Persona 5

Minarchist wrote:
garion333 wrote:

If they can get the tone closer to Persona 3 and SMTIV then I'll be happy to jump on the bandwagon.

As much as I like P4 and its brand of insanity, I connected with SMTIV on a much deeper level tonally.

Which version of P4 did you play? I've only played the original release, and though I thought it was somewhat lighter in tone than P3 because it took a different approach to Jungian philosophy, it wasn't all sunshine and puppy dogs until P4G and the aforementioned equine flagellation that has ensued since.

shoptroll wrote:

I'm about 20 hours into P4 (original) and I don't think it's all that much lighter than P3. It's a lot less oppressive as far as window dressing is concerned (TV world is a lot less dark than Tartarus and the lack of Evokers), but the underlying subject matter is still pretty dark. What in particular did Golden do that makes you think it's significantly lighter than P3?

Creepy murder mystery just wasn't as interesting to me as the plot in P3. I prefer the characters in P4, but there's just something about SMTIV that hits a sweet spot for me.

Perhaps the lack of social stuff made SMTIV even bleaker, though the setting certainly helped. Maybe it is the social stuff I'm hung up on. Hmmm.

garion333 wrote:

Creepy murder mystery just wasn't as interesting to me as the plot in P3. I prefer the characters in P4, but there's just something about SMTIV that hits a sweet spot for me.

Perhaps the lack of social stuff made SMTIV even bleaker, though the setting certainly helped. Maybe it is the social stuff I'm hung up on. Hmmm.

Have you played Strange Journey? I'm curious to know how you'd react to it. It's even more mechanically focused than SMT IV, though I suppose the battle system isn't quite as good. The co-op attacks don't have the tension of the press turn system.

RoughneckGeek wrote:
garion333 wrote:

Perhaps the lack of social stuff made SMTIV even bleaker, though the setting certainly helped. Maybe it is the social stuff I'm hung up on. Hmmm.

For me it's the social stuff and the tempo change that comes with it. I like the story lines the social link progression reveals. I like that the characters have more backstory than is typical in a game. The problem I have is the Persona games feel like two games - a dungeon crawler and a dating sim. Bouncing back and forth between the two is jarring and many times results in me forgetting where a story arc left off. When that happens, it reduces the social link progression to simply a matter of improving my fusion ability because the story arc part becomes worthless to me. I think it'd be far less of an issue to me if you could choose to pursue 2-3 social links to completion. The way each is only available certain days and time of days mean that becomes impossible... and to be honest, it'd likely break the game to be able to take a few links straight to max early on so I'm not sure there's a way to "fix" this issue I have with the games.

I think it helps to just ignore the mechanical bonuses and focus on the social storylines you're most interested in completing. The dungeon battles rarely get hard enough that you need specific fusion bonuses to get through them. I play the Persona games without any sort of guide and simply do what feels "right" at any given moment.

I completely missed a huge portion of P1 because I made a dialogue decision early on that apparently had far-reaching consequences. But it felt right at the time. Of course, that game is from a different era and it was an objectively unfair expectation that one would have the foresight to understand the consequences of the response. Nope, I'm not bitter about it. Nope.

My biggest issue is with the lack of variety in combat.

In traditional Shin Megami Tensei games, your allies and your opponents are both drawn from the same pool: the demon population. Every enemy you encounter can become an ally, either through direct recruitment or through fusion, and so you're constantly encountering new enemies and new allies with their own mix of abilities.

Persona channels all of that variety into the main character, and that's it. Your allies will gain new abilities over time but mechanically tend to feel really static and less like organic partners than specifically-designed tools. Use this one if you need fire; use this one if you need ice. Your enemies, meanwhile, are very samey with lots and lots of palette swaps: here's the dancing table, and there's the slime with a mask on, and there's the knight without legs, and there's the spinning totem pole.

Persona 5 could fix some of that (and Persona 4 might have done this already). More enemy designs would at least keep things visually interesting.

But some of that, like the lead character being the main locus of variety and the other characters remaining fairly static, is built-in to the game's design and its story. And it makes perfect sense and is actually pretty clever. But given the length of each game, I'm not sure I want to do it all again. Again.

I am, however, keenly watching the announcements and trailers and all that. A Vita announcement would get me to buy a Vita, no questions asked, but I don't expect one.

