#atlus fix this shit

[shslskaterboy]

I often time find myself thinking about missed opportunities in persona 5 and the many writing blunders it makes, but I think probably the most baffling one that still plagues me to this day is the complete lack of proper resolution for Ryuji and Morgana’s arc. It seems like such a classic use of the “two characters who are always bickering” trope, just an ongoing bit that they have, but the writers actually take it in kind of a different way by having it become too real. Things become actually tense as the story progresses, and the benign banter stops being so benign and becomes a lot more pointed, until we get to the point that they’re pretty much taking very personal jabs at each other’s specific insecurities, and it’s really not playful anymore. This of course results in the whole Morgana running of don his own thing, and the first time I was playing through the game I thought the obvious way the arc would go would be: Track him down, maybe a botched apology to build tension further, have some sort of breaking point where everything overflows, and then much the way it does in canon, there is some sort of event (ie Ryuji standing up for him against Haru’s fiancé) that demonstrates the actual care they have and allows for them to smooth things out juuuuust enough to get to the point where they can talk as a group and resolve things. So okay, at this point we’re almost in line with what I expected, so clearly the only thing left to do is have the heartfelt scene where Ryuji and Morgana apologize to each other, right? “I’m sorry I let the fame go to my head,” and “I’m sorry I lashed out bc of my insecurities,” at the very least, then they reconcile and agree that they are really friends and this whole fight was stupid, and they’re sorry, they make up, and the banter can resume but in a more lighthearted manner that clearly displays the growth they both made along the way.

And yet.

We get absolutely nothing of the sort, and I was absolutely fucking flabbergasted by it. It seemed so obvious for that to be the direction they took, because why else would they do all that set up? Why would they make a point of demonstrating that Ryuji was being such a fuckin asshole about it? Why would they double down on Morgana’s bitchiness? It all seemed like the perfect lead into a really good character arc for both of them, and instead they just gloss over it and go “don’t worry they’re fine now” like HELLO?? Are you sure??? Bc that shit got pretty damn personal at the peak there, and you’re telling me they just smile and nod and work together without ever addressing it? Like. Boy atlus what on fucking earth are you doing at this point, just padding for time in a 130+ hour game? What was the point? Truly I will never get over it because it could have been so good for both of them, but instead we get nothing but a half assed apology that doesn’t even land, and I think that is sucks and I’ll never get over it

[elendsessor]

SPOILERS FOR BOTH PERSONA 3 FES AND RELOAD’S EPISODE AIGIS AHEAD!

(don’t expect much persona stuff on this blog either i just found this interesting)

disclaimer: if you like episode aigis, more power to you. this isn’t meant to be an attack, rather a critique!!!

because a lot of discussion regarding episode aigis kept creeping into my recommended, i was genuinely curious about some cutscene changes and yeah reload absolutely fumbled the shadow mc’s death… but not in the way i think some discussions see it.

the common consensus with how it was handled is both tried to go for two different tones, which is true. however, the original scene is seen as strictly the horror of death, which is where i don’t think people understand what made it work.

that scene wasn’t only that. it was meant to represent the beauty in the macabre.

the original persona 3 played with visuals more than reload and that’s just a fact. compare the color choices, the openings, all of that. in terms of modernsona, it’s the most visually distinct game as a result, which serves as a much more interesting way to explore emotions. that scene serves as a testament to such.

disregarding the gorier elements of the original scene, how the visuals of letters peeling off the shadow mc’s skin just matched how uncanny it all is, the sudden use of 3d animation, and finally the burst of blue butterflies adds impact as it sort of shifts emotions.

notice how that’s the last thing that happens as the shadow mc fades away. there’s no struggle, blood, immediate reactions, any of that. it’s a quiet death.

and that’s why the answer’s worked. the skin peeling represents the mortality, fragility, and in some ways decay, yet the butterflies bursting gives life and peacefulness. you can find the chaoticness horrific, edgy, grim, saddening, any number of feelings.

there’s no right way to interpret the scene—it’s meant to be an emotional rollercoaster—but to say that there can’t be more than one takeaway aside from horror is objectively wrong.

however, with episode aigis, there is only one real way to interpret it. this isn’t just because all the shadow protag does is fade away, but the inclusion of character reactions actively hurts it because it tells you how to feel. you’re meant to be as distraught and sad as sees. aigis may be the most expressive, but you’re meant to be aigis, not the player, so the ultimate interpretation is it’s sad (and beautiful if you find it beautiful). there is no room for debate because there’s the fucking answer right there. death is sad and nothing more when in reality it isn’t.

it’s okay to add the reactions but not in the moment. afterwards leaves a better impact because by letting the death play for itself, the player’s feelings come first, not aigis’s.

in that sense i suppose, yes, both games were trying to achieve different results. however, those results are either up to the player’s interpretation or what the writers wanted, which the latter is terrible storytelling.

