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Persona Community Thread |OT7| P5 is nyaow. (Mark all PQ and P4U spoilers!)
- Thread starter Dantis
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Going from 3 to 4, the changes to the "1 More!" system weren't for the better in terms of difficulty, but the bosses still could pose a challenge. Then Golden happened and all of that flew out the window because they wanted it to fly out the window(adding weakness to bosses that didn't have them was a silly change).
I'm more curious to find out what kind of battle system 5 is even going to have. We saw demons(probably), fusion attacks(possibly), but nothing really else. Can't imagine the idea of "striking a weakness" is going away, but wonder what they're going to do to mix things up.
I'm more curious to find out what kind of battle system 5 is even going to have. We saw demons(probably), fusion attacks(possibly), but nothing really else. Can't imagine the idea of "striking a weakness" is going away, but wonder what they're going to do to mix things up.
Looks like I'm in luck. Contacted them on Facebook and they said they will do a refund or exchange so I'll do that tomorrow since it's closed today.
The changes to the One More system hurt Persona 3 Portable too in a similar manner. The reality is that if you give the player an endless amount of turns like that with no caveats, they're going to exploit it.
What I would personally like to see myself is a reduction in the amount of turns you can get endlessly. Like limiting it so that you can only get one additional action per round, and then bringing back P3/P3FE's system where getting knock down costs you your turn.
Most of those changes would make playing through P4 a chore though (barring the last one which I definitely like). Also, you still didn't address the things that completely broke P4G, namely:
-Yukiko
-Golden Hands
-Value Medicine's buff
-Rise
-Changes to shadow's resistances
-Changes to boss's resistances
-Shuffle time
You're overthinking it. It's pretty easy to make P4G balanced if you keep a few things in mind:
- Reverting nearly every change added to Golden (but keeping the ones that don't make necessarily the game easier, such as less tedious like the fusion changes, some of the new character skills)
- Change it so that Skillcards function like they do in Persona Q
- I'd also make Rise function identically to how she functions in Persona Q
- Upping the difficulty of the boss battles
Don't be that guy
Ignoring the nonsensical changes done to Golden, they really need to buff the difficulty of later bosses.
Shadow Naoto
I also don't know if I'd revert every Golden change. All the boss changes should be reverted back, of course. I'd also remove Naoto having all four elements, but not revert her back to the way she was in vanilla P4. Give her Agidyne with the option to get Maragidyne and/or Garudyne through her bike skills.
And for YHWH's sake, Atlus, please adjust all the physical skills. At the very least, give them more accurate descriptions detailing their power/hit/crit properties compared.
The third tier Personas are all completely silly too, seeing as you get them too late in the game to really make efficient use of them. They're literal bragging rewards for maxing out a character's social link.
Green Mamba
Member
Naoto was fine in P4. She had a very specific purpose, and she fulfilled it well. She'd be somewhat okay in Golden if there was any attempt at constraining your SP late in the game (outside of the awful gimmick bullshit in the
) but the game seems absolutely terrified of you running out of SP mid dungeon.
The most ridiculous character moveset change in Golden (outside of Rise's ridiculous new abilities), I think, is giving Kanji Power Charge. Takes like the one useful thing Chie had over him away from her.
Hollow Forest
The most ridiculous character moveset change in Golden (outside of Rise's ridiculous new abilities), I think, is giving Kanji Power Charge. Takes like the one useful thing Chie had over him away from her.
Naoto was borderline useless in vanilla P4. She comes at the final third of the game where regular enemies have more or less stopped being a threat to the party. Everything she can do, the protagonist can do better. At that point, you're no longer hurting for SP either. Putting her in the party does nothing but suck up XP from characters who are much more useful for taking down bosses/mini-bosses.
And yeah, Kanji getting Power charge was pretty silly too, especially as Chie didn't get anything in return. I was hoping that Golden would give Chie proper ice skills, but they weirdly threw them on the social link and bike skills. Those things should be non-standard abilities, not core ones. At least she got Apt Pupil now, which fixed the Black Spot skill somewhat.
I never got the point of giving Naoto fire skills. Even if Yukiko doesn't have Mind Charge, I'm pretty sure Naoto still does less damage, especially when Yukiko is the only party member with access to a severe-level elemental skill and has a ridiculous magic stat. The only niche I could see being filled is as an electric user, since Kanji's magic stat is so low. If anything, I'd give her an almighty version of Torrent Shot with a guaranteed three hits.