I am, however, keenly watching the announcements and trailers and all that. A Vita announcement would get me to buy a Vita, no questions asked, but I don't expect one.

Who do I write to at Atlus to make this happen? Clocky with a Vita would be great.

EDIT: And just in case it's not clear that's not sarcasm. Okay, maybe it's a little sarcasm because of how much you hate the "better on Vita" stuff. But seriously I'd love to see your passion for systems other people are ignoring plus your interest in RPGs brought to bear on the Vita and PSP catalogs. Either you'd have really interesting takes and cause me to consider games I had ignored or you'd hate things with a fiery passion that I love. Either way it would be fun.

You heard it here first, folks!

I'm ready to announce that Persona 5 will come to the Vita!

Eventually.

So, there's that.

DSGamer wrote:

Either you'd have really interesting takes and cause me to consider games I had ignored or you'd hate things with a fiery passion that I love. Either way it would be fun.

I don't know where I'd settle with it, either, but unfortunately $200 is far beyond my ability to gamble on a system not knowing if I'd love it or hate it. But hey, if you ever want to get rid of a Vita and would be willing to let it go for some hilarious clocking, send me a PM.

RoughneckGeek wrote:

The problem is that the game gets in the way of allowing me to focus on the social storylines I want to progress by only allowing me to progress them at certain times. This seemed to be less of an issue for me in P3P than it was in P4G, but I don't know if that difference is just one of perception. I played both without any kind of guide and just chased the stories I wanted to. In P3P I had several finished at the end of the game. That was not the case with P4G.

I don't know about P4G, but from what I've seen of P4 vanilla it seems like most of the social links are available on Tuesday and Thursday which makes it very hard to work on multiple links at one time. Plus there's the fact that you have to give up your afternoon to go dungeoneering, which means you're not working on most of the social link options that day. I think this was a conscious design decision in order to increase the amount of schedule conflict in the life sim portion compared to what I remember of P3/P3FES.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Persona channels all of that variety into the main character, and that's it.

But doesn't SMT IV have a fair bit of this as well with the demon whisper system? At least that's how it felt to me since I was loading a lot of skills onto Flynn.

Your allies will gain new abilities over time but mechanically tend to feel really static and less like organic partners than specifically-designed tools. Use this one if you need fire; use this one if you need ice.

This really doesn't bother me all that much since it's not that much different than other JRPGs I've played where characters slot into very specific roles. I think that aspect really helped give P3 some crossover appeal to genre fans who hadn't really spent much time with Persona or SMT before. Based on what I've read, it sounds like the Digital Devil Saga duology also uses "static" characters and those are described as being fairly mainstream friendly. In this regard, Persona 3/4 feels like a halfway point between SMT and DDS.

Your enemies, meanwhile, are very samey with lots and lots of palette swaps: here's the dancing table, and there's the slime with a mask on, and there's the knight without legs, and there's the spinning totem pole.

This started to bother me toward the end of P3 and it's still a problem in P4. What drives me nuts is that I feel like the masks are supposed to be some sort of clue as to the elemental affinity/weaknesses for each monster but I've never been able to crack that code. I'm also not all that familiar with the various arcanas and their numbering so the weapons in P3 that were like "+% damage vs. Empress" were absolutely useless in my book.

shoptroll wrote:

I don't know about P4G, but from what I've seen of P4 vanilla it seems like most of the social links are available on Tuesday and Thursday which makes it very hard to work on multiple links at one time. Plus there's the fact that you have to give up your afternoon to go dungeoneering, which means you're not working on most of the social link options that day. I think this was a conscious design decision in order to increase the amount of schedule conflict in the life sim portion compared to what I remember of P3/P3FES.

Interestingly enough, although things did seem more locked down from P3/FES, it was actually much easier to max link everything in P4 on a new game than in P3. In P3 and FES, it was technically possible to complete all SLs to max rank in a single playthrough (not NG+), but it required actual luck with some bonus link work and more importantly bonus skill raises that are actually random. In P4, it's not that difficult to max all SLs with about a month left in the game.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Persona channels all of that variety into the main character, and that's it.

But doesn't SMT IV have a fair bit of this as well with the demon whisper system? At least that's how it felt to me since I was loading a lot of skills onto Flynn.

