#But knowing they evolving (somewhat) in their game counter part by the end of act 3

[duncanor]

Do y'all think Jayce will become a rude bastard like his character in LoL (from what I gathered) after act 3?

In the sense that, even if he keeps his moral compass, he might try to distance himself from others after this fuck up of the century?

[allykakamatsu]

Hypothetical P5A

Okay, gonna make this clear right up front, I wanted to make this post for a while but the main reason I decided to do it now is because the Atlus announcement thing is almost here, and also cause I saw a video on this topic by Thorgi’s Arcade (go watch it btw it’s good) and while I agree with a lot of what he said, there’s also some things I’d change, not just cause I disagree, but also cause I think it would be fun. Anyway enough beating around the bush, let’s do this

Gameplay

I’m a firm believer in the phrase, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, and the Arena games are already really good so not much to change. That being said, I still wanna change some things. First off though, we are keeping this 1 vs 1, no tag team matches. The arena games already have a lot of Mechanics going on and trying to keep everything as well as some new stuff WHILE adding a tag team button, yeah no let’s not outside of maybe a bonus mode.

This means I can’t add Batton Pass in as a new mechanic to represent P5, but I have a solution, that being Technicals. Status ailments already exist in this game, so how about when you inflict one and do a specific combo you do more damage, also providing risk vs reward as the player with the status will have a better idea of what the opponent will do making them more predictable. Also as for Persona’s, mostly everyone’s will be fully evolved, minus Yu cause him getting a final boss persona normally is a tad to OP, meanwhile the P5 characters will have their starting Persona’s, but they will evolve for big moves, like awakened mode supers and instant kills

I’m also borrowing Thorgi’s Arcade idea of having supports giving a slight buff in battle, like if you pick Fuuka your meter can build faster for a bit, meanwhile if you pick Futaba you’ll get an attack and defence buff. It’s the fairest way to include them without having to make them playable. I know Rise is already playable but this roster is going to have to be small as it is, and being a support doesn’t mean you can’t be DLC later.

Also, we’re not bringing back the Shadow Characters, just, we are not dealing with the likes of Shadow Naoto again.

:readmore:

Story

I am about to cop out a bit here, but Thorgi’s Arcade video had a really good idea for the story so I’ll just link it here https://youtu.be/yyB5rEM9UVU

To summarise for people who don’t want to watch, Nyarlathotep, the main villain from the Persona 2 games, has been gaining strength from all the suffering humanity has gone through due to 3, 4 and 5, and has gained enough strength to create a new Joker to try finish what he started and destroy the world. Mitsuru might think the Phantom Thieves are behind it cause this is clearly persona related and the fact that the leader of the PT’s is also named Joker is public knowledge, Naoto gets largely the same idea, Katsuya and Maya decide to have their own investigation, meanwhile the Phantom Thieves are trying to prove their innocence and help save the world. Nice excuse to bring everyone together, but who will the everyone be?

Base Roster

Okay, I know the dream is getting everyone from Ultimax back plus the new P5 characters, but given Arc System’s standard for small base rosters, I’m not holding my breath. The ideal would be everyone plus who I’m about to say for P2 and P5, but I’m keeping it… somewhat realistic. Anyway onto the actual size, 16 seems fair enough. One more than the most recent Guilty Gear game for a series that had pretty big success so that sound fair enough. Let’s get the obvious out of the way though, all the base 8 Phantom Thieves besides Futaba are making the cut

Okay so that’s obvious but how will they play? Starting off with Ren/Joker, Smash Bros already laid a great foundation with him being very fast on the ground and in the air plus being great at combos, so I see no reason to change that. Also no need for him to be a Jack of all trades either cause spoilers, Yu is coming back and he already fills that role.

As for the others, Ryuji I can see being a slugger charge hybrid. Basically starting out he hits pretty hard but is a bit on the slow side to compensate, but just like any good athlete, give him a chance to warm up, ie do a charge input, and he becomes a lot faster and has better combo potential. Or we could make him a toned down version of Little Mac where he’s great on the ground but he’s in trouble the second aerial combat is involved. Then there’s Morgana who with his ability to turn into cars and the fact he introduces thief tools like smoke bombs, I can see him being a faster but frailer successor to Teddie.

Then there’s Ann who, no doubt, she’s a Zoner, and with her fire she’ll be Yukiko’s sort of successor. However instead of healing, I’d implement the fact that she learns concentrate and have it so the more she charges it up, the stronger her attacks get, but the Meter will gradually go down over the match. Yusuke, as tempting as it is to cop out and say ‘have him play like Vergil in Marvel vs Capcom’, I have a different idea. Namely, take advantage of the fact that Yusuke can learn counter by having him be the defensive specialist, set up ice traps to freeze the opponent, and if they get close, he can either counter or go for some combos.

