#but i think those two are the only ones in the p4 cast

[totally-lyrical]

i have even more

guards! inflict that man with gender dysphoria!

[beemovieerotica]

How do you think Davy Jones and Calypso met? What do you think about their relationship ?

HWOAGGHH okay so let's get right into it

Supplemental POTC sources talk about Davy Jones basically being this incredibly skilled sailor likely from wealth and means who was able to impress Calypso and gain her favor through his seafaring abilities

It's a cool origin story and I've played around with it in fic, but I've always wondered what SPECIFICALLY about him caught her eye, because he wasn't the only great sailor of his time---like, he'd have to have done something absolutely bonkers in order for the goddess of the sea to take notice

I love hearing headcanons about this, but the flavor of origin story I've ascribed to him in most of my fics is "humble beginnings" / tragic war history / desertion / escape to sea

In my stories, what Davy Jones brings to seafaring and captaining his own ship that is interesting to Calypso is both a humility about his place in life and an obsessive devotion to the sea as the one thing worth living for / keeping him alive

He's not in it for profit, he's in it for survival and ends up aiding others---I have the Flying Dutchman (visually of Dutch design, 16th century, built like a slave trading ship) taken from Dutch slave traders at the height of their operations and the captives freed, both as a practicality on Jones' end (incredibly useful type of ship that balances speed and firepower) but more importantly as a compassionate act. There has to be a reason why Calypso chose him for the most compassionate role in the world, the most essential job in easing the dead into the next life.

I don't think that it's a coincidence that Calypso appears in the mortal form that she does, I think that witnessing men's greed as the soul of the sea has made her particularly sympathetic to the atrocities of the stealing and transport of West Africans to other parts of the world, countless of whom drowned and chose to throw themselves into the sea rather than face a life of subjugation. THIS resonates with her, this makes sense to her, her entire story is about having her freedom taken from her, and for that I deeply appreciate the casting and characterization choices they went with canonically, because it lends itself to such rich meta analysis. A lot of fan characterizations of Calypso paint her as completely discompassionate, uninvolved, and uncaring about the world of men, but I do not agree with this, I see her interest in humanity being much more complex, with hate, reverence, love, and disdain all mingled together

And that's ultimately why Jones stands out to her first, because he is one of the few/only people at sea not for profit, his freedom is wrapped up in the sea, and he has enough of a broken past that makes any kind of devotion he displays deeply and overwhelmingly all-or-nothing

It's this that lends itself to the imbalance of power and lack of compromise between them, which then leads to the betrayal, etc etc. But they are at the core of their relationship the two people who understand each other more than anyone else in the world could, but they are still mired in misunderstandings because they are a human and a god, because those relationships are doomed by nature of what they are, because you can never fully understand someone whose concepts of time, devotion, and reality are so fundamentally different to your own.

I love thinking about how terrible they are for each other and how no one else in the world fits better together than them. Their story is the most pivotal and interesting piece of lore to the trilogy, and ultimately the reason why I think P4 and P5 fell flat---because the writers kept scrabbling for something mystical and fantastical to try and replicate this, but nothing came anywhere close to reproducing that same love and meaning of the Jones/Calypso Elizabeth/Will contrast. Which I could also go on and on about but I'll stop here!

[arcplaysgames]

The Persona 5 Post-Mortem, Part One: What I Didn't Like 8C

I have reread my entire P5 liveblog to refresh my memory of everything that happened in the game, and I've been trying to think about how I feel about P5R and, frankly, whether I like the game. Which is a very basic question, I think, but one I am deeply struggling with, so obviously it's not actually that simple, huh.

The answer I am tentatively settling on is: I think the third semester saves P5R from being an Actually Bad game.

I think that Persona 5 Vanilla is actually… a 5 out of 10 at best, and in my heart it's lower than that. But Royal does so much intense heavy lifting, it alone, separate from the rest of the game and the original campaign, is an 8 out of 10.

That is an enormous discrepancy that I've really never dealt with in a video game before. I think the last game I played that I truly disliked to my bones was Fallout 4. FO4 remains the only game I've ever played were I genuinely and truly wanted a refund of not just my money but my time, the hours I spent in that meaningless, vapid fucking world. Even FO3 gave me some joy of exploration, for fuck's sake.

P5R is not as bad as FO4, but the main campaign is to me an enormous disappointment that…. if I had not been in the throes of a depressive slump and thus needing something to hyperfocus on, I don't know if I would have finished the game. My frequent references to Yusuke saving me from turning off the game were not exaggeration in the least.

So, I think there are two major problems with this game. And I understand that when I did my post-mortem on P4G, I started with my likes and then went to dislikes, but I think for P5R it's correct to reverse that, because my negative feelings far outweigh the positive.

I guess point one is obvious: I think the cast of this game is bad.

I refuse to sugar-coat it. The cast of P5 is just bad, with a few mild exceptions. Even the characters that I like, I enjoy them comparatively to the ones I hate. And I have never hated someone in a Persona game before, not even Joker Mode Yosuke.

The entire cast of this game is much, much flatter than you would expect from a game that is trying so desperately to be stylish and loud and garish. P5R is maximalist to its fucking core. The fusions are executions, item creation is an electric chair, the menus are nightmares of high contrast and bouncing shapes, everything is LOUD LOUD LOUD 24/7 in this game to the point that I, a person I think is fairly skilled at video games and played P4G on Normal and breezed through it, had to lower the difficulty of the game to fucking have fun, because I felt so inundated with stimulus, I was struggling to play the fucking game.

That maximalist spirit just vanishes in the characters, and it's so fucking jarring. All style, no substance.

When I was trying to figure out my thoughts on the characters, the thing I kept coming back to was that P5 has too many main characters in the party. And weirdly, I think I'm right! P3 has seven party members (excluding beloved Koromaru, eight if you count Shinjiro who is in the party for a month). P4 only has seven.

Persona 5 Royal has nine, and I think part of the problem is that to fit all of these characters into the party and the story and to keep the MSQ scene moving at a decent pace, everyone suffers for it and gets flattened. Even the vibrancy of Yusuke vanishes from the game in the final third, where all his interesting tics and quirks are phased out until he's just a guy here to say his lines to move things along. Almost everyone suffers from this, where they are focal points during their introduction arc, and then they just lose all their shine as the story moves on.

This didn't happen in P3 and P4. That's not rose-tinted glasses talking; I JUST played both of those games starting in December. P3 is my true love but P4 is a tremendous example of how the characters continued to be themselves in every scene, even after their introductory chapters ended.

So the poison at the heart of P5R is that the characters are both not as three-dimensional to start with (and there are only a few I would even consider three-dimensional), and from the moment their respective Palaces end, they're on a half life.

This literally might be why I like Haru best, because she's introduced so late in the game that she didn't lose her voice yet by the endgame.

This is all of course at odds with the fact that only a few characters are really good. Futaba probably deserves the most accolades for being clear and present in every scene and always maintaining her uniqueness. Morgana as well, seeing as his arc lasts the entire game and is one of the central mysteries. And Akechi, without whom I think the entire game might have actually failed? Without the complexity and unnerving energy from Akechi, this cast could not sustain the runtime of the game.

AND ON TOP OF ALL OF THAT, it does not help that I actively disliked two of my party members. Makoto has by far the worse introduction of any character in any game I have played and the way the game just did not understand or contend with what she did, the stalking and blackmail and endangering everyone, soured her so completely for me that she never once got party time. I never used her.

But even she was a relief next to fucking Ryuji. Ryuji, the token best friend character who turned into The Teammate Everyone Hates for me. He was a mean, emotionally dense, disrespectful and dehumanizing asshole for the entire fucking game. And I am used to the Best Friend Guy who messes up and grows over the course of the game (see: Junpei and Yosuke) but with Ryuji there is no growth, there is barely acknowledgement of how cruel he is. And the fact he never actually apologized to Morgana for his bullshit in the middle of the game lost me completely on him. Ryuji made me as the player on the other side of the screen uncomfortable. That's…. wild, tbh.

So we have a cast where I can barely stand two characters, I'm ambivalent on three, one I regularly forgot she existed, and three I liked a lot.

That's a fucking mess, y'all. For a Persona game, which is a premium Hangout Game, where so much of the point is the characters? That's a huge problem.

The other games in this franchise like Shin Megami Tensei tend to have characters that are flatter and more allegorical in nature, but that's okay because the focus is on the themes and the writing of the world.

Which leads directly to the other problem with Persona 5.

The writing. On several metrics, the writing is Bad.

On the first point, the fact that this game has an 80 hour runtime if you are lucky, and that's just the vanilla MSQ. It feels like an 80 hour runtime. I felt every goddamn minute of how long this game is.

Structure is the problem here, in my opinion, and it goes hand in hand with the character issue. Just as this game has too many characters, it has too many set-pieces and arcs. To justify Makoto's presence in the game, there is a long, superfluous arc with Kaneshiro that should have just been cut entirely. Kaneshiro is about 10 hours that could just be snipped out of the game with nothing lost thematically or narratively.

And even more that P4 and DEFINITELY more than P3, the game will essentially…. repeat scenes.

As someone who did this entire liveblog with screencaps, I cannot tell you how many times I thought I missed capping a specific line or moment only to find out that it was in a nearly-identical scene a little bit earlier. Sometimes there were three different scenes that conveyed no new information, just restated what the characters knew, and that's just ridiculous. That's truly just too much.

On top of that, this game just gives the player way too much time. I didn't fill out every SLink in this game, but that's because I actively chose not to out of disinterest in a few of them. If I wanted to, I think I could have done every one without a guide. I spun my wheels for OVER TWENTY IN-GAME DAYS MULTIPLE TIMES. The pacing is a nightmare.

Another point I mentioned a lot was the technical quality of the writing.

This game is so over-produced, so maximalist, has so many small details, but the actual script as written for the game feels like it was done under crunch. Like, extreme crunch. Original FF7-style crunch.

It's hard to explain what this means, but in P4G, the script was lovingly crafted word by word and everything was incredibly naturalistic and conversational. There was never a moment when I had to refer to the log and reread anything, no point where a conversation lost me.

In P5R, this happened regularly. Awkward phrasings, responses that didn't make sense, repetitive sentence structure, and weird conversational pivots that did actually force me to go back and reread to understand what was being said.

Localizing a game of this scope and budget is a herculean task, and I know the game's English release was delayed. It just was not enough time. I would guess that this game needed at least another month or two to cook, but more than anything, the localization process should have been started a year before it was. The localization needed to be happening concurrently with the final year of development for a text this fucking dense.

It is so weird to see the extreme polish of the presentation of this game and then to just read the text aloud and go "wait, what" numerous times in a single playthrough.

(also this barely feels like its worth mentioning with the other issues but the lack of translation of the textures was unacceptably bad. I had to get a JPN-speaking friend to translate some things for me, and I really genuinely feel like missing out on some of this shit diminished the context of the game. Maruki's place is the most egregious offender but its everywhere.)

And finally, the last writing complaint is that until the Third Semester, this game has nothing to say. The Persona 5 Vanilla version of this game is……. meaningless but masquerading as thoughtful and rebellious.

Which is frankly hugely disappointing because this game does start strong with Joker and the repeated motif of imprisonment and betrayal. In just the first hour, Joker is beat up in an interrogation room, he's falsely accused of assault, his probation officer tells him he deserved it for stepping out of line, and every figure of authority from the principal to the teachers to his fellow students treat him like a murderer. It was a potent start to a game.

And in the end, Yaldaboath is just repeating the same fucking shit that Izanami did in P4G. People? More like SHEEPLE, amiright? People care more about being entertained than the TRUTH, and they want to be shadows/imprisoned.

Blah blah fucking blah. Persona needs to come up with something new to say because this was NOT it, chief, and was just disappointing given the strong start with Joker. I think this game's Big Theme can confidently be boiled down to "phones are like prisons," and its infuriating.

So much superfluous text and so little to say.

