Lurker > apolloooo

Nice congrats and thank you to the winner

18

Doe posted...

I understand why people dont like the Royal ending as much as OG but I also appreciate it as very intentional and purposeful. The exchange for rejecting Marukis ideal world is that the gang have to deal with real life getting in the way. I was really impressed by the games acknowledgment of the weight of that choice.

Yeah, that is what i really like about royal. They gave weight to the whole rejecting maruki thing and everything in the 3rd semester was excellent (maybe except combat because i were already too OP even playing on hard difficulty, the 3rd persona evolution for party members are OP too)

teep_ posted...

This reminds me that I should make my yearly "Maruki did nothing wrong" topic

Also TC, I'm glad you liked Royal. I never played Vanilla, but the third semester was an amazing end to an extremely good game

Maruki's dungeon is one of the best dungeon i played in jrpg tbh and i played tons of them. The mix of puzzle/exposition is perfect, compared to vanilla's final dungeon which is just combat.

Also maruki is wrong. Healing people is good but what he did is not healing, it's just giving them an illusion.

This is my first persona 5 playtrough, so i am kinda curious for people who play vanilla first what do they think about royal's content and such.

For me i think royal's content is excellent. I loved akechi from the start and based on their confidant scenes i really feel their rivalry building up as opposite side of a coin.

Kasumi/sumire was good addition and i like her but she is just okay

Maruki is an excellent character with great confidant scenario and i really like the whole 3rd semester content and story telling. His dungeon is super long, but doesnt feel boring because it has interesting mechanics and add substantial depth to maruki's characters and motivation. I find the final fight to be a bit cheesy, but overall the whole extra storyline is very good.

My guess is the biggest difference is what vanilla player think about akechi's character compared to royal's.

Nyx.

Like she manifested with a mix of kirijo messing with the sea of souls and humanity's collective desire to die bringing the persona of death itself in physical form.

Persona 3 was made in 2007, which is very different from 2024. It feels like doomerism is more rampant and if the collective unconscious was real something like nyx would be even more powerful than the one we see in persona 3

Rika_Furude posted...

I did buy this one myself, the translation seemed very bad when I originally tried it though. Has it improved since then?

They changed it but it is still like early 2000s jrpg. Playable and comprehensible but dont expect anything more.

Accolon posted...

I bought that, but I couldn't quite figure it out. I probably need to scour some wikis

It has a steep learning curve, but the first few chapters are easy enough you can get away by equipping basic masteries and play it simple. Only the violent cases require extra effort. However the story's difficulty ramps up later

Troubleshooter: abandoned children is the best and deepest one you can get rn

I think the art is very good for weekly manga and the writing is improving, and the first arc ended in a pretty good note. Char and sojo carries that arc <_<

dave_is_slick posted...

How did you get that far and miss the point that bad?

I dont say i am not enjoying the game. Easily the best gameplay for the modern SMT games ( i played persona 3,4, SMT 4 and apocalypse, devil survivor 1 and 2 and strange journey)

And the story is still pretty good with good overall themes and world building. This topic is me basically overthinking "stealing hearts" aspect of the whole game.

SAlYAN posted...

At the end of the day, that's not what the game is about. Not only would the pacing answer storytelling suffer immensely if the writers were to shove in manifestos on systemically solving issues like rape/abuse, organized crime, big business/political corruption, hikikomori-ism, criminal justice reform, parental abandonment, and the dozen other issues the game tackles, those individual issues aren't ultimately the point.

Throughout the game, it's shown time and time and again that these bad actors in palaces are symptoms, not the disease itself. Every time the thieves steal a heart, they fix a terrible person, but the world doesn't actually get better. Kamoshida, Madarame, a TON of people knew the whole time what was going on, but looked the other way. The police were powerless to move against Kaneshiro. Everybody helplessly ran around in circles over Medjed. Futaba was gaslit into severe depression, and damn near the whole world gave up on her for it. Everything about the protagonist's brushes with the police are indicative of a culture that doesn't care who you are or what you did, just whether you stay in line, or get smacked down if you don't.

The thru line is that these big bad actors are just symptoms of an apathetic world. People see and know that all of these shitty th8ngs are happening around them, and they just 0lug their eyes and ears and act like if they just go about their daily lives, none of it matters. Its why the Okumura arc, while bloated near the beginning, is so important. Its the evidence that just taking out bad guys and being popular super heroes doesnt actually fix anything; regular people still dont care, and just enjoy the "fireworks." The phantom thieves, fully realized, aren't about solving all the world's problems, its about making you want to try.

Very good analysis of the themes thank you. Yeah in the end, i agree. I am thinking too much about the change of heart too and how too much a convenient power fantasy for the problems they are trying to tackle.

Otherwise My only real "complaint" about the story in general is how the party member persona evolution ties to the confidant rank. It feels less satisfying because it isnt integrated with the main story. Compare it to persona 3 spoiler junpei's character development with chidori's and ultimately his persona evolution

BloodMoon7 posted...

You realize that it's not meant to be realistic?

I saw a video about cut Kamoshida and Madarame memories which delves into their backstories a bit. Based on that, those two at least do seem aware that what they're doing is wrong. It does get a bit iffy after though since the next palace belongs to a gangster.

Yeah, it could be just the author is basically saying " come on! Our society is fucked, wake up and rebel against it" and i am reading too much into the symbolism of stealing hearts.

Rika_Furude posted...

Were persona games ever meant to present solutions to solve societal problems? I always interpreted the games more as facing yourself and overcoming your own issues, in relation to society around you. While it is a power fantasy, it is cool nonetheless IMO.

No its not but the method and results feel too simple nonetheless.

But as a game i think it is really great, and the further refinement to the formula and addition of palaces instead of random generated dungeon is amazing.

Again, spoiler but only up to shido's palace.

I feel pretty ambivalent about the whole "stealing hearts" thing. At its core, the game tries to highlight various societal problems in japan, from kamoshida to shidou which most likely has real life parralel. The teenagers "rebels" against these people, but i guess stealing hearts is just too convenient power fantasy to convey author's intent on how to tackle these problems, and it became kinda toothless in that way because you just steal hearts, and conveniently these people realize their mistakes and confess everything? I am not saying the author can amd must offer a solution to this multi-generational and multi faceted issues, but stealing hearts feels very reductive toward real people who cried and bled trying to solve these issues.

On the philosophical side, it seem to assume and deep down these culprits seem to know what they are doing is wrong, thus when the treasure is taken, they judged themselves by this seemingly objective measure of morality of what is "right and wrong" then fix their behavior from that basis. (This can be explained, that the phantom thieves targets corrected themselves to the what the general masses think is right. So if the public think plagiarism isnt wrong, madarame's change of heart wouldn't happen)

I am not a moral relativist, but there is also no absolute and some people who do these kind of crimes genuinely doesnt think what they did is wrong. Unless the whole judgement against the majority of society perception about morality is right, the change of hearts wouldnt happen to people with actual and severe sociopathic/psychopathic behavior.

Maybe i am just overthinking a simple premise about fixing society with basically magic.

C but i have adhd.

Meds help, but doesn't completely quiet it down

Agree