Board 8 > Persona 5 General Discussion Topic #4 - You'll Never See It Coming! (Spoilers)

(+) Yeah! (+)

December is basically the last month of gameplay. There are essentially 8.5 dungeons, plus Mementos.
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This 5th story arc is just plain bad so far.
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Mac Arrowny posted...

December is basically the last month of gameplay. There are essentially 8.5 dungeons, plus Mementos.

What are you counting as the .5 if not Mementos?

(If it's Mementos Depths then what's the 8th?)

Getting close to the end and just some general thoughts that I keep forgetting to mention.

I feel like the editing pass on this game was a step down from Persona 3/4 although maybe I'm just forgetting the flaws there. I feel like this is especially prevalent with the use of honorifics. At the beginning of the game I thought there was an effort to minimize their use, but then they come back to about "normal" Persona level in the mid-game... as if there were two different editing philosophies working on it. There's also been a surprising amount of internal inconsistency on their use on some characters. I've seen -san and Mr. used for the same person switching back and forth a lot for instance. Just seems weird. I also feel like "underestimated" has been used incorrectly in two different locations, but maybe I was tired and not reading it right.

Also potentially unpopular opinion but the opening isn't that good tbqh. But Persona openings have been downhill since they peaked with Persona 3, P3P, and Vanilla P4.

And as always my wishlist for the next Persona includes "actually acknowledging relationships (or if I'm being really greedy S-Links in general) in the main plot/story scenes." instead of them being isolated off in their own scenes. Just seems weird at times.
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There were like 7 localization editors for the game so that's probably why

xp1337 posted...

And as always my wishlist for the next Persona includes "actually acknowledging relationships (or if I'm being really greedy S-Links in general) in the main plot/story scenes." instead of them being isolated off in their own scenes. Just seems weird at times.

I think they started doing this a bit better in this game, there are definitely some cross-SL scenes, and some more plot-related SLs. But it's definitely a place they could improve on a lot in the next one.
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Regaro posted...

Mac Arrowny posted...

December is basically the last month of gameplay. There are essentially 8.5 dungeons, plus Mementos.

What are you counting as the .5 if not Mementos?

(If it's Mementos Depths then what's the 8th?)

Walking The spines up to the grail
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KamikazePotato posted...

This 5th story arc is just plain bad so far.

I feel like everyone who has played this game has made this comment.

Palace 5 leadup is the lowest point of the game. It's a culmination of odd confusing events, poor excuses for drama, bad character moments, and an incredibly weak vacation scene that is probabably the most definitive part of the game to point at when discussing it's weaker group dynamics.
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After almost a month and 118 hours of playtime, finally beat this game. Sad that it's over, but it feels good to be free. I got like 88% Compendium or something and every Confidant maxed except Devil, so I have no real desire to jump immediately into NG+ since it's basically just some grinding, trophies, and superbosses left to do.

I think overall it's my favorite Persona. The core gameplay (including social link integration and quality of social links) is basically 100% the best out of the modern games. Having real dungeons AND a Tartarus clone felt great. I really liked most of the characters, except Haru who felt tacked on. Setting is the best, soundtrack is solid, plot somehow manages to be the best despite bringing its own problems along.

My biggest complaint is probably the uneven pacing at points where it would feel like solid 2 hours of cutscenes between normal gameplay. I don't remember the other games having this problem to this extent, but it has been a while since I last played 3/4. Aside from the melodramatic Palace bosses and S H I T T Y A D U L T S I think it integrated its major themes into the story pretty well. I wish the villains were a bit better but unfortunately I felt like the game never got as real as it did with Kamoshida. There's a lot of wasted potential there, especially with Shido, who could have been great but ended up fairly generic for how hyped up he was.

Overall, best game that I binged over the course of a month and don't ever want to touch again (but still will because it's very good and there's more stuff to do).
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It was especially jarring to me because the 4th story arc was my favorite so far. It was 20 days of bullshit, but thankfully we're back in business.

Honorics I don't really care about, but the two localization things that legitimately bug me are:

1. Constantly referring to the bad people as 'adults'. I mean it's TRUE but it's way too on the nose. Use some subtlety.

2. The phrase "I'll never forgive you / that's unforgiveable". It's used sooooooooo often and I don't think it really has much impact in English.

