I don't remember mentioning Persona 2 characters,I do remember pointing out that the Persona 1 character is crappy like most of the game though.
The game is pretty good on its own, if you're patient when it comes to random encounters and strategic placement. The story is... decent while the characters were endearing enough, if forgettable.
The snazzy PSP remake music is a plus.
The game is pretty good on its own, if you're patient when it comes to random encounters and strategic placement. The story is... decent while the characters were endearing enough, if forgettable.
The snazzy PSP remake music is a plus.
The big issue is, why play it? It's not like any of the endings or even the events are canon as the true ending of Persona is this
-Everyone joined the team(not poissible in the game)
-Both paths happened(again not possible))
This right here just makes playing the game utterly pointless, the other games had least continued from an ending you could get and while Minakos timelines might not be continued in Persona 4, there is nothing stopping Atlus from doing a game based on her timeline(which Atlus even said they would like to tackle that in the future if fans wanted it), not what Persona pulled,. add that to only three decent character(who are better in EP anyways) and there's just no reason to play, more so when Persona 2 gives you a in-deph summary. Again just me, I see no point to replay a crappy game that in the end really amounts to nothing.
If people find the game enjoyable enough then the fact that it ultimately amounts to nothing in the series canon is irrelevant. A game should be judged by its own merits rather than how it fits in the overall tapestry.
It's on PS3 to download off PSN.
I did not know that. Thanks gonna download it asap!
If people find the game enjoyable enough then the fact that it ultimately amounts to nothing in the series canon is irrelevant. A game should be judged by its own merits rather than how it fits in the overall tapestry.
I do judge Persona on its merits and what I got is
-A horrible story
-horrible cast but three characters
-unlike Persona 2 which while still had some main SMT aspects, Persona decided to not even bother trying to do it's own thing in gameplay
-a unfun grindfest with no pay off
The stuff with thew ending and companions being rendered moot is just part of the many many many issues of the first game.
I'm going to just put it out there the dungeons were probably my least favorite aspect of the Persona series save for 4 and I'm really glad they fixed party direct commands in the P3P version.
Tartarus could have been good if they didn't do copy pasty 256 floors of hell.
Tartarus is the most evil thing that has ever existed. It's worse than stepping on lego!
See, what I kinda liked how the dungeon crawling was kept with only Tartarus because I feel it works in accordance with the narrative, the story the game wanted to tell, but also with how the gameplay itself actually contributes to its underlying message -- Tartarus, in Greek Mythology, refers to the dark netherrealm, where Zeus banished the Titans and his father Cronos, that is to say the Under World. In Persona 3 it is shaped as a giant and fightening looking tower, where Death awaits at the top -- It is quite litterally the gateway to hell.
It's also noteworthy to mention how as it being this gigantic tower it symbolizes never-ending journey of life that all the main characters are going through -- They strive to find meaning with themselves as they com-bat the shadows. It's also important to note that while one can argue from a gameplay perspective that Tartarus doesn't change overtly much to warrant an interest, it does change in its tone and sense of eerie alien-presence it carries when venturing further and further up, the tone shifts as the main characters come to realize the hopelessness of their situation, the music changes and becomes almost more somber.
Tartarus also relates to one the main aspects, which Persona 3 takes into consideration, something that is shared among most games -- The concept of 'time'. Death itself is a physical present character in the game, while from a antropological standpoint it is also a subject that features prominently into the backstories of its characters -- But above that there is 'time'.
"Time is something no one can escape. It brings us all to the same end". ~ Pharos
In relations to what Pharos says at the beginning of the game -- Persona 3 heavily lays itself out in accordance with time, you spend most of your time in the game trying to allocate time and effort into different objectives. The game doesn't utilize time as a form of punishing the player or telling you to hurry up, but rather as a way of 'framing' your experience to make you stop and consider your choices.. It doesn't punish you or place judgement upon you but it sits and watches -- Like a very curious philosopher, it seeks to understand, not just from a plot-perspective, but also from a player perspective, what kind of person you are. In a way, it profiles you.