Was Chie's magic ever that great once Teddie joined? She doesn't have much SP and has a low magic stat, so I always just kept Mabufu for knockdown only.
cj_iwakura
Member
Well, I haven't played P4G.
P4G added so much to help you without really increasing the difficulty of battles. The same thing happened in SMT4, rather it was so easy to create a broken party around mid-game that could decimate anything.
That's the main problem with balance in this game. Game over if MC dies, RNG fusion, and outrageous compendium costs add nothing but tedium and fake difficulty.
That's the main problem with balance in this game. Game over if MC dies, RNG fusion, and outrageous compendium costs add nothing but tedium and fake difficulty.
cj_iwakura
Member
Heh, IV and P4 do have that in common. Tough early game, broken endgame.
IV does let you carry on if the MC dies, but talk about an uphill battle.
MudoSkills
Volcano High Alumnus (Cum Laude)
Finished PQ.
Time for NG+. Going to smash through the P4 route now - it'll be fun cutting through FOEs like a knife through hot butter.
Given my first experience with the final boss I did a bit of levelling/some Persona switching and just mashed him to pieces second round.
Turned out a bit anti-climactic given how frantic it was first time I fought him. Heroic Gemini was activating frequently on Hassou Tobi and God Hand - the boss didn't even have time to pull out a full heal, or any time freezes. I ended up buying a bunch of chewing souls and revival beads that I never had to use.
I actually really like the way the ending played out with Rei and Zen at the end, schlocky as it was. Still think it was a mistake to weight so much of the story development towards the end of the game though.
Turned out a bit anti-climactic given how frantic it was first time I fought him. Heroic Gemini was activating frequently on Hassou Tobi and God Hand - the boss didn't even have time to pull out a full heal, or any time freezes. I ended up buying a bunch of chewing souls and revival beads that I never had to use.
I actually really like the way the ending played out with Rei and Zen at the end, schlocky as it was. Still think it was a mistake to weight so much of the story development towards the end of the game though.
Time for NG+. Going to smash through the P4 route now - it'll be fun cutting through FOEs like a knife through hot butter.
I haven't gotten to Naoto in P4, so I can't accurately comment on her overall viability, but a 60% chance of instant killing all enemies is pretty decent, since not many enemies resist both elements. (If you carry Hamaon or Mudoon, then that jumps to 90% Instant Kill against a single target, which is also nice). Of course, she's absolutely garbage against bosses, but that's pretty much intentional. I think that rather than giving her a couple of dyne spells, Naoto should have received a "Megido boost" skill that would boost the damage of her Megido skills. It would give her an option against mobs that resisted her either of instant kills, and it would give her utility against Boss Battles. It would also be a niche exclusive to her.
I wouldn't really say that Burning Petals is a point in Yukiko's favor, considering it's received so late in the game to the point where it's a non-factor (also, Yukiko does mind Charge via Bike Skills). That said, Yukiko's fire skills are absolutely amazing because her high Magic stat and access to Fire Amp + Boost. God forbid an enemy is weak to Fire, but they'll be eating at least 2 waves of Maragidyne, which is just nuts.
Chie has the worst Magic in the game. She's even worst at it than Kanji, despite her noticeably higher Magic stat because she lacks a strong multi-target Ice Spell + Ice Amp. (Even though Kanji has marginally lower magic, Electric Boost + Electric Amp let's him do decent damage with Maziodyne. Those skills do a lot of the heavy lifting.)
I wouldn't really say that Burning Petals is a point in Yukiko's favor, considering it's received so late in the game to the point where it's a non-factor (also, Yukiko does mind Charge via Bike Skills). That said, Yukiko's fire skills are absolutely amazing because her high Magic stat and access to Fire Amp + Boost. God forbid an enemy is weak to Fire, but they'll be eating at least 2 waves of Maragidyne, which is just nuts.
Chie has the worst Magic in the game. She's even worst at it than Kanji, despite her noticeably higher Magic stat because she lacks a strong multi-target Ice Spell + Ice Amp. (Even though Kanji has marginally lower magic, Electric Boost + Electric Amp let's him do decent damage with Maziodyne. Those skills do a lot of the heavy lifting.)
You have dully reminded me of why I fucking hate Boost/Amp skills on party members.