something a few writing teachers have said, at least in my experience, is once your story gets out there, it’s up to the reader to decide how they see it, not just the characters. if the author is telling the reader how they’re supposed to feel, in some ways it’s talking down to them. disregarding their feelings. leaving no room for experiences.

that’s the danger of the tell don’t show rule, which is why it has to be used sparingly or avoided if at all possible. if it’s used incorrectly, then it can result in media illiteracy and be an overall insult to the reader.

episode aigis is anti-reader as a result, making it genuinely awfully written. plus, that scene is honestly the best thing in the answer, so they fucked up the best part, making it actually worse in comparison.

i’m not here to call the answer a masterpiece or anything because it isn’t good. not horrendous, but it’s definitely the weakest storyline tied to p3, which is a shame because, despite all the issues 3 has, the story was the best thing about it.

reload did sanitize a bunch of aspects for a more wide appeal but it ultimately harmed the original message and interpretations. it genuinely hurts to see.

[daily-hanamura]

I kind of wished that the persona 4 cast wasn’t stuck in a narrative where the main theme is ‘always accept the role thrust upon you and if you don’t like it, just force yourself to like it’. Yukiko actively wants to leave Inaba and create her own life, but is portrayed negatively when doing so, with her character arc involving her accepting the role thrust upon her. Don’t get me started on Naoto. I know you’re the Yosuke guy, and was wondering what are your thoughts on this when applied to Yosuke?

I want you to know that being called "the Yosuke guy" is now my greatest achievement you've made my day everyday for the last week

I do agree with you, and I think it was one of my initial issues with P4 where, for a game whose entire narrative is about being true to yourself, it sure falls back into that tired sense of social conformation a lot. It's grating, right, because it feels like what they really mean to say is "be yourself! but not too much and not in a way that makes other people unhappy and make sure you're still living up to other peoples expectations because that's the real reason why you're unhappy with yourself, you haven't accepted who we want you to be (which is the real you that we've decided) etcetc" and it just undercuts the emotional impact of their self-acceptance (see also kanji and rise). (dw I know P5 also kind of has the same problem, and I can go into a whole thing about the limits of transformative narratives written by capitalist corporations but i wont. today-)

I think with Yosuke though, it's really interesting because his character arc is more so tied to his relationship with Inaba as a place, rather than his fundamental self-perceptions. It's established early on that Yosuke hated the town for various reasons; he's a city boy who wants excitement and connection, but most of the town hates him so he's shit out of luck and it gives him little reason to like the town back. As the game progresses, he starts to like the town -- "it's not about where you are, but who you're with", so it's his friendships (and having people who accept him for who he is) that makes the place meaningful for him. And, at the end of the day, Yosuke did get what he wanted - excitement and connection.

But he's not tied to Inaba.

In P4AU, it's revealed that Yosuke's struggling to figure out what he wants to do in life, but by the end of it he tells Yu that he wants to leave the town and go to college with Yu in the city, and that he wants to see the world and experience more things for himself. It fascinates me because it very strongly implies that Yosuke's arc isn't complete as we're very expressly told that he's still developing. It stands in contrast to the other characters who have effectively been fixed into some role or position (Yukiko as an inn manager, Rise as an idol), and unlike them, Yosuke hasn't been permanently relegated to the things that he starts off hating. He hasn't been written to stay in Inaba or even to continue working at Junes after graduation, instead he gets the opportunity to try things. imo this makes his arc more situational (and therefore layered) - Yosuke's perspective on his circumstance matures, but who he is as a person doesn't have to change, and he's not forced to make a trade-off with the wishes he had at the start.

This might be because Yosuke is Atlus' favourite character of the contrast between Yosuke's city background and the rest of the Inaba folk. There's a guy in the school who talks about how most people who finish high school in Inaba just go on to get jobs, and very few actually leave for college and beyond. It's something deeply realistic and reflective of human geography IRL, because that's very common in small communities. A fear of the outside world because of how isolated they are (and Inaba kind of is - remember how Yosuke said they barely had cell connectivity up until recently) means they tend to look inwards instead of out, so there isn't as strong an awareness of what else there is out there and a belief that your options are basically just that (it also makes it all the more impressive that they have surprisingly well-traveled teachers). Yosuke, on the other hand, is very much connected to the internet and the outside world, and he also tends to think about the things that he's missing out on more tangibly.