Until the Third Semester, anyway.

Next post will be about the things I liked, I promise.

[p5x-theories]

Speculation on Future Story Party Members

Elements of confirmed story members: Gun (Wonder), Elec (Closer), Fire (Cattle), Ice(Soy)

There are enough Phantom Idols that there’s already some overlap element overlap between them, but I’m going to assume that the story members will have unique elements as long as there are more elements than members.

“Free” elements: Phys, Wind, Psy, Nuke, Bless, Curse, Almighty, Navigator

Some of these elements may be combined into a single character, perhaps another character that specializes in both Bless and Curse.

If there are seven Palaces (at least in the first arc of this game, they will absolutely extend it if the game is successful enough) and we already know the characters for the first two I’d estimate a minimum of three new story members for the middle Palaces.  The last two palaces would be endgame and may or may not have new members depending on whether or not they want to focus on the existing cast.  In P4 and P5 the endgame is when they stopped adding a new party member per dungeon.  (But on the other hand, this is a gacha game where they want you to be constantly pulling new characters…)

And as for more specific speculations:

Assuming that Okyann isn’t a story member there will be another navigator introduced in the mid-game, something that Persona has historically done.

The girl with long black hair is probably important.  We still don’t know her name but she’s been featured in a lot of promotional material.  Maybe she’s one of those party members that’s part of the story before their dungeon comes along?

Another Detective Prince?  Not guaranteed, but it’s an archetype that’s been featured in multiple games before and the Detective vs Phantom Thief rivalry is iconic.  (I’d like the trope to be played straight this time.)  If there is one they’ll probably be the Bless/Curse member like their predecessors Naoto and Akechi.

Just to start out- we do actually know the girl with long black hair’s name! It’s Riko Tanemura (confirmed in-game), and her at least placeholder codename in the files is “Wind”. The first beta had her in-battle portrait in the files, and she’s shown up as a silhouette in both a promo image for the first beta as well as the title screen for both betas:

Her mask is also with everyone else’s in both betas’ data:

My suspicion is, as she seems to be the Makoto equivalent (rules-abiding student who has enough of a reputation to enforce it with the other students), is that she’ll be finally joining for the third Palace. Given her (at least placeholder) codename, I’m pretty confident she’ll be the team’s Wind user.

That aside, I think you’re probably right that we’ll be getting a new teammate for each of the next several Palaces! If we assume it’ll continue to mirror P5 at least in that regard, then Riko’s the third Palace teammate (Makoto), and there would be new ones for the fourth (Futaba), fifth (Haru), and sixth (Akechi) Palaces as well. That would also suggest the new, non-Idol navigator (if it’s not Okyann) would join for the fourth Palace, but it could instead be the fifth as the game seems to be “behind” by an element (due to only having three members for the first Palace, not four), so the fourth Palace may be a nuclear user to fill that in first.

The gacha may or may not influence this; I think you’re right they’re more likely to keep adding new characters through it, though, whether that influences the story teammate final count or not.

I’m also entirely in agreement that I’m expecting there to be a detective teammate at some point, too. Probably a Detective Prince, like you said, though maaaybe not if they’re less formal about the “detective” part of it. It could alternatively be someone in a similar role, but not a literal detective- like a reporter, or even just someone else with a, haha, “sole interest in uncovering the truth”. If they end up wanting to cover every element with a story teammate, then there probably will be someone doubling up somewhere like P5 did as well, with bless/curse being the obvious choice with a precedent in several of the games.

All in all, really agree with this overall analysis and theory! I’m really excited to see what parts of it turn out correct in-game!!

[crest-of-gautier]

pq posting before i go to bed! a shorter session (3 hours) but it was nice and i'm happy to say that i finished you in wonderland!

THIS WAS SO FUNNY... honestly i don't think i give enough credit to akihiko and mitsuru's dynamic they're literally so good i really enjoy how well they know each other but also they're like.. a constant in each other's life and i do enjoy their interactions a lot even if i never vocalize it...

wow yosuke, who would've thought that you two are partners, this guy literally introduced himself as your wife /s (i kinda regret naming souji yosuke wifey but im glad i wrote the y in lowercase bc otherwise i wouldn't be able to tell their dialogue apart 💀

and finally, yosuke <3

some more elaborate thoughts (aka speculation) under the cut because i learned my lesson from last time

ok unfortunately i can't say that im going to go AS INSANE as i did last time when i was spitballing in the tags for the second pq posting just because i feel like i aired out most of my "AAAA WHO IS ZEN AND REI??" there but.

i do have to say that i'm very glad i'm at the point where p3 and p4's casts are able to interact! i can't tell if it's because the writing feels like it shines a little bit better here rather than the solo casts (sometimes i roll my eyes at how junpei and akihiko are with some of the traits the writers play up), or if it's because i'm a guy who's very endeared by crossovers and interactions from characters who didn't exist in the original source material.

i had a lot of times where i was writing things down in my notes software during the crossover segments and im just?? really endeared and creatively inspired by it, to be honest. i really like this aspect of pq.

i think something that catches my interest with zen and rei at the moment is the difference in how they're.. regaining their memories. like... it's interesting to me that zen is able to get some of his memories back from the stuffed rabbit marked with "niko," but rei doesn't. i don't really know how much i can speculate off of this atm (i feel like this is something i'd get more info on when i progress through the second labyrinth, or it's something i'm missing out on because i can't use intertextuality to piece things together. i dont know shit about alice in wonderland.)

like it does make me think that maybe these two are like.. separate entities in that respect (rather than a shared one? but i could be wrong, and i welcome that!). but also there's something that makes my brain go "AAA" about how adamant zen is about wanting to protect rei despite not having any memories, because my brains like "WELL WHAT IF ZEN'S TRUE IDENTITIES AND MEMORIES ARE ACTUALLY THE OPPOSITE, AND DON'T WANT GOOD THINGS FOR REI." poorly phrased but like, it's about the irony, y'know.

i have no fucking clue what rei is supposed to be if we're going under the notion that they're two different things that have lost their memory (she is so head empty only food and its precious tbh). but like my brain just thinks that zen is just... going to end up being some awful incarnation or something like idk. there's something about persona characters with amnesia that make me raise my eyebrow... like just look at ryoji and marie and teddie...

and i guess as another thought on the matter, the way zen and rei work mechanically speaking does make me ponder a bit because like.. obviously, yeah, they can't equip a subpersona because they're... GESTURES. not persona users but FUCK, the way zen and rei have very distinct skillsets just make me wonder if those can allude to what they symbolize. like zen's skills are much more.. destructive and im just like (AIGIS VOICE) "YOU ARE DANGEROUS."

anyways. i am very much invested in the identities of zen and rei but i am also glad that the crossover stuff is here too because i think the sillies will keep me inspired... and also im just happy to see yosuke... i really like yosuke even if i forget that i do a lot of the time..

last thought, after seeing souji talk and move, i think i'd definitely want to look into p4 side... because um. 🥴 i'm really simple guy. i need more minato in my life. (everyone rolls their eyes. i'm predictable!) i want to see minato move and talk. i want to think about him. he's my boyfriend. he's my wife. he's my universe. im being so cringe about him but I DONT THINK THIS IS A SURPRISE TO ANYONE... i like him a lot (NO SHIT, LIZZ). but!!! idk if this'll be something that i watch or play, it depends on what the NG+ functionality in this game is like...

anyway gn!! thanks for reading my delusions im very much enjoying this game and im happy to be playin git.

[kravariss]

I feel like people jump to conclusion that just because The Hand is a powerful Stand that's able to brutally kill then it should be used exacly that way in every situation. Without considering the fact that maybe, just maybe... Okuyasu doesn't want to go for the actual kill if he doesn't have a genuine reason? I doubt he ever truly hurt anyone before fighting Josuke, like pernamently erasing someones hands, legs or head would probably be too gore and shocking for him. Good ol' regular beatdown is fine enough.

JoJo can get very brutal so we as the audience somewhat expect that to be the norm for those characters. P5 kills someone every two episodes, P3 had quite brutal final fight, P2 Joseph kills The Pillar Men with no problem, P1 Dio makes a mother eat her own baby and so on.

But P4 was always different and its cast should be treated so as well. It was supposed to be a slice of life with wacky characters in a more grounded setting with Stand Users using their special abilities for casual purposes. It has its gore moments obviously, but just as the overall narrative got more light-hearted, so did the characters. So Josuke will be much more teenage-like than, for example, Jotaro, Giorno or Jolyne. The villain is also way less... bombastic with his presentation - he doesn't want to be the ultimate life form, or change humanity, or be a mafia boss, guy just wants to nut to well-moisturized hands in peace. Plus minor antagonists switch sides more often or become friendly once u humble them.

My point is, since P4 is what it is, why in a story like that would you want Okuyasu, a 16yo normal teen boy from a small town, to perform unbelievably cruel kills? This is the same guy that literally acts like a best buddy to Josuke shortly after he's introduced or cries when his another buddy gets a a kiss from a girlfriend. His behaviour through the series should be more than enough to suggest that Okuyasu isn't the type of guy to get cruel for no reason or to enjoy someone's suffering, despite being very vocal about his anger at times. He's actually ultra-friendly once you get to know him. He never even takes any real revenge after Rohan who almost makes Okuyasu set himself on fire. I think I myself would erase Rohan's fingers on both hands if he tried to kill me for some manga story lmao.

Okuyasu isn't the only character who somehow restricts their own power. Star Platinium is able to crush through skulls with one hit, but Jotaro uses it to land dozen of lighter punches that are supposed to hurt as hell but not actually kill. Heck, so many P3 characters are described as "retired", very few of them are killed (In case of minor antagonists I actually can't recall anyone intentionally killed by Jotaro?... Even Polnareff is quicker to slice deadly his enemies. Steely Dan almost took out Joseph and he's still "retired" not "deceased". And this mf got the longest Ora in history).

So I don't understand why ppl believe that a character like Okuyasu is wasting his ability by not going for an instant kill. Sure, his ability could be utilized better sometimes, but that's a whole different topic that should be talked about more in context of the actual narrative, not dumped 100% on Okuyasu's stupidity. He can't get involved in all the battles too much because it's Josuke's story and Josuke's time to shine (heh). It all just... makes sense.

It's a concious choice of his to not abuse his own power and donut/slice in half everybody on his way. Overall he isn't that stupid, he just doesn't. Abuse. His. Abilities!

...But he also sometimes IS stupid.

It's complicated.

But still blown way out of proportion like things usually do in huge fandoms.

Not me making another long ass JoJo thread (this time about Okuyasu. Stop doing my boy dirty)

https://twitter.com/JP_Porunarefuu/status/1608625430755708928?t=3HjkZvFGcgzGVWqzYttBFQ&s=19

[systematicallycapricious]

Persona x Soul Eater AU

Spoilers for Personas 3-5 (and their remakes FES, Golden, and Royal), PQ1 (Shadow of the Labyrinth), and the P4: Arena series below, as well as the Soul Eater and Soul Eater: Not! anime (and potentially manga? it’s been a while, so I forget)!

Cast (We = Weapon, M = Meister, H = Human, Wi = Witch, O = Other):

SEES:

Minato Arisato - M | Aigis - Multiform-We | Ryoji Mochizuki - We

Minako Arisato - M | Yukari Takeba - We | Ryoji Mochizuki - We | Aigis - Multiform-We

Junpei Iori - M | Chidori Yoshino - We (presently)

Akihiko Sanada - M or We? | Shinjiro Aragaki We or M?

Mitsuru Kirijo - We (Meisterless and badass; probably a rapier?)

Ken Amada - M | Koromaru - We (a non-human Weapon)

Fuuka Yamagishi - Wi (??? animal)

Investigation Team:

Yu Narukami - M | Teddie - We (potentially a non-human Weapon)

Yosuke Hanamura - M | Labrys - Multiform-We

Chie Satonaka - We or M? | Yukiko Amagi M or We?

