Shin Megami Tensei and Persona Thread 4 : Welcome... to the Velvet Room

[Ogremindes]

Prior Threads:
Shin Megami Tensei and Persona
Shin Megami Tensei and Persona Thread 2 : Eternal Punishment
Shin Megami Tensei and Persona Thread 3 : Mainiacs Edition

For those wondering about the title: Shin Megami Tensei is a series of post apocalyptic JPRGs heavy in occult and religious imagery created by Atlus and notable for being "evil pokemon" (you collect and summon "demons", which in this case includes all manner of mythological creatures, such as angels), and for having the player make choices on the Law/Chaos axis, rather than good and evil. The series has many spin-offs, most notably Persona.

The Persona games are JRPGs set in High School, modern times (well, P1 is set in '99), and instead of demons the characters summon their "persona", which is a symbolic manifestation of their "true self", which happens to take the form of a SMT demon. The more recent games of the Persona series including dating sim elements, which works much better than it sounds on paper. Persona has it's own spin-offs, P4 Arena, and Persona Q. The SMT games as a whole are pretty consistently high-quality, high difficulty and unforgiving, with the newer Persona games being some of the more accessible games in the greater Megami Tensei series.

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So, Persona 5 is out now! My copy will be coming in the mail in the next couple of days . I think everything P5 should still be spoilered for at least the next couple of weeks, both story and mechanics.

I didn't get around to playing through all the prior Persona games beforehand as I had hoped, but then I only even got a copy of Eternal Punishment a few weeks ago (I'm in a PAL region, so I also need to figure out how I'm going to run it). At least I got around to replaying FES and playing P4G in the last year.

On that subject, does anyone have opinions on P4 vs. P4G? I played the latter late last year, and was wondering if it ended up being like P3P, with the extra content being offset by the game balance going out the window. It's been too long since I've played P4 for me to make the comparison, but I don't recall being ridiculously overleveled without even trying, which was the case in my P4G game.

[Zevox]

I have Persona 5! Though I don't have enough free time to get too far into it yet - just far enough that I've seen the first non-main-character Persona awakening. So far, so good, though. I really like the style of everything. Music is great as always, too.

I have already recognized at least two voice actors though, to my surprise. The guy your main character is staying with sounds exactly like Iron Tager from the Blazblue games (to the point where it's actually kind of distracting for me, actually), while the teacher who meets you on your first day at school I swear must be voiced by Yukari's voice actress. I actually think Ann might be as well, though maybe hers just sounds similar, since I didn't pick up the similarity there quite as fast as with the teacher.

On that subject, does anyone have opinions on P4 vs. P4G? I played the latter late last year, and was wondering if it ended up being like P3P, with the extra content being offset by the game balance going out the window. It's been too long since I've played P4 for me to make the comparison, but I don't recall being ridiculously overleveled without even trying, which was the case in my P4G game.

I didn't play P4G (don't have a Vita, probably never will), but I did play P3P, and I don't recall there being anything different about the balance in it compared to FES?

[Kitten Champion]

I'm 5+ hours in, which puts me around the end of the first arc and almost done with tutorials on new/returning game mechanics. Probably one or two more with regards to the Velvet prison, I believe there's supposed to be a place where you can just buy Persona but I've yet to see it.

Not sure how much spoilers are a thing here, but since it came out just yesterday here.

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I really like how the whole experience builds cohesively around the imprisonment theme. From the MC being positioned as a social pariah that's treated like a potentially dangerous nuisance by everyone, to the claustrophobic nature of the dingier parts of Tokyo where the mundane worlds parts take place with narrow back-streets and crowds of empty people filling up everywhere,

The first time you commute to school alone is particularly clever in that they make you go through some tedious walking around looking for the correct train to transfer to, something the game skips through later from then on. After being tossed into a dirty storage room to live in, being talked about as an insignificant object by your new caretaker and teachers, this trip gives you the sensation of a soul-crushing daily drudgery you've now found yourself trapped in for a year. All of which works into a sort of in-built character arc for your mostly silent protagonist, because he elected to be the Good Samaritan once and it cost him almost everything that made his life worth living as you've seen. Faced with a similar trial would he make the decision again?