I think what Clock was getting that is that your other party members don't grow or offer much variety with each person. The demons still have plenty of variety, and in fact I prefer Persona's system (and the earlier SMT systems) to SMT IV, which made things too easy and thematically ridiculous, since you could choose basically any skill with very little restriction.

Where I do disagree with Clock here (gasp!) is that I think allowing player-controlled variety in the supporting cast of P4 and especially P3 would damage the game. The cast each represents an individual, with desires, fears, a personality, and everything down to the weapons they wield and how they wield them feeds into that narrative. For example, I pasted a big thing about the specific type of bow and style of archery Yukari practices in P3, and how that feeds into her personality and narrative. I think offering the player the ability to alter someone's growth path or their skills would actually break down this rather delicate creation.

Your enemies, meanwhile, are very samey with lots and lots of palette swaps: here's the dancing table, and there's the slime with a mask on, and there's the knight without legs, and there's the spinning totem pole.

This started to bother me toward the end of P3 and it's still a problem in P4.

Yeah, no comment here. It just sucks.

frogbeastegg wrote:

I have a friend who is very heavily into Persona 3 and 4. Every time she mentions P5 and asks me what I think about it I say that I will definitely play it when it comes out, but I wish they'd done something different to a group of teenagers in school. I really liked FES and consider it one of the best JRPGs which I've played. I thought P4G was mostly very good. The concept now feels played out to me, and the ever-increasing pile of tie-ins and spin-offs is gradually making me dislike the very sight of anything Persona. Her answer is usually, "But what if they were in university?" and "But what if they had an adult in the party, like a teacher?" It wouldn't change anything for me.

I look at the other SMT games and find the breadth and range of ideas and concepts much more appealing. I enjoyed FES and P4G, but I've played FES and P4G. I'm not hyped to play them again with what looks like a different cast and a few changes to the gameplay. I was hoping P5 would be closer to Persona 2: Eternal Punishment or Catherine. Yes, I know that I'm basically complaining that Persona is continuing the direction which made it popular. I told some clouds to stop moving this morning and would they listen?

I have not yet played SMTIV thanks to the lengthy European delay. Going from what I see in this thread it's probably going to be more my cup of tea than P5. I'll play P5 when it comes out here, ditto Persona Q. In the meantime I have SMT games in my backlog and I'm happy to wait. There's no sense of anticipation or urgency about the game for me. My friend is the opposite; she cannot wait for P5, P1, or that music game, and I don't think she's that bothered about SMTIV. As long as Atlus keeps up the variety we will both be happy.

From everything you've said, I think you'll like SMTIV more than she, for sure.

In fact, we may be traveling in the same boat, you and I, though I don't have many qualms with the flagellation of the Persona games. It's okay to have fun with your properties! I don't exactly get excited for another P4 tie-in, but if it keeps them afloat...

Minarchist wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:

Persona channels all of that variety into the main character, and that's it.

But doesn't SMT IV have a fair bit of this as well with the demon whisper system? At least that's how it felt to me since I was loading a lot of skills onto Flynn.

I think what Clock was getting that is that your other party members don't grow or offer much variety with each person. The demons still have plenty of variety, and in fact I prefer Persona's system (and the earlier SMT systems) to SMT IV, which made things too easy and thematically ridiculous, since you could choose basically any skill with very little restriction.

More or less. In Persona, you fuse personas for the protagonist and choose which personas she takes into battle, but aside from selecting your compatriots, there isn't much you can change about them other than equipment. In the mainline SMT games, the demons you're fusing are your party members, so you're constantly mixing and matching new party members and line-ups.

I'm actually pretty mixed about how SMT IV specifically handled demon fusion, and I am not a fan of the skill whispering system. There's a bit too much flexibility afforded the player to copy/paste the same build from demon to demon, and whispering skills to Flynn only compounds that. I much prefer the systems in Strange Journey.

Minarchist wrote:

Where I do disagree with Clock here (gasp!) is that I think allowing player-controlled variety in the supporting cast of P4 and especially P3 would damage the game. The cast each represents an individual, with desires, fears, a personality, and everything down to the weapons they wield and how they wield them feeds into that narrative.

Which is why I said that their static nature is built into the narrative and design. It's thematically important that the characters remain themselves, but it's mechanically less interesting. To me. I know some players really like the largely pre-destined nature of the supporting characters.

