The Persona Franchise (and Atlus in general I guess)

[jrhodes]

So...I might have just neglected most of my life for the last week and blazed through Persona 3.

They did their best to improve Tartarus while staying true to the original but it still felt like a bit of a slog. Other than that though, I enjoyed it a great deal. The story landed better with me now as an adult who's suffered more than a fair share of loss in his life than it did when I first played it in my early twenties.

Koromaru and Aigis in particular got me in the feels quite a few times.

Now back to reading 1Q84 before Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth drops.

[stokeriño]

Fucking hell. I've put 30 hours in over the past 7 days and I thought that was a lot. 😅

I'm up to July 11th. Speaking of which...

Spoiler

Mitsuru's "It just never seemed relevant" line still bowls me over. HOW COULD YOU THINK THAT?

 

[Ruki]

Jeeze. Slow down! I'm just at the end of June!

[lanky316]

I caved and bought this... Despite limited gaming time these days, I've still found myself playing for 11 hours, I'm not long past May mid-terms but loving it so far. Can't wait to gain more party members so I don't have to put up with Junpei all the time but so far I've really got in to it. I promptly joined the track and field team and started humiliating all these posers for being rubbish and, started hanging out with the manager who's clearly realised I'm head and shoulders better than everyone else in every way. I'm pretty sure I've aced the midterms so look forward to studying hard to apply myself to a good college and entry exams next year. 

 

Combat and all that is fine, I'd just rather hang out with my school mates, until everything inevitably goes wrong because I'm too much of a nerd to do anything else and let my future athletics career go to shit because I spend all day in the library.

[Ruki]

I am appreciating that the blocks of Tartarus look different from one another. On the third block, it's like a factory! Much more visually appealing than the original. 

[stokeriño]

Somehow in the same week I have convinced (/bullied) both my boss and a guy in my team to try the Persona franchise. Got them both started on P5R. 

Only feedback so far from one of them is "played half an hour and it's very narrative/cut scene driven, which I'm not used to at all". I opted to merely nod silently rather than tell him to strap in for 80 more hours of the same. 😅

 

[Ruki]

Ah fuck. I missed Junpei's 'social link' in August. Now I won't be able to continue that with him

 

I saw the text in my phone but got distracted! And I don't have any saves to go that far back.

[stokeriño]

I've already made peace with having to do a NG+ to see some of this side content. Like, I'm sure cooking with whoever is fun dialogue and such, but getting a poxy HP item out of it when I could be building my stats? Gtfo.

[Ruki]

Although, it's the beginning of August, and I already maxed out Academics at least~! 

[stokeriño]

On 13/02/2024 at 18:02, stokeriño said:

Somehow in the same week I have convinced (/bullied) both my boss and a guy in my team to try the Persona franchise. Got them both started on P5R. 

The guy in my team sent me a question:

[Ruki]

I mean, that's accurate. 

[Ruki]

The major arcana that allows you to pick two cards? Amazing!

Edit: My day is saved! I can still do Junpei's event on the 18th!

[stokeriño]

A criticism of P3's pacing (that I also had of the original):

It winds me up no end that you get in the swing of the game and THEN the months of July and August are just endless roadblocks to all the social link and other stuff you want to get done.

"Oh it's exams. Okay now a holiday. Okay now you're training for a poxy running event than basically robs you of a whole week just to find one new SL. Okay now you're doing summer school. FUCK OFF."

Not to mention that the stupid way that school SLs vanish in the holidays (AND pre-exam weeks), so some 2/3 of then are unavailable even when you *do* have days to do what you want.

Ugh. At least I managed to get my stats up to 6/5/5 (maxed one is Charm) in the interim.

[Ruki]

8 hours ago, stokeriño said:

A criticism of P3's pacing (that I also had of the original):

It winds me up no end that you get in the swing of the game and THEN the months of July and August are just endless roadblocks to all the social link and other stuff you want to get done.

"Oh it's exams. Okay now a holiday. Okay now you're training for a poxy running event than basically robs you of a whole week just to find one new SL. Okay now you're doing summer school. FUCK OFF."

Not to mention that the stupid way that school SLs vanish in the holidays (AND pre-exam weeks), so some 2/3 of then are unavailable even when you *do* have days to do what you want.

Ugh. At least I managed to get my stats up to 6/5/5 (maxed one is Charm) in the interim.

Holy crap. I managed to max my Academic (gonna start Mitsuru's social link once back in school), and I think the other two are 4 (MAYBE 5 for Charm).

[stokeriño]

Yeah but Academics needs so many more points than the other two. Your 6Ac/4Ch/4Co is probably about the same number of points as my 5Ac/6Ch/5Co.

[Ruki]

6 minutes ago, stokeriño said:

Yeah but Academics needs so many more points than the other two. Your 6Ac/4Ch/4Co is probably about the same number of points as my 5Ac/6Ch/5Co.

Oh really? I didn't realize there was a different in points needed! I really wish there was an experience bar or something to visualize this stuff. 

[stokeriño]

Found this posted on twitter somewhere. I don't think it's easy to track the 'notes' you receive against this because they don't always represent the exact number of points you get for different activities - but nonetheless, an indication of how much harder Academics is...!

Seems like both you and I have accrued about 320pts. 😆

 

[Ruki]

 

"Hey, maybe don't try and date your teacher?"
"Hey, maybe don't have a crush on your student?"
"Hey, maybe listen to the doctor and don't fuck up your knee for life?"
"Hey, maybe don't be in a cult?"

[stokeriño]

I've read people try to argue that some of the P3 SLs being utterly unpleasant human beings is intentional, because the game is trying to say something about how your time is valuable and you need to choose to spend it with the right people...or some such bollocks.

I don't buy it for a second.

[lanky316]

Well... I guess it kind of works. I learned after hanging out with a classmate there were better things I could do, like study or teach a bunch of kids how to run faster and I do get some satisfaction of slowly walking past him looking expectantly at me from his desk at the end of the school day.