Kanji Tatsumi - M? | Naoto Shirogane - We?

Rise Kujikawa - Wi (??? animal)

Phantom Thieves:

Ren Amamiya - M | Morgana - We

Ryuji Sakamoto - M or We? | Yuuki Mishima We or M?

Yusuke Kitagawa - M | Ann Takamaki - We (a whip)

Makoto Nijima - We or M? | Haru Okumura - M or We?

Goro Akechi - M | Robin Hood - We (a bow) | Loki - We (a greatsword)

Kasumi Yoshizawa - M | Sumire Yoshizawa - We (a ribbon wand)

Futaba Sakura - Wi (??? animal)

Etc:

Daisuke Nagase - We or M? | Kou Ichijo - M or We?

Rei - H

Zen - We, H, or maybe O?

Takuto Maruki - H

Sho - M | Minazuki - We (separate entities in this; Minazuki's a katana)

Shuji Ikutsuki - H

Takaya Sakaki - M | Jin Shirato - We | Chidori Yoshino - We (formerly)

Marie/Izanami-no-Mikoto - Wi (??? animal)

More Notes:

The 'Wild Cards' in this just have really good partnership/Resonance abilities with everyone in their groups, so they can work with any of the Weapons in their groups (and even outside of them a lot of times... looking at Ren and Loki for an example. xP) uncannily naturally.

The Navis in this are all Witches, but good-natured ones, and use their magic to support their respective groups/help make the world a better place. For example, Futaba would probably be able to 'hack' souls somehow with her magic, and also her reclusiveness in this would be at least in part due to being terrified of people finding out her true nature as a Witch. I'm not sure how welcomed/persecuted/the general climate of Witches are/is in this AU yet though.

The Arisato twins and Ryoji are all children of Death in this, with Ryoji being the older sibling and the twins being twins. Death is still Death like he is in SE-OG in this AU, more or less.

Ryoji and Aigis tend to float between Minato and Minako as their secondary partners, though Aigis tends to stick more to Minato as his primary partner and much less often swaps to Minako, while Ryoji shifts between his two siblings more frequently. Yukari swaps about as much as the rest of SEES's Weapons do among their Wild Cards, which is more or less situationally or for fun. Despite this, Aigis and Ryoji still don't get along particularly well with one another, only putting up with each other for their Meisters' sakes.

Strega did exist in this, though I'm not sure yet what their aim was, or the fate of its members. At the very least, they were some kind of rogue antagonist group, and Takaya used to be the Meister of both Jin and Chidori. Chidori ends up defecting to DWMA though, or whatever organization Junpei is a part of.

Aigis, maybe Ryoji?, Mitsuru, Labrys, and Minazuki are all Weapons that can fight without Meisters. Loki and/or Robin Hood might also be among them? I'm undecided.

Originally, I was considering having the cast have their Personas as their Weapon-partners, and just have them have personalities based off of their Shadow-selves' but more aligned with their accepted-selves, but I decided against it in the end. Akechi gets to be the exception, because he's Akechi.

Speaking of Akechi-- Robin and Loki are very powerful Weapons in this AU. Loki's 'chaos magic' would become an incredibly chaotic/maddening soul-wavelength that most others wouldn't be able to handle contact with on its own, as well as perhaps some Madness magic or abilities of some kind? Robin's soul meanwhile would be much calmer and help to counteract/cover-up Loki's from those who can sense souls, as well as perhaps provide some tactical abilities; I'm undecided on that for now. I'm not sure who's side Akechi would be on in this AU yet, like if he was being manipulated by a Shido-like person or not, and for what reason if so.

As for Robin and Loki's personalities and appearances in this... Well, the latter would be somewhat similar to their Persona forms probably, including some of the less-human traits given OG-SE characters (*stares intensely at Excalibur*), and the former would also be somewhat based off of those, as well as sort of how Akechi acts in relation to both of his 'masks'? So Robin tends to be calmer and more polite, though he still possesses a small amount of vengeful desire or bloodlust, whilst Loki is a lot more chaotic, hot-blooded, and very vengeful/aggressive. Both share a tendency towards showiness however, and sometimes get in small competitions with one another to up the other to impress their Meister or be the better Weapon among themselves (since they both might think already that they're superior to other Weapons in general? Unsure).

Also speaking of manipulated and abused children, Sho and Minazuki, alongside Ikutsuki, more or less replace Crona, Ragnarok, and Medusa in this. Not fully 1-for-1 however. Ikutsuki is very much a human, albeit a Mad or power-hungry one (still kinda looking to create a Kishin or otherwise bring about some kind of catastrophic destruction), and Minazuki is a separate Weapon, as opposed to how Ragnarok is Crona's Black Blood. Minazuki and Sho might be twins however, just with one a human/Meister and the other a Weapon. They look almost identical physically in this AU, even down to haircuts, but Minazuki lacks the iconic X-ish shaped face scarring that Sho possesses (and overall the two have a different patterning of scars across their bodies), and Sho's irises appear to be more gray while Minazuki's appear to be more blue. Weapon-form-wise, Minazuki looks like Sho's OG katanas, just in different colors and as a singular blade rather than a pair.

Ikutsuki is still forcing Sho and Minazuki to become stronger in similar methods to Medusa in some ways however, such as going out and obtaining/consuming great amounts of human (and maybe even Witch) souls.

Sho's a little less messed-up than Crona is, due to Minazuki being supportive of and dedicated to him as opposed to bullying him into submission like Ragnarok does to Crona. That being said however, I don't yet know why Minazuki hasn't yet defected from Ikutsuki. P: Other than that, Minazuki is kind of like Sho's impulse control and logical reasoning at times, due to being able to control when he transforms into his Weapon form and thus deny Sho access to his weaponry in times where he's being reckless or unreasonable. Soul-wavelengths-wise, too, Minazuki's soul just in general helps to keep Sho's soul/wavelength more stable probably?

Also in terms of replacing SE cast and plots; The IT replaces Maka et al for the sake of the main story most likely, with SEES being their upperclassmen or alumni and the PT being their underclassmen, if they even attend DWMA at this point anyways.

Lotsa dead people in OG are alive in this AU; Minato, Minako, and Ryoji, Shinjiro, Kasumi, etc.

Speaking of Kasumi; she fights kind of like Sumire does in Royal, that being making use of their gymnastics and priorly-athletic builds. Both sisters are gymnists in this still.

Alternatively, Sho and Minazuki's situations almost ended up reversed, leaving a highly impulsive/aggressive Weapon-Sho and a Meister-Minazuki who would have the kinda backwards idealology of trying to protect his Weapon partner in times where it would be best left to the Weapon to defend their Meister, but also really good at getting Sho to focus when wielding him as a weapon/in resonance (and can in general reign him in to some degree while others can't), making them an exceedingly deadly duo. I kind of prefer Minazuki as the Weapon however, as fun as the reverse could be, as it gives Ikutsuki a bit more leverage over Sho's situation I think? Also in that vein, it would make a lot of sense, given OG, for Minazuki to be more like a Black Blood entity like Ragnarok; however, I like Minazuki being able to have his own body in this, so that can be left for another AU perhaps. xP

Ikutsuki would infiltrate/be trusted by the DWMA in this AU at first, like Medusa was, but eventually get outed for his true intentions most likely. He might be a teacher or other kind of faculty rather than a nurse however?

Maruki meanwhile gets to play the role of school nurse in this. He's not a few screws loose like his Royal counterpart is though, he's just a humble nurse. However, he does still have his interest in researching dangerous subjects, though I haven't yet decided if that would be magic, Witches, Madness, Kishins, or what. It could potentially put him in knowing-contact with the Navis, if they aren't already known to be Witches by the DWMA anyways.

I'm not yet sure on what to do with Adachi or Nyx yet. Nyx might be some kind of Madness-related catastrophe, power, or individual perhaps however?

Rei and Zen are probably just civilians in this. Zen just happens to be really devoted to protecting/looking after(?) Rei still. xD

I'm undecided on if Marie should be amnesiac about her Witchhood or if she should be more like Izanami-no-Mikoto from OG in this.

Yusuke is still obsessed with artistry and beauty in this, so you can imagine what he's like as a Meister. He is still capable as a fighter and dependable when needed... more or less, but is also still easily distracted by, and places higher priority on, such things.

Ryuji kinda gets the short end of the stick because I didn't particularly know who to pair him with or what really to do with him at the moment. Mishima's a big tentative as his partner as a result of that, though I think it could prove to be an interesting relationship potentially.

I'm hoping to add more SL/Confidant and secondary/tertiary/background cast peeps eventually into various roles, but I'd need to do more refreshing/research on them first. I also haven't decided on if I should include Metis in this or not.

If the SE info is inaccurate, it's because I haven't seen the anime or read-up on it in like years. I might do clarifying/fact-checking research some day, but for now, nah. xP

[unidentified-owl]

Rambling

I wanted to articulate just why I dislike Akechi's death in the engine room.  To me, this death scene goes against the greater themes P5 tries to express and I think this is best illustrated by comparing it to another famous death scene from P3.

I'm afraid I cannot find the source where I read this, but during development Persona games are based around a particular tarot card.  It doesn't necessarily mean that the characters represented by this card are the most important, but the general  theme of the game should resonate with the meaning of this card. For P3 it was Death, for P4 Temperance, and P5 I believe to be Justice.  

P3 eternally circles back to the concept of death.  The MC carries a shard of death in his soul and all the characters in your party are touched by loss in some way.  The game constantly pushes mortality to the forefront and asks the players, among other things, is it worth living if you know you will die.  One of the more dramatic deaths which occurs during the game is to your party member Shinjiro.  

Shinjiro dies protecting Ken from Takaya, in spite of Ken threatening his life moments before.  The rest of the team is helpless and can only watch as he dies.  Shinjiro's death is tragic and unfair, but also inescapable.  Even if he does not die at this time, his use of suppressants was killing him.  What Shinjiro did do is, with the time that was left to him, decide what he wanted to live for.  Shinjiro goes back to SEES and reconnects with Akihiko.  He tries to protect those he has come to care about even though using his persona causes him suffering.  And, in the end, he wants to save not only Ken's life, but his innocence. In a game based around the fact of death, Shinjiro lived his life the best that he could.  Because in P3, death in P3 is sad but it is not evil.  P3 doesn't ask how can you escape death, but how can you live your life.  

Now to return  to P5 we have an MC who has been wronged by society on multiple levels.  Betrayed by the justice system and the general society mantra that good deeds are rewarded, he is stigmatized and abandoned by his family.  In the game Arsene asks the MC if his actions were wrong and he denies this, awakening to his persona.  Throughout the game you encounter people who are unable to fight back against a variety of established powers and continuously work to shift this unfair balance.  

Akechi shares many of the same attributes with the MC as someone derided for the circumstances of his birth and loss of his family.  In the engine room scene Akechi  attacks the thieves, has a meltdown, and ultimately decides to sacrifice himself. The game presents this as a choice that Akechi makes where he frees himself from his previously toxic mindset. But, to me, I fail to see how this serves P5's theme of Justice.  The only power that Akechi gains is being able to choose his death, and the game has previously established that there is no redemption in death. That is why the P5 cast wants those they fight to survive and atone.

Both Shinjiro's and Akechi's deaths are sad, but this is why I feel that only Shinjiro's can really work within the overall story of the game.  For Akechi to have justice, he must live.    

For those two people who might read this post who want to point out that Shinjiro can in fact survive this event in P3P, I am aware.  However, for the reasons outlined above I think it breaks the message of P3 in order to provide the player with a more palatable option to save Shinjiro.  

Thanks for coming to my TED talk about silly JPRGs.  Next time I will prattle on about how not all members of power structures in P5 are equal.