I do think there's some flexibility in the theme and narrative to allow for support character customization through the social links. I could see the characters at certain social link levels getting the player character's advice about which after-school activities to pursue, each one contributing to a different skillset. "Should I do archery or volleyball? Archery will help me with wind skills, and volleyball will make me stronger so I'll hit harder."

Which is why I said that their static nature is built into the narrative and design. It's thematically important that the characters remain themselves, but it's mechanically less interesting. To me. I know some players really like the largely pre-destined nature of the supporting characters.

I think it's mechanically more interesting, rather than less. It allows for much more interesting encounter design.

The problem with SMTIV, and this is almost entirely because of the way that the turn press system, is that it pushes you to develop a stable of demons that all do everything, since that allows you to do the most damage per turn by exploiting weaknesses. Since there aren't any real restrictions on skill transfer you just need to grind like crazy for the money to do it.

With Persona's system, you're forced to deal with 3 other party members that have specific strengths and weaknesses. While you have almost complete freedom for the protagonist, you need to figure out how to design him/her around the rest of the party.

That helps with boss design. In SMTIV, you basically end up in an arms race with the player, just increasing damage and HP as your options. On the other hand, in Persona, you can have bosses that effectively nullify a party member's elemental attacks.

cube wrote:
Which is why I said that their static nature is built into the narrative and design. It's thematically important that the characters remain themselves, but it's mechanically less interesting. To me. I know some players really like the largely pre-destined nature of the supporting characters.

I think it's mechanically more interesting, rather than less. It allows for much more interesting encounter design.

The problem with SMTIV, and this is almost entirely because of the way that the turn press system, is that it pushes you to develop a stable of demons that all do everything, since that allows you to do the most damage per turn by exploiting weaknesses. Since there aren't any real restrictions on skill transfer you just need to grind like crazy for the money to do it.

With Persona's system, you're forced to deal with 3 other party members that have specific strengths and weaknesses. While you have almost complete freedom for the protagonist, you need to figure out how to design him/her around the rest of the party.

That helps with boss design. In SMTIV, you basically end up in an arms race with the player, just increasing damage and HP as your options. On the other hand, in Persona, you can have bosses that effectively nullify a party member's elemental attacks.

We discussed this in the SMT IV thread a while back. The consensus was that it was nice to be able to choose inherited skills, but unlocking every slot for any skill was way too generous, potentially game-breaking for good fusers, and really lost the sense of identity that a more unique party could bring. The demons just became optimal skill sets rather than characters. I would hate to see that fate befall the characters in Persona.

garion333 wrote:

From everything you've said, I think you'll like SMTIV more than she, for sure.

In fact, we may be traveling in the same boat, you and I, though I don't have many qualms with the flagellation of the Persona games. It's okay to have fun with your properties! I don't exactly get excited for another P4 tie-in, but if it keeps them afloat...

I now feel like I jinxed things with that post; SMT IV is delayed again. Argh!

Keeping the business going is a good goal, and I certainly can't say that they should do otherwise. I remember the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach when it was announced that they were up for sale; I'd hate to see them go out of business because I think that they are one of the big powers for good in the JRPG field. All the same, it feels like potential squandered. I look at my PS2 and DS game shelves and I see so many different games with the Atlas logo on them, SMT and otherwise. If I do the same for recent years, it's mostly tie-ins, ports and sequels. As much as I love Etrian Odyssey - and I do! - there are 6 of them now, 2 of them enhanced ports of older titles. That's come at the expense of games like Radiant Historia, Strange Journey, etc.

Of course if they do a vita or HD port of the non-Persona PS2 games I am there throwing money at my screen before the announcement is finished. [cough]Hypocrisy?[cough]

frogbeastegg wrote:
garion333 wrote:

From everything you've said, I think you'll like SMTIV more than she, for sure.

In fact, we may be traveling in the same boat, you and I, though I don't have many qualms with the flagellation of the Persona games. It's okay to have fun with your properties! I don't exactly get excited for another P4 tie-in, but if it keeps them afloat...

I now feel like I jinxed things with that post; SMT IV is delayed again. Argh!

