Shin Megami Tensei series

ph14basicbitch

ph14basicbitch

shinra merch buyer
AKA
koda
I finished reading the Famitsu interview that the except about "but that doesn't mean that stuff added to the main story of FES won't be in Reload" comes from, and the aforementioned part is unfortunately the most interesting and noteworthy part of the interview. The rest is seriously shit like Famitsu going, "So like, you made the dungeons and towns bigger to match the 3D models, huh" and Atlus is like, "Uhm, yes?"

Great. Good interview.
 
ph14basicbitch

ph14basicbitch

shinra merch buyer
AKA
koda
I was just reading that interview.

I am very amused that the progression of their interviews the past week has gone like this:

Atlus: Here is P3 Reload
Atlus in the IGN Interview: P3 Reload is only the original P3
Atlus in the Famitsu Interview: P3 Reload is only the original P3 and it doesn't have the FeMC route or The Answer, but that doesn't mean there won't be elements added to the main story that were in The Journey
Atlus in the 4gamer Interview: P3 Reload is only the original P3 and it doesn't have the FeMC route or The Answer, but that doesn't mean there won't be elements added to the main story that were in The Journey, The Answer, or FeMC's route

At this rate their their next interview is going to say, "Okay you know what fuck it okay we give up it has The Answer and FeMC now".
 
cold_spirit

cold_spirit

he/him
AKA
Alex T
A few years ago I wrote an article for Persona Central defending the tired status and AI controlled party members.

personacentral.com

Rethinking Persona 3's Most Divisive Mechanics - Persona Central

In this guest article, cold_spirit addresses what many consider to be the roughest edges of Persona 3.
personacentral.com personacentral.com

My thoughts haven't changed since then:

Gone is the balancing act between school life and dungeon crawling. In P5, my playtime was spent either doing 8-hour runs through Palaces, or 8-hour segments of daily activities. There wasn’t a healthy back and forth, just one then the other. In P3, due to party members becoming Tired, the game forced the player to make multiple trips to Tartarus in a month.
...
While I understand that SP management has effectively replaced the Tired condition in P4 and P5, I don’t see it as a perfect solution. There are just too many ways to efficiently replenish your SP by mid-game. If there’s one element of P3 I would like to see make a return it would be the more balanced game flow due to the necessity of tackling dungeons through multiple attempts, whether this be from the Tired condition or otherwise.
Click to expand...

And my thoughts on AI controlled party members:

P3 was balanced from its onset with AI-controlled party members in mind. As such, every Full Moon and Tartarus boss has been tweaked around this core mechanic. The game is not harder or unfair due to AI-controlled party members. Its difficulty is as intended.
...
Though the option does exist to have AI-controlled party members in P4 and P5, their gameplay was not balanced around the mechanic and some Tactics from P3 are absent. For a series built on its characters, autonomy has been sorely lacking. This unique flow of combat is something I wish the Persona series explored further, not swept under the rug. But hey, don’t take my word for it. Here’s what director Katsura Hashino and character designer Shigenori Soejima have to say on the subject:

Screenshot_20230608-135805.png
Click to expand...
 
Lulcielid

Lulcielid

Eyes of the Lord
AKA
Lulcy
Sega survey for the P3 remake suggest the starting price will be $69.99

F0TZTThWYAELN8q
 
ph14basicbitch

ph14basicbitch

shinra merch buyer
AKA
koda
I recently read a Japanese interview with Katsura Hashino from the 2009 Persona Club P4 book. The interview is hidden at the back of the book, sealed into the binding, and you have to cut the pages in order to even read it because it has spoilers where they talk about the culprit lol. During it, he reveals some very, very funny details about the creative process for Persona 4.

