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Am I the only one who finds traditional Zelda dungeons and Persona palaces extremely extremely extremely boring and annoying?

Dungeons? Palaces?

  • I can't stand dungeons, palaces or whatever the fuck in any game, waste of time

    Votes: 27 18.6%
  • They are alright i guess, don't love em, don't hate em

    Votes: 24 16.6%
  • I love dungeons

    Votes: 32 22.1%
  • I love dungeons, you are an idiot

    Votes: 62 42.8%

  • Total voters
    145

Bragr

Banned
Breath of the Wild fixed some of this for me, as the shrines are so small, but in traditional Zelda games and Persona games, it can be a real bitch when they go over 20-30 minutes.

The bosses are usually awesome, but I find the dungeons themselves to be extremely boring and way too long. I never understood the allure of them, especially since it's usually rather easy mindless puzzles, it just comes off as wasting time with bullshit before you get to the boss.

If it was some sort of interesting challenge or brilliant puzzles, then maybe, but it's not that at all. It's glorified padding with some interesting moments here and there, like sub-bosses and discovery of items, but that ain't enough to justify all the time you spend in them.

In Zelda, the puzzling and trying to figure out where to go just ain't that fun, and the palaces in Persona get boring after 10 minutes, just fighting enemies over and over till you get to the end. Some of those later palaces in Persona are so fucking long and padded I'm surprised people aren't complaining more about it.
 

Inxes

Member
Breath of the Wild fixed some of this for me, as the shrines are so small, but in traditional Zelda games and Persona games, it can be a real bitch when they go over 20-30 minutes.

The bosses are usually awesome, but I find the dungeons themselves to be extremely boring and way too long. I never understood the allure of them, especially since it's usually rather easy mindless puzzles, it just comes off as wasting time with bullshit before you get to the boss.

If it was some sort of interesting challenge or brilliant puzzles, then maybe, but it's not that at all. It's glorified padding with some interesting moments here and there, like sub-bosses and discovery of items, but that ain't enough to justify all the time you spend in them.

In Zelda, the puzzling and trying to figure out where to go just ain't that fun, and the palaces in Persona get boring after 10 minutes, just fighting enemies over and over till you get to the end. Some of those later palaces in Persona are so fucking long and padded I'm surprised people aren't complaining more about it.
BoTW both improves making the shorter and more imaginative versions of dungeons, the shrines, and at the same time makes the worst dungeons by far in any Zelda game with the Divine Beasts. I actually enjoy them, but I would like to see some innovation and new ways of progressing in them.
 

Vagswarm

Member
I don't like the water temples, but other than that Zelda dungeons are usually great. That's the meat of the game
 

Chukhopops

Member
Persona palaces were a bit boring, especially the okumura one and the boat dude (forgot his name) which were long and predictable.

Zelda dungeons are usually pretty good, with a defined theme and logic. Skyward Sword in particular had great dungeons (but was underwhelming otherwise).
 

fart town usa

Gold Member
Wind Waker has weak dungeons but the bulk of the series is fantastic. The dungeons in Twilight Princess are borderline perfection.

I've tried to get into Persona but the High School sim/dungeon crawling combo just doesn't appeal to me. I will say, I was playing P3 Portable a few months back and all of a sudden 'Death' entered the dungeon and was pursuing me at a really fast pace, it was straight up terrifying, lol. Did not expect that.
 

MastaKiiLA

Member
Meh. I remember dungeons often being black screens with a tiny light circle around your character, and you only saw the dungeon furniture when it was directly adjacent to you. Cheap random encounters ahoy!
 

TexMex

Member
There’s and bad ones, can’t make a blanket statement on this. Boring dungeons and boring. But most in OoT, WW and TP (which low key has some of the best dungeons in the franchise) are largely awesome.
 
traditional zelda dungeons? hell no!

persona dungeons? yep but at the same time its a breather from all the social stuff, which got annoying because the game is super long.
 
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Uh dunno man, those games are based around dungeon combat, puzzling and exploration. If you don't like that it's not because of dungeons, but because you just don't like the game.

I think a big part of Persona (at least since 3) is the story, social links and walking around the city.

Persona hasn't been about dungeons for a while
 

GymWolf

Member
Zelda botw has the worst dungeons in the saga so i don't know what to tell you...

Persona 5 dungeons were a bit too long sometimes, yeah.
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
I think a big part of Persona (at least since 3) is the story, social links and walking around the city.

Persona hasn't been about dungeons for a while
That’s not really true, Persona 5 brought back hand made dungeons and Demon negotiations which big part of SMT series.
 
No, I find them to be shit tier, too. Played through P5R recently. Took me almost 120 hours. I'm pretty sure to never touch a game like that again.
 

anthony2690

Banned
I like the dungeons in zelda (game dependent in zelda series)

I find the palaces, super duper boring in the atlus games I've tried them in (digital devil saga and Tokyo mirage sessions) :(
 

Bragr

Banned
No, I find them to be shit tier, too. Played through P5R recently. Took me almost 120 hours. I'm pretty sure to never touch a game like that again.
I also just played through Persona 5 and it's why I made this thread. That you have to "ambush" them and that they respawn constantly makes it so much slower. It feels like the game is eating itself alive the deeper you get into it as each dungeon gets more and more tedious and slow.
 
I also just played through Persona 5 and it's why I made this thread. That you have to "ambush" them and that they respawn constantly makes it so much slower. It feels like the game is eating itself alive the deeper you get into it as each dungeon gets more and more tedious and slow.
Exactly. Forcing myself through it was almost physically painful for the last 30 hours or so. The first symptoms of boredom appeared less than 50 hours in. So much filler content and pointless repetition. I also felt that the whole game could have easily been cut down to half its length without compromising on story and character development, if the thing was told in a more efficient and clever way.
 