But then again, I generally dislike P3/P4's lack of customization for party members in the first place. It creates weird, silly situations that shouldn't exist. Persona Q, despite it's own balancing issues, at least lets you make sensible and viable setups for everyone, even Teddie.
I'm okay with them, considering how weak Persona characters are. It's the reason why it's sometimes hard for me to go back and play Persona 3.
Seriously, the P3 characters deal pitiful damage.
Yeah, I don't like the whole setup in general they have going on for either game. It results in a system with weird stats and odd abilities that only exist for the sake of giving each character a self-imposed limitation, and nothing else. At least with P3FES it's easy to take everything in your own hand and not be penalized for it significantly. Thank you multiple weapon choices. Thank you HP/SP restore for touching the bottom floor.
I really do hope Persona 5 is using some variation of PQ's Sub-Persona system, because I don't think I could go back to silly and nonsensical design choices.
At the same time, I would still take what P3 and P4 have over P2's tarot card system. Ugh.
Shoutouts to Akihiko and Koromaru for having even Strength and Magic stats, despite the fact that they flat out don't use their Strength stats at all (the only physical skill that Aki gets is Sonic Punch, and he tosses that).
And yeah, I really hope the character stat spreads are more akin to Persona Q. Really diverse and unique, you rarely ran into characters with nonsensical stat spreads.
Does Strength also affect regular weapon attack damage or no?
Heavenly_Spear
Neo Member
100% agree. I thinking I really should have gone on hard if that's basically p4 vanilla, buuuut i have already played the game before and I'm mostly playing p4g for new content so being able to blaze through dungeons and focus on the new social links would be best...maybe that's why it's easier?
It doesnt. Strength only affects a Persona's physical skills.
Cannon_Fodder
Member
Huh, I never knew that. Is that just in P3, or P4 too?
As for the PQ system, I agree it's a great base. One thing I would like to see done differently is the skills assigned to the main personas. Yosuke and Mitsuru have decent skill sets, for example, but their final skills don't fit them very well. The problem might just be exaggerated though, because the main personas have so few skills.
After 104 hours I have fiiiiinally beaten Persona 4 Golden (true ending)! First experience with SMT/Persona and I loved it. I understand that's far longer than it takes the average person for one playthrough but I enjoyed everything about the game and really took my time with it. I thought the game was going to end at least three different times but I was happy to continue playing. Easily one of my favorite games ever. Soundtrack, too.
Persona system: As a newcomer I found the Persona system to be extremely dense and overwhelming at first. It wasn't until several dozen hours into the game that I started to get a handle on bending it to my will, but once I did the game became a breeze which honestly made dungeons more enjoyable. I was significantly overleveled for most of the game (played on normal) and ended up rolling with a tri-Auto-Ma Alice and a null-everything (except Almighty, obviously) Yoshitsune pretty early, like November-ish.
Dungeons/combat: I found the dungeon crawling to be surprisingly addictive. Especially grinding Gold Hands. The combat has some cool mechanics to shake up the traditional turn-based system and I liked that you could streamline it in some ways. The Rush mechanic should be in every JRPG.
Story: Really enjoyed the overall plot and was surprised by several twists. Not sure I like that the story went from a murder mystery to teens saving the world; I started to appreciate P4 for being one of the few games to not go down that route but then it did towards the end, oops. I like how all the social links resolved an interesting story arc for each character, and even the non-social link NPCs had their own little arcs dished out by tidbits of dialogue throughout the game - neat touch! Marie's content was a mixed bag. The ending arc (final 2-3 hours) was awesome and kind of emotional for me.
Waifu sim: Chie was easily my favorite character in the whole game. Fantastic writing and I found her voice acting (P4G's) to be outstanding. I was underwhelmed with the dating aspect though in the sense that it seemed to have zero impact on anything else in the game and often conflicted with certain events. Specific dialogue and character interactions made little sense in light of the fact that the MC became intimate with these girls. But I understand accounting for all of that probably would have been a monumental task.
Overall, incredible game. I'm excited to jump into Persona 3 next. After some research I think I'm going with FES over P3P, as I want to experience the story with character models and cutscenes and I don't think I'll mind the lack of party control. I might play P3P female route on very easy afterwards as I hear it's worth replaying to experience her content. Then maybe Persona Q, I guess. And of course I'm very hyped for P5!
