Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
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Guess this is the "what are you playing" thread for this week.
I'm almost done with Persona 3 Reload (PC). I started playing it 5 weeks ago. I don't usually get this hooked on a game. I've put in almost 3 hours per day on average. :o
It's been a good journey. Enjoyable and satisfying. A bit too much grinding involved, given I'm playing on Hard and didn't want to super-cheese anything. But this is known as the grindy Persona game. :)
I like what they did with this remaster. They've combined some of the best elements from later games while keeping most of what made the original P3 great, and it looks and sounds good. Only thing that disappointed me a little is that "The Answer" is not included. They'll release that as a big DLC/secondary game late this year. So I'll have to pay up again. Atlus are pretty damn greedy, I've come to realize.
I played P3R last month, and I think that both its strongest and weakest point is that it's a very faithful remake. They didn't fix what wasn't broken, which is great. But the problem is, they also didn't fix what was broken. Namely:
I wouldn't say I hated the game, but I do think Atlus missed the mark. People didn't clamor for a P3 remake because they wanted prettier graphics (though those never hurt), they did it because P3 has serious issues that needed a remake to fix. But Atlus chose not to address those things and just gave us a facelift.
I've finished it now. I think they hit the mark quite well. It's not the perfect Persona game, but it's a great one IMO. I only expected, and clamored for a facelift while sticking close to the original, and I got a bit more than I hoped for. Judging by the steam score, most people seem to agree. Don't really care about the lack of femc personally. Tartarus wasn't improved? It is, somewhat. At least you can control all your characters now, and there's Monad stuff, which I think is new? It's still a bit boring, but passable, and improved from the original. They couldn't have drastically changed it without making this not-P3. The need for grinding got a bit boring, but the grind was almost worse and just as gamey in some palaces in P5.
It's still a cash grab while also being a good remake. I didn't like the price they put on it. Should have been at least 10-15 lower. I'll probably be annoyed again when the Answer price is revealed. I kinda expected that part to be included in this release, to be honest, like it was in FES.
Tartarus is only tolerable because they made it faster (smaller floors, a decent sprinkling of "skip to the next floor" opportunities). And unlike in portable (the version I played before), you won't fall behind the level curve if you just go through floors as quickly as you can. But it's still bad. They really needed to cut the number of Tartarus floors in half, and give each full moon operation its own lengthy gameplay segment similar to P5 palaces. To be honest I don't really care if purists would say "but that's not P3", because it's necessary. Sometimes you have to break with the old to fix bad design.
And the point of the FeMC thing is that we are still lacking a definitive version of the game. The single biggest reason people wanted a remake was because if someone new wanted to try the game, they would go "which version do I play", and the answer was "it depends what you want". And the answer is somehow still "it depends what you want", even though they did a remake. It's just stupid. Compare this to P4 or P5, where it's easy - you play Golden/Royal, and those are the most complete versions of each game. People wanted them to do the same thing for P3 (and also to fix Tartarus), but Atlus was too faithful to fix the real glaring problems P3 has.
On the pricing of the answer, the three waves of DLC cost $35 all together. If we assume that the music pack and the costume pack will cost $5 each, that means the answer will cost something like $25 on its own. So now you're talking $95 to get the full story, which is.. not good. I'm not super upset because I knew damn well there's going to be another P3R version with all the content (and maybe finally FeMC) in 5-6 years, so I used game pass to play it. But if I had spent $70 and then needed to pay another $25ish to get the full story, I would be pretty mad.
I guess I don't currently feel that a definite version has to include FeMC. Maybe if I were a woman or someone who had played and loved P3P as FeMC I would share your opinion, but I'm not, and I haven't. As for Tartarus, getting through the levels of each block once didn't take very long, and the gatekeepers along the way were somewhat fun. I liked the full moon fights. It's the grinding of needing (at least on Hard) to go through the Tartarus levels over and over to gain XP and spawn gold hands to get money/gems that got too gamey and grindy for me.
I paid nearly full price via a key site to have it on Steam, and I didn't like that, but I'm Atlus' favorite type of sucker, someone who gets so much joy out of the Persona experience that I pay full price on day 1 to own it and be able to replay it whenever instead of just using Game Pass... I was miffed again at finding out I have to pay for The Answer too - if it's worth playing? If it's just combat and no life sim, I'm not overly interested.
For me, a definitive edition needs to have all the previous content. I haven't played FeMC (because P3P recommends you do the male route for your first time, and after that I had zero desire to ever play again), but it does exist so I think it has to be there to have a definitive version of the game.