Then there’s Makoto who would definitely be a grappler. I mean, she practices Aikido and is really strong, she can 100% pull it off. Finally Haru…… TANK! I mean come on, Haru wields an axe, has a grenade launcher, and Melady is literally a dancing tank in a pink dress, it just makes too much sense. I’d also give her a bit of armor cause if she’s slow she at least needs a chance to get her attacks in.

Okay so that’s 7 out of our 16 slots down, and given that one slot will have to be saved for the Evil Joker who would be the villain, we’re halfway done with 3 games to go, lord help me.

Okay, starting this off with P4, I’m gonna give them more than the others purely because they were the focus of the originals and there’s less realistic cuts I can make compared to 2 and 3. To make things simple, every returning character would play the same, and as for the ones I’d bring back for the base roster, we’ve got Yu, Yosuke, Chie and Naoto. Why them specifically? Well Yu is the main character, Naoto being a detective would basically mean she’d be the one getting everyone involved in the first place, Chie is currently training to be a cop as confirmed in P5 so her getting called in makes sense, and Yosuke is the best investigator after Yu and Naoto, he’s always up for a mystery and the second he learns Yu is involved he’s joining in. I just couldn’t cut him.

Now before the really painful cuts, Persona 2 is really easy. Out of Innocent Sin party members, by the end of the series Maya is the only one left with a Persona, and Katsuya is not only older brother of Innocent Sin’s protag Tatsuya, but he’s also pretty important and a detective so he’s definetly the one Maya’s dragging into this. As for how they play, they both use guns like Naoto, but how I’d mix them up is with Katsuya, I’d let him attack while moving (unlike Naoto who has so stay still to fire) at the cost of less combo potential, meanwhile Maya dual wields her guns so she’ll probably play like Noel Vermillion from BlazBlue where she’d more or less just use the guns to get longer reach melee attacks instead of shooting.

Now, for the hard part. There’s only 2 slots left, one of them basically has to go to Mitsuru (not that I’m complaining I’d probably add her anyway) meaning now I have to choose between the rest of the Shadow Operatives/SEES for the last slot. I narrowed it down to the 3 that were in the original Arena cause they’re the most plot relevant, but that still meant I had to choose between Akihiko and Aigis. I ended up deciding on Aigis though cause A, with Labrys not making the base roster someone has to represent the robots of the series, and B, with Akihiko currently pulling a Ryu by travelling to get stronger, it makes more sense that Aigis would be closer and easier for Mitsuru to call up. Honestly I was tempted to bump the roster up to 17 so I could have both of them on the base roster, but this is ArcSystems, 16 is already kinda pushing it.

DLC

Given that this is a modern fighting game, DLC is inevitable. However since this DLC will likely be like Ultimax where the story acts to wrap up loose ends and have a new story, it’s going yo be big, especially since there’s going to be a fight with Nyaraloptep, so go big or go home in this case. Okay so first order of business, anyone who was in the previous arena games who wasn’t in the base roster is getting added back in, it’s only fair. That out of the way, the new faces I’d add are Futaba actually being playable now and the big 4 P5 characters I skipped, Akechi, Yoshizawa, and Sophie. Before anyone asks though, Sophie was added into a Dragalia Lost collab with Koei Techmo not being credited so she’s likely Atlus’s copyright so she's safe to add.

With that out of the way, how would they play? Starting with Futaba, I’d think she’d be the resident puppet fighter, sitting on top of Necinomicon and only occasionally adding in some of her own attacks like a projectile. Also she'd also probably act as a bit of a grappler cause her Persona has tentacles (no hentai jokes please) which have long reach so that'll be perfect for it. Next up is Akechi who I can see as semi being two characters in one. My basic idea is that at first Akechi will be fighting with Robin Hood and he'll be a solid jack of all trades with a slight focus on rush down. However once he goes into his awakened mode he'll gain Loki, which will increase his speed and attack strength, at the cost of his defence, turning him into a glass cannon.

Next is Yoshizawa, or 'Sumi as I like to call her, and her thing will be she's the mobility focused fighter, namely constantly moving around the stage and poking at her opponent while doing it, at the cost of being frail. Finally there’s Sophie who would be a combo focused zoner, as in her standard projectiles (the yo-yo’s) wouldn’t hurt that much on their own, but she can string them together into the fancy yo-yo tricks to potentially do big damage. As for how much this DLC would cost, it’s going to be very big, so €25 to €30 sounds fair

I think that more or less covers my thoughts. I could keep going on about this for a while, but I think this is a good place to stop. Hope you like my idea!