Persona system: As a newcomer I found the Persona system to be extremely dense and overwhelming at first. It wasn't until several dozen hours into the game that I started to get a handle on bending it to my will, but once I did the game became a breeze which honestly made dungeons more enjoyable. I was significantly overleveled for most of the game (played on normal) and ended up rolling with a tri-Auto-Ma Alice and a null-everything (except Almighty, obviously) Yoshitsune pretty early, like November-ish.
Dungeons/combat: I found the dungeon crawling to be surprisingly addictive. Especially grinding Gold Hands. The combat has some cool mechanics to shake up the traditional turn-based system and I liked that you could streamline it in some ways. The Rush mechanic should be in every JRPG.
Story: Really enjoyed the overall plot and was surprised by several twists. Not sure I like that the story went from a murder mystery to teens saving the world; I started to appreciate P4 for being one of the few games to not go down that route but then it did towards the end, oops. I like how all the social links resolved an interesting story arc for each character, and even the non-social link NPCs had their own little arcs dished out by tidbits of dialogue throughout the game - neat touch! Marie's content was a mixed bag. The ending arc (final 2-3 hours) was awesome and kind of emotional for me.
Waifu sim: Chie was easily my favorite character in the whole game. Fantastic writing and I found her voice acting (P4G's) to be outstanding. I was underwhelmed with the dating aspect though in the sense that it seemed to have zero impact on anything else in the game and often conflicted with certain events. Specific dialogue and character interactions made little sense in light of the fact that the MC became intimate with these girls. But I understand accounting for all of that probably would have been a monumental task.
Overall, incredible game. I'm excited to jump into Persona 3 next. After some research I think I'm going with FES over P3P, as I want to experience the story with character models and cutscenes and I don't think I'll mind the lack of party control. I might play P3P female route on very easy afterwards as I hear it's worth replaying to experience her content. Then maybe Persona Q, I guess. And of course I'm very hyped for P5!
MiguelMexMIstery
Member
Yeah, Yosuke's main persona skill set is kinda weird because of the limitations of it. No Masukukaja which plays an important role and represents his speed in Arena, including Tentarafoo when his Luck SUCKS and using that random final skill instead of Brave Blade which was his Insta Kill in the Arena games.
Andrefpvs
Member
Petrock123
Member
Yep, I kinda wished
Caesar would swing that sword he carries around
Also, I kinda disliked how in P3 you can't choose the skills your allies use, like being unable to stack Boost and Amp.
Same deal for P4.
And yeah, Mitsuru probably has the unfitting (and worst) final skill in the game.
A physical attack that removes binds...? Huh. Huh. WHAAAAAAAAT?
I think Teddie actually does get a physical skill at some point (Gigantic Fist?). And yeah, the inability to choose skills in P3 was obnoxious. I definitely would have like to keep some of Aki's single target debuffs over the multi-target ones.
Hells yeah, feels good man.Looks like you fell down the fantastic Persona rabbit hole!
Welcome! Enjoy your stay
Forgot to mention I've also been watching Giant Bomb's Endurance Run of Persona 4, currently about halfway through. Jeff and Vinny have me laughing my ass off constantly. I'm also able to see where P4G made improvements over P4 vanilla, such as Shuffle Time and the randomized Persona skill inheritance which seems like it could get a little frustrating. I'm guessing P4G was the first of the SMT games to let you choose which skills are inherited. Also, Chie's original voice acting pales in comparison to P4G's... wonder if that's a controversial opinion.
CrimsonFist
Member
Not entirely, Strange Journey was after Devil Survivor and had random skills, although it also had demon sources which sort of makes getting skills easier. Every new game since Golden has had manual selection though, I think Soul Hackers was random, but that's a port anyway.
cj_iwakura
Member
Soul Hackers does it one worse; you can only inherit select skills based on the races involved.
One of the best changes p4 had over p3 is being able to choose the party member's skills, why does Junpei have to lose his piercing skill? Why does Akihiko lose his only physical skill? Why does the amp skill override the boost when they could stack?
I don't need to have played golden to know that the ability to choose what skills to inherit should become a staple in the series.
Seriously, every time I play a persona game I feel like I spend more time mashing X and O in the velvet room than exploring dungeons and developing social links combined.
Also p3fes battle and dungeon system is the best, having to guess the enemies' weaknesses in p4 makes for a terrible loss of momentum in battles, and p3p(and p4) one more system just reduces the options at your and your enemies disposal, and makes all the battles the same.