Keeping the business going is a good goal, and I certainly can't say that they should do otherwise. I remember the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach when it was announced that they were up for sale; I'd hate to see them go out of business because I think that they are one of the big powers for good in the JRPG field. All the same, it feels like potential squandered. I look at my PS2 and DS game shelves and I see so many different games with the Atlas logo on them, SMT and otherwise. If I do the same for recent years, it's mostly tie-ins, ports and sequels. As much as I love Etrian Odyssey - and I do! - there are 6 of them now, 2 of them enhanced ports of older titles. That's come at the expense of games like Radiant Historia, Strange Journey, etc.

Of course if they do a vita or HD port of the non-Persona PS2 games I am there throwing money at my screen before the announcement is finished. [cough]Hypocrisy?[cough]

I think with the uncertainty around the parent company it was a safe bet to fall back on the tried and true franchises. Atlus has published a few oddballs recently like Abyss Odyssey and Tex Murphy and it will of course take some time for the more conservative "safety net" projects to flush out of the system. Assuming that Sega lets them remain largely autonomous and their publishing arm remains realistic about the scale of projects that it can support they should recover.

cube wrote:
Which is why I said that their static nature is built into the narrative and design. It's thematically important that the characters remain themselves, but it's mechanically less interesting. To me. I know some players really like the largely pre-destined nature of the supporting characters.

I think it's mechanically more interesting, rather than less. It allows for much more interesting encounter design.

The problem with SMTIV, and this is almost entirely because of the way that the turn press system, is that it pushes you to develop a stable of demons that all do everything, since that allows you to do the most damage per turn by exploiting weaknesses. Since there aren't any real restrictions on skill transfer you just need to grind like crazy for the money to do it.

With Persona's system, you're forced to deal with 3 other party members that have specific strengths and weaknesses. While you have almost complete freedom for the protagonist, you need to figure out how to design him/her around the rest of the party.

That helps with boss design. In SMTIV, you basically end up in an arms race with the player, just increasing damage and HP as your options. On the other hand, in Persona, you can have bosses that effectively nullify a party member's elemental attacks.

Agreed. Hearty handshake!

It makes it especially interesting when the game forces you into a boss battle including a certain character who is weak to the boss' attacks. Really gotta think on the fly when that sort of thing happens, and use all those funky support skills like elemental breaks and buffs that you wouldn't otherwise have to use.

imbiginjapan wrote:
frogbeastegg wrote:
garion333 wrote:

From everything you've said, I think you'll like SMTIV more than she, for sure.

In fact, we may be traveling in the same boat, you and I, though I don't have many qualms with the flagellation of the Persona games. It's okay to have fun with your properties! I don't exactly get excited for another P4 tie-in, but if it keeps them afloat...

I now feel like I jinxed things with that post; SMT IV is delayed again. Argh!

Keeping the business going is a good goal, and I certainly can't say that they should do otherwise. I remember the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach when it was announced that they were up for sale; I'd hate to see them go out of business because I think that they are one of the big powers for good in the JRPG field. All the same, it feels like potential squandered. I look at my PS2 and DS game shelves and I see so many different games with the Atlas logo on them, SMT and otherwise. If I do the same for recent years, it's mostly tie-ins, ports and sequels. As much as I love Etrian Odyssey - and I do! - there are 6 of them now, 2 of them enhanced ports of older titles. That's come at the expense of games like Radiant Historia, Strange Journey, etc.

Of course if they do a vita or HD port of the non-Persona PS2 games I am there throwing money at my screen before the announcement is finished. [cough]Hypocrisy?[cough]

I think with the uncertainty around the parent company it was a safe bet to fall back on the tried and true franchises. Atlus has published a few oddballs recently like Abyss Odyssey and Tex Murphy and it will of course take some time for the more conservative "safety net" projects to flush out of the system. Assuming that Sega lets them remain largely autonomous and their publishing arm remains realistic about the scale of projects that it can support they should recover.

That's a good point. The next crop of games will be a better indication.

I didn't know that they were involved with Tex. Abyss Odyssey is a blind spot of mine. Each time I see the title I think it sounds like a JRPG so I look it up, find out that it's not, decide that it still sounds like fun in couch co-op, and decide to ask my boyfriend if he'd like to play it with me. Then I can never remember the title. This time I'll jot it down on a bit of paper ...

cube wrote:

I think it's mechanically more interesting, rather than less. It allows for much more interesting encounter design.