Another thing I've noticed is rape is more of a thing in this game. I think this is the first Persona to have an M rating in North America (I recall earlier Personas having issues because the series depicted homosexuality in video games in the 90's, but I'm fuzzy on the details) so they can be more frank. "Cause the first villain is a flat out rapist and it's reflected in his distorted mental world. I don't have much to say aside from that, but it's a potentially interesting turn and I'm curious to see how this shift affects the rest of the game.

Also I was worried Morgana would be annoying. I mean, I like Teddie but I didn't want another one. Fortunately he's much more mellow and far less puntastic. I've taken a liking to him.

As to the gameplay - the Palaces as game dungeons are a lot more intelligently constructed. Moving away from random maze generation and into fully-crafted levels, the layout and general level size work coherently with the rest of the game mechanics to make dungeon-diving into an all-around more enjoyable experience. They've got safe-rooms which function somewhat similarly to the teleporters in P3's Tartarus that lets you relax a bit from feeling like you've got to conquer the whole thing in an 1-long sweep if you don't want to.

Negotiating with Shadows can be a bit tedious at the beginning, but once you've succeeded it lets you skip through it for the most part. Though, after a bit of experimentation it's often more beneficial to just kill them as of the beginning level. Maybe I'm wrong, but the money you get doesn't seem substantively different from demanding it through a hold-up and just finishing them off. You can items and more XP from killing them as well.

The biggest benefit to shadow negotiations is that you can get the exact Persona you want, sort of like Pokemon but you don't have a convenient digitized box to store extra ones in that you simply banish one to make room. However, I'm fairly certain you do need to be level-appropriate to the Shadow your attempting to capture or they'll just give you an item and run off -- still kind of worth it because the items have been nice-ish thus far. You gotta know whether its possibly to capture more or less on your memory from Persona fusion.

[Ogremindes]

I didn't play P4G (don't have a Vita, probably never will), but I did play P3P, and I don't recall there being anything different about the balance in it compared to FES?

Direct Control alone makes you a lot more powerful in P3P than FES. Even if you don't use direct control (I have the impression that teammate AI is worse in Portable, but I'm not sure), extra turns come easier, missed turns are less frequent, skill cards are readily available (something I think is a bad idea for Press Turn and Press Turn derived battle systems in general) and more besides. All this and the enemies are basically unchanged from FES. So yeah, balance is a bit different.

I played P4G on a Playstation TV. It's not a bad deal if you already have a compatible controller. And have neither a PS3 or Vita.

[Zevox]

Direct Control alone makes you a lot more powerful in P3P than FES.

I suppose there's an argument to be made that that would be the case, although I feel that's a feature that always should have been there and that the difficulty going down indirectly because you're no longer hobbled by relying on bad AI to control your teammates isn't a bad thing in any way, shape, or form.

I played P4G on a Playstation TV. It's not a bad deal if you already have a compatible controller. And have neither a PS3 or Vita.

I have a PS3, but how does that help?

Anyway, only had about an hour with P5 today, but that was enough to advance the first plotline meaninfully, and jeez:

Spoiler: Super-early game spoiler.

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I know the Persona games can go to some pretty dark places at times (see: Nanako), and this one already kind of had before I got to this point, but I was very much not expecting a a possible implied off-screen rape and an on-screen attempted suicide in the first four hours of the game.

Cripes, and here Kamoshida didn't even come across as badly as the characters treated him as to me at first - offering a ride to Ann was a bit sketchy, but offset by the fact that he offered it to you too, and otherwise on that first day the real him seemed relatively fine; it was only the run-in with his shadow that made Ryuji's opinion of him seem justified. But boy, even without factoring in his Shadow, Kamoshida went from "mostly okay if potentially a bit creepy" to "where's Adachi when you need him?" in record-breaking time.

[Ogremindes]

I suppose there's an argument to be made that that would be the case, although I feel that's a feature that always should have been there and that the difficulty going down indirectly because you're no longer hobbled by relying on bad AI to control your teammates isn't a bad thing in any way, shape, or form.

I think indirect control was the right choice for Persona 3, and I was kinda disappointed that they didn't stick with it going forward. Regardless, the encounters in P3 were designed with you only controlling the one character in mind.

I have a PS3, but how does that help?

My point there is that a fair chunk of the value in a PSTV or Vita is shared with the PS3, namely the PSOne classics, and some titles that exist in both platforms, such as Dragon's Crown. So if you have a PS3 there's less reason to get a Vita.

[Ogremindes]

I got my copy of P5 today and just started playing, only as far as the first night's sleep. Holy crap I wasn't ready for this. Deliberately so, but still, tone shift much? And I don't just mean Igor's voice.

