rpanons | something big going down in clown town

something big going down in clown town

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no, it's the worst of the only 3 persona games that matter. i am a hater and will dissuade anyone from this tropey garbage that's all flash no substance

asking genuinely, not to argue or anything: which of the persona games is your favourite? and what did you dislike about 5? asking cause i mostly see people rave about how good 5 is so i'm curious!

it's a bit of a toss-up because i think the storyline of p4 is better but the characters of p3 are better. together they'd make the perfect game.

for transparency, i'll tell you i dropped it a little after the pyramid/futaba's dungeon. keep in mind that when this game came out, and when i played it, the BLM protests were at their height and that definitely colored my experience. should it considering it was made by a foreign team? probably not, but it is what it is. game still sucks.

the combat of p5 is fun and flashy but it isn't that different from p4. once you've mastered the gameplay of a persona game you've mastered them all, so all that's left is characters and storyline. i've played p4 more recently so i will mostly compare to it.

you know how in persona 4 the character struggles feel ahead of their time and actually offer some commentary on the state of society and the process of mourning? be prepared for NONE of that in a way that's new or refreshing. the story tries to force an identity on the MC that doesn't make any fucking sense. the guy has no rizz because he's a blank slate but it pushes this narrative that he's a ~thief of hearts~ and ~heartbreaker~. i honestly can't even remember a lot of the characters deals, ryuji? hates his mean teacher? yusuke's just a weirdo who wants to draw art of his naked female classmates? futaba's just a suicidal neet with hackzorz skills? instead of characters facing themselves and growing it feels more like "here's our sexy mc man, he'll go into your brain and give you a ~change of heart~ so you're all fixed!" like snapping someone out of a trance instead of, you know, making them confront their actual flaws.

the whole point of the story felt like it was supposed to be "kids don't have safe adults anymore" but didn't want to properly commit to being anti-authority in any way that was actually satisfying. i recall multiple times the characters being like "we should go to the police actually" and then eventually they work with(?) a detective that's one character's older sister in spite of being like "no the police are bad actually"? like it was SO wishy washy

i said it more succinctly earlier, it's just all flash no substance

da, agreeing with this 100000% other than putting p4 on a pedestal; p5 makes pretty much everything look like literature by virtue of being so unabashedly shallow, but p4 was... not great itself. it definitely tried, though! which is much more than p5 did. it feels like a gradual downward gradient since p3, which had clunky execution, but mostly commit to what it was trying to say (basing this off the original p3, i have not played p3r).

>the guy has no rizz because he's a blank slate but it pushes this narrative that he's a ~thief of hearts~ and ~heartbreaker~

lol yeah i can't stand the p5 protag

p3 and p4 obviously also had protags that were meant to be wish fulfillment blank slates for people to project onto, but at least they felt like they could be coherent characters nonetheless

as someone playing persona 3 reload and, frankly, bored by the story and characters i disagree. i find myself missing the updated gameplay of persona 5 and am considering revisiting it for that reason. the dungeons are just fun, yes you run into issues when replaying because the layouts don't change but frankly the rng floors of p3 and p4 are not actually better. they're not unique, they're not interesting, and they offer a copy/pasted experience

at least in persona 5 i found the heist segments engaging. the eng voice actors are all great. i do take issue with some of the characters and how they slap their own plots in the face (whoever went "hey, what if we go over a teacher harrassing his female students, including a party member, and then in the very next arc have another party member want to paint her nude for ~art~" is shit), but p5 is a solid experience just like p3 and p4

i also have to point out that p4 wasn't as ahead of its time as you might think (and i'm saying this as someone who liked p4 more than p3 and p5). yes, some of the issues tackled weren't highlighted in other games but there are many segments of the game that haven't aged well (the constant jokes about kanji that come across as homophobic, for example)

you are also misremembering the character's arcs/misconstruing them a bit (yusuke does want to paint ann nude, this is completely dropped later and he's just kind of a weird artist guy who is lacking in self-awareness. futaba's issues deal with her mourning her mom, feeling responsible for things that weren't her fault, and issues with her uncle as well as trying to be less dependent and work through her agoraphobia)