Basically, we have to consider that time is something which is explored in the gameplay, whereas death is explored in its narrative.
The conclusion we can draw from this is that the relationship between the game's mechanics and its narrative will lead us to understand that the narrative itself might be a smaller subset of the overall mechanics the game presents itself with. Other games have done this intentionally, like Silent Hill 2, where the narrative isn't as much dialogue or cutscenes, as it is weaved into its gameplay mechanics in a somewhat symbiotic relationship.
I think this is where I need to move to my next point. If you take an example -- Boot up let's say.. Knights of the Old Republic 1, for instance! The Endar Spire is under attack it's about to blow up -- Don't do anything. Nothing.. the opening cutscene heavily implies that the ship you're stationed on is about to blow up and crash into that nearby planet, and yet.. nothing happens? Now do something else -- Play Super Mario World for instance, wait a few minutes and watch Mario die of cardiac arrest as you left him to his own shenanigans. You monster. One answer is that there's a starching difference between the kind of the games they are -- One is an RPG the other is a platformer, in other words one is more heavily reliant on narrative agency, where the story is carefully driven by the player, at their own pace, whereas the other is gameplay-centric.
It give us an understanding of how time plays pretty much into any game but with different approaches. The fact that our example of KOTOR 1 is a story-driven game is what makes the hours of negligence in-game irrelevant on its in-game time clock. The game will only truly progress at the player's behest no matter what. Time itself is measured by plot events that are initiated entirely by the player him/herself. Defeat two Sith troopers in combat and you've basically advanced forward in accordance with the game's timeclock. It'll only follow your actions, step by step. If we were to take another example, for instance, we could take BioWare's Dragon Age Origins. One might have noticed that as you advance the plot in the game, once you've done a certain amount of stuff in the game, you can talk to the party and they'd refer to how over a year has passed.. But how did that happen? You as a player couldn't possibly have managed to calculate how it functions, because it only works when you make the choice of advancing the story. You could have decided to spend 7 hours of doing nothing but grind, or spend less hours and gotten to the same point of the characters saying "A year has passed".
The other school of time is where games like Mario falls into -- Where time is dictated by an AI within the game's mechanics that tells you to get your ass in gear, you 'll lose the game. Time progresses alongside real time to create a sense of urgency. It's of course important to note that not necessarily all games fall into either category, some uses a conventional mix of both to craft unique experiences, like Majora's Mask for instance, where you only have a limited amount of time to save the world from ultimate destruction.
I think the major point though of Tartarus has basically been summed up so at this point I'm just rambling.
To keep a long story short now -- I think that what Persona 3 does, with its time progression and Tartarus, is creating a sort of intrigate discussion on time-progression in gaming itself and how much it weaves into the narrative. If the player chooses to explore Tartarus, the game switches over to Tartarus Time, in which the progression of time is automatic, and is represented by hours rather than days. This is discreetly communicated to the player in two major ways. First, the arrival of the Dark Hour is heralded by the appearance on screen of a giant clock, which strikes midnight before falling apart. The automatic progression of the hands of the clock indicates that time has begun to move on its own, and the collapsing of the clock indicates the destruction of the previous model of player-dependent time progression. Second, the entrance to Tartarus proper is through a door embedded in a massive clock. The clock represents the thematic “minimizing” of time- from Iwatodai’s days to Tartarus’ hours- and symbolizes that unlike in Iwatodai, in Tartarus every minute counts.