It makes for a very interesting parallel with Yukiko, who had grown up in Inaba all her life and also expresses that same interest in wanting to go out and see the world. Yukiko's idea about the kind of options that she has is weirdly limited for someone who is supposed to be at the top of her class. When you meet her at the bookstore, she talks about getting a job license so she could leave town, and her first thought was interior decorator (do you even need a license for that? it's not a chartered profession unlike an architect or interior designer, but things might work differently in japan). And maybe she does have a genuine interest in it so I'm talking shit, but it also feels like it's a job that she's aware of only because of the ryokan. As far as I could tell, we don't actually see her express any interest in, say, furniture themes or colour swatches and fabric textures in the way Kanji very clearly does. Her world view, like everyone else, is bounded by the reach of her experience, but because Inaba is so small and cloistered it impedes her ability to imagine beyond that. Even when she's thinking of leaving, her options are still limited to her experiences at the inn. I'm still really salty about how she decided to stay at the ryokan in the end, because something much more satisfying in my opinion would have been for her to get the opportunity to try different things elsewhere in the world, and if she decided that the ryokan was the right thing for her, then, well, fine, I guess? Or some cliche like exploring other inns elsewhere so she could bring that knowledge home. Especially since she had the support of her family and the inn staff, it makes her narrative feel more like an acceptance of her lot in life, rather than a genuine realisation that yeah, this was what she wanted, which was what the game wanted us to think, except it's not convincing. Instead, it just feels like a weird stagnation because her initial wish of wanting to see the world beyond the ryokan was not satisfied.

But hey, guess who does!

Yosuke gets to learn how to make the best of a situation, but ultimately, he's not beholden to it. He - and his writers - understand that he's not done growing, so he doesn't fix himself to a role that he doesn't like. AND IT'S GOOD. I just wish everyone else got that opportunity.

[certified-stupid]

OKAY. That new persona 5 x game looks like dog shit imo. But that’s not because it’s a reskin of persona 5 made by a different Chinese company, or that it has no original music, or that it’s probably gonna be a gacha game, because it is. It VERY MUCH is gonna be exactly that. But because the designs in the game are actually REALLY cool. Like, the MC looks pretty bland outfit wise, but their persona is cool as hell, like, Axe guns. The mascot character is just owl Morgana, and that’s fine, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, but his persona is a LITERAL SD Gundam figure, which is honestly really inspired! And the blonde girl with the yellow hood is really cool, and her persona looks like a real, actual atlus monster! Like, one that I could see in a mainline SMT game!

These are banger designs! Too bad it’s on a mobile gacha game with micro transactions.

[byooregard]

1 8 18

1. character everyone gets wrong

I could say lots. no one gets any of them like i do. biggest ones uhh akechi but that's more half half and because I have extremely specific opinions on him. makoto because no one's willing to actually explore her character. haru because people see her axe and go ooooh she's full of rage!!! she's out for REVENGE when her whole arc is about how she can't properly express her anger and negative feelings & it doesn't really get resolved when . okay next number

8. common fandom opinion everyone is wrong about

the way people treat haru and her dad's death and her feelings about it is sooooo. haru isn't an angry person. she has issues expressing and coming to terms with her anger! she has a complex relationship with her father! I think she would hate akechi over it but I do think that boiling it down to just she's angry at akechi for killing her dad she's like. got so much shit I'm losing the track. I hate how p5 and most fanworks put her at the center of the whole like "do we forgive akechi" thing when futaba is there . also. they will go yeah futaba forgives him just like that but haru has to go on a whole arc about it and will be mad forever. sorry. I'm normal

18. it's actually criminal that the fandom is sleeping on...

MAKOTO NIIJIMA. MAKOTO NIIJIMA. she's such a character ever but everyone sorts her into 'the responsible one'. guys it's not her fault that atlus wrote a story about how one must work outside of the corrupt system instead of trying to fix it from the inside and then made her a cop

[gothikaartz]

who wanna bet that atlus not gonna do shit to fix this release date on their actual website

[vonlipvig]

It’s been a few days, but I wanted to update you on my Trauma Center play through, cos a lot has happened since I last did!

1) Tyler is a very interesting character, with a grey morality that I had to spend a good day or so thinking about. I wasn’t expecting euthanasia to be brought up in the way that it was, especially with it being a topic that (in my opinion) has so many different variables to take in to consideration when debating the ethics of it. I felt like the game did a pretty decent job with it (so far at least), along with the fact that euthanasia is something that can very easily slip away from being ethical, particularly if you’re basing things (as Tyler was with Amy) off of your own emotions.

2) I met the bastard triangles, and I lost to the bastard triangles… and I lost to the bastard triangles again… and then I realised that if I froze time right at the start, I could yank all the thorns out at once and get all the bastard triangles off in one, with all the care and precision of someone scraping ice off their car. Mario was still way harder for me, but I have a nasty suspicion that I haven’t seen the last of those bastard triangles, and that my quick fix method might not work in the future.

3) I’m still only getting rank C in surgeries, including the one I did on a damn plane that was experiencing turbulence at the time! So what if the patient died seven times before I healed him, I did veRY WELL GIVEN THE CIRCUMSTANCES! AND WHO’S GRADING ME ANYWAY??!! YOU THINK YOU COULD DO THIS JOB!!! WELL COME ON UP AND TAKE THIS SCAL- oh you did a better and faster job than me….

