Support NeoGAF

[Marcel]

And this is what's wrong with the SMT fanbase. Elitist nonsense.

 

[FRS1987]

Lost close to an hour yesterday on Palace 7 because I was carelessly ambushed. Sucks but you live and learn.


What's that?

Strange Journey, One of my favorite SMT games. That's a map of the area

 

[GalacticToast]

OP, the game doesn't lie. It does return you to the previous safe room. Not without consequences though. There is a safe mode for you to try if you feel it's too unfair.

 

[Stereogatari]

And this is what's wrong with the SMT fanbase. Elitist nonsense.

Funny thing is Persona 3+4 were my gateway to SMT lol and I gave up on SMT3 at Zorro.

Beat P5 on Hard though. I'm proud of that. So I will give SMT3 another shot soon.

Is Girimehkala in that area? If you can get it, go with this option instead. REALLY useful.

I fused him I think. He was the longest running Persona I had in the game. There was even a few boss battles I cheesed with everyone else in my party dead and me not having to attack. Good times.

 

[CannonFodder52]

Lost close to an hour yesterday on Palace 7 because I was carelessly ambushed. Sucks but you live and learn.


What's that?

I haven't played it but I'd guess it's a SMT Strange Journey dungeon. Just based on the amount I hear about that game.

 

[kagamin]

.

How do you feel about losing progress in Stratum 5 of Etrian Odyssey 3?

 

[Aalvi]

Set it to safety mode or easy

 

[joecanada]

I'm not too familiar with persona but my buddy in high school loved jrpgs but he'd go around power levelling everywhere for hours ... At least once per week he'd lose 4 hours or more and rage because he forgot to save or didn't think it necessary when grinding. It got to the point where we'd see him playing FF or something and say did you remember to save? Still half the time he'd go I don't need to here it's easy and sure enough he'd die. Shit was hilarious because it was so preventable.

 

[tenderbrew]

Persona 5's only time-disrespecting is death, I feel. The game lets you skip to selecting the best skill, skips the all-out animation if you want, etc. But you'll also save time by going deeper into the confidant system and preparing throughly. While bad luck is a staple in the series, there are definitely ways around an instant death (at the point in the game you're at). I think expecting the game to let you slide like that is disrespecting the design and difficulty of the game.

(And I had the same thing happen to me in the same spot!)

95 hours in. Did not know this.

 

[Human Trashcan]

If you're afraid of instakill spells then you should lead with a persona that resists curse/bless.

But the game gives you a lot of outs, especially later in the game. Joker can switch personas to effectively negate whatever the enemy has, and teammates will even take the killing blow once their confidant ranks are high enough. The worst situation to be in is an ambush, but even then it's unlikely that on normal difficulty Joker will go down in one round before you can stabilize or smoke bomb to escape.

"Just always equip a Persona with curse/bless null" is not good or practical advice. And the first time you fight an enemy you don't know what they've got. The defence force always assumes people don't know how to play the game, it's patronizing.

I understand the game. I still think it's bad.

 

[brandonh83]

I dropped the game for about a week over losing 2 hours of palace progress.

Shit sucks. Just had to step away for a while.

 

[twentytwo22]

I just tweeted about this today, funny enough. Lost an hour of gameplay today and was pretty annoyed. I wish on Normal or below they would just always give you the option to restart from the beginning of the battle (they do on bosses but not on regular stuff). The palace I'm in had a looooong run between safe rooms and I ran into a bullshit enemy with no weaknesses that ran off three crits in a row and got my MC from full to 0 HP without me having a chance to react.

 

[Renekton]

And this is what's wrong with the SMT fanbase. Elitist nonsense.

And lazy generalizations 😐

 

[tenderbrew]

I've lost progress a few times and I'll tell you the REAL, BIGGEST problem with Persona 5, a game I adore.