the whole point of the story iirc wasn't "kids don't have safe adults anymore" but "the system is corrupt and there's no way to fight against it, especially as a kid/teen." they also very briefly try to do a "power corrupts" arc using one of the party members and one of the social links, though they quickly brush it under the rug

ia there are things p5 does not do well, i just don't really agree with most of the other stuff you said

adding to this since i forgot: it's okay to have dropped it if you weren't enjoying it, especially at a time that was very stressful for many people and with so much going on in the world. i can definitely understand why p5 didn't land especially in that timeframe and in no way mean to say "oh, go play it," because if you didn't enjoy it then i doubt you'll enjoy it now

only that while there are genuine criticisms to be made about p5, the game is ultimately "just ok" same as the other persona games

i totally don't understand anyone putting p4 on a pedestal especially with how poorly that game has aged since the writing for a lot of it was uncomfortable when it was new. It's like all of Atlus' bad, homophobic/misogynistic takes compiled in one game.

p5 also has uncomfortable writing in places so i'm not denying that but it at least it's playable without feeling gross about it.

The characters in 3 are not any better or worse than the characters from 4 or 5. They're just a different flavor of okay.

SEES is a really high conflict team compared to the IT and PTs. When the game starts most of them have someone else in the group they clash with, half of them don't even like you, the player character, and only a few of them actually care about SEES's mission. It takes a really big portion of the main story and their individual social links before they start to feel like an actual team. And if that's the sort of arc you're into, it's great! SEES having to gradually build towards a sense of cohesion might be a really satisfying story for you.

But constant infighting and jealousy subplots made me hate most of the party members. I struggled to feel invested in the main story because it felt like it was just me and 3 other characters making any sort of effort to see things through. By the end of the game I was even tired of the characters I did like couldn't wait to be done with the whole group for good.

I found the casts of 4/5 more engaging because not only did that actually all seem to like each other, but they all had immediate and very obvious personal investment in the main story. Neither group had as many internal conflicts, but I found the ones they did have way more interesting because they felt like fights between friends who really cared about each other and their goal, rather than a bunch of bitchy coworkers who barely tolerate one another agruing over who does or doesn't deserve a promotion. And I'm sure to plenty of people that sounds boring as hell and they'd rather have a team with more friction.

The writing isnt brilliant in any of the 3 games, but acting like one is objectively better or worse than the others is just silly.

da but god i couldn't stand p4's cast sometimes. sure they may not have hated each other deep down, but when they were pricks to each other, they were almost maliciously so, and it just left a bad taste in my mouth that a lot of it was just laughed off because it was all intended to be a gag. p4's chie spending yousuke's years of savings just to be petty as a gag was just as bleh as p5's everyone beating up ryuji for not being dead like they thought, never mind all the constant homophobic potshots and casual "ewwww perv!!!! *kills u* *kills u* *kills u* *laugh track plays*" gags littered throughout p4 where the cast just gets real mean and nasty at each other.

i know they're meant to be funny and obviously i did not find them funny so maybe i'm just not the audience for it, but at least p3 cast's conflicts were based in character arcs that eventually more or less resolved, and even if it wasn't always my cup of tea, it didn't make me groan the way p4 cast's catfighting did. p5's cast... are barely characters after a certain point (around the point where the game's vague gestures toward theming falls apart, which iirc is like the halfway point?) so i guess they don't hate each other, but they aren't exactly super engaging, either.

i agree that none of the p3/4/5 games are better than the others, though. i just wanted to point out that p4 and p5 suffer from rough writing perhaps the most, whereas p3 is more just "okay" i guess and (at least iirc, correct me if i'm wrong?) less often a pain to watch due to bad/weird/lazy writing choices and offbeat execution of humor. love it or hate it, p3 seems bad or good on its own merits at least, i feel like?