The problem with SMTIV, and this is almost entirely because of the way that the turn press system, is that it pushes you to develop a stable of demons that all do everything, since that allows you to do the most damage per turn by exploiting weaknesses. Since there aren't any real restrictions on skill transfer you just need to grind like crazy for the money to do it.

With Persona's system, you're forced to deal with 3 other party members that have specific strengths and weaknesses. While you have almost complete freedom for the protagonist, you need to figure out how to design him/her around the rest of the party.

That helps with boss design. In SMTIV, you basically end up in an arms race with the player, just increasing damage and HP as your options. On the other hand, in Persona, you can have bosses that effectively nullify a party member's elemental attacks.

Having everyone do everything is actually a bad way to manage your party in SMT IV, at least on hard difficulty. Carrying over a full set of elemental and physical attacks means you don't get to carry anything else, and getting a full round of press-turns isn't going to do you any good if you get completely thrashed on the second turn. You'll end up doing more grinding for levels and cash overall by not specializing and branching out.

But you make a good point about the fixed character builds in Persona being a benefit to the overall design. I actually had this exact conversation about flexible and inflexible character builds when I played Final Fantasy VI, except that I was on the side of having fixed character builds instead of on the side of wanting more flexibility. Funny how that works.

Thinking about it more, having more flexibility in the party members appeals to me, at least in part, because it adds more variability to each game and to each playthrough of each game. If I play through SMT IV or Strange Journey twice, I'm going to end up with really different parties and thus really different experiences despite passing through the same fairly linear set of content. If I play through Persona 3 twice, I'm going to have a different stock of personas for the main character but otherwise a largely similar experience with the other characters.

Which isn't that big of a deal, really, because only completely crazy people who I'd never be friends with would play Persona 3 multiple times. Except that, aside from story content, the experience of playing Persona 4 looks really similar, as does Persona 5 if they don't tweak the formula much. And after almost a hundred hours of Persona 3, I don't really want to play any more, even if there are different characters, a different story, and a happier color scheme.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some grumping to do. About everything. Grump grump grump.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Having everyone do everything is actually a bad way to manage your party in SMT IV, at least on hard difficulty. Carrying over a full set of elemental and physical attacks means you don't get to carry anything else, and getting a full round of press-turns isn't going to do you any good if you get completely thrashed on the second turn. You'll end up doing more grinding for levels and cash overall by not specializing and branching out.

I didn't play on Hard, but even on Normal I ended up grinding and spending money to fuse specific demons. To me that was part of the fun, so I largely was okay with that in the end. That's always a tough spot for me. When a game offers up grinding versus difficulty. The path of least resistance is just to grind, even though I don't love that. Maybe, in the end, that's part of why I liked Persona 4 more. Or why I prefer other SRPGs to Fire Emblem Awakening. It's almost like physics. I got redirected to the grinding path. Same as I did in Fire Emblem Awakenings.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

Either you'd have really interesting takes and cause me to consider games I had ignored or you'd hate things with a fiery passion that I love. Either way it would be fun.

I don't know where I'd settle with it, either, but unfortunately $200 is far beyond my ability to gamble on a system not knowing if I'd love it or hate it. But hey, if you ever want to get rid of a Vita and would be willing to let it go for some hilarious clocking, send me a PM. ;)

Never selling my Vita (I know, I know, stop laughing, but it's true). But I will say this. If the Vita gets a version of Persona I'll just outright buy a second Vita and loan it to you indefinitely. That's my way of putting my money where my mouth is, supporting clocking and tempting the gods so the Vita sees a release of Persona 5.

You make some good points about multiple playthroughs, but I still think the danger of adding flexibility is in watering down the uniqueness of the characters. If they open up the skill system for NPCs to the degree that they did for demons in SMT IV I think they'd lose a lot of flavor. In SMT I basically fused out every elemental weakness on my demons until they were roughly homogeneous, and also nearly indestructible.

There has got to be a middle ground between the complete lockdown of P3 and the free for all of SMT IV - In the case of Persona wouldn't mind seeing a system where active skills could be traded, perhaps through social link development, but resists and weaknesses were locked in (ie no inheritances of passives like "Resist Ice"). That would force the player to make considerations about who to take in to battle while still providing some flexibility in terms of approach.

I highly doubt that will come to pass, but I think it would be pretty cool.

