everything rad is good for you: a persona/shin megami thread

okay so i think czn is playing persona 3 aka one of the best games ever and i'm playing through P4 right now and i'd like to talk to you dudes about this a^+ series of JAPENESE VIDEO CONSOLE GAME EXPERIENCES

so let's talk then

so i think so far persona 4 has the best story/structure/mechanic of all the games. its kinda like DQ8 where something crystallized for the developers and all the things that make a series unique and "important" if that isnt too too are honed to a killing sharpness

theres a weird cult around the early PS games imo - they kind of suck! they try to accomplish too many things it wasnt unitl P3 that i think the dungeon crawl/RPG/dating sim/game as narrative thing really clicked and P4 improves the formula just a little with a truly compelling murder mystery storyline

c'mon some of you dudes must be playing this!!!!!

the last two persona games have looked so amazing:

i'm playing P3 and can't stop but have reached the point where i just want to fast forward to the boss battles now. the repetitions getting to me. its too long!

stop fighting and start picking up chix

they never want the presents i give them
whatz a bluehaired emoboy gotta do to get some action, huh :/

psyched for this that I only just learned about

P3 is straight up one of the best looking games ever; the localisation is really sharp too, the writing is GBA fire emblem quality (clean, right amount of goofyness, funny and serious in the right places)

I'm still really early on tho (got into a bit of a mad PS2 game glut), how many floors are there to tartarus?

Kids, shoot yourself in the head and gain super powers! The SMT / Megaten / Persona thread... now I'm that guy :(

as much of a shocking anamoly it is to have duplicate threads on ILG y tf dont u talk about how INSANE and AWESOME theez games are p.s. that other thread kind of sucked

opinions like boss battles should be challenging. P3 is maybe the ultimate in grinding as meditative experience imo alto P4 seems to have cut down on that a little

also: kind of think the stripped down awful-on-purpose battle modes in persona make it one if the most challenging JRPGs to grind since you cant just run a two button script on that ish

i need to get a new ps2 before i can keep playing these games :(

but really people bitch about "grinding" in these games, then they turn around and play fable ii. which i played last night for like 2 hours and got NOWHERE. there's no "grinding" per se but there's a lot of EXCRUCIATINGLY BORING foot travel punctuated by menus that take >30secs to LOAD and a dog occasionally barking and a thought bubble popping up over his head saying there is a treasure or something is buried (meaning you have to go about 15 feet off the beaten path, watch an awful animation, get an item which takes 3 seconds to load, and go back to the trail, making you wonder why they even bother making you leave the beaten path becuase it's not like you get in a fight-- it's just a massive waste of time. why not make the dog bark and then I HAVE THE ITEM? it's the same fucking thing) and then a shitload of people start following you around with hearst over their heads because once you tohught it'd be a good idea to do "victory arm pump" in this city 15 times, and they're all talking, and talking, and talking, and saying the same things, then to escape them you get behind the counter at a bar and for the next 10m you start earning money and you WANNA STOP because it's so boring but you CAN'T because this is the first time in a while you've earned money and you LOSE YOUR MULTIPLIER IF YOU STOP but you have to deal with repetitive button-pressing and EVEN worse repetitive people saying "you're good at pouring beer" or whatever they say and fuck that game fuck that game fuck that game.

♥♥♥♥♥♥ hahahaha ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

srlsy man fuk a fable II it suuuuuxxxx

ok so this game is SO GOOD

finally got time to have a nice sit down with it, my save is at 2hrs11 so far and I've only just got back to tartarus (up to level 3) for the second time -> this game must be massive. but it's gorgeous. so I don't care.