[smuchmuch]

On that subject, does anyone have opinions on P4 vs. P4G? I played the latter late last year, and was wondering if it ended up being like P3P, with the extra content being offset by the game balance going out the window. It's been too long since I've played P4 for me to make the comparison, but I don't recall being ridiculously overleveled without even trying, which was the case in my P4G game

for having played the start of both, P4G is much easier, at least at the start of the game, the extra content, the extra time slots, the fact the dungeon are much more acessible and the reworking of the bosses (Oh yeah shadow Yukiko in regular P4 was a nasty wake up if you were enw to the game series, not so much in P4G where she's heavily declawe), make the thing easeir and grinding much less frustrating.
That said, it's only the start, can't speak for extra mid and end game content bosses and stuf like that.

Soince i can't Persona 5 , I' ve been playing P2 instead. I must say, It's starnge, feel much more like a classic SMT game and the plot kinda insane but I love it.

[Zevox]

I got my copy of P5 today and just started playing, only as far as the first night's sleep. Holy crap I wasn't ready for this. Deliberately so, but still, tone shift much? And I don't just mean Igor's voice.

Igor's voice is pretty distractingly different, actually. I wish they'd at least tried to get somebody to mimic what he sounded like in previous games.

But yeah, this one definitely gets dark a whole lot faster than the previous titles. That's what my last spoiler was about.

I've now finished the first dungeon. A few thoughts:

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So far, I am very much enjoying myself. The game just oozes style in a way that's impossible not to love, with the way everything looks and animates, especially while exploring the dungeons. I love that the dungeons no longer seem to be made up of a series of randomly-generated floors, and are just fully designed out now - that was one of the very few things I wished they'd change from previous titles. And since they changed the other thing I wanted changed, random skill inheritance on fused Personas, well, I'm pretty much out of serious criticisms of the gameplay elements .

Speaking of gameplay elements, the negotiation thing. I will say, it's a hell of a lot more painless than in Persona 1 and 2. For a few of reasons, I think: one, it's a lot easier to succeed. I've probably succeeded in getting shadows to become my Persona more often than I've failed, despite still having no way to figure out how they'll react to any given answer. Two, instead of getting the materials to make Personas as in those old games, you just get a Persona outright, which is a big improvement to how satisfying the whole thing is. Three, I think it's easier to get to do the negotiation in the first place - just knock everyone down. I don't remember how it worked in P1/P2, granted but I don't think it was that easy. Also, if it does turn out that there's another way to get new Personas entirely later on (I haven't found one yet), that'll be even better, since then the mechanic won't even be necessary. But even if it is necessary, eh, unless it gets a lot harder down the road, it's painless enough that I'm fine with it. My only slight annoyance is in how the hold-ups interrupt the fight music when I just intend to go straight into an All-Out Attack. Which isn't a big deal, it just breaks the flow a touch - which is a hell of a lot more minor of a complain than what I feared the return of this mechanic might lead to.

The one real criticism I can think of at this point is that I'm finding things pretty easy. Even the first boss fight was kind of a cakewalk. But, a couple caveats to that: one, I have been in real danger before, on the couple of occasions when I got ambushed by enemies, so it could just be the classic Persona/SMT system of "if you exploit the mechanics right it's easy, but if you mess up you pay for it big time." Two, I am playing on normal difficulty, and I have the option to turn it up to hard. Which I might do, but only if it continues to be this easy - for now I'm going to wait on that and see if what I've experienced thus far is just the early game being designed to be easier than the rest.

[Antonok]

This was a release day pick up for me, and since I'm an introverted insomniac with no social life, I've put way too much time in to it Currently up to the fifth palace, and I can say it's still fun and scratching the turn based JRPG itch I've had for the last couple years. I have some issues with it however

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I want to kick Morgana off the top of the biggest building, drop a bomb where he lands, scoop up the ashes and fire them into the sun, then make the sun go supernova . There are just way too many times when you can't do anything at all. And I mean periods of 2+ weeks in game doing nothing but pressing X to advance the story. I expect some periods of not being able to do anything, but it's far worse than previous entries.

