You've clearly never been Marin Karin'd.

 

Oh, I love Mitsuru. Probably my favorite Persona gal to date. But that forced AI control over everyone except the MC in battle in FES makes her a horrible choice to actually use. Rather than using her powerful magic to attack, she'll just forever try to spam Marin Karin on everything.

Of course, thinking about that first bit makes me recall how romance is handled in P3 for the male protagonist. Wasn't a fan of that in general, particularly how

Spoiler

there is no option to friendzone any of the girls, meaning that you're forced to play as a cheating manwhore in order to max your Social Links.

 

I think romance in these games needs an overhaul in general.

Can't remember if I said this here or to Jon, but becoming boyfriend/girlfriend should be the start, not the end goal. As in, when that happens, you should unlock a whole slew of unique 'romance content'.

 

Whole separate social link/arcana maybe? Make The Lover an extension of whoever you waifu, run in parallel with their normal arcana.

 

It reminds me of a lot of romance manga /anime, where the couple getting together usually either happens at the end or far into the story. Maybe it's a Japan thing.

 

Eh...thinking of Bioware games or other western romances...the romance arc basically ends after you "get the girl"

Even Mass Effect...both your lovers from the first game you only got back in the 3rd one. 3rd didn't do a ton with romance either.

Maybe we can just blame video game developers never actually getting that far themselves so they don't know how?

 

The thing is, in those other games, romance and just living your life aren't the focus.

In Persona, if the story was the focus, it'd time skip between main plot points. It doesn't. Spending a week hanging with your gf isn't out of place here, like it would be in Witcher or Mass Effect.

 

Oh I agree. Realize that came across as me justifying them not having it. I think it's a glaring weakness in any game with romance if you only focus on the leading up to the relationship. I don't believe I'm in the minority when I say that real and consistent romance happens after you start a relationship.

Oh certainly there is the wooing aspect but..

Wrong thread. I'll leave my relationship psychoanalysis for another time.

But yes. Give us the opportunity to have things.

Heck, give us a one month anniversary with our girl. Entirely unrealistic that we can ignore that...

 

New Game Plus run done. Man, I spent so many night dates playing shogi in the hope that I'd eventually get an option to do something else (I did get to take Hifumi to the ferris wheel once early into dating her) but no cigar. Still, the Christmas and Valentine's Day scenes were...adequate, at least. Probably not a romance route I would do again though. Whenever I play again, I'll probably go with Ann or Haru. You really can't do much of anything with the non-Phantom Thief girls so far a I can tell. Pity, since the roleplayer in me would prefer to date outside the team. It's nice to have one aspect of life that isn't in any way tied to the Thieves.

Abused the fuck out of the Reaper Flu exploit this time, got my Compendium mostly done. I think I'm somewhere upwards of 90%. Also got everyone's best gear via Electric Chair except for Morgana's slingshot since I ran out of Model Guns, enough Crystal Skull accessories to go around for a team of four, et cetera. Essentially will never need money for anything again aside from buying Persona and doing confidant stuff.

 

Finally got my own Platinum. 172 hours. Took a while since Passionate Listener was honestly unpleasant to grind.

10/10 Wardens fight. Worth it just for the dialogue alone. The actual fight was really easy though. I leveled to 95, and had Divine Pillar on everyone - the damage I took went from single digits to below 50. On normal. Even on hard, I wouldn't need to heal every other turn... pretty easy.

 

If only you could use the item you get from them, rofl

 

Probably my Favourite game this year, Ive bought P4 and about 20hrs into it. I probably should have started on the earlier games and worked. Y way up haha.

 

For Persona 4...should I get a Vita or Vita TV?

 

Whatever you can get cheaper honestly. Long as it runs P4:G.

 

Pstv doesn't run everything and you should be able to get a vita for cheap. Get whichever is cheapest, but try aim for a launch vita. That oled screen is beautiful.

 

Went with the 2000 model, but got it for $100 lightly used. Looked for the 1000 model but they were all over $150 used. So not too shabby imo.

 

So...been playing Persona 4. I’m enjoyinh it, but dang...

The intricacy in Persona 5’s palaces and the dungeons in Persona 4 is night and day.

Just finished Kanji’s dungeon and I don’t really feel accomplished. Just killed a bunch of shadows as I worked my way up.

No puzzles. No sneaking. No real difference between his dungeon and Yukiko’s.

They really raised the bar in Persona 5.

 

tbf, the persona games are huge and Persona 4 is like ten years old now.

You could see that a majority of their work between 4 and 5 went into making dungeons more interesting, because relatively little changed outside of them. The world is a little larger with more places, but frankly? I'd rather the dungeons stayed the same, boring, winding corridors and we get a way more fleshed out Tokyo instead.

I don't play the Persona games for the 'gripping' turn-based combat, I play because I want to feel like a Japanese kid in the setting each game is set in. I wanted to explore Tokyo and do more things there, we got little of it.

I think that's what I want the most out of a Persona 6. Maybe a University-aged cast and a more open-world town/city to explore that isn't split up into tiny maps.

 

The worst part about going to P4G from P5, is the town. I can't stand how little stuff there is to do most days.

 

I would love for Persona to take a page from Yakuza's book. Maybe not in the first playthrough, but there's often days where you're doing fuck all in the second. Would make the inevitable replay way more tolerable if there was actual fun mini/side games to do around town that had some depth.

Yakuza Zero had you running Hostess Clubs or a Real Estate Agency, for instance. Things like the fishing and batting cages are pretty boring as they were, but maybe they just straight up put a completely optional baseball game within Persona where the end goal is getting into the ameteur leagues or going pro - think Blitzball, for example.