[paintalyx]

what if... genshin impact persona au...

bear with me, there are like five videogames in total that i've ever been obsessed with and these two are among them and the mechanics fit together surprisingly nicely (this is all i have for now but i might elaborate more in the future)

similarly to p3, you can still chose aether or lumine as the protag; they have different starter personas, as well as slightly different choice options and character interactions

it's the reverse of p3; lumine is quiet, reserved and elegant, kind of mysterious as the protagonist, while aether sounds more upbeat and energetic and he's more likely to jump into action

paimon is igor's assistant in the velvet room

dainsleif could be there as well, but he'd either perform a different task than paimon (think marie from p4) or have an occasional cameo or be a lumine-only option like theodore

visions get swapped out for inheritance types depending on their element/elemental skill/burst effects

persona franchise ready has physical, fire, ice, wind and electricity (those are self-explanatory), but a healer like barbara or even noelle would absoloutely need to have bless type skills

since genshin has only five types of weapons, some characters would have to swap out (someone like jean would look absolutely stunning with a rapier and i stand by it)

first mission team could consist either of starter characters (protag, kaeya, lisa, amber) or prologue quest characters (protag, diluc, jean, venti); either way, dvalin is the main shadow there

i'm leaning towards the latter because, personal bias aside, i see lisa, sucrose and albedo as confidants who sell you stuff like medicine and weapons (think iwai and takemi)

characters i see as definite party members are amber, jean, kaeya, diluc, eula and mona (because mona would make the best navi ever, fight me)

other potential party members are venti, lisa, albedo, xiao, zhongli, rosaria, keqing, ganyu and beidou (some of these characters could easily pull off noncombat roles, some i can't quite picture working alongside mondstadt's characters and some don't have story quests yet)

i'm thinking that tartaglia should get his own shadow boss battle and persona as well because??? c'mon, he could easily blend into p5's cast! he even has a mask!!! (oh, and he's definitely the shady foreign transfer student)

characters who didn't make cut for persona havers would still be relevant as social links

venti is the token link that levels up as the story progresses, as well as the token nonhuman character (perhaps zhongli would be one as well, except his revelation comes like mid-story)

personas are named after deities maybe??

similarly to p5, we get characters change outfits once they step into abyss, which is this au's equivalent of metaverse/tartarus/midnight channel

knights of favonius could be something similar to s.e.e.s (diluc is still a former member)

[[ edit: fixed some grammar and spelling (hopefully everything) and elaborated in the reblogs ]]

[obeysword]

i’ve been trying to find this all day. but this scene in the anime with mitsuo’s shadow, really speaks a lot of yu’s character. i really don’t like to hc muses who have feelings / could fall in love with other characters in the series unless it’s deliberately shown to be canon? & has canonical weight behind it. but i think souyo kind of does. (everyone in p4 is gay)

‘i have nothing. everything is nothing. friendship’s an illusion. you’re on your own, and you’re empty.’

yu then realizes he can’t summon his persona, no matter how many arcana he calls forth. none of them appear. he’s defenseless. he’s been broken down by words & is desperate to maintain something.

‘you have no bonds - you have nothing at all! empty. you are just like ME.’

mitsuo’s shadow then proceeds to grab yu’s throat & attempts to choke him.

the discussion is interestingly reminiscent of how the gang go about rejecting their shadow-selves. yu straight up denies mitsuo’s shadow, even though he & mistuo are pretty alike. they’re both lonely. both desperate to have someone understand them. both want friends & are scared to be alone. inwardly, they’re both fragile people; naive & immature in their understanding of the world. yu acts mature, & he is! he had to basically raise himself from an extremely young age bc his parents were never around. but when it comes to people, they are both a little weird in commincation & the things they do & say. yu is by far healthier than mitsuo who: stalks, preys on women & children, acts rude & illmannered, & doesn’t respect boundries. but you get my meaning. mitsuo plays videogames to escape reality where he has no one; he has no friends & he longs for attention, even to the point he was willing to commit homicide & claim he was the one who killed the other two victims. narukami studies, reads, & again, would act very mechanical. i wouldn’t be too shocked if he used reading as an escapism. a lot of people make up their own worlds, stories, & find semblance in forms of media bc their daily lives are filled with loneliness & rejection. bc of narukami’s mechanical nature, i think it can be easily established he is a perfectionist. he has to do everything right, exact, & a lot of that was likely enforced by his parents. my own parents used to do that often to me, so i can really see how this carries over into his character. persona does a really good job of making their cast feel human & relatable to the audience.

‘no it just goes to show, the only people who thought we were actually friends, was us.’ - yosuke. & while these words are said callous & casually, narukami takes them deeply to heart. it’s like he was just stabbed with the realization: were we ever really friends...?

narukami begins to slip into some of his old bad habits. for example, when he’s asked a question to hang out with someone, he decides not to & gets all quiet & even more soft-spoken than he usually is. they keep reminding & bringing up that narukami won’t be here next year, he’ll be back attending school in the city or somewhere else that’s far away from the gang in inaba. he tries for awhile to maintain connections, but slowly the group goes about their lives & he feels left behind.

‘we keep meeting up to go over those murders but there’s nothing to talk about anymore.’ - kanji. ‘i gotta say, talkin’ things out and havin’ to be all nice about it, is really exhausting.’

‘you sound like an old married couple who’s bored of each other,’ - konishi

wanting to get notes from yukiko, he just decides against it. yosuke asks if something’s wrong & yu just denies it. yosuke goes to sit with chie, yukiko, kou, & daisuke. he’s on the outside looking in. he thinks people don’t want to be around him. he thinks they’re just tolerating his presence in their lives. he thinks if he pushes, he’s unwelcome & just forcing himself into their day when they really don’t want him to be there. his anxieties & fears escalate. he tries to keep his expression neutral when nanako asks him why no one wants to come around & play anymore, & that yu should invite them all over again. he’s going out of his way to be alone like how he used to. his fears of abandonment are very raw & tangible. he had something he never let himself have before, knowing that he can’t make connections to others bc of his parents always moving them about from place to place. he isolated himself so he would never have to feel abanonded again, all the while feeling awful inside bc he was all alone. i think he’s lost count of how many school’s he’s been to by the time he’s in inaba. he doesn’t even know where he’s finishing his final year of high school yet.

just as he’s losing consciousness, yosuke’s voice is the one he hears calling out to him. yosuke’s voice is projected as a light through the darkness he’s trapped in. i think that’s very reminiscent of how their whole relationship formed. yosuke is very much a sun to yu’s moon. they’re two people who aren’t supposed to touch or connect, but they have & have had each other’s backs since the second day of school. they’re complete oppisites & their elements are each other’s weaknesses. they have smiliarties, but they’re really different people.

yosuke physically pulls yu out of the darkness he’s suffering & trapped inside of. & yu’s expression, so open & unguarded, a face we’ve pretty much never seen him make before, & makes this whole scene really fucking gay tbh lmfao. yu’s heart is open. it’s through an act of kindness & being able to remember that he DOES have people who love & care for him, that he finds strength to be able to defeat mitsuo’s shadow. & boy does yu go HAM on that thing. he’s far from empty & alone. bc of this act of compassion, yosuke is, once again, able to free his heart from darkness & fear. i wouldn’t be surprised if he felt something more for him than just platonic friendship for yosuke after this moment, & if there’s a scene that really displays it, it’s really this one.

[jazinerambles]

Persona 2 Innocent Sin Review

I wanted to have some time in between playing the game and writing my thoughts for Persona 2 Innocent Sin. I will be referencing it and other Persona games so there may be some light spoilers for games 2-5. 

I played the psp version of the game on a Playstation TV. I beat the game at 76 hours on the dot. I have not completed most of the theater missions, but I have completed the main story of the game and did do a few sidequests.

My review will be organized in several sections-gameplay, story, music, characters, LGBTQ representation, extra content, wishlist and recommendation.

Gameplay:

Persona 2 Innocent Sin was released in 1999. Therefore plays as a game from 1999. The PSP rerelease updated menus, changed the difficulty, and added all out attack art similar to P3-P5 for the fusion spells. I love the all out attack animation and although the menus got a little cumbersome, it didn’t really impact gameplay for me. 

The biggest complaint about Persona 2 IS is how easy and repetitive it is and the high encounter rate. The battles for the most part are easy and if you set up all your attacks in the first round, you can basically use autoplay until an emergency occurs or you encounter an enemy in which you must change it up. 

I never saw the gameplay as repetitive as others do and I feel those who do only just battle and that’s it. I was constantly trying to get all the fusion spells, max up my personas to trade them for items, try different combinations for the demon negotiations and spread demon rumors to get items, spells, and cards (you need cards to summon new personas in the velvet room.) Demon negotiations also allow you a better look into each of the characters’ personalities and relationships. Events in the game will change how the characters react in these negotiations so it is always nice to go back to them throughout the course of the game. 

The demons you encounter have emotions. I believe they are intrigued, happy, angry and fearsome. Make them happy and they will offer a pact with you and give you free stuff and willing to spread rumors for you. Make them angry they will fight you. Make them fear you they will run away. Make them intrigued and you get the cards needed to summon personas and even more if you already have a pact with them. 

I wanted to return to the big complaint though, the high encounter rate. This was something that I felt hot and cold about. Most of the time this didn’t bother me, because I needed to level up my personas anyway. But when I needed to backtrack and explore further, it did get a little bothersome. 

You can use estoma to avoid enemies weaker than you. It is not a passive skill, so once you have a persona that has it, you have to cast it every time it wears off. At the Mu casino, you can also purchase a disguise kit that does the same thing, but it effects last about the same amount of time and it is ridiculously expensive. Just use estoma. 

As briefly mentioned above, unlike Persona 5 in which you can just catch Personas, in P2IS there are only two ways to get them. You get cards from demon negations, take those cards to the velvet room and then trade them in for a Persona. But you have to enough cards to summon it and the persona has to be 5 cards within your character level. 

You can also talk to the demon painter, for him to make you cards for the specific arcana you want by using blank cards. These are also given through demon negotiations that you have a pact with. 

In P2, ALL your characters are capable of changing out Personas, but their compatibility with different personas varies with their Arcana. 

The other way to get personas is through the story. There are certain actions that you must take to get the prime personas and then the final personas. These personas are character specific and you can’t give them to other characters. 

I wanted to talk about three more things before I move on to the story: rumormongers, fusion spells, and dungeons. 

Persona 2IS is based around rumors. Just like P3 is for the dark hour, P4 the midnight channel, P5 around palaces and so on...

To get certain items and progress the story, you MUST gather and spread rumors. There are five characters throughout the game called rumormongers. They will give you information in exchange for receiving information. You then share this information to the detective agency, pay a fee for them to spread them for you, and there you go. rumor spread. As mentioned earlier, there are also demon specific rumors. 

Fusion spells were something I really enjoyed in this game. Although hearing “Are you ready? Here goes” and “Let’s go everybody” will be stuck in my head for the rest of eternity...

Basically, to create a fusion spell, members in your party require a requisite spell and then that party member is placed in a specific order when taking turns. Once that spell is unlocked, it will let you know if you have the requisite spells and you no longer have to adjust the order of party members. Some of the spells you need to unlock fusion spells are persona specific. The fusion spells are elemental. 

I will not go into weaknesses of elemental spells, I am just going to say that you aren’t “down”’ed like you are in 3-5. 

Finally, my first real pet peeve with this game-the dungeons.

Oh boy. Air raid, AeroSpace and one of the four Zodiac dungeons (I am pretty sure its Eikichi’s) gets ALL my hate. There are cheap gimmicks that make the game artificially hard but only for these dungeons and more so, frustrating. 

But I am not going to go into detail why, and the other dungeons are not bad at all. But play the game and experience these dungeons for yourself. That is all I am going to say about that.

Story:

This section will be nowhere was long as gameplay. The story did not go where I thought it would, but that’s a good thing. I would go in completely blind if you can. The ending definitely surprised me a bit. I think it has one of the best stories of the persona games.

It does not follow a calendar like the later Persona games and time just blends together. By the end of the game, you won't know if a day, week or month passed from the beginning to the end.