[hashtag-anthems]

Preliminary Thoughts on Pokémon Masters

I say preliminary as though I’m not on the chapter where I get my fifth badge...

Gameplay

So the battle system is interesting. It was a little counter-intuitive when I first started playing, but overall I don’t dislike it. It’s a real-time game instead of a turn-based one, so that took some getting used to. Managing your sync pairs is a bit of a hassle since you need a new type for every chapter, and you have to make sure everyone is of a sufficient level. The level curve isn’t drastic, but it is annoying having to watch your level caps. Every new sync pair you get is a 3-star, which means they can only go up to level 30 without the player raising their level cap, and considering you hit a point where you have to have a team of Lv. 45+ Pokémon to stand a chance against opponents, that’s already two level cap increases, which use up a lot of items when you have to do it to a lot of sync pairs. So grinding for items and experience is a big part of the game.

There seem to be items you can use to increase a sync pair’s star level, but I haven’t found any from missions or stages, so how plausible that system is has yet to be seen.

Evolution is... interesting. You have to level up a sync pair, then complete a side story to evolve the Pokémon, but not every sync pair is capable of evolving their Pokémon.

Thankfully there isn’t any sort of stamina system, so you can power through as many stages as you want and try them as many times as you need to in order to win. Which is helpful when you have to experiment with different team compositions and strategies.

Summoning

The summoning system is another gacha where you pay premium currency to get more sync pairs. It isn’t... required, I guess, because you do get free sync pairs of varying types just by playing the main story, but it definitely helps to summon for more. It seems like 5-star guarantee pulls are exclusive to the Sync Scouts that take paid gems, so even if you do a 10-pull from the free one, you’re never guaranteed a 5-star. It costs 3,000 gems for a 10-pull, 300 for a 1-pull, and there’s a “daily discount” that costs 100 paid gems, but you can only use it once per day. It does seem like they’re limiting how many paid gems you can use in a day, but people with money to drop on this game are still going to have an advantage. Free gems come 10 at a time when you complete a stage for the first time, whether it’s a battle or just exposition, so you would have to complete 300 stages to earn enough gems for a 10-pull. 

Summoning rates for 4- and 5-star sync pairs are predictably low, and the current summoning pool is tragically small, but they’re almost definitely going to expand it in future events. Summoning duplicates will just power up the one you already had, so it isn’t a total waste if you get sync pairs you already have. 

The one (somewhat) redeeming feature is that for each summoning event, if you can build up 400 scout points (1 point per 100 gems spent on scouting) you can pick any sync pair you want and automatically get it. Scout points are unique to the summoning event you scout from, and they will be lost when the summoning event ends. If it was easier to get gems, this would be a great system.

Multiplayer

I’ll be honest, I know that there are co-op battles, but I haven’t tried them out. They seem to be the only thing you can do with your friends. Considering how many items you need to maintain your team, it would be great if you could send gifts to your friends like you can in PoGo. Overall, I don’t see a lot of importance being placed on multiplayer features in this game.

Story and Characters

Okay, the storyline is kind of compelling, but the story-to-battle ratio is sadly pretty small. You’ve got your generic baddies, Team Break, who just seem to want to steal Pokémon. You’ve got the pretentious rich boy, Lear, and his lackeys, who look down on everyone else for being too friendly with their Pokémon. Your rival isn’t around enough to be a compelling rival, honestly. I’ve seen him twice, and I haven’t even gotten to battle him. And I’m almost done collecting badges for the Pokémon Masters League. What’s a rival if you don’t get to test your strength against him every so often?

They do a pretty good job of giving some more personality to existing characters, but the new characters exclusive to this game fall a little flat in my opinion. The voice acting is pretty good in both English and Japanese, given that they only voice a few small clips that get used over and over. 

They actually aren’t going too Kanto-heavy on the currently available characters right now, which was a pleasant surprise. Your first recruits are Brock and Misty, but then most of your future free recruits are from the other games, and the current summoning event is focusing on Kris.

Overall impression

This is going to be a gacha-based time- and money-sink just like Fire Emblem Heroes and Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp were. Its big appeal is that it’s Pokémon, and brand loyalty is a powerful thing. Presumably, they’re saving the most-beloved characters for future events where you’ll have a 1.4% chance of getting them on any given pull, and because you can’t earn a lot of free gems, you’ll want to spend money to make sure you get your faves. 

Story-wise, I hope it gets more compelling in future updates, because I’m pretty far into it, and I’m getting tired of fighting pseudo-Team Rocket.