4) I have now not only met Victor, but worked under him in surgery! The whole experience was the closest I may ever come to working as the capering and cavorting minion of a much hotter and more competent supervillain. Victor had to watch me chase that blob around that man’s chest for an honest to god five minutes, unable to hit anything as I was. At one point the patients vitals started to dip, while Victor watched in disbelieving horror as I tried to dutifully inject liquid into the patient’s already overflowing lungs. Then he told me to get back on the laser and shoot the damn blob (I’m pretty sure it was laughing at me getting chewed out), and I saluted my DS, so into the character I become… and accidentally thwacked myself in the forehead…

That said, watching me Wile E. Coyote my way around a man’s lungs apparently prompted Victor to take pity on me and he turn the game into Professor Layton a couple of times. Thus allowing me to get the only two A ranks I will ever see!

Ignoring my pleas to be reassigned to a different, easier genre, I was put back in surgery under Victor again, where I am now stuck. But that’s ok because Victor is kind of hot.

that's wonderful, i expect a full report of every surgery happening in this hospital every 3-5 business days /j

GOD YEAH, TYLER.........i love that they did the whole dr. death thing with him, especially since you see him and he's so...sunny. but yeah, it's such a great mini plot point that they added, and it makes him suuuch a complex character, and i just love him.

TRITI, MY MORTAL ENEMY. yeah, no, i see you, the trick is definitely to get rid of ALL spikes before they start to grow again...i was just BADDD at it, my god. it's still a running joke with my best friend that i hate triangles, all because of dear ole triti ♡.

OH MY GOD I FORGOR ABOUT THE PLANE SURGERY. this game fucking rules. atlus, look at me. make another one. i'm not asking.

I LOVE VICTOR HE'S SO GOOD he's definitely one of my faves, i love that he's kind of cunty, but like, because he knows he's the shit. i swear to god this game has such fantastic characters, it's sooo overlooked.

KEEO GOING, YOU CAN DO IT! (you have to tell me when you get to, hmm...the Puzzle).

[mizu-no-doukeshi]

things that will make me storm the ATLUS headquarters if they screw up with persona 3: reload

fuck up the 2d cutscenes/make them 3d

imo theyre made in such a way that theyre almost artistic? like the first cutscene for example. I feel like translating some stuff to in-game engine/3d just wouldnt work.

add unnecessary content (ex. waifus)

i will literally kms if this happens we literally dont need another force fed waifu (*cough* p4 golden *cough*) and like. adding extra shit when the game was made so good as its own package just wouldnt work.

THE BATTLE UI

this is one thing i noticed from the trailer is that the new battle ui is so so BORING! they scrapped the revolver design from the old game while keeping everything else the same -or looking back on it its more similar to persona 4's battle ui now. REVERT IT BACK ATLUS ISTG

dont add the extra stuff from portable/dlc's/etc.

PLEASE PLEASE MAKE THIS THE DEFINATE VER. OF PERSONA 3. it shouldnt be that hard adding the femc route and the social links to the base game now that devices have more storage and the engine can take it they literally have NO EXCUSE for not adding those to the game as is and ill bust their ass if they try to make this into a cash grab and sell those separately

also for the love of god or whatevers out there FIX TARTARUS i cant go thru another 200 levels of that ong

[nyxthesis]

Advanced Warfare Carrier Exo Zombies Review:

Pros:

+Stockpile is a great addition to the perk line up and fixes my issue with the first two maps where you ran out of ammo way too easily

+Easter egg is solid although certain steps can be tedious like fixing the teleporter,have to trading in box weapons to get the parts for the fishing line, and the grenade deposit step while fun lasts a bit too long and digging for the one pad was very tedious but I love the drunk parkour step,the step where you have to lure the shark with zombies blood and the use of the teleport grenade made the egg fun to complete despite how tedious some steps were and speaking of

+teleport grenades might be my fave addition in all of exo zombies it can be used to get to somewhere fast just to save time, it can be used when your surrounded to save you from getting downed and from what I can tell zombies between where you teleport get killed but I only noticed it sometimes

+the addition of Bruce Campbell and him replacing my most hated character oz was a very good change and to me he is by far the most entertaining character to listen too unlike most of exo zombies cast

+has good training spots like the pool and the cargo bay which both function great when going for high rounds and the weapon upgrade station is in a good enough spot if you need ammo mid round that it's possible

+did not get to use the wonder weapon enough but it seemed pretty good ngl and I always had fun anytime I used it

+the two new power ups being explosive touch and free fire or what ever it's called I will just call it unlimited ammo and I like both these drops alot but I do prefer unlimited ammo and it so damn useful for point building on early rounds and for going ham with the s12 or cell 3 on later rounds and explosive touch pretty much just makes you unkillable and lets you save ammo by just running into zombies to kill them

+I know this is minor but the dual wield revolvers are cool af

Cons:

-while his voice acting is improved oz is still quite annoying and I hate that I have to listen to him no matter what character I'm playing as

-the teleport grenades are so good that the other tactical gernades all feel useless to me in comparison

-the Atlus soldiers that plant the bomb are annoying mainly when you get to round 20+ when the bomb detonation timer is way shorter and I struggle sometimes with finding where the soliders are and by the time I find them I'm swarmed with zombies beacuse they are fast af, but once you find them they die quite easily, even the ones in the armor