Mapping every single damn action to X. I've been nailed so many times because I think I'm ambushing an NPC, only to jump to another hide point and then accidentally tap another key and end up exposed sitting in the middle of a room with an aggro enemy. Or chasing those damn treasure personas and tapping X to start the fight, but then darting behind cover or jumping off a ledge.

 

[Hylian7]

I haven't played it but I'd guess it's a SMT Strange Journey dungeon. Just based on the amount I hear about that game.

Yep, it is Eridanus, most infamous dungeon in the game, with an equally infamous boss.

 

[E-flux]

"Just always equip a Persona with curse/bless null" is not good or practical advice. And the first time you fight an enemy you don't know what they've got. The defence force always assumes people don't know how to play the game, it's patronizing.

I understand the game. I still think it's bad.

If you fight against monsters and you aren't confident that you can finish them in one round, just block with your mc and take care of the fight with the rest of your team or run away.

 

[James Scott]

Yeah, having the option of either baby difficulty or losing a ton of progress isn't too fun.
Probably lost several hours through my playthrough thanks to it. More so if you count going back to save and being extra cautious.
Would be nice to have a safe room or maybe even a save closet (can't use safe room items) frequently littered about. As is, the save system feels antiquated mixed with boring combat kind of kills a lot of Persona's greatness (though I forgave most of it in 4G and I love it to bits)

 

[muteki]

I've had some consecutive strings of boss fights that I would have liked to save between, but otherwise I don't have an issue with the save room spacing. Standard JRPG fare.

 

[The Xtortionist]

"Just always equip a Persona with curse/bless null" is not good or practical advice. And the first time you fight an enemy you don't know what they've got. The defence force always assumes people don't know how to play the game, it's patronizing.

I understand the game. I still think it's bad.

Makoto's rank 1 skill lets you view enemy skills on the analysis screen. If an enemy has an instakill skill, you switch to a persona with bless or curse resist. Before getting that ability, instakill spells aren't commonly used, have poor accuracy, and only have a 25% chance of targeting Joker in the first place. If you're supremely worried and ineffective at getting ambushes, you can preemptively lead with a persona that resists instakill elements. I don't see how this is a bad strategy if you feel vulnerable to those skills.

Enemy ambushes in general are very deadly, but the game gives you outs in the form of smokescreens, should the enemy spot you. Also, playing on normal difficulty, it seems very unlikely for a group of enemies to kill a full HP Joker in one round off an ambush. Can it happen? Sure, but it isn't common and there are ways to defend against it.

 

[Benzychenz]

I did that Palace last night and died in that same area due to fear + ghastly wail bullshit.

But cmon 45 mins? That area is tiny, will take you 15-20 to run through again.

 

[KorrZ]

Had that happen to me about 3 times in the course of my 90 hour P5 playthrough. Always just those random lucky hits where you can't react at all.

In the grand scheme of things it's really not a big deal. Every time it happened though it was instant "fuck this" turn the game off and walk away.

 

[tenderbrew]

No but seriously how do you skip the all-out animation?

 

[HaRyu]

No but seriously how do you skip the all-out animation?

Its not even that long (what, 3 seconds?), why would they even see a need to include a skip for that?

 

[TheEndOfItAll]

The game would be ridiculously easy if it wasn't like this. I got a couple cheap game overs by running into enemies that cast Psio on the hero when he's at about 60% health. It was more than enough to kill him. Gotta keep healed.

 

[JBwB]

This only happened to me once throughout my initial 130 hour playthrough.

I always make it a point to go back to previous safe rooms if I've made a lot of progress towards the next one.

 

[Zafir]

At least 5 is a lot better for it, there's only a one or two sections where you'll be going for more than an hour without a save.

In 3 I remember losing a good few hours due to a crit death in Persona 3's Tartarus. After that, I changed the way I played the game. I basically ran through floors to get to the next checkpoint, and then grinded a bit to make sure I wasn't going to get underlevelled. At least that way I could save more often. Checkpoints weren't frequent enough. I'm glad they changed that in 4, in 4 you can just escape on any floor and you can just start back on that floor when you come back in.