I totally get this btw: "P3 is maybe the ultimate in grinding as meditative experience"

played the jap version of devil survivor v. much looking forward to the eng release... lol not having to check/reset every time u fuse a persona cuts down on the play time by like a third

can u smash maya the mmorpg chick cos I'm working on it

devil survivor is rad btw fuiud

~~▪~~~strange journey~~▪~~~~

shin megami evangelion

stupid cover art general video game burnout made this seem like a pass but idk reviews/1st impressions/utbue vidz making me want this. has any1 (coz) copped this????

doesn't seem to be on the r4 gravytrain iirc
still finishing devil survivor, might buy this later

still early on in strange journey but I'm getting deep into fusing demons now. pretty sure I'm going to sink a disgusting amount of hours into this.

diggin the sci-fi/horror hybrid vibe pretty hard

yah i have so many ~deep thoughts~ about this game i just kinda cant help myself & this is the sort of game that gives u that space u sink into it but freely. the demon interactions are still its weakest part (or least the weakest part that isnt part of the c/d of rpgs) theyre inconsistent & frustrating & shallow

agreed on the demon interactions. v. annoying when the same type of demon reacts to an identical response differently!

have to say, I know you gotta keep fusing to stay competitive, but I will be missing some of my demon bros.

as a metal dude, I can't not love this guy:

http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/3/31815/1223514-morax_large.jpg

awesome.

i know i'm late on this but what does the title of this thread refer to, anyway (rad?)

its a play on the title of the book "everything bad is good for you"

have to say, I know you gotta keep fusing to stay competitive, but I will be missing some of my demon bros.

yah you really have no chance but to fuse as much and as quickly as possible in order to finish the later dungeons. im kinda used to being a little lazy about demon mgmt - hanging on to dudes with one skill i really liked or just needed for s.link (obv not a factor) or wanting to avoid paying to resummon them for future fusions but you really need a full component in this game

a little bit stalled btw school and some other things but still hype 4 this

i actually have heard of that book but i thought there was some kind of SMT-related punning going on

yah i think i had some convoluted deep meaning in mind when i started this thread but that was kinda @ the height of my obsession. dont remember what i was referring to lol

most o_O thing for 2day: eo3 is out in jpn

ebigfy opening para has sibling synchronicity w/P3 iirc tho it's a while since I read it

are any of the 8/16-bit shin megami whatever games worth emulating while i look for a copy of strange journey

i am oddly fascinated by this blog: http://whatyuwannaknow.tumblr.com/

what a great idea!

http://asktheinvestigationteam.tumblr.com/

is this, like, a thing

lots of SMT & related news recently
PS1/Saturn game Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers is being remade for 3DS
P3:FES is up for download on the PS3 in US, both Digital Devil Saga games coming next month to EU PS3
Ghostlight are localising Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor Overclocked 3DS and its DS sequel Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor 2 in EU

where will i find the time/when will Atlus stop with ports and make a new game dammit

oooh Shin Megami Tensei 4 announced for 3DS
playing thru Strange Journey atm, the demon conversations can get pretty funny

is something weird going on with experience distribution in strange journey or am i missing something

I'm playing through P3P on vita, yes I am

this game has the biggest disconnect between theme and mechanics of anything i've played since left 4 dead afaict

thomp did you ever emulate any of the old-school SMT games? i fucked around with the fan translations of the first few but never made any real progress.

nah i just decided to order a copy of strange journey. apparently they're a lot more annoying/arbitrary? i feel like the more user-friendly version of this experience is probably all i need for the moment, especially given the more user-friendly version still means running into enemies with a one-hit instant kill game over for a couple of hours before you can do anything to avoid it

avoiding the majority of random encounters by talking to demons is a pretty good mechanic

dark rooms you can't automap is kind of an annoying one

"Yes, the Shibboleth ...
You pronounce it well, Zelenin."

rmde

i gave my dude a polack name in this and have found myself getting more and more resentful of how the fn WASPs on board the red stripe keep expecting the ethnic minorities to do all the work

Buncha these are on sale for 3ds. I'm just wondering if the Soul Hackers or DDS Overclocked are actually worth picking up thru the 3ds

new Persona 5 trailer, looking and sounding good!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc_9r4wifFc

came here to post this too haha

the angles/etc during many of the scenes are very Catherine

no surprise that P5 has been delayed, now coming out "Summer 2016" ... maybe.
new trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvpOwQaqRXA

I was getting frustrated 50 hours into P2: Innocent Sin when I was in what was clearly the final dungeon for forever and the difficulty suddenly jumped into the stratosphere and I was randomly encountering one-hit-killers like 2/3 of the time and using up all of my unreplenishable items, and I was seriously about to pack it in but I stuck it out until the end and I'm glad I did because the penultimate boss was (spoilerz) Hitler. Sorry, 'Fuhrer'. But seriously: Hitler. Followed by Nyarlathotep. So that was dece.

I think I'm going to take a break before hitting the second P2 though.

I'm unhealthily obsessed with the series at this point tbh :D so there is never enough of it to spend time in

yeah there's really only the 3 games with that formula, i'm sure we'll get a p6 in another 4 years or something though

The redux of P5 is gonna be the thing that makes me finally get a PS4 next year i'm sure. The thought of how far off P6 is is just depressing.

Didn't they just do a P5 redux?

they announced it, it's not out in english until next year

Cautiously good news: https://kotaku.com/persona-5-royal-is-editing-two-homophobic-scenes-1841751118

its just the english localization team changing it as far as i can tell, atlus/hashino still don't care

i like persona 5 now. the black and red plaid punkish aesthetic really turned me off at first, strong early 00s mall punk sum 41 vibes, but i have come to terms w it.

5 makes a lot of the social mechanics more explicit which takes away some of the immersiveness of 3 (the best game of the entire megaten series imo, followed by nocturne) but also makes it less stressful, wondering if i was totally blowing the late game by eating the wrong ramen or whatever. music is also not as good as 3 or 4 but there are def some tunes.

it's a good game, though i did stop.

the dating stuff gave me massive anxiety. what if i gave the wrong gift and didn't get to fuck the one i wanted to fuck????

there was also a serious difficulty spike in mementos which scared me

3, 4 and 5 are all near-perfect no back answers

no i agree - i feel that i failed it, rather than the other way around

tbf i've NG+ed all of them 3 or 4 times, it gets a lot easier

https://kotaku.com/persona-2-guide-written-in-2011-gets-one-hell-of-an-u-1843430262

hey Persona 4 Golden is out on Steam, only $20/£16 too
hope they port P3 next

Here I am, 12 years late to the party, playing P4 for the first time, having never played a Persona before. I like pretty much everything about it except for the bland randomized dungeons. The soundtrack is having a Major Effect on me, let me tell you.

it's a shame it's a straight port otherwise i'd've bought the fucker again

the dungeons are one of the weaker elements until 5 tbf

Ugh I am so tempted to rebuy it and play it again but I have enough to play

i bought a PS TV just so i could play the Golden so i'm not gonna get the PC version

I’ve been thinking of getting P4G because it looks like the kind of game I’d like (turn-based RPG, colourful visuals, weird as hell), but i fear it might be too dense for me since I’m not much of a gamer.. should I just say fuck it and go for it anyways?

yeah, it's very user friendly and the learning curve is gentle

P5R is on sale and I'm trying to be smart and resist buying it as I played the base game already. Maybe if it ever goes under $20, I'll give it a try.

Lol that didn't last long! Bought it just now anyway.

i'm tempted to give it another try, i own the base game but fell off it 25-30 hours in and there being a Better version makes me less inclined to resume

Apparently Royal has quality of life improvements too.

i've put 400+ hours into P5 and i'm getting Royal as soon as i've got a machine to play it on, worth every penny

i should play TMS first though since i already own that one

actually P5R is half price on the PS Store over here, very tempted to buy it now so it's ready for when PS5's are available next summer

been playing a lot of persona 3 lately. I haven't played any other games in the series yet so I don't know how it stands up against the others, but the world it creates is just so perfect. and the characters! and dialogue! I'm far from even being halfway through the game, but I already feel so attached to the characters and story

the summer vacation beach scene -- where junpei drags akihiko and the protagonist into trying to pick up girls at the beach before they meet aigis -- is such a good portrayal of adolescent male awkwardness and arrogance (except for that one part where it gets weirdly transphobic. that part has not aged well!)

sadly you get those little moments of stupid unpleasantness in the series but yeah otm, the Persona games have become the most emotionally affecting games I've ever played and I'm fairly obsessed.