2: This is extremely minor in the grand scheme of things, but there's too many good romance options in this one. I'm typically not one to form multiple romances in a playthrough in these games,
but this one is forcing me to make a harem unless I want to do 8 or 9 playthroughs. Actually thinking about it, some of the stat requirements to prgress through the S-Links are a bit high.
Needing 4 or max in a stat to to even start an S-Link is a bit harsh considering its a lot harder to level them in this one.

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The one real criticism I can think of at this point is that I'm finding things pretty easy. Even the first boss fight was kind of a cakewalk. But, a couple caveats to that: one, I have been in real danger before, on the couple of occasions when I got ambushed by enemies, so it could just be the classic Persona/SMT system of "if you exploit the mechanics right it's easy, but if you mess up you pay for it big time." Two, I am playing on normal difficulty, and I have the option to turn it up to hard. Which I might do, but only if it continues to be this easy - for now I'm going to wait on that and see if what I've experienced thus far is just the early game being designed to be easier than the rest.

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It's the classic SMT formula. Easy if you know the weaknesses, unrelenting if you screw up. The 2 new damage types being added in made it a bit harder, but overall nothing too major. They do seem to like spamming the null/reflect types later on though.

The second boss in particular had a difficulty spike to him I wasn't expecting and he managed to kill me a couple times before I had to reevaluate my strategy.

[Ogremindes]

Not sure if I'm gonna play P5 any time soon. I honestly found those first couple of hours genuinely disturbing to the point of aversion and sleeplessness. This sort of stuff eats at me like nothing else.I mean, the court scene in Chrono Trigger makes me uneasy, and this is several orders of magnitude past that.

[JBPuffin]

Perhaps one of the worst things about my current life situation - not having this game. Hey, maybe they'll put out an anime? (Please do that, whoever's in charge of this sort of thing. The one for 4 was so great...)

Also, not sure how much overlap between communities we have here, but there have been quite a few play-by-post and IRL tabletop games in the Persona universe, and in a quest to straighten out what my initial Persona would be were I a character, this is bugging me: are all Personas supposed to be based on mythology, or in-universe are there obvious exceptions to this unstated rule/obvious pattern? I mean, I have an alter ego character (even if I'm not sure how well they work as a mask for myself), but does that happen in the series ever? Trying to figure out how much Wiki-surfing I'll end up doing.

[tonberrian]

Perhaps one of the worst things about my current life situation - not having this game. Hey, maybe they'll put out an anime? (Please do that, whoever's in charge of this sort of thing. The one for 4 was so great...)

Also, not sure how much overlap between communities we have here, but there have been quite a few play-by-post and IRL tabletop games in the Persona universe, and in a quest to straighten out what my initial Persona would be were I a character, this is bugging me: are all Personas supposed to be based on mythology, or in-universe are there obvious exceptions to this unstated rule/obvious pattern? I mean, I have an alter ego character (even if I'm not sure how well they work as a mask for myself), but does that happen in the series ever? Trying to figure out how much Wiki-surfing I'll end up doing.

In MegaTen games, demons (more accurately spirits, really) arise from and feed off of human emotions. A Persona seems to be your own personal spirit - most personas share the same designs as demons, and using a persona allows you to fight with demons on an even footing much like the various versions of the Demon Summoning Program in other MegaTen games. Now most demons and personas arrive from mythology, but then you've got oddities like Chemtrail, Mothman, Jersey Devil, Jack the Ripper, and Mad Gasser, based off of various more modern myths. The Rumor race from Soul Hackers are all based off of various Japanese urban legends. Another demon, Shadow, is based off of the idea of a persona. The main personas of the protagonists of Persona 5 are all based on literature characters. In Persona 2, you get something like what you're suggesting with Joker/Jun Kurosu (spoilers for Persona 2), although I've never played it and can't give you details and the wiki points out some extenuating circumstances.

In short, do what you will. Canon won't complain terribly much.

[JBPuffin]

In MegaTen games, demons (more accurately spirits, really) arise from and feed off of human emotions. A Persona seems to be your own personal spirit - most personas share the same designs as demons, and using a persona allows you to fight with demons on an even footing much like the various versions of the Demon Summoning Program in other MegaTen games. Now most demons and personas arrive from mythology, but then you've got oddities like Chemtrail, Mothman, Jersey Devil, Jack the Ripper, and Mad Gasser, based off of various more modern myths. The Rumor race from Soul Hackers are all based off of various Japanese urban legends. Another demon, Shadow, is based off of the idea of a persona. The main personas of the protagonists of Persona 5 are all based on literature characters. In Persona 2, you get something like what you're suggesting with Joker/Jun Kurosu (spoilers for Persona 2), although I've never played it and can't give you details and the wiki points out some extenuating circumstances.