(There are also several more subtle examples of the game suggesting that time moves differently in Tartarus, or that Tartarus’ time is measured in minutes and hours instead of days and months like Iwatodai Time. For example, in the opening cinematic, the main character is staring at a large clock when he experiences the Dark Hour for the first time, and the transition from Iwatodai Time to Tartarus Time is marked with a shot of the character’s MP3 player, which measures time in mere minutes and seconds. The FMV introducing Tartarus also reveals that the structure itself is covered in several large and sometimes irregularly shaped clocks, although it can be difficult to make out since the scene is so green. Shinegori Soejima’s concept art clearly depicts Tartarus as being decorated with at least thirteen massive clocks. You can also get a taste of the two time streams colliding if you go on a date with Elizabeth. The Velvet Room is governed by Tartarus Time, as evidenced by the giant one-handed clock looming over Igor’s desk, but Elizabeth can actually leave the Velvet Room to explore Iwatodai. Choosing to go on a date with Elizabeth will not advance time, even though selecting an activity is how time is advanced during Iwatodai Time. Elizabeth is governed by Tartarus Time, so her progression of time is automatic- just because the player has selected an activity, and in so doing has explicitly decided to advance time, that doesn’t mean anything to her. So, you get to engage in an activity without progressing time, thanks to the presence of Elizabeth.)
And blah, blah, blah..
I do judge Persona on its merits and what I got is
-A horrible story
-horrible cast but three characters
-unlike Persona 2 which while still had some main SMT aspects, Persona decided to not even bother trying to do it's own thing in gameplay
-a unfun grindfest with no pay off
The stuff with thew ending and companions being rendered moot is just part of the many many many issues of the first game.
See, you're comparing it to the obviously better successors of the series. I like looking back at how Persona has changed, for the better. Whether or not one would get fun out of it varies and it probably was a fun for the time. I will admit that it isn't worth any more than one playthrough.
It's sort of like when I played through Elder Scrolls: Arena for the sake of it. It was more grindy and hack-and-slashy than Skyrim with twice as many bugs but eh.
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If people find the game enjoyable enough then the fact that it ultimately amounts to nothing in the series canon is irrelevant. A game should be judged by its own merits rather than how it fits in the overall tapestry.
Sort of. I think with a series like this that can be more the case since they're a bit more disconnected from each other.
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I'm going to just put it out there the dungeons were probably my least favorite aspect of the Persona series save for 4 and I'm really glad they fixed party direct commands in the P3P version.
You need to learn to love Mitsuru uselessly casting Marin Karin when you're at death's door.
You need to learn to love Mitsuru uselessly casting Marin Karin when you're at death's door.
/gibberish
It's gameplay, it's meant to be fun not in-deph and deep(outside mechanics), that's what the lore is for. If I'm dungeon crawling I want something that is interesting and fun. not something not bore me to tears and makes me rage at the poor design.
FFS, each block does not even have their own bgm, it's just the same boring bgm music remixed to make you realize after the 50th floor you're in hell and you will be experience a very shitty dungeon crawler.
Tartarus can burn in game hell for all I care.
I actually didn't find Tartarus that bad in my last go around. Portable did a lot to make it more manageable with how the Tired mechanic was reworked and the healing machine (that I can't recall if it was in the original). Plus, I had Fuuka change the BGM pretty often.
I almost always got to the top of each respective level on my first day exploring there (completing most requests), returning later in the month to rescue who was trapped and tie up any loose ends.
It just felt a lot less daunting.
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It's gameplay, it's meant to be fun not in-deph and deep(outside mechanics), that's what the lore is for. If I'm dungeon crawling I want something that is interesting and fun. not something not bore me to tears and makes me rage at the poor design.
FFS, each block does not even have their own bgm, it's just the same boring bgm music remixed to make you realize after the 50th floor you're in hell and you will be experience a very shitty dungeon crawler.
Tartarus can burn in game hell for all I care.
Yeah all that seemed to have more to do with justifying why you are where you are in regards to the narrative. Unfortunately that doesn't really do much for why it is what it is in the case of its bland and repetitive design.
It's gameplay, it's meant to be fun not in-deph and deep(outside mechanics), that's what the lore is for. If I'm dungeon crawling I want something that is interesting and fun. not something not bore me to tears and makes me rage at the poor design.
FFS, each block does not even have their own bgm, it's just the same boring bgm music remixed to make you realize after the 50th floor you're in hell and you will be experience a very shitty dungeon crawler.
Tartarus can burn in game hell for all I care.