At the moment it's probably my least favorite Persona game, although it has time to pass P3. The gameplay is excellent but the writing has many issues.
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I basically blame Haru for the leadup to the 5th palace. It legitimately felt like the writers had no idea how to introduce her to the party the whole time, so they came up with the three most contrived ideas they could and made them ALL happen at once.
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well I at least understand the part about them targeting her father because of 'fan' outcry
but it was basically a third act break-up and thats rarely done well
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Haru gets a pass because her animations are adorable
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Haru has the best all-out finishing pose so there's that.

But yeah, I've paused a bit at going through the fifth palace because it killed the hype a little. (Also Mario Kart came out).
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Any tips on beating The Reaper legitimately? I got my ass kicked with 63's and MC personas being around 65ish
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I feel like Haru in general is....such a waste. The game would have been basically the exact same if she wasn't in it. It's almost like she was a quota.
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I really like Haru, but she absolutely is completely superfluous to the game because by the time her story arc gets anywhere the game is over and she doesn't really have anything meaningful to bring to the group during the endgame stuff (and by that I mean like, Makoto has the brains, Futaba the skills, Morgana the mystery, and Ryuji fills the role of the dumb 'everyman' to drive conversations). Yusuke and Ann also suffer from not contributing much, but both of them at least have had time to develop and do things prior to when the plot gets super serious.

She needed to be introduced FAR earlier so the writers could have more chances to do things with her. Instead she comes off as a filler character.

In general I think the #1 thing I want them to do away with in Persona 6 is the heavy staggering of party members. They should have had everyone introduced at the LATEST by the end of Kaneshiro's palace, imo.

Haru's cute, but the game doesn't really do anything with her plot wise. When Naoto showed up late into the game she basically took full command of dialogue and was heavily involved in things while Haru is kinda just there after joining. They should've handled her intro better. P5 as a whole was pretty bad with the group dynamic though.

At least Haru has insane damage going for her, which is nice. Really should've been introduced earlier, but even then I wonder what her role in the party is.

Maybe she should've filled the Mishima role of the PT fan running the site up until the fifth palace when she gets her Persona. Still some wasted potential, but eh.
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Well luckily it had never been more obvious than Persona 5 that they held back for a rerelease (probably since P3 and P4 weren't made with the idea of a rerelease in the first place, as far as I know), so maybe they'll add more in Persona 5 Unchained.

...like the Theme Park scenes we didn't fucking get to see.

I feel like that got glossed over so hard that a lot of people don't even realize that they were just cheated out of the entire cast' s extended interaction.
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I didn't notice since it felt like all of the interaction got glossed over hard. Save us enhanced P5 port with actual cast interaction SoL scenes

I'm starting the 4th arc and the cast interaction is fine. The cutscenes are fine, the group events are fine, the text messages are fine. Y'all just bustas.
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Does it really feel like it's missing that much to you? I'm told the P4G stuff is entirely superfluous. I don't think it's needed here, either.

Like, if I were to pick something that I felt was "missing" from the game, it would be the political commentary that started off EXTREMELY strong, then almost disappeared. Not fan service funtime scenes.
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At least some of the bonus waifu dates are nice, if you can stomach throwing away a time slot.
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Haru's great and people are weird and I typically don't really care for the nice girl archetype.
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HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

Does it really feel like it's missing that much to you? I'm told the P4G stuff is entirely superfluous. I don't think it's needed here, either.

I'm not really a fan of the P4G additional content (especially Marie. Yeah, I get that her being lame is the point, it doesn't mean I have to like it), but in the case of P5 it has significantly less character content that even vanilla P4. Like, by a lot, and nearly all of P4's is better than any of it in P5. I love this game, but not only are the character interactions weaker, a lot of it seems cut. The theme park is, again, super glaringly obvious.
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I don't think I'd say it feels cut. It just feels like the writers had no intention of making the cast talk much outside of plot. Normally this wouldn't be too big an issue, but for a series like Persona which at least since 3 or 4 has made a big deal of lots of party interaction it's disappointing to see so little of it in 5. There's more going on aside from Phantom Thief time like the other 27~ days of the month you are doing nothing but waiting with nobody in your group talking to you aside from Confidant time or annoyingly repetitive texts. They tried to do some stuff in some places, but it was all just really weak in comparison to previous games.