In short, do what you will. Canon won't complain terribly much.

The main characters from P5 are book-based? Aw man, now I'm really feeling the pain of no access...thanks for the intel, tonberrian.

[Kitten Champion]

Now most demons and personas arrive from mythology, but then you've got oddities like Chemtrail, Mothman, Jersey Devil, Jack the Ripper, and Mad Gasser, based off of various more modern myths.

There's a Chemtrail persona? Oh, a demon in SMT IV. That's hilarious.

The main personas of the protagonists of Persona 5 are all based on literature characters.

I've seen that mentioned elsewhere, but what about Captain Kidd? That doesn't really describe a number of them, there are mythological and folk heroes among the initial ones and some have gods as final forms.

[smuchmuch]

The /starting personas are based from famous rebels and thieves, most of which are fictional, which y'know is pretty obvious given the theme of the game.
They are not all based in books tho; Captain Kidd is an historical person who really existed (i'm sure he was romaticized in some writtings somewhere but still technicaly he's not 'from' litterature) and Carmen is an Opera character. (...Also given how the operas ends, i'm wondering if this is supposed to be some foreshadowing here...)

But they do keep that smae tradition of being legends and myths, weither classical, historically based or just urban.
At least they're easier to get for a Western audience that the P4 base personas who were heavily rooted in Japaneese lore.

[Alanzeign]

I've completed the game now (true ending). I don't know that I have much to say that isn't spoilerific or fanboyism, but man this game is good. It does nearly everything right when looking at the flaws of P3 and P4. I could go on and on about certain things, but I'll leave it be for a while since it just came out.

The one thing I can see throwing a lot of people is how harsh the tone is at the very beginning of the game. It really hammers away at how everyone is dead set against you no matter what. I started the game feeling it was obtusely driving away at that point to the games detriment, but ultimately it serves to highlight the real changes you bring about in the game in a well developed way. While not without its flaws, this is the best JRPG I've seen in several years.

Personally, it literally has me screaming for a remake of P3 with the quality of life changes and dungeon mechanics of P5. I'm aware it will never happen but I would kill for that story and climax with the direction and resources of the P5 team.

[Zevox]

I've just finished the second Palace. So far, the game is coming along nicely. I'm enjoying all the characters and the group dynamic, as always with Persona, and definitely wish I had more time to keep playing more.

One minor comment: dang, when Persona 5 Arena comes around, it's going to be a little confusing having both Yosuke and Yusuke playable in the same game.

Just a couple of things - one about the second target, one about a (I presume) social link you get the setup for in early June:

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On Madarame, doesn't his plan regarding the Sayuri seem to have a fatal flaw? Selling counterfeits as though they were the original, using the fact that it was him selling it to convince people that they were the original, seems highly likely to backfire. Even if nobody gets them checked out to discover they're counterfeit that way, they're going to notice when multiple people start claiming to have the original Sayuri - and they all say that it was Madarame himself who sold it to them.

And the social link... I'm talking about your teacher. Yeah, everything about the setup for that was creepy as heck, and if I didn't figure it would probably lead to a social link, I would not have gone along with it. Just, ugh. 3 and 4 never made you do anything that felt that dirty. And considering that the way you actually establish the social link is to call her to your room, it will probably continue feeling that way...

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It's the classic SMT formula. Easy if you know the weaknesses, unrelenting if you screw up. The 2 new damage types being added in made it a bit harder, but overall nothing too major. They do seem to like spamming the null/reflect types later on though.

The second boss in particular had a difficulty spike to him I wasn't expecting and he managed to kill me a couple times before I had to reevaluate my strategy.

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Really? I found the second boss just as easy as the first. Knock down his parts twice and it was over. I will probably be kicking up the difficulty to hard, actually, considering this.

Actually, if anything, I liked the first boss more. It felt like there was more going on, with the goblet you had to switch to attacking, and then the need to send someone to steal the crown from his head, forcing you to make do with three party members for a while. I was hoping for more dynamic stuff like that, but it didn't happen with Madarame.

I've completed the game now (true ending). I don't know that I have much to say that isn't spoilerific or fanboyism, but man this game is good. It does nearly everything right when looking at the flaws of P3 and P4. I could go on and on about certain things, but I'll leave it be for a while since it just came out.