Music:

The music is actually really good. It is the reason why I played the game in the first place. Just don’t look at the soundtracks names. Spotify has it available if you live in the US. You are better off listening to the soundtrack because I promise you that most dungeons songs will be cut off due to the frequency of battles. 

Some of my favorite songs are Smile Hirasaka, Unbreakable Tie, Kurosu’s theme, Joker and the Taurus dungeon’s theme.

Characters:

Despite Persona 2 not having social links, I feel like I know these characters better than some of the persona games that do have social links. It is also the only Persona game that I can say without any hesitation that I like the entire main cast. 

I truly love them all, but my favorite would probably be Yukino or Maya. 

Unlike other Personas, the dynamics for Persona 2 IS are different, because not all of your party members are high school students. The adult characters have adult problems, the high school students have high school problems, and all of them have deep psychological problems and abandonment issues that will take years of intense therapy (or Philemeon) to forget.

One of the biggest themes of Persona 2 is confronting your past and learning from the mistakes of your childhood. And the characters do! And by the end of the game you are so proud of how far they have come. And then things happen...

LGBTQ representation

Let me say that I started P2IS off on the wrong foot, but I am still absolutely justified at being upset by it. One of the very first interactions you can have with a NPC is through a very uncomfortable exchange between you, Eikichi and a transman that is pretty transphobic. And to add the icing on the cake, Atlus refers to him as a “weird woman.” 

I was literally going to just stop playing the game like an hour in because of that, but I decided to continue.

What I discovered was a game that has highs and lows when it comes to LGBTQ representation. 

You can play as a bi character who can confess his feelings to men and women. *Stares hard at Persona 4 and Persona 5*

You have a gay character that has an interesting story, character development, is unabashedly gay and isn’t a walking stereotype. Nor is his entire arc centered around gay panic. 

From what I understand the dialogue from the NPC does get better, but I am not holding my breath. 

And the one sapphic kiss scene we get in a Persona game is a kiss of manipulation and not love. So that is a little sad. 

But overall, P2IS does try to make an effort. And it definitely makes a better effort than its successor released almost 2 decades later.

Extra content:

Again, Persona 2 doesn’t have social links or a calendar. Please don’t approach it like the other games where you have to fill up your time between dungeons. It is not a necessity, but there are things you can do. 

Mu is a casino that you can visit that allows you to play mini games to gain coins that you can use to get weapons, rare items, and even unlock personas. I spent a little too much time at Mu....

You can also talk to NPCs to do side missions. Be careful though. You have to do the side missions in a given amount of time or you may not get rewarded for it. Also P2IS is very much like Final Fantasy 9 where it is much better to go to a place sooner than later, because there may not be a later...

You also have the factory which is an optional dungeon that opens up more and more as you progress through the game. 

There is the theater which is a PSP exclusive which has side missions unrelated to the main story that you can play. They are okay.

Wishlist

I hear so many people wanting a remake of P2IS so the game can be more accessible. I am very torn about this. Besides the difficulty and maaybe tweaking the encounter rate a bit, I wouldn’t change a thing. However, I also know that I couldn’t enjoy Shadow of Colossus until the controls were updated. Like I tried and then just gave up. 

I honestly don’t want a remake. I don’t trust the Atlus of today with this game.

I do want it to be acknowledged and more accessible though. 

But if I had to make a wish list, this is what it would be. Again, this would be a “it would be nice list.”

Make the battles harder.

Update cut scenes? I really like the art for the cut scenes already, but would like some more. Maybe keep the drawings but update the CG?

Social side quests. I do not want social links in Persona 2. However, side quests that allow you to learn more about your character like a social link would, would be something I would be very interested in. 

Make the portraits consistent. The art from the original game and the new art put in the PSP game (I am talking about you climax lady) clash so much. Pick one style and stick to it.

I want to fight Ms. Ideal. Let me do it for reasons. Give me a chance to battle her.

I want the option to switch out characters. I love both Jun and Yukki, but I want to be able to play with both. 

Let me skip the animation when I create a new Persona. 

*EDIT*  I can’t believe I forgot this and feel awful I did, but I do think they should keep the trans NPC, but change the dialogue and the the name. It isn’t the NPC that is the problem but the dialogue and actions. Otherwise, I think it would be ok. 

I think that’s it.

Recommendation:

So should you play Persona 2 IS? Short answer, yes. Long answer is that it is complicated. In a few months the game will no longer be accessible for psp consoles. The physical version of the game is ridiculously expensive. You will have to accept the fact this game is on psp and its sequel’s psp version never came to English speaking markets.

You may not like the graphics, gameplay, or that it doesn’t feel like the later persona games. And as much as I love this game, that is alright. You do you. But I truly do think you are missing out on a great game. So if you have the opportunity to do so, yeah absolutely give it a shot. 

[casualotptrash]

Fixes to the Persona Series

Oh boy I hope you all are ready to talk about this for the hundredth time!

My recent tirade about the FES vs Portable discussion started to make me think about what I think could be done in the next coming installments of the series to make it either feel a bit more fresh or just as an overall improvement. Now, I know many of the things I’m about to say have been said time and time again, but...this is my post so I’m going to give my opinion on this :)

Enjoy and feel free to vent with me about your biggest gripes with the series, because I’m always ready for a salt-fest.

(This post will pretty much have any spoilers about Persona 3, 4, and 5 (including Royal) so beware if you haven’t finished those)

To clarify right off the bat, anything I don’t mention in here as something I would fix I either don’t think it is a problem or I just happened to forget it.

1. Player Gender Options

(Royal Spoilers)

Starting off with a great one, I think that an improvement to the series would be to allow an option between a male and a female MC. I don’t think this choice would affect the story in Persona 3 or 4 very much (and we’ve seen that with Persona 3), but I have imagined and seen so many fanfics about how it would actually be a really interesting twist for Persona 5. For most of the story it probably wouldn’t matter too much, but it could impact the first palace so much. The first palace/story arc is already one of the best arcs in the game, so imagine if the player could relate to Ann and Shiho on an even deeper level? To be clear, I’m not saying the player has to be sexually assaulted or something, but I imagine Kamoshida would at least treat the player more like Ann rather than just a delinquent nuisance.

Also, and this just came to mind, but picture this: in the third semester Maruki actualizes things that he thinks will make others happy. Obviously, Joker and Akechi are against this. In the game itself there are a lot of clues to point that Joker does care about Akechi, and does want to see him again, but in the end they both agree that they need to fight for the real world that they worked for, not for a fake reality. If Joker was a female, they could still go the route of doing this (especially if romancing Akechi was an option? Or they just hint at them having feelings but Akechi doesn’t want to commit because he’s a self-loathing boi who needs to work on himself first).

Alternatively...what about a badass narrative of a girl, in a powerful position as the leader of the Phantom Thieves, fighting against a man who believes he knows what’s best for her and tries to appease her by just bringing back Akechi? Kinda like a “Yeah fuck what you did, you just need Akechi/a man and he’ll make you happy” type of thing. Obviously this would all be subtle, because I do think Maruki has good intentions, but he also blames himself for all of the hard things Rumi has gone through and may internalize that as women needing a “strong man” to protect them. Of course this might seem too preachy for people, but I thought it was an interesting idea to run with and that some people could relate to the whole “Woman trying to think and do things for themselves? Nah just sit in your little fake world and be happy, thanks.”

(Sidenote, Sae would be such a good role model...after her change of heart of course. You crush it girl.)

However, I do understand that this could be a lot of extra work, especially when the game is so long and tedious. That’s why I would also be fine with the strategy of “switching off” per say. By that I mean if Persona 5 has a male MC, then Persona 6 would have a female MC, and if a 7th game was made (in 2040 or whatever) then it could go back to a male. This would eliminate the issue of having to record all the voice lines twice or any other extra work that would come with having to make both genders an option. Honestly I know this option doesn’t matter too much to people, they just want an MC who is either a self-insert or actually a character (more on that later), but I do think it would be a very nice inclusion especially for the female fans of the game. It kind of sucks that three of the most popular games in the series all have male protags, and the female protag who was introduced often gets shafted for very dumb reasons. (Oh no, you have the option to romance a kid that most people don’t even choose or like, that means she’s a p*do! :I I know this comment is normally a joke but seriously it’s not funny).

2. Setting of the game (not transfer but also maybe involve the other games?)

(Spoilers for the Arena games and Persona 5/Royal)

So there are two main points to this suggestion: where the game takes place and how it relates to the other games.

As we all know, the three latest entries in the mainline Persona series have all followed a certain trend. They are all high schoolers, who transfer to a town, and know basically no one there. This formula has been repeated for the last three games, and while they are still great games, I think this trend needs to change. Any amount of switching this up would be better than nothing in my opinion. For example, the MC could be a new college student who goes to a new place for college (if they wanted the MC to move somewhere), and there meets the party members who are a mix of people who also don’t know the area (new to the college) and those who do know the area/some people there. This would appease people who have been really wanting an MC to not be a high schooler, while also giving the feel of meeting new people and seeing a new place.

On the other hand, the next game could take place in the MC’s home town, where plot stuff happens and they connect more to the people they already knew (aka party members) to solve the plot stuff. They could be in high school or college, either I think would work, but it would appease people who don’t just want to be a transfer student each time and also have some connection to the characters prior to the game. However, this would be difficult to do given the current “flow” that the games have, that is that the MC doesn’t know anything and has to ask a million questions. It would be very strange to go up to someone you have known most of your life and ask them a basic question, which is why that style of storytelling(?) would not fit well with this and other methods would need to be used.

Now, for the second point, I understand that they don’t make strong connections to the other games because they want each game to be able to be played as a stand-alone, and not to hold people back by forcing them to play the other games to understand this. Makes sense, but usually what happens is that people play one game in the series and then try another game, if they really like the one they started with. After playing through the ones they want to, and if they like them, then there is an appreciation for the series as a whole. Of course Atlus sneaks in little references here and there, like having the P4 gang go to Iwatodai or some TV news announcements on P5 that allude to Adachi and other characters, but those cant always cut it. One of the biggest letdowns I would come to know is the fact that the Shadow Operatives are not mentioned at all, outside of those small references, in P5.

Persona 5 literally has the PT’s broadcasting all of their heists, and includes major government officials like Shido. There are also the mental shutdowns/psychotic breakdowns, which also have people confused, along with how the PT’s steal hearts in the first place. I don’t know about you all, but this seems like the perfect opportunity to get the Shadow Operatives involved. This is like...literally what they were made for? Investigating persona/shadow activity and such, and we already know that the PT’s deeds reached at least Hawaii so it would be strange for the SO’s to have not heard anything. There are headcanons that they were blocked by Shido or something, which is pretty interesting to think about/develop, but it was only thought up to make an excuse for why they aren’t there. Persona 5 introduced a lot of people to the story, so yeah some people would probably be very confused about who the SO’s are and stuff, but it could payoff in the long run for long-time fans and those who play the other games after.

Depending on the story of P6, I don’t think it would be a bad idea to start including casts from the other games into newer ones...especially when each game introduces 8-9 new characters per game, and those games usually get made into spin-offs that include the characters made in the previous games! Counting only the characters introduced in the previous games (3-5), Persona Q2 has 33 characters (11 P3, 10 P5, 10 P4, and 2 P3P, this includes the velvet room assistants for each respective game). That’s a ton! Sure, having new characters each time is part of the fun, but I believe there is definitely a way to split them up. I don’t think it would be too much of an issue to have a smaller party member group (you can only have 4 fight at a time anyway), that way there is still the enjoyment of seeing new characters, while also filling up some of those spots with preexisting ones.

3. Characterization

This kind of piggybacks off of the second point, but personally I think they need to stop with the self-insert protags. First, like I mentioned earlier, it kind of messes up the “flow” of the game since they have to pretend that the character doesn’t know anything because the player doesn’t know anything (yet). For example, how many times did the option to say ���Probation?” or “Expelled?” or something like that come up as a dialogue choice in P5? Too often, in my opinion. I assume anyone over the age of 15 would probably know what those things mean, but in case anyone doesn’t they have to make it an option to say.