The beach is a good example. It's basically Operation Babe Hunt, but without dialogue so it's terrible. They just didn't even try and it's made worse when most of these losers feel like they already don't even matter to the plot. Nearly all of them could've just went back to a boring normal life since they didn't really have any other reason to stick around

I think there actually is an explanation for Haru's lack of presence (and I keep phrasing it like that because no, I don't actually dislike Haru). Most people know already that Hifumi was originally going to be a party member but they took her out because Makoto filled too similar a role. While it doesn't explicitly say this, I'd find it odd if they had planned for that big of a playable cast, so it's more likely that Hifumi was replaced rather than just cut. It wouldn't surprise me at all of Haru wasn't originally planned as a party member in the first place, but rather just a character in the plot.

Obviously we'll likely never know for sure and I'm prepared to be proven wrong, but I think it makes a lot of sense.
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htaeD posted...

well I at least understand the part about them targeting her father because of 'fan' outcry
but it was basically a third act break-up and thats rarely done well

Well, don't forget that their main reasoning for targeting him is the evidence against him on Sae's computer.
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Hifumi was going to be a PC? First I've heard of it. Only got her to rank 1 in my playthrough too lol

foolm0r0n posted...

I'm starting the 4th arc and the cast interaction is fine. The cutscenes are fine, the group events are fine, the text messages are fine. Y'all just bustas.

I don't have anything new to add but this is also how I feel.

Persona 4's is probably better, but Persona 4 also possibly has the greatest group dynamic of all time so...
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Fine is the problem. Fine by Persona standards is bad.
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I guess I really have to replay Persona 3 to see these mythical group dynamics that aren't P4's. From what I recall, the cast in P3 was largely indifferent to each other. The main reason they were together was because they knew they were special and wanted to make a difference....much like Persona 5.
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I have Persona 4 rated as a 9.9/10 And it is my favorite game of all time. This game hasn't filled me with the same level of 'oh my God' and they pound plot points in too much, but still amazing.

Just started palace 6 btw.

Also Ryuji is the worst.
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I'm not even using P3 as an example, I barely played that game.
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One neat thing that P3 did is have a bunch of the cast know each other before the game starts. I think that helped make the game better. Even P4 has a few characters know each other before the start of the game. Would've been smart to have P5 do that too. Having Yusuke go to another school and Futaba not go to school at all definitely hurt, though Futaba at least hung around at LeBlanc a bunch...
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It seems like there are a ton of character interactions in Persona 5.
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Got Judge of the Dead for Makoto.

+10 all stats? Really?!!!
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It's not even hard to get. Best weapon in the game.
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LapisLazuli posted...

It's not even hard to get. Best weapon in the game.

How do I get it
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Just itemize Michael. He's not even a Max confidant fusion.
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Props to the kid who sits behind Akira in class.
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It's a shame that Haru appears so late and has a nonsensical introduction, because she's very likable so far.
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yeah, haru is a good example of that good girl archetype. also she fucking annihilates enemies with her grenade launcher.
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i did about 2/3s of the game (that's a guess) and idk i just dont have a drive to play.
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Game beated. Now to run through the first month of NG+ real quick to get the platinum.
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So about that one character turn thing later in the game.

So many red flags.
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Argh. Compendium at 96% and I'm at the end but now I need so much money to finish up what's gonna be like 5 fusions. (yeah yeah i know you need ng+ to totally complete it)

and the worst part is now i insta-kill everything here. wish i could toggle that on/off. aside from just being faster to ambush it literally can cut my money earnings in half since i can no longer benefit from star's perks. oh well, think i worked out a way i can probably cheese negotiations here but i'll have to do some quick testing to make sure

gotta finish this off soon so i can get to trails.
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If you really want money and don't care about difficulty, just switch to safety. The red shadows in the last screen of the final dungeon give 50k yen on safety.
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To view my nudes visit this link:

https://www.donaldjtrump.com/
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