The one thing I can see throwing a lot of people is how harsh the tone is at the very beginning of the game. It really hammers away at how everyone is dead set against you no matter what. I started the game feeling it was obtusely driving away at that point to the games detriment, but ultimately it serves to highlight the real changes you bring about in the game in a well developed way. While not without its flaws, this is the best JRPG I've seen in several years.

Good to hear - though obviously I'm a long way away from finishing the game to say whether I agree or not. I certainly hope you're right, though.

Personally, it literally has me screaming for a remake of P3 with the quality of life changes and dungeon mechanics of P5. I'm aware it will never happen but I would kill for that story and climax with the direction and resources of the P5 team.

I do hold out some small hope that we get a Persona 3 & 4 HD remake for the PS4 someday - hopefully incorporating the female protagonist option of P3P while ditching the map removal that the PSP forced it to have, and including whatever updates were made in Golden for P4. The franchise seems to have become big enough that I could see something like that happening.

[Hiro Protagonest]

*Yusuke shows up at cafe for optional event*

*don't have an Emperor persona, decide to go to Velvet Room and get one for extra points*

*locked out of cafe until evening*

...Thanks, game. And I saved after I left, I took care of some inventory stuff at Untouchable and didn't want to deal with that again if I ended up re-doing my Velvet Room stuff.

The hideout is currently inside the cafe, but as soon as I call off the meeting I'm right back outside.

I always knew I would have to do a second playthrough (normal, not New Game+) to satisfy my desire for efficiency... but I could totally start that now, go for a better retread of what I've already done, then copy the save into a new file when I get to unknown territory.

[Spacewolf]

Finally finished 5 with a play through clocking it at 70 hours (Got the good ending as well), now I havn't played any Persona games prior to this but Five has definitely gotten into my top 5 games ever played list. I doubt I'll play it again any time soon considering how colossal it is but 70 hours is nothing to smirk at for a total play time (I do feel like it could do with some things to make playing through again feel more different considering it is fairly linear).

Although from reading the plot summaries from the previous games this does feel like the end of the series to me, not sure if they all have that feeling but it did feel very final.

Anyway onto the spoilers.

Spoiler: Major Spoilers for ending.

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I kind of wish they'd made the good ending harder to access by making you do something when Akechi slips up, I caught it the first time and checked the log to make sure. But then it feels like you could luck into that ending just by not selling out your friends which I doubt many people would do anyway. Then again making you remember something from 30 hours or so earlier or locking you into the bad ending because of one bad choice 30 hours earlier would kind of suck as well.

As for the secondary twist while I did figure out something was wrong about Igor I wasn't able to pinpoint any slip ups and was kind of expecting him to turn out to be Nyarly. Which would have made this feel even more like the end of the series but from the way the series has been going creating a new world where people are free to choose whatever they want without being dragged down seems like it would be a nice final ending.

Getting everyone to see you off was nice as well I'm pretty soft for stuff like that but getting to do your final rounds did have me abit misty eyed. The the ending itself was as epic and stylish as it needed to be, I was abit overleveled for the PMs dungeon though and if I hadn't been so overleveled the final boss rush might have been abit on the difficult side since it's just a damage race without to much in the way of tactics.

[Zevox]

@ Spacewolf - 70 hours seems about in line with Persona 4's length to me. Shorter than Persona 3's by a good margin, though - I only once got through that in less than 100 hours, and then I was still over 90.

As for the remark about it feeling like the end of the series, while I'm nowhere near the end myself, I'll just say that would surprise me a fair bit. There's not an overarching plot to the series - each game's story stands independently of the others, with only easter-egg style connections between them in the main games. A final ending to the plot of this particular game is fully expected, but I'm not sure how it could feel like an ending to the entire series given that.

But of course, I'm still not getting as much time with it as I want, and haven't gone far. Just established the Justice Arcana social link with Detective Akechi, in fact. Gotta say, I'm glad to see them including someone like him - that kind of viewpoint was sorely needed to bring some perspective to the actions of the group, I think, and coming from somebody who doesn't seem as though the game is just going to vilify him, too.

And at this point I'm pretty curious how the next Arena game will go, actually. The Phantom Thieves are a very different group from SEES or the Investigation Team, and I could see the groups having a hard time even beginning to trust each other. Naoto in particular would be pretty skeptical of them, I'm sure, similar to Akechi. And Chie, if she actually became a cop by the time the groups meet. Though, granted, I don't know what the Phantom Thieves end up like by the end of the game, so I could be way off-base there.