nayrt no i felt the same way. there are so many moments in p4 where the party is outright vicious to one another, with chie being the #1 offender. i could not stand her because she never called out for how awful she was. there are a ton of moments where she steps over the line, including the one you mentioned

but i'll also never forget how the girls yelled at the guys, called them pervs, and threw things at them cause the guys came in while the girls were in the hot springs. then the girls were like "actually, isn't it the guy's turn?" and collectively decided to stay in the baths, taking up their entire slot too and it never came up again. no apologies, the girls never said they were in the wrong, and this same unfunny, rude as shit behavior happens all the time in the game

there are moments i dislike the p5 cast's interactions too but ia it didn't make me groan the way the p4 cast's fighting did. probably cause ryuji is the chief offender and he's a buttmonkey they go out of their way to call out, even when he isn't doing anything. yusuke is also written to be weird and gets treated like he's weird. the only ones i had a real problem with that never get called out are mona and makoto (who kinda hijacks the protagonist position imo and the narrative pushes how smart she is without having her actually do anything smart), but i'll take both of them over chie anyway

wait they thought ryuji was dead in p5? This in a special version of the game or sequel?

Isn't there a moment where they think he didn't make it out before a palace collapsed

It's the lastish palace that he appears to not make it out and they all assume he didn't make it and then like a minute into the cast mourning him Ryuji shows up all "what's up" about it.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2024-03-22 17:40 (UTC) - Expand

for all that p5 peters out on its antiestablishment and authority theming about halfway through, i absolutely hated the way p4 ultimately handled its supposed themes of self acceptance the entire way through. it very much reads 'conservative older japanese writers try to write a story that's superficially about struggling with how one's self makes them not fit in properly...' then flubs the landing hard and ends up in 'ok but now actually that you know about yourself a little more and accept it as a part of you, bury it again only with more self awareness so you can be a productive member of society'. ultimately i don't rank it any better than p5 in terms of 'bless their hearts, they made an attempt but didn't remotely commit.'

i also suspect the uncomfortable writing that was already showing its flaws back when it came out might not have aged super well, as well, but can't really say for sure since it's been a long time since i played p4.

oh god i'm so sorry. i somehow managed to double post and misplace this entire comment because of 504/503s

gotcha! i haven't played any other persona games, so i don't have the comparison, but i appreciate your opinion nonetheless, and also the way you describe p4 has bumped it way higher on my to-play list

You're either lying to make the game sound worse, or you managed to miss all of the most basic details about the story and characters. Either way I don't think you're a reliable arbiter of quality.

mte

I was willing to give them some leeway when I started reading since it's not a perfect game and they admitted to not being in a good place when they played it. But the more I read, yikes.

as someone who's canonblind to p5, what is misleading/ill-informed about their comment?

imo that anon just depicts and misinterprets a bunch of characters and plots in the most misleading and uncharitable way?

some p5 spoilers up ahead and cw suicide and abuse, but for example futaba the "suicidal neet" is like that because she saw her mother commit suicide in front her and blames herself for it, so she becomes a shut-in. ryuji 'hates his teacher' because said teacher BROKE HIS LEG and basically fucked him over in the main thing he was good at (track) and also abused the hell out of his track teammates over because said teacher is a power tripping asshole. like lbr p5 isn't perfect story-wise but the characters' motivations and what drives them to join up with the MC are pretty well defined and fleshed out in a realistic way to me.

the 'change of heart' mechanic that's core to the game isn't some weird erasure of flaws get out of jail free card - to me it's more like the (wishful thinking) idea of being able to unravel whatever is so rotten at the hearts of certain people so that they see what they've done through clear eyes - the rapist suddenly feeling the crushing weight of all the lives they've harmed, the financial fraudster overwhelmed with the guilt of swindling people out of their life savings, that sort of thing. and having the "power" to do that is i think one of the better in-game motivations for a group of teens to take crazy risks and do wild shit in hopes of being able to change things.

Thank you for articulating this so well.

show me on the doll where p4 hurt you, anon

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