Pps:
Don't even get me started on that, fog of war is one of the worst mechanics ever made for a game, especially considering most of the games that use it have the AI completely ignore it's restriction.
I've started playing advance wars the other day and I've already dropped it because there have already been 3 fow missions over the first 8.
Hidden information can make for a challenge in a strategy games, but total lack of any information just make for a boring level, it's not even harder than a normal one, it just reduces your possible strategies to the only one or two that works, which is honestly really boring. I want a strategy game, not a guessing game.
Also all the things you listed don't really add much difficulty but just add frustration and make a game boring.
They make for a very restricted game that you're going to cheese with the few options that work.
I don't need to have played golden to know that the ability to choose what skills to inherit should become a staple in the series.
Seriously, every time I play a persona game I feel like I spend more time mashing X and O in the velvet room than exploring dungeons and developing social links combined.
Also p3fes battle and dungeon system is the best, having to guess the enemies' weaknesses in p4 makes for a terrible loss of momentum in battles, and p3p(and p4) one more system just reduces the options at your and your enemies disposal, and makes all the battles the same.
Pps:
Don't even get me started on that, fog of war is one of the worst mechanics ever made for a game, especially considering most of the games that use it have the AI completely ignore it's restriction.
I've started playing advance wars the other day and I've already dropped it because there have already been 3 fow missions over the first 8.
Hidden information can make for a challenge in a strategy games, but total lack of any information just make for a boring level, it's not even harder than a normal one, it just reduces your possible strategies to the only one or two that works, which is honestly really boring. I want a strategy game, not a guessing game.
Also all the things you listed don't really add much difficulty but just add frustration and make a game boring.
They make for a very restricted game that you're going to cheese with the few options that work.
cj_iwakura
Member
This explains a lot of things....
And remember is Canon !!!
Hey, whatever floats their boat.
I have to say it would be hilarious to have an outcome of two-timing them to be that they're dating each other.
Technically the last day is February 5th.
Completely fair. I guess at this point, after two fighting games, two anime adaptations, a ridiculous light novel, and an Etrian Odyssey game, I knew that I probably shouldn't have been hoping for something grounded and rational in regards to these characters.
I've just come to terms that P4 is in bonkers land now, and I greatly await for P5 to bring a slight refresh on the zany.
In the meantime however, I'm just going with the flow.
in feburary. also make sure to finish Marie's social link if you haven't done it by now.
Mobile Suit Gooch
Grundle: The Awakening
*right-click save*
Zen's collar is kind of big, like it'd slip down his shoulders or something. But that image is so adorable I don't even care about that. <3
Schedule I have of Persona related stuff with dates:
Prediction for significant April news: New Atlus/Persona related live stream announced and/or new anime series announced. Via poll #008, 8/37 people hope/think that Persona 5's release date will be announced in April, as well.
Most of the news for a given month usually isn't foreseen, so there'll be the usual surprises like Atlus hinting at an unannounced RPG as well as the survey potentially hinting at their future development in March. However, there was relatively little amount of Persona news this month compared to recent months; maybe April will have more.
Prediction for significant April news: New Atlus/Persona related live stream announced and/or new anime series announced. Via poll #008, 8/37 people hope/think that Persona 5's release date will be announced in April, as well.
Hey guys! I watched the Giant Bomb P4 Endurance Run a few months ago an absolutely loved it. I was wondering if you had any recommendations for other P3/P4 playthroughs by first-time players with good reactions? It was just so awesome to watch Jeff and Vinny fall in love with the game and I'd love to find another one.
Not the same, but you should also watch the other Jeff and Vinny videos strongly related to the Endurance Run if you haven't:
Endurance Look: Devil Summoner 2
Persona PSP (Quick Look)
Persona 3 Portable (Quick Look)
Persona Q (Quick Look)
Thanks guys, and Sophia, now that you've said it, I should've made his shoulders wider :<
I suspect Zen's collar is suppose to be part of his cape Thus while it's pretty big, it's not bigger than his shoulders which are covered by the cape. In your image, the cap is missing.
Rei is downright adorable tho. I wish Soejima had done full-sized art of Rei, like how you and Dantis did. <3
MysticDistance
Banned
I don't know if this was posted yet, but the following ATLUS sites are currently down for what appears to be maintenance:
p-atlus.jp is not down, but as it redirects to p-ch.jp, the redirect is down.
p-atlus.jp is not down, but as it redirects to p-ch.jp, the redirect is down.
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