  • Adachi was originally in the plot, but he wasn't the culprit. (We knew this already from Soejima's remark in the artbook, but, carrying on.) Originally, it was just Namatame and then Izanami. Namatame's role sounds very much the same as it was in the game we got, where he's this well-intentioned dude who just didn't have all the info, and the player was supposed to have this feeling that "someone else is out there". The staff thought the plot wasn't developed enough when it was just Namatame -> Izanami, so they wanted to add another true, TRUE culprit in-between them as an extra plot twist.
  • Their first candidate for this true, true culprit was Yukiko. This was "half serious", based on a convo between Soejima and Hashino where they talked about how when there's a murder in the boonies in the Kindaichi Case Files manga, the culprit is always the lady who runs the ryokan.
  • The next candidate was Yosuke, thinking he'd have a reason for orchestrating all of this that players would be able to relate to. But Hashino personally was against the idea of one of the friend group being the culprit.
  • Ultimately, Yukiko and Yosuke would've been bad culprits because they would've had too personal motives, this would've been too similar to a popular character drama driven mystery TV show called Tuesday Suspense Theater, and Hashino thought that personal motive = player less interested in the mystery.
  • Proto-Adachi's role was originally a very conspicuous looking red herring character who's role in the plot was to give the main characters info from the police side of the investigation, and he did so carelessly - it wasn't his responsibility what the main characters did with this information. And this would make him very suspicious, but he was just a red herring, not actually a culprit. At the time, one of the themes of the story was, "how the characters get information" (see the bit on the first bullet point about Namatame not having info), and so Hashino thought this character who gives the characters info and is careless would mix well with the role of an antagonist.
  • But, if Proto-Adachi was giving the main characters (legit) info, then he would stand out, and it would be super duper obvious he was the culprit, so Hashino course corrected and (implied: re-)created his character. (Remember how the first thing he tells you as a detective was some very obvious bullshit: "We think Yukiko did it"? lol)
  • Adachi's name was originally Tamotsu Adachi, but the character for Tamotsu (保) can be read as Yasu when used as a name. When one of the Atlus devs finished reading the script, they said, "So Yasu did it, huh?" referring to Yasuhiko Mano from Portopia, the twist murderer who is also a detective's assistant like Adachi. "Yasu did it" is like "Sephiroth killed Aerith" in that 9999999 people know it, but Hashino wasn't aware of that at the time. He thought Portopia was so old that surely not many people knew it, right? But then when Adachi's portrait appeared in a magazine, and people reacted with, "Yasu did it", Hashino changed his name from Tamotsu to Tohru lol.

:monster: This interview is hilarious.
 
cold_spirit

cold_spirit

he/him
AKA
Alex T
My review:

I like how this opening starts out quiet. It makes it stand out amongst the other Persona openings so far. The animation throughout is solid. I especially like how Yukari is smiling in the mirror, but not in the sink water. Both are reflections and reveal different aspects of her character. The only part I don't like is MC throwing his MP3 player at the end. It doesn't serve any thematic purpose, and the thought of such a beautiful piece of technology hitting the pavement is painful to me, like nails on a chalkboard. Very odd choice.

Good overall. Nothing tops the original openings for P3, 4, and 5 though.
 
ph14basicbitch

ph14basicbitch

shinra merch buyer
AKA
koda
Koromaru. (～￣▽￣)～

cold_spirit said:
The only part I don't like is MC throwing his MP3 player at the end.
Click to expand...
Yea, the "throwing music player @ the screen" thing seems pretty off.

(I also feel like the sequence of SEES using their Evokers between the Velvet Elevator + Koromaru at the shrine torii is uhh idk the word but it feels kinda off.)

Edit: Btw, if anyone is bored as hell before Reload comes out, the non-Fandom Megaten wiki probably has a page that is waiting for you to fill it out. :pinkmonster:
 
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cold_spirit

cold_spirit

he/him
AKA
Alex T
Wanted to grief about this somewhere: I think the new female vocalist they picked is too jazzy. It's evident to me that they wanted someone who sounded similar to P5's Lyn. It speaks to a larger issue I have with Reload. From the menus, to the game design, to the vocalist, their goal was to recreate P5 with a P3 skin. And unfortunately, that's on purpose. Here's what Producer Ryota Niitsuma said on the project:

1704593716668.png

I wish Reload heroed P3's original aesthetic. As it is now, it feels to me like Reload, and the Persona series in general, will forever be in P5's shadow. It's not that P5 is bad (though I personally don't like it), it's just that I admire series that constantly push their own boundaries. Persona used to be a series like that.
 
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ph14basicbitch

ph14basicbitch

shinra merch buyer
AKA
koda
Early on shortly after P3 Reload was announced, there was a Famitsu article talking about P3 Reload where they say, "...Communities (Called Confidants in Persona 5)..." which well lmao
 
ForceStealer

ForceStealer

Double Growth
I haven't been following the marketing super closely, but I have been surprised by the lack of Burn My Dread in what I had seen so far.
 
Rydeen

Rydeen

In-KWEH-dible
I started playing last night. When the horns hit in the dorm is when it started to hit me what I was revisiting. I played this game when I was 21 and it's been almost a decade now.

I only got through one day of gameplay. My current thoughts are that it's gorgeous, and that I love seeing the old tech. I had one of those bullet style MP3 players that I used to listen to on long bus rides back in New York when I was a little younger than the protag.
 
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