-the story I feel is poorly explained like when Bruce Campbell character says gs7 must be messing with his mind I'm sitting here like "gs7 what the fuck is that, first I'm hearing of it" It leaves me to wonder if there was a online component to the story where you could find out more outside of the game beacuse if it's in the game it is told very poorly and confusingly

-the easter egg would have been way less tedious if this game had a mule kick like perk so you could get two box guns at a time to trade into the weapons desposial to get the fishing line parts faster

-once again no indicator where the box/3d printer is spawnes which is worse on this map since you need it for the Easter egg and with the zombies bleeding out automatically after a certain amount of time it makes it much more tidous overall of a step

Overall I may have shit on this map a fair bit and it's egg but I do honestly like the map it's quite a rush when you finally complete it and I think it's the hardest egg I have completed to date honestly and it is not too hard to high round either with it's solid training spaces, this map leaves me somewhat excited for the final exo zombies map and I hope it can build off this solid map

[h34vybottom]

complaining about nothing

original vengeance intro on tcrf

edit note for changing header

current page header

"removing some biased language" led to... biased language in the opposite direction. Removing "biased language" makes no sense for a website full of biased language. What are we doing here?

"It also fixes some notable issues from the original game" -> "It also fixes some notable issues fans requested from the original" is biased and places Atlus in a positive position; As if Atlus "listens" to fans when they released the same game again for literally the same price w/ new DL.

The addition of "Allowing early demons to fight stronger enemies" is literally the exact same as level scaling. That's literally what people were talking about w/ level scaling. The game's balance was based solely on what levels things were not on stats (etc).

In an effort to remove "However despite this, it doesn't really redeem what's still a heavily flawed entry in the Shin Megami Tensei series," they've added in a bias towards the company releasing the product and placing their actions on a pedestal. Frankly, the original header was correct. SMT5 is a bad game through and through. If we're going to argue that there's not supposed to be one person's bias, then the entire website is gonna need a complete rewrite, isn't it? Fuck, we can see the same bias in the original game's current header.

"Quality-of-life features" are mentioned twice, but no mention of what they are or even the substance of what that means. Inherently, QoL is used as a positive and the usage of the term is clear bias. I'm not even certain why this term is being used at all. As an aside, how is "A new story" a Quality-of-Life feature? That's just an addition. There are no improvements from 4F, in fact there are multiple downgrades in multiple mechanics and system functions (fusion, stats, the level cap is 99 and not 999 like it is 4F, etc.). This header is needlessly verbose and biased towards positivity in a way that actively deflects from what's true about the game's contents.

What's even the point in pretending there's objectivity in this shit? What an odd change. It really seems like any light mention of the quality of Atlus's current output is smothered by uncritical toxic positivity. Consumerism shit.

[silly-plays-p3r]

so since you're up to ryoji, any conclusive thoughts on the new vas, if any?

I'm not that far. He only just showed up and I got one rank in.

.....Let's just say shit hit the fan for me on Thursday and I've gotten REALLY busy....ummmm.....fixing it so I can get back to my normal routine? Is that the best way to describe it (I still have stuff to do, but I'm not longer in "emergency mode")? I haven't picked up any game stuff since then (I literally passed out yesterday night cause I was so tired jfkldsjf). (oh wait, I'm so out of it I misread it as only asking about Ryoji....lol, well I'm talking about him first I guess, )

Going off the one interaction....... Yuri. I prefer Yuri. I already preferred Yuri's Pharos to Aleks' Pharos. I like both as MC.

There's something about Yuri's........Between OG/FES/P and the manga...... But Aleks' Ryoji feels more like it fits the P3 movies (same with Ikutsuki tbh). There's something about THAT portrayal of Ryoji that hits different compared to the other's.

THAT BEING SAID. I'll take Aleks. BUT ONLY if that means we can have Yosuke going back to not sounding as squeaky. TT0TT I can handle Adachi's voice change (feels like he decided to put on a more deranged mask). But Yosuke I want him back to sounding chiller. orz

Oh right, other chars fjdsakfja

Um....Aki's ok. I don't mind him. There's something about Liam's voice I prefer BUT, I wouldn't mind the new guy coming back.

Junpei is good (both in general and as a replacement). Keep him (if I have to deal with Junpei again that is)

Mitsu is good. I prefer Tara tho. Nothing against the new girlie, Tara's just one of my fav VAs. (the other VAs I like are Naoto's OG, Laura Bailey, Lily Vonnegut, Jamie Marchi, Kristen Bell, David Gallagher, and KH1!Haley Joel Osment, Santino Fontana...something about their cadence makes my brain go brrrrr but like for diff reasons)

Speaking of Brrrr, I really like Yuko's and Shinji's a lot.

Both old and new Shinji are great. Love them.

Love the new Ken. I never hated his OG, and Cindy did a good job too. But the new one is really good.

Fuuka......she's cute (I'm more annoyed that they didn't add to her at all so far :'D thanks atlus). I miss the OG one. Wendee Lee did great too (she always sounded like a higher pitched ver of the OG to me).