[Spacewolf]

Hmm be interesting to see what you think when you do get to the end, but don't want to give away anything else.

[Meta]

My ladyfriend and I are about halfway through P5, I estimate. Very fun, and we should be able to max everything this playthrough, so I can mess around on my merciless play through.

Generally better than 4, though I find some of the romance options to be a little questionable. Legal, maybe, but... less than wholesome maybe is the wording. Persona MCs are absurdly mature individuals capable of empathizing with everyone, but I feel like in most realistic individuals, these situations would not be very good romantic relationships.

Difficulty on normal seems to be at a pretty good place. When I played 4 (not golden) I went straight to hard mode and Yukiko's shadow is rough. For hard mode, the designers basically just doubled the damage (IIRC) that enemies do. That has terrible scaling, considering all of the countermeasures MC gains later in the game. I would have much preferred starting at something like 125-150% and increasing with each dungeon up past 200% in the later dungeons. Even on a fresh playthrough, hard mode, with maxing every stat and social link, the later dungeons were absurdly easy. Definitely need to work on the difficulty curve and I hope P5s Merciless is better.

[Alanzeign]

Difficulty for these games can be hard to quantify since play style and the amount of grinding people do varies quite a bit. I know my tendency to avoid combat combined with the stealth mechanics ensured that I was under leveled for the entire game, which as a bonus made it much more enjoyable for me personally. I played on normal for the first 2/3 of the game or so and then switched to Hard. After that decision the struggle was real.

The specific ways that the difficulty affects formulas in game are listed below.

Spoiler: Difficulty Modifiers

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Taken from the SMT Wiki site:

Safety: Damage received: x0.5 - Damage dealt: x2.0 - Experience: x3.0 - Money: x5.0

Easy: Damage received: x0.5 - Damage dealt: x1.0 - Experience: x1.0 - Money: x1.0

Normal: Damage received: x1.0 - Damage dealt: x1.0 - Experience: x1.0 - Money: x1.0

Hard: Damage received: x1.6 - Damage dealt: x0.8 - Experience: x1.0 - Money: x1.0

Merciless: Damage received: x1.6 - Damage dealt: x0.8 - Experience: x0.4 - Money: x0.4
(Critical and technical hit damage on both enemies and allies is tripled)

Needless to say, Merciless is all about exploiting and guarding weaknesses. I started a run just to see and if you are hit with a weakness you are pretty much dead. I'm not sure I have it in me to attempt a Merciless run!

[Yana]

Is it possible to progress the Strength confidant if you miss getting a requisite persona from one of the first palaces? I'm currently stuck on the second one because I didn't obtain every single mask from the seconds palace.

[Antonok]

Is it possible to progress the Strength confidant if you miss getting a requisite persona from one of the first palaces? I'm currently stuck on the second one because I didn't obtain every single mask from the seconds palace.

Yup. Either fusion or Mementos. This is a very helpful fusion guide.

[Zevox]

Yeesh, okay, after briefly turning the difficulty up to hard, I've decided to drop it back to normal. I was getting brutalized there just for not yet knowing the weaknesses of new enemies, because even allowing enemies one turn could cost me a character. I even lost a couple of times on the intro fight for my newest team member, because a couple of the enemies in that one had no weaknesses.

Speaking of, third Palace spoilers:

Spoiler

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I've gotta say, Makoto is totally my favorite character so far. Smart, but not as smart as everyone thinks she is, but even she occasionally acknowledges that; serious, but can be way too brash at times; complicated motivations that all mesh up perfectly in creating actions she probably wouldn't have taken under normal circumstances. Very well-done, likeable character so far.

Also, a serious student council president character who gets a Persona that is a motorcycle with a woman's face on it, which she rides when she summons it, and whose transformed outfit is a post-apocalyptic punk biker warrior's armor, complete with spiked shoulder pads? That is just the perfect kind of awesome silly for me.

Is it possible to progress the Strength confidant if you miss getting a requisite persona from one of the first palaces? I'm currently stuck on the second one because I didn't obtain every single mask from the seconds palace.

I would imagine so - it seems like Personas that you missed can be obtained in Mementos. Or by fusing lower-level Personas that you did get, I would guess.