As far as the answer goes, I haven't played it (because it wasn't in portable), but my understanding is that there's zero life sim. It's just a Tartarus-like dungeon and a story. I watched a video with all the story scenes and I remember it being 2-3 hours, so pretty light on story too. Who knows what they'll do for P3R, though.
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I've also been working through P3R, though I've been interrupting my routine a bit to make some progress in TOTK as well. I'm mid-September in Persona, just pushed to the first border floor in Tziah. I've previously played a bit of Portable, which I kinda bounced off of once I reached Arqa and got roflstomped, and FES, which I played through to the Priestess fight like a week before Reload was announced.
It's kinda funny that 5 (or 5 Royal specifically I suppose) is the best Persona game mechanically (in my mind anyway), but that as I play backwards through the older games I feel like the PThieves are the least interesting characters. I feel like 3 and 4 have the group dynamics nailed down better. Plus Koromaru > Sparkly Bishie Teddie > Teddie >>>>>>>>> Morgana, you can't change my mind on the animal/mascot party member tier list. I am very grateful that they brought
Baton PassShift over from 5, not having it in Golden was a bit of a learning curve. It doesn't feel like as much of a crutch as it could be in 5, but that could just be that I got gud somewhere along the line.Hmmm I don't really have a direction here. Anyway, I've seen some out-of-context clips of later game fights (Jin) that seem to happen in January, so hopefully I'll have enough time slots to max Yukari/Fuuka/Mitsuru and all that. Still need one more Academics rank to even start Mitsuru though.
Romance picks per game, first playthrough:
My partner says I have a type. She might be onto something.
I'd like to see The Answer in P3R, I've heard it's great. Maybe
whenif they release FeMC.Some unsolicited advice: Prioritize the social links that have to be done from school. School is closed for quite a few days, especially towards the end of the game. Holidays etc. Leave the always/nearly always available links for last in terms of maxing. I made this mistake and now I'm around 5-7 days short of maxing all social links before ending the game. ;( Unlike in 5, there's a (small) reward for maxing all links in this game. Don't start efforting by looking up guides though, that'll just make the game less fun.
I agree that 5 Royal is excellent mechanics wise. And I agree that the PThieves characters are weaker. Especially Ann and Ryuji. I got tired of their low IQ whining pretty quick. 4 has great characters/group of friends vibe. And I really like most of the ones in 3 too.
Hmm, Yukari isn't very similar to Makoto, Hifumi, Yukiko, IMO... I don't like Yukari, but I like all the others in your "type". Mitsuru is the queen babe in 3R though! :D Btw you can't start her link before mid November. So you have plenty of time to max Academics.
I think you've got a wire crossed: Yuko is the sports club manager, Yukari definitely isn't my type. 😛
Good to know about Mitsuru's time frame, that makes me feel better about putting off Academics. My partner is probably gonna be a bit annoyed that it's so far into the game though, she's been simping for Mitsuru since Anime Expo.
Re. P5, I just think there's not much by way of group chemistry, though I could just be biased by how much Morgana makes me cringe. I didn't have this problem on my first playthrough of OG 5, but it started to grate on ng+ and especially after I played 4. I don't even mind Ann and Ryuji being dumb since at least the other team members mostly counterbalance them. Those two meatheads are perfect for each other.
Oh whoops, I had forgotten the sports manager's name. Sorry. I just thought you had given Yukari a pet name, haha. Yuko is alright. I wasn't won over by her earliest interactions, but she grew on me later. I'm not able to max her though, so I kinda forgot about her. Next time! I'll probably play a NG+ before The Answer.
I wonder if we'll get a remake of P4G... It kinda sticks out now as a PS2 era game next to P3R and P5R...
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Interesting, I've only played 3 & 4, and I'd compare 4 to 3 like how you compared 5 to 4/3 - mechanically, 4 Golden was basically the perfection of the 3/4 gameplay formula, but it was hampered by the fact that the characters just weren't as good as in 3. I also preferred the darker tone and themes of 3, though perhaps the story is mostly a wash, since 3 kinda dragged in the 2nd half while 4 had solid pacing with its murder mysteries throughout.
Kinda sad to hear that P3R suffered from being too close to the source material, according to a lot of people. It really would've been great if it had combined the best of the gameplay the series had to offer with the best of the characters and perhaps tightened up the story. But perhaps the exclusion of FeMC and the Answer portion from FES was a sign that this was more of a cash grab than an attempt to create the definitive version of the game (obviously any remake is a cash grab, but there's a spectrum).
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