Adding onto this, it also seems like people start to like the characters a whole lot more when spinoffs or movies/animations come out that really expand on the character, because in those games/mediums the player is taken out of the self-insert role. I would say out of the three games, the Persona 3 protags have the most characterization in game through their dialogue. I haven’t watched the movies, but I heard it fleshes the MC out a lot more. In Persona 4...well, I see what they’re going for but I also feel like Yu has the personality of a cardboard box. The animations definitely helped out this one, as did Arena, and I’ve seen other people agree that they liked Yu a lot more after playing/watching those things.

As for Persona 5, I think they tried to give Joker some characterization (and oddly enough “Joker” has a lot more to him than Akira/Ren, but he still fell more on the side of self-insert. P5 the animation is...of questionable quality, but I think Xander did a good job in the Dub (which is the one I watched) in trying to make him feel more like a human being. I haven’t played Strikers, but I assume it goes more on the route of P5 because you’re still controlling Joker. Oddly enough, I feel like the dancing game gave him the most characterization? Call me crazy, but his dance moves and voice lines just ooze of his suave, friendly, and supportive attitude. I wish that they took whatever those voice lines embodied and just put them into the game, because I would like Joker a lot more than I already do (which, to be clear, I do still like him a lot).

Although this doesn’t have much to do with the characterization, it would also be nice if Atlus could just put the “canon name” in the game while also still having the option to choose your own name. Again, this might add a little more work but maybe if someone chose the “canon” option then their name could be spoken in voice lines, but if they don’t then the names would be left out (except for text) like usual. Honestly this is mostly up to personal preference because I like some of the “not canon” names more so I would want to use those if I could, but I also don’t like having the characters just randomly cut off in the end of sentences when they’re saying your name. Just kind of breaks immersion, which is probably why I really like Joker because at least they say “Joker” quite a bit.

(Little rant, but why do the PT’s get like two group names? At first Morgana defaults to “The Phantom Thieves of Hearts” but then when you get to choose the name of your team, that name is what shows up instead. However, everyone still calls you the “Phantom Thieves” and the gang refers to themselves as that too! I get naming the group is kind of cool, but I would have preferred if they were just called The Phantom Thieves (of Hearts) and that way their name could be spoken in dialogue too.)

4. Choices matter...please? (romance and regular dialogue)

This might be easy or difficult to implement, I’m not so sure because I’m not a game developer, but I really wish choices mattered more in this game. I feel like most of these suggestions (especially later on down the list) are just little things that could be added to the game that would really amp it up, and this is one of them.

When I talk about choices mattering, I do not mean that dialogue should be so open that there are branching paths and that your choices affect the story. What I mean is that you could choose two different options and not get the same exact answer. I get that this isn’t always the case, but when it is it feels very strange. In this same vein of things, please stop with the illusion of choice because everyone sees right through it. I didn’t really see this as much in P3, and I still need to finish P4, but it was definitely apparent with P5. I felt that so many times in the game there were two options that were just “Option A” or “Synonym for Option A” as the choices.

Along the same lines, I think it would be great if romance choices were actually acknowledged. Again, there is a little of this in P3 and P4 where some party members comment on your relation to the other party members (Ex. Junpei saying to take care of Fuuka if you date, Yukari stating that Akihiko probably wouldn’t want FeMC going on a group date if they’re dating, and Yosuke coming to assumptions about who Yu spends the summer festival with), but they are very few and far between. I also saw no evidence of this at all in P5, which was pretty disappointing. In fact, in Persona 5 Royal if you are dating Ann and go on the Christmas Date with her, she makes some comment about not wanting the others to find out about them. Like...girl, considering someone can finish Ann’s social link as early as June or so on NG+ I’m pretty sure your friend group would notice if you’ve been dating for 6 months?? I know that romance is definitely not the focus of the game, but if you’re going to include it why is it shoved into the farthest corner and never touched?

Don’t get me wrong, it is cute to see the romances in the game play out and such, but on the same hand I can see how much better it could be. In reality it kind of sucks to romance someone in the Persona games because no one acknowledges it, and you only get like 3-4 small scenes in each game to spend with them (beach in P5, festival in all, Christmas in all, valentines except for 3, White Day in P5R). Just imagine if you could take a walk in Kyoto with whoever you romanced, or were able to take your partner to the Jazz Jin in P5R and they would get like special date dialogue or something? Very very small additions, but it would go a long way in making the romances feel a bit more connected.

5. LGBT Romances

I went into this in some detail in Part 3 of my FES vs Portable debate post, so I to save your eyes from reading more I’ll just quickly say that Atlus definitely needs to add in more LGBT romance options because it’s ridiculous at this point. The fact that you can’t romance any guy (because all of the MC’s are male, this is not including the FeMC stuff because that’s not typical in the Persona series) but can have a whole harem (despite what they may do to you) is just ridiculous. They’d rather let you date a fully-fledged adult than someone of the same gender.

Also they’re cowards for scrapping the Yosuke romance and that’s that :)

6. Fixing Social Links

Link to the stand-alone post about this section.

I literally was going to include this in this post, but this section alone (which I knew was going to be the biggest) was almost as large (a few hundred words off) than everything prior to this point put together. I’ll make a separate post with just this section soon, but this criticism of mine can basically be boiled down into the fact that the main growth of a character should happen outside of their social link in order to avoid tonal whiplash in the story, and that this will fix the problem of some characters feeling “one-note” if you do not do their social links/confidants. Essentially, go back to the P3 method.

However, something that needs to be fixed for all of the games is that you shouldn’t only get social link points for saying what the person wants to hear. I get the train of thought that if you say what they want to hear they will like you more, but that’s not how real friendships work? Obviously you shouldn’t be saying something that offends them and think it will raise your points, but sometimes people just need to hear things?

I can think of three standout examples: Nozomi in P3 (Gourmet King), Mishima in P5, and Shinya in P5. Nozomi’s link is a hot mess in of itself, but it was very frustrating to at one point just be like “Hey can you chill?” when he’s trying to induct you into a scam/cult or whatever, and it reverses the social link. Like ok buddy fuck you too, I was just trying to say no and that you need to stop scamming people?? For Mishima in P5 (I’ll go more in depth on him in a later post), it’s just kind of strange that you can clearly see him starting to obsess about the PT’s but you can’t really tell him he needs to stop until the social link demands it. Even then, the only way to get points is pretty much to go “Wow Mishima, you’re the best! You’re the reason we exist! We love you!!!” and it just feels kind of wrong. Shinya’s is very much along the same line as that, except you basically have to do something even worse and encourage him to keep being a bully? Thankfully P5 doesn’t reverse confidants, but I probably would have done so with Shinya because I kept telling him he shouldn’t bully others until I realized how to get points with him. It just feels wrong to encourage such behavior until the character suddenly realizes they’ve been acting wrong. No shit, I’ve been trying to say that.

I think social links need quite the fix to them, but this is definitely one of them. Strong, real relationships are not just built upon telling the other person what they want to hear.

7. Have Characters Hang Out

This is mostly a suggestion based off of P5′s downfall in this aspect. I think that P3 and P4 did a good job at showing the characters hang out in other aspects, or hang out separately outside of the MC. P4 had a lot of good group hangouts, but not many scenes without the MC. P3 had the opposite where members kind of hung out together a bit, but also showed or mentioned them hanging out without the MC. However, P5 didn’t have much for the group hangouts and also I can’t really recall a single scene of the party members hanging out outside of the MC.

Along with all of the problems I mentioned earlier with the cardboard cut-out personalities, I feel that this contributed to P5′s group feeling a bit less cohesive. Obviously when they all hung out they acted like a real group of friends, but it’s hard to see it as legitimate when 95% of their hangouts are just meetings for the Phantom Thief stuff. The only times they hang out outside of the PT stuff is the TV station, the fireworks festival, helping Futaba + the beach trip, and the culture festival. Like I said, I can’t recall them hanging out together outside of being with the MC/PT business, although I could have missed some stray text message if one was mentioned.

In this aspect, P5 feels like a small step down from P3 and a huge step down from P4. I think some of the events in P4 are a bit unnecessarily long, but at least they go through the effort of showing that the group is also a real friend group, not just people trying to solve the murder. Strikers may be a step up from P5, but I haven’t played it yet so I can’t judge that.

Also bring back school trips to prior locations of Persona games. Imagine P5 group going to Inaba and it turns out this is the small country town that Joker came from? And they sprinkle in references to P4? *chefs kiss*.

8. Remove/Change Certain Tropes

(Spoilers for the babe hunts, stupid ass hot springs scenes, and Ryuji abuse after certain palace)

By that spoiler tag, you can probably tell that this is the category I’m most passionate about. I can deal with social links feeling a bit disconnected. I can deal with the MC being a self-insert. What I cant deal with anymore? These. Dumb. Ass. Scenes.

Let me explain (insert Sojiro voice here)

Every game has three main tropes. One, the babe hunt scenes. Two, the hot springs scenes. Three, one character being dunked on by everyone else. I’ll go through each, scream about my feelings about them, and why they need to change.

First, the babe hunt scenes. I don’t have much of a problem with this trope to be honest, I just think it could be done better in some games. I actually think the one in P3 was quite funny, because the group treated it like an “operation” which added a bit to humor. Truth be told, I was just a bit disappointed in P3P FeMC route when you didn’t have your own version of the “babe hunt” thing. I know Yukari and Mitsuru aren’t the types to go hunt for boys, but perhaps the MC could have suggested it as a fun idea. In P4, this scene happens in Okina and largely remains the same as the P3 formula, but I think it lacks just a bit of the humor that the P3 one had. Lastly, in P5 this scene happens during the beach trip but compared to the others it’s pretty...lackluster?

It shows a montage of Joker, Ryuji, and Yusuke talking to girls but no actual dialogue goes on. After talking to three or so, Yusuke disappears and this is when Joker and Ryuji meet the two “flamboyant” men again. This time, the men either chase them down or call after them (?) depending on if you’re playing Vanilla or Royal. I don’t like how they use these men in the first place, but on top of that it kind of takes the “babe hunt” out of “babe hunt” if you don’t actually...hunt for babes? Like no actual dialogue is spoken when trying to convince the girls, which was most of the fun in the other scenes. You don’t even have free reign to walk around at the beach, and the scene is formatted in a more cutscene type of way.  It just makes P5′s babe hunt fall flat in many ways, and overall I finished the scene with a strong “meh.” The only good things about this was watching Makoto and Ann defend themselves and Yusuke with the lobsters.

Now for the hot springs scenes....hoo boy.

Simply put, in my opinion, these scenes suck ass in almost all of the games. P3 is the least egregious in my opinion, for a couple reasons. First is that it shows that Junpei and Ryoji were kind of trying to peep on the girls, and Akihiko and MC were just dragged into it. They have some funny dialogue, and in FES and Portable they even included the option to try and evade the girls. I found the little evade minigame to be really fun, even though every time I can’t help but fail because I want to say “It was a cat!” I find it interesting that there is the option for the men to get off scott-free, and that their dialogue after the trip is over changes slightly because of this.

On the FeMC side, I also find it fun that you have the reverse of the minigame and actually seek out the boys. My only letdown with this entire scene is if the boys are caught. I get it, it’s supposed to be funny with Mitsuru executing them and such, but as a reasonable person with a brain it seems really dumb to me that Mitsuru would just punish all of them when it’s just Ryoji and Junpei’s fault? This is nothing against Mitsuru, but her actions just seem so...exaggerated for some reason? Like Mitsuru is usually smart, and even if she is embarrassed I don’t get why she would punish innocent party members. A huge disappointment for me was that the FeMC isn’t able to stop Mitsuru from doing this either. Not even a choice to try and encourage Mitsuru or discourage her (so both options would be available). You just kinda sit there and watch, even after Akihiko say “It was a misunderstanding!” or something. For me it was especially strange because MC was dating Akihiko at that point, so why wouldn’t I try to hear him out? Just struck me as kind of dumb.