It depends on what kind of game you are playing -- Now I was gonna take your response a little bit more seriously if you could have done the courtesy of doing it with me too -- It's evident that you did not bother reading the entire thing, and thus I don't feel the need of doing a courtesy here -- I'm not quite sure what it is that makes a game a "game" to you, but the gameplay and narrative will always have to complement each other hand-in-hand when it comes to Persona and I was pointing out why I feel that a single dungeon, works for how that particular game is designed. It's not like Tartarus is perfect but I hardly considered it boring, in the same manner that you do, when things considered that dungeon crawling isn't all interesting to begin with -- Persona has the fusion system that grants the gameplay a sense of addictive feel to it, which actually makes it fun to pick up every now and then. Persona 2 was a snore worthy corridor-fest, where you spend most of your time running through very similar corridors, and sure, they were bigger, but nothing that awe-inspires at all not to mention the annoying random encounters. If we are talking about 'fun' and I'm not sure what fun is to you, but certainly isn't dungeon crawling. It never really has been with JRPGs, in fact it's incredibly dull, especially in Devil Saga.
But anyway, I see no point of going more into depth with it though.
As a person who has played many jrpgs and dungeon crawlers and enjoys them, Tartarus was a horrible experience. Doing 156 floors that are all the same is crappy design. I don't really care if they wanted to link that to the story, it was a silly choice and made the crawling part of the game horrible. Some of my friends don't even want to replay P3 despite enjoying the story simply because of Tartarus.
There I added something, just ignore that little brat near Kanji.
So much Quteness. 
If we are talking about 'fun' and I'm not sure what fun is to you, but certainly isn't dungeon crawling. It never really has been with JRPGs, in fact it's incredibly dull, especially in Devil Saga.
I thought the dungeon crawling in P3 was pretty cool, all things considered. There was a lot of variation in customization, a decent amount of challenge, it was pretty satisfying. It was extremely one-dimensional though after awhile. It's certainly better than nothing.
I disagree that dungeon crawling has always been bad in JRPGs though, a lot of games I always thought had a lot of fun games and gimmicks to keep things moving. Suikoden with the whole duel/army/dungeon experience. The fights were really fast paced and you also got to use a massive variety of characters.
It just varies from game to game. Tonelico is like, really bad, P3 is better than that, worse than a random Final Fantasy. I'm irritated that JRPGs don't emphasize game mechanics the same way they once did, but I'd say any effort is better than nothing and there's a lot of variation in the overall experience.
One of the most fun systems IMO has been the Star Ocean series (which the Tales system was based on), because it had lots of reactivity like guards and counters as well as massive mob variety.
I'd put Tartarus and P3 is solidly in the middle between VNs and something like Suikoden, IMO.
Yo Chris, I decided to pick up the first DDS. I can juggle it and study, lol.
First thoughts on the game?
Toothy boobies.
Not entirely sure what you're talking about here -- The customization of your Personas don't go toe-to-toe with the actual dungeon crawling, which is to navigate through a line of extremely similar corridors -- That's how it always has been with JRPGs and I don't find particularly engaging especially with the random encounter systems of the old age -- It's not fun, I don't think tedious grinds and aspect of exploring samey environments to be fun. And forgive me, I can't say I've played every JRPG in existence since I don't happen to find them all particularly interesting, but let it be known there are JRPGs with exceptions to the rule, but those usually don't involve dungeon crawling but rather beautiful open environments to explore and behold, which is okay with me. In retrospect, what makes the tedious dungeon crawling bearable in JRPGs is usually the soundtrack. Valkyria Chronicles is fun, Tales is fun, Persona is fun because of the fusion system gameplay, which constantly makes combat play differently and putting you in a position of where you have to keep building and changing your strategy to com-bat the enemies you face.I thought the dungeon crawling in P3 was pretty cool, all things considered. There was a lot of variation in customization, a decent amount of challenge, it was pretty satisfying. It was extremely one-dimensional though after awhile. It's certainly better than nothing.
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