[Spacewolf]

Yeesh, okay, after briefly turning the difficulty up to hard, I've decided to drop it back to normal. I was getting brutalized there just for not yet knowing the weaknesses of new enemies, because even allowing enemies one turn could cost me a character. I even lost a couple of times on the intro fight for my newest team member, because a couple of the enemies in that one had no weaknesses.

Speaking of, third Palace spoilers:

Spoiler

Show

I've gotta say, Makoto is totally my favorite character so far. Smart, but not as smart as everyone thinks she is, but even she occasionally acknowledges that; serious, but can be way too brash at times; complicated motivations that all mesh up perfectly in creating actions she probably wouldn't have taken under normal circumstances. Very well-done, likeable character so far.

Also, a serious student council president character who gets a Persona that is a motorcycle with a woman's face on it, which she rides when she summons it, and whose transformed outfit is a post-apocalyptic punk biker warrior's armor, complete with spiked shoulder pads? That is just the perfect kind of awesome silly for me.

I would imagine so - it seems like Personas that you missed can be obtained in Mementos. Or by fusing lower-level Personas that you did get, I would guess.

Yea think she's even got the best Awakening scene. Plus she's the Romance option I went for. I think I liked the mission control character more but not in the same way.

Spoiler: Minor spoiler question.

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Also is there a reason she's the last one who actually rips her mask off? Nope of the remainders actually do is that something to do with previous persona games I' m not aware of or something since I don't think the game ever brings it up.

[Zevox]

Yea think she's even got the best Awakening scene. Plus she's the Romance option I went for. I think I liked the mission control character more but not in the same way.

Spoiler: Minor spoiler question.

Show

Also is there a reason she's the last one who actually rips her mask off? Nope of the remainders actually do is that something to do with previous persona games I' m not aware of or something since I don't think the game ever brings it up.

She has definitely had the best awakening scene yet - though what her Persona is probably has a large amount to do with that.

Spoiler

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I can't imagine why that would be. I mean, I haven't seen the later characters' awakenings yet, and had figured that everyone would do that, since it seems to be the motiff here.

Definitely doesn't have anything to do with the other games, previous Persona games didn't have characters wearing masks at all - closest to it would be Persona 4's characters wearing glasses to see through the mists of the TV world, but they weren't involved in summoning their Personas. Persona 3's summoning motif was the evokers, little gun-like devices the characters pointed at their heads and then pulled the trigger on to summon their Personas, while Persona 4 had them break cards (similar to the Arcana cards you see when doing social links) to summon them.

[Meta]

Difficulty for these games can be hard to quantify since play style and the amount of grinding people do varies quite a bit. I know my tendency to avoid combat combined with the stealth mechanics ensured that I was under leveled for the entire game, which as a bonus made it much more enjoyable for me personally. I played on normal for the first 2/3 of the game or so and then switched to Hard. After that decision the struggle was real.

The specific ways that the difficulty affects formulas in game are listed below.

Spoiler: Difficulty Modifiers

Show

Taken from the SMT Wiki site:

Safety: Damage received: x0.5 - Damage dealt: x2.0 - Experience: x3.0 - Money: x5.0

Easy: Damage received: x0.5 - Damage dealt: x1.0 - Experience: x1.0 - Money: x1.0

Normal: Damage received: x1.0 - Damage dealt: x1.0 - Experience: x1.0 - Money: x1.0

Hard: Damage received: x1.6 - Damage dealt: x0.8 - Experience: x1.0 - Money: x1.0

Merciless: Damage received: x1.6 - Damage dealt: x0.8 - Experience: x0.4 - Money: x0.4
(Critical and technical hit damage on both enemies and allies is tripled)

Needless to say, Merciless is all about exploiting and guarding weaknesses. I started a run just to see and if you are hit with a weakness you are pretty much dead. I'm not sure I have it in me to attempt a Merciless run!

Spoiler: Difficulty

Show

Jeeze, Merciless seems really keen on making you grind. Exploiting and Guarding seems fine, but you're gonna fall behind without a lot of time spent fighting.

Spoiler: Characters

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My SO will also probably romance Makoto. Definitely still my favorite character at this point, though I like basically all of them. I think up to Makoto, I've found each human character more interesting than the last, though, Ann and Yusuke are fairly even. The team member after Makoto is pretty unique as well. I find the group text messages to be a very cool way to flesh them out simply.