I think I liked both Natsuki's VAs? I do miss the old one. I can't recall the new one's voice atm TT0TT

Koro is fine lol

I don't like Takaya's new VA. I like the old one give him back.

I think I like this Chidori VA more? I didn't mind the old one. (also Chidori run, stay away from Junpei TT0TT)

Jin.........I think I like him more?

Ikutsuki. Prefer the old one. New one would be good for the movie ver tho!

I miss the old Igor. Gimme back Dan Woren you cucks! TT0TT Kirk is fine but I want Dan back! (wait Dan is Byakuya from Bleach???? Gimme him back! TT0TT)

Aigis is better. I didn't mind the old one, but this was an improvement.

All the VAs for the SLs are great so far tbh (haven't done Moon yet, not cause I don't want to, but because it's optimal if I wait)

Yukari is................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................her directing is.......................her direction.....the way the director is directing her...........................................................................................................I hope the VA does well in other works. She can come back as a diff character tbh. "So you'd rather have Ruff come back?" Or Yukari can just....not come back as a character. :"D

I think the thing that irks me about the new voices are.......the new voices for the already existing secondary/background chars (chars who were never voiced before? no problem). I. DON'T. LIKE. THEM.

"Oh but it's cool to hear!" or "We need Yuri to still get a check" I don't care. I don't like it. It's weird. It's weird hearing P3MC's voice coming out of Yukari's dad ("oh like Aki's is any better?" AKI ISN'T A LOVE INTEREST FOR YUKARI OUTSIDE HC! TT0TT)

I hate that they swapped Mitsu's dad and Kurosawa. Did they eat? Yea, they did great. Does it bother me because I find it COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY???? YESSSS!

My 9/11 is the damn principal's voice being changed. oh my god, it's not the same. He was so perfect in the OG, he was bumbling it just.....god it worked. The new guy.....doesn't give the same doddering vibe. man orz (I know most people are coming for the new Aki guy, or someone else, but man I'm very annoyed by the NPCs being changed orz)

I think one of THE BIGGEST issues I have with them just....redubbing the whole damn thing is (MORE SO the side NPCs than the main cast).....just how costly that must've been. Like stupidly costly, like they didn't need to do it. It was just wasting money kinda costly. Like they coulda used that money for something else, like I dunno....PUTTING THE FUCKING ANSWER AND FEMC IN????? >_> *inhales* I know I know I KNOW. Before you say it. Before my lil strawman I talk to in my head says it. The english localization's funds were probs separate from the JPN devs funds. I mean, unless Atlus JPN controls Atlus USA's funding directly, and thus have more direct involvement. I mean, haha, that'd make sense. Haha, but if I was them, and that was true, I wouldn't let other people know that. haha

Apollo: *compels Midori for no reason tomorrow* Midori: The localization funds were actually allocated and tied to the JPN funds. It wasn't just SEGA USA that decided to replace all the actors, it was also SEGA Japan. Me: I'm at my limit is2g

They probs would've saved a lot more money from just....keeping most of the OG voices (maybe replace Vic). And then maybe dub all the SLs/additional side content.

Ummmm.....tldr; Liked some, loved some, was eh on others, hated the existing side NPCs got new voices. All in all I think it was probs a waste of money tbh. Don't do it again for the inevitable P4 remake. (P1/2? sure there's not a lot of dubbing in that one anyways)

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

Soooooo, didja see the thing about P5T being confirmed to be non-canon?

Literally JUST woke up to it. TT0TT (link to those who wanna read) I....I'm....livid. I want my money back then! I literally said I buy these games for the lore/chars/story, which means it's gotta be canon.

*inhales* *exhales* You know what? I brought this on myself. Everyone was saying the game's char writing was much better. I thought to myself "oh god, am I....gonna actually ENJOY P5 for once??? Past Kamoshida??? This can't be. But even if the char writing is great for THIS, it still doesn't fix the shit I've had to deal with since then. Haha what if I just pretend this is an Alt timeline P5? :'D Yeah that'll help the cognitive dissonance haha" Oh wait I did post about it (for once I remembered to):

Well.....

Fuck me I guess (please excuse the poor photoshop. I only have MS paint in front of me).

You know what? Fuck the stages of grief! I ain't grieving! When life gives you lemon you fuck those lemons! I'M STILL GOING TO HAVE FUN!

THis story IS CANON!

"B-but Silly! The devs said-" I know what the devs said! They said it's not canon to the P5 storyline we KNOW! It's canon to it's own storyline! Aka, it's just a different continuity! ahahahahahha!