If I thought that was dumb, P4 and P5 were out to really make me roll my eyes and sigh in disappointment. Unlike P3, which has most of the scene being pretty good besides the very end where Mitsuru punishes the boys, the P4 and P5 scenes are all bad. This is not the first time anyone has said it, and won’t be the last, but they aren’t funny scenes in the slightest.

In P4, it’s actually the girl’s fault that they’re in the hot springs when the boys walk in. They stayed over their allotted time and into the time when boys are supposed to be in there. So what do they do? Get flustered, yell at them, and throw buckets at the group. Oh, and they don’t listen to the boy’s protests at all. Really.

Who thought this was a good idea?? The girls even realize after that they were in the wrong, say they should apologize, but I don’t think they ever show a scene of them apologizing after. This whole scene, like the hot springs ones in general, are just exaggerated (ie. throwing masses of buckets) to be funny, but they really fail in my opinion. It just serves to make the player kinda angry (since they’re usually on the receiving end) and make the girls look wildly unrealistic and dumb. I have never really thought that needless physical abuse is funny, so these scenes are just the bane of my existence apparently.

There actually isn’t a hot springs scene in P5, but they did add one in Strikers.

If they wanted to still do these scenes, maybe they could switch from making it “just beat up the boys” into something else. For example, the girls could try to peep, or walk in on the boys. Equality y’all, sometimes girls can do those things too (but still don’t beat them up. Just don’t beat anyone up). If none of that happens, or maybe that’s how the scene ends, the rest of the scene could just be a chill, relaxing scene between those involved. Essentially, how the scenes go before the whole “lets beat up the boys” thing comes in.

Lastly, on basically the same vein as why I don’t like the hot springs scenes, I’m starting to get real sick of the “let’s shit on this one character” trope. In Persona 3, I don’t think it’s that bad because they kind of do it with Junpei but they also give him a lot of character development, and eventually the sort of hostile shitting on him turns into just gentle teasing.

For P4 I still don’t think it is too bad, because Yosuke is kind of the one being shit on but he also does the same to the other people in the group? I suppose the only thing that really sticks out to me is how Teddie abuses Yosuke’s wallet (making him buy/pay for a lot of stuff with his hard earned cash), but I also don’t like Teddie at all in the first place so I may be biased about him. Oh well, he still shouldn’t do those things and I don’t really find it funny but to each their own.

However...this problem walks and rocks the fucking runway in Persona 5. Namely, this happens with Ryuji. The most obvious aggressor in this is Morgana, because him and Ryuji butt heads so often, but the other thieves kind of do it as well. Obviously they don’t do this all the time, but it’s extremely frustrating when they do. Morgana getting into arguments with Ryuji at the drop of a hat get old very quick, and the other thieves poking a bit of fun about how dumb Ryuji can be is also not that riveting. Despite all of that, the scene that highlights all of this is the scene after Shido’s palace collapse.

You all knew this was coming, but I couldn’t resist talking about it. The scene is so tone deaf in so many ways that it takes away all of the emotional impact that they were trying to build. Even the first time I watched this scene, in which I didn’t think they would kill off Ryuji, I could still sympathize with the group being concerned about him. Then when he shows up they...just beat him up and leave him unconscious next to a pole while they walk away? Wow.

On all subsequent playthroughs I just skip this scene, but I truly cannot understand why that was the angle they went for. Were they trying to insert some humor right after an emotional scene? That can be done in certain cases, but....why??? It’s so unbelievable it’s almost laughable. It’s not even like the bath scene where the the girls think the guys are trying to peep on them. It’s simply because he survived which I assume is what they wanted!

“Oh no you made us thought you were dead (even though he didn’t because he couldn’t control any of this), we’re going to beat you up!” Now you just make the characters look like irrational idiots.

Seriously Atlus, stop doing this. In most cases it just serves to make the player kind of frustrated, and in this case it it literally takes all of the emotional weight out of the scene and makes me think worse of the entire female cast. Please. Stop.

Well that’s the end of that. I don’t think I said anything too revolutionary, although my opinions about the social links and characterization might get me some flak. I just want the characters to be more than one personality trait... This was a really long post again, so kudos to whoever made it to this point!

Next time, on Dragon Ball Z Casual’s pointless posts: something Persona related :)

[auncyen]

I wrote the two one-shots in my “A Good Deal” set before Royal came out, so originally Morgana vanishing around New Year’s was just meant as an unintended consequence of Ren taking Yaldabaoth’s deal and effectively snuffing out humanity’s hope.  But suddenly yesterday I realized with Royal I could actually still use both those pieces and spin Morgana’s disappearance in a slightly different way--which I had kind of considered before, but didn’t realize it would fit the disappearance so well.

(This is assuming I ever write longfic based on vanilla’s bad ending which lmfao it’s been tempting for a LONG time but I have other fic to finish first)

So even in the original idea, Morgana was never going to be actually killed off.  Most of the Phantom Thieves were going to think he was dead, that since he’d gotten sick after Christmas his disappearance was something like how cats will often hide when sick and that he’d only gotten worse, only for them to find out later on that Ren, believing he couldn’t undo his decision but unwilling to give up on Morgana, had kidnapped Morgana as his condition was getting worse and taken him into the Metaverse, where he was being kept alive somehow.  (Some of the ideas ranged from simply “it’s easier for Morgana to survive in the Metaverse where hunger and thirst etc. stop being things anyway, even if he’s too weak to contact the others” to “Ren’s turmoil over this caused one of his Personas to separate as a shadow that watches over Morgana and keeps him alive”.)

With Royal I really hope there’s eventually fic where Maruki discovers the Metaverse on Christmas Eve...only to realize to his dismay that he can’t take control of Mementos because uh.  whoops.  SOMEONE took a deal to keep Yaldabaoth in charge.  If that fic is out there already someone please tell me.  But anyway.  Ren taking Yaldabaoth’s deal stifles hope, but Morgana knows that there is still some resistance to Yaldabaoth’s rule, in the form of Palace rulers.  They might be distorted, but they have their own hope in the form of their ambition and goals, even if they’re messed up, he just needs to find someone who both has a strong distortion and is hopefully more like Futaba than any other former Palace Ruler. Their hope will help him hold on as he tries to figure things out.

Enter Maruki.  Maruki’s distortion is a better one than Morgana hoped to find; it’s not malicious, and it’s brimming with hope.  A strange form of hope, because he doesn’t seem to trust in humanity’s strength, but then...after Christmas Eve, maybe humans aren’t that strong at all.  Maybe they really do need a ruler?  Just not Yaldabaoth, who’s been cruel with his game.  Maruki would be kind.  Maruki’s been understanding, agreed with Morgana when he insisted Ren didn’t mean to betray anyone by taking the deal but was backed in a corner, reassured Morgana that Ren’s and everyone else’s trauma could be healed if they used Mementos right, and even Morgana wouldn’t have to be a useless cat anymore...!

And basically like.  idk who else exactly would be opposing Ren & Yaldabaoth; could just be the other PT gradually realizing something’s wrong, could be p3/p4 cast members looking at Tokyo and being baffled, could be a mix, but at any rate they eventually realize they need help and are tentatively willing to be helped by one cognitive psience researcher who may be distorted but isn’t malicious.  It’s an odd feeling, using someone’s personal issues as a shelter in the Metaverse, but both the defense and Maruki’s knowledge are very helpful.  But Morgana staying there in human form as Maruki’s assistant, a role he both willingly took and has gradually been affected by distortions to better suit, is off-putting to nearly everyone even if they can’t pinpoint exactly why.  If Morgana identifies himself to everyone, the PT are pretty alarmed that he is now stuck in a Palace because of the state of the broader Metaverse and would like to know why he is so convinced about Maruki’s ability to “save Ren” and what exactly that’s going to mean.  Also, why does he look like that.  If he doesn’t identify himself--because he’s ashamed he couldn’t do more before, or because it’s part of some plan he and Maruki have to slip control of Mementos over to Maruki the second it’s wrested from Yaldabaoth--then everyone is just incredibly weirded out by a cognition that seems too complex for a cognition, that looks a lot like Ren but not quite, and certainly doesn’t act like him and just--who is this.

(deep down on the wishlist is distorted!morgana saying something disparaging about his former self and ryuji being like “eff you, don’t badmouth mona, he ain’t even here”.  Ryuji gets even more annoyed when Maruki’s weird ‘assistant’ starts laughing.)

[arcplaysgames]

didn’t you keep saying you didn’t even like p4g when playing? how is p5r worse? genuine question. is it the pacing/characters/story?

cw: P5R negativity, fans might wanna skip this

I think you missed my final round-ups on P4G because outside very specific criticisms (Izanami being bad writing, the P4MC being an anchor around the throat of the game, and JESUS FUCK THE MUSIC WAS SO BAD) I was overall pretty positive on P4G. It has ups and downs, but the ups far outweigh the downs. I think if you check this blog with /tagged/p4 you'll find my two big Final Thoughts posts. I honestly think P4G gets a bad wrap. I'd give it a final score of, like, 7 out of 10.

It's just not Persona 3 Portable Girl Route, which I still maintain is the best scenario writing and some of the best character writing of the series, and I think the structure is much more solid. Also the music is the best I've heard yet.

P5R, I am currently doing the Kaneshiro Arc and I have recruited Makoto. My issue with P5R is probably three-fold.

One: I think that the cast is dramatically weaker than P4 and P3. Like, I'm kind of shocked at how weak the cast is. So far I like Morgana the most, but I think it was my friend Bane who pointed out that Morgana tends to be a very divisive character because he's such a strong character compared to everyone else. Me, I need this. I desperately need this because I think Ryuji and Ann feel incredibly weak, and while I am thrilled to have Yusuke, he's.... like mid-tier. For P5 he's godtier but he's mid-tier for P4 or P3.

I was talking to a friend and basically said that this game fails the Homestuck Rule of Writing, honestly. Like, when you are writing really distinct characters, one of the best shortcuts is to just.... make them passionate in uncool ways. Give them weird hobbies your audience probably will not share, but let the level of passion they have make them feel stronger.

Like, Chie is obsessed with kung fu, Akihiko and Shinjiro have a running fight about protein vs vegetables that's really funny, and Kanji just keeps a sewing kit on him and will fix people's hems on the street. Remember when Junpei met a gothic lolita girl by the train station who was making art in her own blood and was like "haha awesome you seem cool! Wanna hang out?"

God, I miss Junpei every day.

So far, honestly? No one in P5R passes the Homestuck Test. I keep complaining I need some weirdos and that's what I mean. I am kind of just "ugh" on this idea of "oh so and so gets better" but like. No one in P3 and P4 needed to "get better" (okay except Yukari but her arc fucking rocked).

Two: The technical quality of the writing of this game is so much worse than P3 and P4 imo. It's something i have a hard time explaining and I'm to a point I have just given up on even cataloging it because it feels like I'm complaining about something small, but it's a small thing that keeps happening over and over and over and over, until it's just this overall severe lack of polish to the entire game. Which, when I am dealing with a game that feels as overproduced and maximalist as P5R, having the actual script be this rough in a way that was easily fixable with another pass is just a rock in my shoe.

Three: I am severely fucking torn on the entire concept of Joker. In a way, Joker feels like a direct answer to my biggest criticism of P4G, that the MC was such a non-character, a complete void with nothing to balance the story on, a problem so severe that by midway through, P4G was about Yosuke instead of P4MC. And that sucks. Having a MC with no impetus, only reaction, just didn't suit the structure of P4G.

Now, we have Joker, who frankly is a great character who addresses those complaints perfectly. He has an easily detectable personality, he has more frequent and more interesting dialogue choices, he has quirks and oddities, and he has a compelling backstory that lends itself to the core themes and mysteries of the game.

Except: the Gay Options have been removed.