(not obsessed enough to take a chance on Strikers yet tho. has anybody played that?)

those atlus writers are really queer-phobic. look up the scenes they added in catherine full body if you want to be disgusted.

Finally finished P3:FES (The Journey) after 4 months and 100 hours of gameplay. Man, what an absolutely incredible — and just downright heartbreaking — ending. I know 4 and 5 get more acclaim (probably because 3 does have some gameplay flaws), but I’ll be amazed if either of them can pull off a better finale than that.

3 is the best ending

it's out

this went well pic.twitter.com/nbIwkih86B

— ella (@Ninto55) November 20, 2021

yep it's been kicking my ass too haha

Soul Hackers 2 for every platform except Switch, Aug 25th 2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emsm8wfo_MQ

rip all my jokes about how atlus's ps4 game will come out in 2025

if they are willing to make a Soul Hackers 2 this means that Digital Devil Saga 3 can't be far off ... right?

define "far"

anyway finally something i might want to buy for PS5

So I've beaten Persona 4 Golden now... the (true) ending was kinda underwhelming? Like most stories have a trajectory where they build up to a thrilling climax and then there's a denouement and conclusion.. but in P4G it hits a massive climax in december, then there's a period where not much happens, then suddenly there's another big confrontation at the end that happens so suddenly the payoff doesn't feel too large?

Of course it's still an incredible near-perfect game with characters i love to death, but P3 had such a more satisfying ending! and (slight spoiler!) i may have shed a tear when all your maxed-out social links visit you during the last battle

over time i've come to appreciate the relatively downbeat P4G - there's a lot going on with rurality and mythology and connection to place. 3, 4 and 5 all have very distinct moods

xp isnt that because the stuff after december is all after-the-fact additions in Golden?

P3 has always been considered the one with the good story. 4 was a hit due to the cast and setting, 5 due to style

Finally time to play the other ones?

https://www.polygon.com/23165846/persona-5-royal-4-golden-3-portable-ps5-steam-nintendo-xbox-release-date

Just noticed that the URL is misleading:

There’s no mention of the Persona games coming to Nintendo Switch

oh good i can buy Golden again, probably Portable too but i hope they buff the mechanics

v disappointed that P3 is a port of the PSP game and not a remaster of FES
learnt the other day that there's a fan hack of FES that lets you control all the characters, but it's very unstable

And 3-5 are coming to Switch now: https://kotaku.com/persona-5-royal-4-golden-3-portable-switch-release-jrpg-1849118719

aaaaand now i'm making my way through Persona 5 Royal. And it's just as amazing as everyone said it is. the writing, characters, dialogue, combat... it really feels like the peak of entertainment

it's also been super fulfilling playing them in order from 3 to 5 and watching the series grow and get better. 3 blew me away (even without directly controlling party members!), but it feels like an atari game in comparison to 5's maximalism!

5 Royal is the best

for all their talk about making a fantasy rpg as a break from persona games, they sure made a game that looks exactly like persona

finally got around to playing Metaphor (preorders being absolutely fucked in the UK due to undershipping sure didn't help!)
feels like this could be my breaking point where the Atlus overstyling of menus etc is getting in the way of the actual game, tho that might wear off by the 40th hour lol
feels more like a SMT spinoff than a Persona spinoff so far. also a hard mode that's actually challenging thank god, don't get that much in jprgs these days

Too tight to pay full price for it yet but it's sitting on my wishlist waiting for the moment