 

[hemo memo]

Complaints like this always makes me scratch my head. There's so many safe rooms in every dungeon that you shouldn't run into such a problem. Whenever I died I had saved recently, maybe I was just lucky.

My last save between each safe room is 45+ so yes i'l get annoyed if I lost that due to a silly mistake.

 

[Archtreyz]

If you can't handle P5, don't ever play Nocturne.

It's not that he can't handle it. I'm sure he can handle it just fine. He'll keep playing and beat the game, I'm sure. It's not about it being hard. Losing 45 minutes of playtime doesn't make the game more CHALLENGING. Just wastes your time.

 

[Sai-kun]

this is pretty much the reason i'll never play another persona game again. i suffered through p4g and i refuse to subject myself to the garbage that is p5, so i'm content to just watch my partner do it.

 

[UltimateUnknown]

Turn down the difficulty to easy. Problem solved.

Normal mode in Persona games can be challenging to newcomers. Also if you're 70 hours into the game, several if not all of your party members should have the skill where they protect the MC a fatal blow. He should be nigh impervious at that point before the party members are wiped out.

 

[The Mango Sentinel]

Now I haven't played the game yet, but it sounds like a reasonable penalty for death. What would people rather have? No penalty?

 

[tenderbrew]

Its not even that long (what, 3 seconds?), why would they even see a need to include a skip for that?

/shrug

Someone said you could. It's not live or die.

 

[hemo memo]

Complaints like this always makes me scratch my head. There's so many safe rooms in every dungeon that you shouldn't run into such a problem. Whenever I died I had saved recently, maybe I was just lucky.

Also going to the previous safe room make the shadow in your current and previous floor-area respawn.

Opps another post sorry.

 

[Zafir]

Now I haven't played the game yet, but it sounds like a reasonable penalty for death. What would people rather have? No penalty?

I mean not everyone wants to have to waste hours of their live redoing content they've already done.

Unlike say the Souls games, you can't just go back and pick up your lost levels if you're good enough when you get back to where you died. It's legitimately wasted time.

It doesn't bother me in Persona 5 per se, as actually I think the game is rather kind with save points. However Persona 3, other SMT games, I think it is pretty irritating losing multiple hours due to save points being far apart. Fortunately I haven't really had it happen in any of them recently.

 

[AmuroChan]

I don't see a problem of having consequences to dying. Also, you compounded the problem by not saving. That's more on you than it is on the game. The great thing about the game is that it gives you the option to not have to deal with that consequence. Just change the difficulty to safe or easy.

 

[-Horizon-]

I lost about an hour of progress in mementos on my first play through because of the finicky morgana car attack button and the distance it needs to travel to hit the shadow.

 

[Archtreyz]

I don't see a problem of having consequences to dying. Also, you compounded the problem by not saving. That's more on you than it is on the game. The great thing about the game is that it gives you the option to not have to deal with that consequence. Just change the difficulty to safe or easy.

But he was saving. Save rooms can get to close to an hour apart. That's dumb design. I wouldn't mind the penalty so much if the game let you save anywhere, but safe rooms are the only place to use specific items or teleport. That makes way more sense.

 

[jonjonaug]

Being able to survive successive battles is the whole point. What you're asking for would be like being able to save your progress in a 2D platformer after every jump, you're complaining that you don't have save states.

 

[asagami_]

Anytime you feel mad at Persona 5 you should imagine losing progress in here

Is that Eridanus? NOOOOoOoooOooooo

 

[JBwB]

Persona 3 & 4 really do make you appreciate how often they allow you to save in P5, both in dungeons and out.

Playing through P3 FES atm and the only way to save in Tartarus is to go back to the entrance.

Spoiler

Kinda like it this way though as it makes it more challenging haha.