YOu see that Atlus? Haha you did something I wanted! For you to play with the different timelines????? Hahahahahaha I still win! I still get to play with where it could fall in that time frame! I still- *sobs*

Ok before I play with the timeline a bit, I want to say....it's INCREDIBLY SHITTY of Atlus not to warn people that it's an alt timeline (I'm viewing these timelines as kinda like the Pokemon Ash Anime vs the Pokemon I Choose You movie timelines, or just any of the Pokemon Manga)

It def would've fucked the sales over but it's just........it feels RUDE to the consumers. Esp since this is WORSE THAN A MEMORY WIPE! At least with Memory wipes (MW), MWs can at least be used in the narrative later. (such as how Arena/Q1/Ultimax work and are kind of a mini trilogy, Q1 explains how the P3/4 cast trust and get along so fast within less than a 24 hour timeframe, it's cause they already had Q1 to bond!)

But a completely separate canon? We need more context! I've been playing with the idea that the P3/4 casts (not including FeMC) are from a diff timeline as the P3/4 casts from PQ1. So in theory PQ1 and PQ2 can happen fairly close to each other, or they don't and the Q event that happens depends on a timeline. But that's something we kinda need to know.

Ok ok, so here's my updated timeline (ignoring P3R bc I just KNOW they are scorching the earth with that, you'll probs see some similarities with my prev Persona timelines as well as this one too, this one is more simplified down):

Very sloppy and hurried in my defense. I'm half tempted to put P3R on it's own timeline. So to clarify, I'm not saying P5T and P5D parallel each other exactly, but it's a similar timeframe iirc. And I know P5D takes place DURING P5/R, but it was just easier to show in the timeline, so it's more of a list of "game order" rather than super specific times.

And I KNOW that versions can also vary, I already did a timeline like that linked above (more so the first link, note the 2nd link was more when we weren't 100% sure P5 took place in 2016). Maybe later I can make it super specific again but.....not right now.

Also P5X is more of a theory, but this whole timeline is a theory so eh!

Persona Trinity Soul was declared an Alt canon to the games, so it shouldn't really be on this game time timeline about the games.....but it makes it easier to showcase the different timelines and similar events. (in general movies/anime/manga/stage plays all have their own separate canon too, PTS just gets a liiiiitle special treatment since it was originally a sequel to P3 prior to P4's release. PTS is just in a similar boat as P5T, haha both have T in it, and maybe P3P tho we know 100% P3P is canon to the games we just see different continuities.)

Ok theorizing aside........ I guess I'm going to have to approach this game differently.......

Now do I go about it with a clean slate? Or do I just "assume the best possible actions/writing were taken into consideration prior to these events" (aka Makoto isn't an asshole and is better written in dungeon 3 and onwards, and Futaba totally did get her heart stolen, and we TOTALLY DID listen to the public about Oku and TOTALLY DIDN'T also do it for Haru yup 100% blame on the public and ourselves for listening >_>)....I'm pretty sure the game has lied to me a handful of times prior to the tutorial, do I just take those as new truths now?

Should I juggle it being a new slate AND also remembering what happened in the actual P5 so I can point out the lies-I MEAN ahem "differences"?

Well at least it'll give me an interesting way to approach it. "Do you still want your money back?" Yeah a bit wtf atlus you made a mess of everything with that interview. TT0TT

[wonderful-meganekko]

I agree, to some degree, on this. I think P3's ui being extremely minimalistic and rather simple helped on setting some sort of mood, but that wasn't really what i meant with this post. Personally I think Reload's choices when it comes for menus are perhaps a little bit extra and should be toned down, but I don't think they remove much of anything. The game is more colorful which does remove a little from the gloomy aesthetic of the PS2 version, and that also kinda sucks I suppose. P3R's presentation issues are less of a problem about "oh no they P5'd all over it" and more so just a general issue of how games nowadays need to look good for people to pay attention. If you look at the animations on reload they are still just as basic and simple as they were before, but with prettier models which i guess does add something. But none of this is what I wanted to address in the post.

The post was instead about a discussion i was having with a friend yesterday where he was defending the removal of the tired system on the grounds of

''well 99% of players fucking hated it. you cant blame atlus for removing a disliked feature when making a game for the masses''

And that was actually my issue. i don't like the tired system either. it fucking sucks. but it was one of P3s fundamental building blocks for making it's characters feel like they had actual shit going on.

If I told you that we are going to be fighting magical creatures at midnight you would also be tired after 20 minutes. some of us would be tired just from thinking about that. AND THEY ALL HAVE SCHOOL TOMORROW. that's also why sleeping in class was a nice mechanic. you'd do that shit too if you had only slept 6 hours and spent all of last night fighting for your fucking life. And if you got your characters sick then that's because you were just an ass and forced them to keep going when they told you they were done.

Whats the point of sleeping in class in P3R? i think it gives you courage now? yeah sure. What even is the point of the nurse giving you creepy medicine if you cant get sick? Tired was a core part of P3s world in that it made sense and made characters feel closer to people. If you were in charge of a group of teenagers fighting against monsters and one of them said "hey man I think we should stop" you would leave that place as soon as possible. There is literally no reason to not do that, considering you have a full month to do that shit. besides, there is FUCK ALL to do in persona 3 during the evening. There's two social links and a few arcade games that raise your stats. that's it. You lose nothing by choosing to come back to tartarus tomorrow.