I just like that there is room for both games on my shelf.

imbiginjapan wrote:

You make some good points about multiple playthroughs, but I still think the danger of adding flexibility is in watering down the uniqueness of the characters. If they open up the skill system for NPCs to the degree that they did for demons in SMT IV I think they'd lose a lot of flavor.

Yeah, just to be clear: I thought SMT IV was too open in its fusion system. I wouldn't want that for Persona, either, but some kind of limited customization and branching would be nice-to-have.

Minarchist wrote:

I just like that there is room for both games on my shelf. :)

No!

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/rsWZaMLl.jpg)

ClockworkHouse wrote:

I do think there's some flexibility in the theme and narrative to allow for support character customization through the social links. I could see the characters at certain social link levels getting the player character's advice about which after-school activities to pursue, each one contributing to a different skillset. "Should I do archery or volleyball? Archery will help me with wind skills, and volleyball will make me stronger so I'll hit harder."

I could see them doing this. I've got Chie and Yosuke up to Rank 3 so they'll both jump in with follow-up attacks when something gets knocked down. I believe there's other "abilities" that unlock at later SL ranks, so giving players some customization options via social links seems like a logical evolution of the work they did in P4. I really like in P4 how the social links with party members act as a nice loop that links both halves of the game together.

Minarchist wrote:
cube wrote:
Which is why I said that their static nature is built into the narrative and design. It's thematically important that the characters remain themselves, but it's mechanically less interesting. To me. I know some players really like the largely pre-destined nature of the supporting characters.

I think it's mechanically more interesting, rather than less. It allows for much more interesting encounter design.

The problem with SMTIV, and this is almost entirely because of the way that the turn press system, is that it pushes you to develop a stable of demons that all do everything, since that allows you to do the most damage per turn by exploiting weaknesses. Since there aren't any real restrictions on skill transfer you just need to grind like crazy for the money to do it.

With Persona's system, you're forced to deal with 3 other party members that have specific strengths and weaknesses. While you have almost complete freedom for the protagonist, you need to figure out how to design him/her around the rest of the party.

That helps with boss design. In SMTIV, you basically end up in an arms race with the player, just increasing damage and HP as your options. On the other hand, in Persona, you can have bosses that effectively nullify a party member's elemental attacks.

Agreed. Hearty handshake!

It makes it especially interesting when the game forces you into a boss battle including a certain character who is weak to the boss' attacks. Really gotta think on the fly when that sort of thing happens, and use all those funky support skills like elemental breaks and buffs that you wouldn't otherwise have to use.

Agreed as well. When I played P3 I was rotating people in and out of the roster on a fairly regular basis and there were a couple of bosses which were huge pains because their attacks lined up with the weaknesses of 1 or 2 party members which required some quick improvisation.

Minarchist wrote:

I just like that there is room for both games on my shelf. :)

Hear hear!

ClockworkHouse wrote:
Minarchist wrote:

I just like that there is room for both games on my shelf. :)

No!

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/rsWZaMLl.jpg)

This joke is way, WAY over my head.

garion333 wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:
Minarchist wrote:

I just like that there is room for both games on my shelf. :)

No!

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/rsWZaMLl.jpg)

This joke is way, WAY over my head.

Whaaaaaat? Maybe THIS will clear things up:
IMAGE(http://pix.avaxnews.com/avaxnews/4a/04/0000044a_medium.jpeg)

[size=7](Okay, I don't get it either.)[/size]

Spoiler:

That's a Toyota Highlander.

Ragging on Atlus's flagellation of their Persona properties make sense, but the latest P4 Arena finally managed to topple Yokai Watch 2 from the top of Japan's sales charts:

1•[PS3] Persona 4 Arena Ultimax (Atlus, 08/28/14) – 89,498 (New)
2•[PSV] Toukiden Kiwami (Koei Tecmo, 08/28/14) – 79,384 (New)
3•[3DS] Yokai Watch 2: Ganso / Honke (Level-5, 07/10/14) – 68,762 (2,358,745)

You can see the rest here.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
Spoiler:

That's a Toyota Highlander.

You sure? I did a search and the front end is different... Turns out I was looking at the wrong year.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
Spoiler:

That's a Toyota Highlander.

Yeah they're really roomy inside, you can definitely fit two games in ther - oh.

Stopping by to say that this will be a day-one purchase for me on the PS3 (unless I happen to have a PS4 by then, thought it's unlikely).