I was able to play P4G as a homogay from start to finish, which frankly softened some of my anger about the entire experience. Not to be flippant, but Reverie The Fourth's only traits were "calm dude" and "fuckin GAY".

After how queer P4G was, the complete absence of that in P5R is.... isolating and disappointing. It's something I am pushing through but the game's repeated calls for rebellion and pushing against what people think of you feels trite with how relentlessly cishet it all is.

At the end of the day, at the moment, I consider P5R easily the weakest of the Big Three. Maybe my opinion will change! But at the moment it's really not getting better.

I was talking to a friend and I think that the Perfect Persona Game would be

fully gender neutral protagonist, just don't refer to their gender at all, don't gate anything around gender, just don't

the setting of P5R

the cast of P4 or P3

Frankly if you gave me the same game, Persona 5 Royal, but inserted SEES or the Investigation Team, you would have the fucking greatest modern Persona game.

[p5x-theories]

Cast Size Analysis

Story Characters: 7 (4 confirmed, 3 found in files)

Idol Characters: 12 so far

Total: 19

This tracks with the “around 20 characters” claim.  But I think there might be two more we haven’t seen yet.  There are 22 Major Arcana, but Persona reserves World for protagonists at the end of their journey, leaving 21 slots.

Who might the last two be?  Probably story characters.  Vanilla P5 had a party total of nine, and it would make sense for P5X to follow that precedent.

Another possibility is Merope because P4 and P5 had Velvet Room Attendant social links.  But I could also see them pulling an Elizabeth/Theodore with her and not having a link despite being able to take her out.  Because the idea seems to be “Wonder’s Confidants = Phantom Idols” but who knows if Merope will ever enter that pool.

I do want to clarify I can’t actually confirm whether Enco and Polter are story teammates or not just based on them having file codenames, so that’s still speculation. But it does seem more likely, given as you’ve laid out here, we’re... sort of running out of character “slots”, haha! 

I was thinking the same thing as you were about the number of Arcana, but I suppose P5X could also pull in some of the extra arcana (Aeon, Jester, Hunger, Faith, Councilor, Apostle, Hope) that’ve been used in the series too if they wanted, thinking about it. But they’re probably going to save those for characters/events they might add on later, like the main series does. So 21 Confidants sounds about right.

That all said, I do think it’s a safe bet to assume P5X will probably have about the same number of story teammates as P5, or maybe one less given that there were only three teammates for the first Palace. So I think you’re right there’s probably at least one more story teammate we don’t know about, if not two!

Your point about Merope is interesting as well; she is a confirmed Confidant (she’s listed on the various Confidant-related menus in-game), but now that you mention it, it would be a little strange if she were the only Confidant that wasn’t also a Phantom Idol... but, then again, you can always just excuse it as her being literally the one making them, as well, I suppose. So I’m not sure what I’m expecting with her.

[frosteee]

Undertaker and the Dispatch Conspiracy Theory

@frederickabberline 

So I loved your discussion about UT and a possible conspiracy within the grim reaper dispatch that I went through the manga and found some bits and pieces which, I feel, support the theory.

[Long ass post under cut]

Background

For those who are unfamiliar, the theory is that UT had discovered something damning about the grim reaper organisation that caused him to defect. 

This discovery, we post, is that the forgiveness all reapers are promised is a lie, perhaps even extending to the idea of salvation in general, disillusioning UT and morphing him into the individual we know today. Full details can be found in the awesome ongoing discussion by @frederickabberline, @midnight-in-town​ et al. 

Because of this, UT is experimenting with creating a definite ‘after’ to the end that is death, because the ones he previously believed in, like the P4 did tradition, like the Watchdogs did duty, was fake and only fit to create a cycle of misery. He currently believes himself incapable of salvation, and so creating immortal Phantomhives is the only way he can possibly be with them.

I believe that several aspects of UT’s personality as we know it support this.

UT’s interest in breaking free of fixed, unchangeable fate.

We are shown as far back as Chapter 13 that UT has particular interest in the concept of destiny, commenting that the tie between O!Ciel (and the entire house of Phantomhive by extension) and Queen Victoria is like a ‘chain of fate’, and gets quite angry when O!Ciel declares that he put himself in that position willingly. 

Grabbing Ciel by the tie and holding him there is the most directly aggressive we’ve seen UT towards O!Ciel, besides the time on the Campania when UT used him to bait Sebastian, so it seems that comment irked him.

From this it appears he holds a bit of resentment towards O!Ciel for so willingly following the path towards death and damnation.

He also seems to hold similar frustration towards the rest of the Phantomhives for ignoring his warnings and following the cursed path of the Watchdog to the grave.

He is highly amused by twists, and takes great satisfaction in the unexpected, especially when it goes against the grain. Like, for example, when Undertaker is surrounded by enemies on the Campania and he wonders which of them is truly the hunted party.

This before rapidly changing things around and making it no longer a one-sided hunt of an outnumbered rabbit but a struggle to take down a powerful hunter. In this arc, everyone is second-guessing and while UT is the one with the most control over proceedings (with his element of surprise), even in that scenario there were events he could not see coming (e.g.: the iceberg) that he had to work with/around.

Essentially, he enjoyed the unpredictability of the situation, where multiple powerful forces were clashing to decide the end. Fate was in all their hands.

What UT finds amusing also seems to revolve around this idea. 

He is amused by two things:

Those who do terrible things to keep the status quo, like the P4 in their murders, which causes UT to burst out laughing after the full story is revealed. The P4 probably remind UT of who he used to be as a model grim reaper - the rigidness of their thinking, repeating the mantra that tradition and rules ‘are everything’ most definitely reminded him of his former life and the ‘grim reaper code’ he lived by. Hell, William is currently the ‘rule-abiding/spouting’ grim reaper of the bunch.

Those who go against the grain in unexpected but positive/game-changing ways. In the same arc, for example, UT comments on O!Ciel’s decision to save Harcourt from the attacking zombies, as such as a selfless act would never have occurred to his more selfish, pragmatic ancestors. 

In short, UT is pleased to see actions taken by people, most notably the Phantomhives, that break from the acts/mindset that killed those who came before, and scorns those who try to keep things the same no matter the cost and meet terrible fates.

This also extends to R!Ciel, who I talk about in this post in relation to the Evil Twin theory, where R!Ciel is a direct participant/accomplice to his parents’ murder. I theorised that to create a perfect record, while having only ‘future desires’ and a soulless body to work with, UT had to improvise by splicing what he knew of R!Ciel’s past onto the boy’s record, thus creating memories/knowledge of his past and the ability to function off that. 

However, this combined with R!Ciel’s ‘yearning for the future’ records also created a boy who was all too willing to replace O!Ciel as Watchdog and basically resume the terrible march towards danger and death that UT had worked so hard to avoid. His and Tanaka’s reaction to R!Ciel’s announcement that he will resume Watchdog/Earl duties reflects this, I think. 

As far as UT is concerned, R!Ciel is making the same mistake as O!Ciel by following the path set out for him from birth, like all Phantomhives.

Then, finally, there’s UT’s interest/obsession with the ‘predetermined end’ that death entails, screwing with which is the driving force of his actions so far, he claims.

It feels strange for a grim reaper to be so curious about that. After all, he has died himself, and entered a sort of limbo existence which, while a punishment, is basically an afterlife. 

Grim reapers are promised forgiveness, which can be paired with salvation and entry into Heaven. Demons also exist, which live in an alternate realm not (as far as I know) stated as Hell, but considering souls can be eaten by the demons who live there, so perhaps that is also a destination for souls when they die?

In any case, it would seem strange for a grim reaper to not have knowledge of some sort of afterlife, other than their own, to which souls can go to. 

Unless the reapers are simply told it exists, and that they can go there if they ‘serve their time’ - and that the reality is very different. 

With this idea in mind, it makes a lot of sense for UT to be a staunch advocate for breaking the chain of fate the Phantomhives are under, to the extent that death itself is overturned, because he never wants to lose another Phantomhive again, as he now believes that reuniting with them in the afterlife is impossible. 

UT is so dead set against the idea of following the status quo and one’s ‘fate’ that he is ready and willing to rock the very world ‘The Superior’ governs.

UT’s focus on lies/deception.

UT also appears to be quite focused on lies and deception, either to oneself or others. We first glimpse this in the Circus Arc, where he tells Ciel to take care of his soul, for he only has the one. When Ciel responds that he already knows that, UT questions that (’Boy I know you be talkin shiiiiit~!’). 

Then later in the arc, he confirms his own belief - that Ciel cannot/does not know the true weight of what he is losing by continuing down his cursed path, that Ciel is lying to himself in order to continue down it. This is clearly part of his frustration with the Phantomhives as a whole, that they keep lying to themselves in order to keep going towards a fate that only continues its destructive cycle.

Really, all of the people UT has laughed at are lying to others or themselves, or both, in order to justify destructive, morally bankrupt and questionable beliefs and actions. Ciel, the P4, Rian Stoker, etc., etc.

UT is also very concerned with the idea of people lying to others for their own benefit, as all reapers, according to the theory, are lied to.

The people who most reflect UT’s past situation are the Noah’s Arc circus troupe, who were deceived by their trusted elder, Kelvin, that in order to maintain/achieve happiness they had to dirty their hands and continue doing terrible things with no knowledge of when it will end.

Similarly, UT also continued to perform a (literally) punishing and emotionally traumatic task to the best of his ability on the orders of an overseer for the sake of eventual happiness that he discovered to be a false promise. While some of them may have believed Kelvin to be evil and perhaps lying to them, like Joker, they continued anyway because lying was the only way they could handle the weight of what they had done.

It might not be so much of a coincidence that UT begins and ends his role in that arc by pointing out the cost of self-deception/being deceived. He would know - he and all reapers are lied to and effectively kept as eternal slaves and then possibly either killed or damned in some way, but never actually ‘retired’ to Heaven.

Speaking of which, UT specifically notes that one of the most beautiful things about his bizarre dolls is the fact that they no longer have the capacity to tell lies. 

Of course, this is all said with the knowledge that UT himself has/had told plenty of lies himself, and is probably deceiving himself that his goal, which is probably impossible, is possible. It’s the only thing keeping him going, after all, and UT is not without hypocrisy. 

Hey, he never denied that he had a few screws loose!

UT and Sebastian’s differing views on death being ‘the end’.

Finally, the big one, UT and Seb’s very different views on death as an end. We don’t know Sebastian’s views on the afterlife, or if souls can be cast into his realm like Hell, or if there is a Heaven, but regardless Sebastian believes that a ‘definitive, hopeless end’ has beauty in it.

In response, UT only smiles, but says nothing in response, perhaps not wanting to give away too much personal information at this time. He does not agree, and his actions and words have proven just how much he disagrees.

UT, according to the theory, has entirely lost faith in forgiveness and salvation after death - at least for himself as a grim reaper. Why else would he go through so much trouble to extend life indefinitely? Why would he create a form of immortality for the living Phantomhives he could hope to see again...

Unless he believes he cannot.

Unless he believes he has lost the ones who have died forever, and that the only thing he can do for the ones he has lost is keep mementos of them (like the prayer lockets, which he treasures).

All reapers are promised forgiveness and, it’s implied, salvation in Heaven or something similar. If this was the case, if UT did not have reason to suspect otherwise, why would he bother defecting, when he could just be a model grim reaper for x amount of time and then join his loved ones once he has served his time?

Clearly, UT once believed that death was beautiful, but not because it was the end. Because there was an ‘after’ that he could aspire to and meet those he lost. He cannot agree with Sebastian’s ‘beauty in an end’ idea because to him, a hopeless end is just that - hopeless, miserable, lonely. 

The death Sebastian speaks of means only eternal slavery, loneliness, hoping for salvation that never comes. Maybe once he believed death being the end to one’s life was beautiful in its way, as Will discovered in the grim reaper OVA, but not anymore.

Hope this makes sense and gives some food for thought!