The tired system wasn't just a mild inconvenient mechanic. It was part of what shaped persona 3s pacing, its world and its characters.

Another fundamental building block of this had to do with tactics. Everyone loathes tactics but the whole point of it was that you are a team leader. you aren't an omnipotent being that controls people like puppets. you have to give them orders, and sometimes they do the wrong things. Sure sucks that Yukari can't read my mind and do the exact thing I need her to do, but that's how life is. Tactics was a fine system that people just never tried to grasp at all, so the devs killed it forever, with it's corpse remaining on all future entries for no reason.

The third and greatest example of this (and the one nobody brings up as an issue, luckily) is the fact your party members arent always available. They have homework to do, they have issues to sort. At one point Aegis breaks and spends a month being fixed, which sucked ass because she was my best team member. At one point Mitsuru suffers from grief and you cant do anything with her. She's very much available but she's not in the mood to hang out at all, nor is she in the right mind to go around kicking shadow ass.

Later games kinda suffer from the removal of this, too. Ryuji might not be available to hang out that day but if you hit him with a 'yo we're going to mementos today' out of the blue, he'll be there. I cant get my friends to hop on a discord call for 30 minutes even when asking them two days in advance.

For all shit I'm giving, I still think P3R is great. they added mementos dialogue to Tartarus which is definitely going to be my favorite feature by far. The game feels great to play and for once I can say tartarus looks cool. Luckily I've always played P3 in japanese so i don't have to suffer the voice actor change. The game clearly feels like it was made with love and I'm really hoping that love will pay off. But to circle back to that quote from my friend. "You can't blame atlus for removing a disliked feature when making a game for the masses" yes, I can. Because that feature was part of a work which is fundamentaly different without it. Because that feature was part of the vision that the developers had on how the game needed to be played, and the removal of it is equal to me as the idea of removing character death because "well the fans were sad about it". The system wasn't inconvinient by mistake. It was an active choice. And one which sucks to see removed for the sake of the player's comfort.

there is something kinda fucked about a game mechanic that exists to make its characters feel more human being removed for the sake of players being more comfortable playing. it sucks to have a game where its entire purpose comes from trying to make human characters with their own lives and then removing their agency because its inconvenient for the player.

this post is about persona 3's tired system btw.

[kanekocribs]

KANEKO’S CRIB NOTES LXI: DEAD MAN’S UNREST

Things I love in October: Jesus Christ, Hot Dogs, Chevy Trucks, Yankees Eliminated from Postseason, Kazuma Kaneko. And since we are nominally involved with the art of Kazuma Kaneko, certified Dead Guy, here’s some new material, i.e., stuff you WILL reblog over and over again so we can finally both crack 1000 notes on a post and surpass 2000 total followers. You’ll never read this text either so GO TO HELL; if you do read, you will GO TO HEAVEN

ANGEL: Before he died, Kaneko loved French fashion designer Jean-Paul Gaultier, who provided costume design work for 1997′s The Fifth Element, like Jovovich’s Leeloo here, whose costume Kaneko 100% stole for Angel’s Nocturne update. It’s a cycle.

XUANWU: The turtle-snake’s alt names are tagged but we’re gonna pretend they don’t exist. Anyway, during his alive days, Kaneko was totally into this Xuanwu art. I really miss that dude.

EMPUSA: This scaly nightmare is actually “Lamia” from the bestiary History of Four-Footed Beasts, yadda, yadda, Kaneko then used it for Empusa, though it’s better for her anyway.

SURT: Kaneko’s life can be divided into two periods: I. He watched Clive Barker’s 1990 film Nightbreed; II. He passed away. Thus, here’s a Midianite who appears for like three frames and has the same volcanic conehead as the two Surts.

BELOBOG: Yes, it’s fan-favorite Belobog, now compared to Golden Bat, the kamishibai superhero. This is the cover of a magazine tie-in to the '60s movie, but Golden Bat generally looks the same wherever, with that cloak & collar and scepter that suspiciously also belong to Belobog. Thanks to that one Golden Bat video, via @caligulasterrarium.

[minatokun]

god usually i just brush this stuff aside but i hate the new jimenez so much

[sugarbubbleslove]

And Again, I am reminded...

WHY can I NOT step between Ryuji and the boys punching him?!

Even just remembering that scene is also in Royal is enough to make my blood simmer.

Seriously Atlus?! WTF?!

Ryuji got his leg broken and can no longer run as a result - which means any dreams he had being on the tracks is non-existent. He had rumors of his father beating the shit out of him and his mother spread around the school and he is treated like a trouble-maker by everyone because he stood up for himself against a sad excuse for a teacher - who is now revealed to be a rapist and abuser.

And YOU STILL DON'T LET JOKER STAND BETWEEN HIS BEST FRIEND AND TWO PIECES OF SHIT?!

They don't even deserve to punch him. Joker should have been given the option to block their attacks and tell them to get the fuck out of his face.

Fanfiction...here I come.