game. I took a picture of it with my phone:
[Victory against a single criminal is meaningless... The true enemy is society itself.]
And ok I know "you can't defeat all evil" is a thing that's thousands of years old and has appeared in many places. But this is not the same - it's similar, but it places the "evil" upon a very specific and tangible entity: society. (And just because it's been around doesn't mean using it is bad - it's a very strong idea to put in a narrative when executed right, which it was here). Furthermore, it really fits the game, and fit very well for me personally. It just put into words what a lot of people must feel about the current context here in BR.
What exactly is "rehabilitation", anyway?
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Post by enomus on May 21, 2017 5:24:22 GMT 1
Walked up to the final boss. He talks about saving souls, which is a very christian concept, then calls himself "god of control, Yaldabaoth". So the game does view the religion as controlling people.
The fact that he has attacks based on "Mankind's deadly sins" (Lust Vanity Gluttony Wrath Greed Envy Pride - I wrote them down because I actually don't know what they are) pretty much confirms my theory. Other things the boss has are "Gospel", a bell, a book of commandments.
I died when he was almost dead. Im leaving my PS4 on overnight because I don't want to redo the first part of the fight. Hopefully the game timer does not run in the game over screen.
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