TheAssist

Member
I like Persona games, but I somewhat hate their dungeons. Actualy P5 Strikers was probably the best game in the series gameplay wise. Plus the dungeons were much shorter for the most part and therefore much more enjoyable.

I hate how long these dungeons usually take. They basically have one idea and stretch that for 1 or up to 2 hours. The fights are basically on autopilot by that point, there is no challenge, no story, no risk, no fun. You're just pulling through so the next story beat happens.
They have gotten better, but there is no need for Persona 5 to be 100 hour game, It would have been fine at 50 hours and most of that time could have been taken away from the dungeon crawling, especially the random generated ones, that are just there for the grinding.
 

TheMan

Member
I lie some place between the first and second options. I don’t really care for dungeons, but persona tends to be egregious about this with how fucking long they are
 

TintoConCasera

I bought a sex doll, but I keep it inflated 100% of the time and use it like a regular wife
I think a big part of Persona (at least since 3) is the story, social links and walking around the city.

Persona hasn't been about dungeons for a while
I agree, but would say each aspect is like 50% of the game. If he doesn't like the dungeon aspect he should go play a visual novel instead.
 
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Horatius

Member
i feel like op would have more of a point if they were just talking about persona, but not liking zelda dungeons makes you a crazy person, especially when you're considering the two styles to be equivalent.

zelda dungeons are tightly designed puzzle boxes interspersed with combat and a climactic boss fight. zelda isn't zelda without them. persona's dungeons are samey corridors the game forces you to walk through so that you have to do random battles. it's perfectly acceptable to get bored by them. v different imo
 
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Fbh

Member
Zelda dungeons are amazing, love the mix of exploration, puzzles and fighting.

The palaces in Persona 5 would have been fine if they all were like the first one. But as the game goes on they just begin to get longer and they all feel like they drag on like twice as much as they should.
Dungeon design in particular seems to be an issue for Atlus. Like watching some nocturne HD videos made me remember that as great as the combat and demon fusing mechanics are, the actual dungeons are mostly really bland. Almost all of them are just a bunch of identical hallways repeated over and over again, usually over multiple levels.
 

Animagic

Banned
Breath of the Wild fixed some of this for me, as the shrines are so small, but in traditional Zelda games and Persona games, it can be a real bitch when they go over 20-30 minutes.

The bosses are usually awesome, but I find the dungeons themselves to be extremely boring and way too long. I never understood the allure of them, especially since it's usually rather easy mindless puzzles, it just comes off as wasting time with bullshit before you get to the boss.

If it was some sort of interesting challenge or brilliant puzzles, then maybe, but it's not that at all. It's glorified padding with some interesting moments here and there, like sub-bosses and discovery of items, but that ain't enough to justify all the time you spend in them.

In Zelda, the puzzling and trying to figure out where to go just ain't that fun, and the palaces in Persona get boring after 10 minutes, just fighting enemies over and over till you get to the end. Some of those later palaces in Persona are so fucking long and padded I'm surprised people aren't complaining more about it.
I’m with you. I love dungeons but dislike both of these series approaches. I dig the doom map style with navigating a maze and finding keys. There are some Zelda dungeons like that but a lot of times they are just gimmicky jank forcing you to do what they want you to do.
 

Marvel14

Banned
Am I the only one who can't stand mint chocolate chip ice cream? Can someone validate my preference please. Anyone?
 

Marvel14

Banned
If you were on an ice cream forum, that would be a valid question.
I am critiquing how the thread has been posted. There will be plenty of people who agree that dungeons are not their cup of tea...the interesting discussion is why and what might make them more engaging for detractors not whether other people also hold that opinion.
 

Bluecondor

Member
While I am not a fan of dungeons in games, Persona 5 was my first Persona game. I played through the entire game and really enjoyed it, as the sum of its parts outweighed my lack of enthusiasm for playing through the Palaces.
 

Tschumi

Member
Persona 4 Golden was great for me the first time, but when I played back through it trying to have different romances and friendships I quickly burnt out on fighting Kanji a second time in that fucking bathhouse and stuff, yeah...

But like, Persona games change so much in every iteration that there isn't really any one 'traditional' persona palace style.. P3 was hugely different to P4, and P5 is of course so far the best they've yet managed... So yeah not really agreeing with u on that one.

Zelda... All I know is that the single greatest obstacle to liking the Wind Waker is getting through the Forbidden Fortress at the start. But I did enjoy the dungeons in that game, so yeah again not really agreeing with you.

What I will say is that I'm kinda tired of how Zelda games try to be slightly different about cameras. Like you said, Breath of the Wild somewhat solved this, but Skyward Sword doesn't let you pan the camera as far as I was able to tell, TP had like a weird focal length.. TWW was relatively on point but why was it only that one time?
 

MagiusNecros

Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
Zelda dungeons are good. I like using my brain and not having to stop for 25 rando encounters. Persona dungeons are bad, bland, uninspired and can go away. SMT too.

When it comes to dungeons I feel that Persona, SMT, and Etrian Odyssey are all in the "they suck" boat and they each have some kind of other gimmick to cover them up.

Whether it be social high school nonsense, law, chaos, neutral story paths, or filling out your journal with crap you don't care about.

Tokyo Mirage Sessions is the same way and no wonder as an acronym it's TMS which is SMT backwards.

If anything fun can be derived from the games it's going to be the battle system. Which are mostly enjoyable. Except EO. Yuck.
 
Yes you’re the only one on the entire internet.

/s

if you don’t like it then don’t play it. nobody is forcing you to play Zelda or persona. If a game has elements of gameplay you don’t like just stop and go play something else.
 
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