 

[AmuroChan]

But he was saving. Save rooms can get to close to an hour apart. That's dumb design. I wouldn't mind the penalty so much if the game let you save anywhere, but safe rooms are the only place to use specific items or teleport. That makes way more sense.

I've platinum-ed the game and have never been in a palace where the safe rooms were one hour apart. There are almost always shortcuts you can open up to access an earlier safe room easily if say you just played a long stretch without saving and is about to fight a mini-boss or such.

 

[Azure Phoenix]

Also going to the previous safe room make the shadow in your current and previous floor-area respawn.

You can run past every shadow without fighting them or triggering any alert, approach them from behind to one side while walking (not running) and when they turn their head to that side dart to the other side and walk past them. Their line of vision when in the "huh, someone there?" mode is tiny. Going back to save should never be a concern.

 

[ghibli99]

There are times in P5 where I feel like I go long stretches without being able to save. At the end of each day, I wish it would just autosave instead of only giving you the option to do so when you standing in your room or in safe rooms in palaces (there are probably other spots, but those seem to be the only ones that come to mind). It's weird that at the end of some days, you don't even get the option of saving in your room, or you start the next day at school already, etc. Not sure if there's a reason why it doesn't at least autosave at the end of each day, but I do find it mildly annoying.

 

[semiconscious]

I think this is just a problem people who have been away from games with save points for awhile have, because there were safe spots only minutes away in nearly every dungeon, except maybe the last two. I don't think I ever lost any more than ten minutes of my time.

this. mementos could get tricky, but not so much the palace dungeons...

 

[CannonFodder52]

Persona 3 & 4 really do make you appreciate how often they allow you to save in P5, both in dungeons and out.

Playing through P3 FES atm and the only way to save in Tartarus is to go back to the entrance.

Spoiler

Kinda like it this way though as it makes it more challenging haha.

Yea I'm playing P3 for the first time right now. It's insane I'm comparison to P5. Cool game tho

 

[Pancho]

My last save between each safe room is 45+ so yes i'l get annoyed if I lost that due to a silly mistake.

I honestly can't remember any instance when that was an issue. I don't remember a moment when I had to play long stretches of a palace without saving. There was always a new safe room or a shortcut to a previous safe room.

The only instance I can recall is LATE GAME SPOILERS AHEAD

Spoiler

in Shido's palace, that whole last part were you fight the yakuza boss followed by the Akechi battles. Its a long stretch of fights plus cutscenes with no saves in between. It's especially nerve racking when you live in an area when random power surges are common so yeah that part had me on edge.

 

[SirNinja]

Anytime you feel mad at Persona 5 you should imagine losing progress in here

What's that?

The infamous Sector Eridanus from SMT Strange Journey. Dozens of teleport pads, one-way doors, and floor tiles that cause sleep/poison. (Oh, and that's just one floor of it.)

 

[The Spoony Hou]

Sounds like an RPG alright.

 

[CambriaRising]

Save. More. Often.

You people ever played an RPG before?

 

[yanipheonu]

There are times in P5 where I feel like I go long stretches without being able to save. At the end of each day, I wish it would just autosave instead of only giving you the option to do so when you standing in your room or in safe rooms in palaces (there are probably other spots, but those seem to be the only ones that come to mind). It's weird that at the end of some days, you don't even get the option of saving in your room, or you start the next day at school already, etc. Not sure if there's a reason why it doesn't at least autosave at the end of each day, but I do find it mildly annoying.

Games like Pokemon and Persona necessitate having specific control over saves.

There's the obvious example of saving before catching a legendary Pokemon. If the game autosaved, well, if you failed to catch what you wanted you're screwed.

And Persona, with multiple save slots as opposed to Pokemon, has plenty of times where you would want a specific save for a specific day, such as before you reach a certain social link, or a certain event happens, or right before going sending a calling card.

It has a specific reason to exist.