#its kinda hard not to when shes dating Their junpei

[proxythe]

Hi me again tell us about our favorite lolita lady Chidori Yoshino

in what way ?? i assume u mean hcs so let me crack my knuckles n get to work

first of all this ask i got a bit ago about p4au/post canon chidori is basically how ive begun to view her in my head so big shout out to this anon. we miss u & ur chidori brain

another thing i mentioned in this same ask, and an idea i’ve generally fallen in love w, is chidori growing on everyone & becoming their friend whether she likes it or not 😭 since we barely see chidori after she survives, & barely see her outside the context of the plot and conflict, it’s hard to get an accurate grasp on how she would act in a situation where she’s allowed to be like. Normal basically

i think she would be withdrawn and not much of a talker, somewhat irritable, but having the freedom and space to do what she wants i think would make her softer. + junpei trying his hardest to be the best bf in the world for her would ease her nerves and anxieties bc he’s so silly she cant even be mad. gets her flowers every week (picturing junpei looking up the meaning of certain flowers so he can pick out good ones for her) (i think yukari would also be there helping him out, fuuka also probably)

speaking of yukari & fuuka, to elaborate more on when i brought up everyone else beginning to like chidori, i think yukari & fuuka would probably be the first ones to attempt to get to know her. again, kicking junpei out of his own apt so they can hang out with his girlfriend… it’s too perfect. i mentioned that i think yukari would love chidoris style because it’s so different, and i still stand by that. meanwhile fuuka would prob be more interested in her art, but either way, they would show an interest in her & i think chidori would eventually let her guard down enough to become friends w them. tho, i still think yukari would probably do most of the talking, fuuka weighing in a lot, and then chidori says like 3 words per hangout 😭 they love her

i think everyone else would def treat her with respect bc she’s junpei’s girlfriend, & she’d be a little confused at first at how nice they are to her. i can actually imagine her and aigis chilling bc i feel like both of them can (chidori would get to this point imo) appreciate more of the beauty in life and the world & whatnot, so they don’t really even need to talk. just sit and bask in the world

mitsuru aki & shinji (considering hes alive as well) would like her methinks. tho i feel they’d prob talk to her the least. what she did for junpei (giving her life to him) would prob make aki like her a lot LMFAO i think out of the three, he’d probably be the one to have a soft spot for her. i can also picture ken & koro hanging out at their apt for junpei but ken has no clue how to talk to her & she doesnt know how to talk to kids so they just awkwardly hang out around each other. koro loves her tho. she finds out shes good with animals (and any living thing)

[petorahs]

i'm just gonna: ☀️ anon. There.

Anyway: I can see where you're coming from and like I said it has been forever since I played the Answer and I don't /hate/ it. But I guess I always had an issue with Yukari, because she seemed to me needlessly mean to others sometimes? Like she was right and others are wrong so its fine if she can be mean? But that is just what I /remember/. And while yeah, characters are allowed to be mean and not perfect and allways kind, especially female characters, because GOD FORBID women do anything- it also doesn't mean I have to LIKE her. I guess it's because to me Yukari felt like someone who would unironically call someone having fun "cringe", which for me personally is a dealbreaker. But Persona ALWAYS had this issue with having the male bestie be the buttmonkey of jokes, some kind of pervert and dunked on by the other characters and Junpei is still having it the best?? (Yosuke, Ryuji, you boys deserved so so much better).

In any case, I guess I couldnt give her as much leeway or credit because her personality didn't really mesh with me. But now being older I also think that it is BECAUSE of the writing. Persona Games have all extremely low points and extreme high points. The entire first palace is great in persona 5, Persona 4s social links with the Dojima family are really gripping and persona 3 is still one of my faves because it just came at the very right time in my life. (Who would've thought that a game about DEATH as its core theme would SAVE me.) But the writing is not always very consistent and the characters really suffer for it, usually for very stupid reasons like """""humor""""". I guess I am just trying to say that I get what you mean, but Yukari is just not my fave so I guess it is easier for me to lose patience. Like there are characters I'd go to war for in the persona series, so its easier for me to see the GOOD writing aspects, while others might greatly dislike them and therefore have a far easier time seeing the writing from more negative perspectives.

But your analysis has really given me some food for thought. I will definitely try to pay it more attention on a replay!

Oh ONE MORE THING!!!

It always felt like Yukari was pushed as a sort of "main love interest" which always kinda felt off to me when persona games do that. maybe its because i am gay and therefore see myself more representated by same sex couples/queer couples, maybe its because the persona developers believe men and women cant just be friends it always has to be something romantic, maybe its because the romantic writing always seemed forced and reliant on little events like in a romance shoujo manga- idk, but that was also something that rubbed me the wrong way. But that has been issues in P3-P5 throughout. And i feel like p3 got it the worst??? At least in later games you could opt for just a friendship even tho the writing still made it APPARENT THAT THE GIRLS ARE IN LOVE WITH YOU SPECIAL BOY!!! Sorry Yukari, that's not really your fault, thats a systemic fault.

yoo valid as hell though i get wym. if the character isnt for you then they arent for you and again, im not here to convince you otherwise of anything!

when you say it like that i can see why yukari's a bit of a mixed bag. i still like her tho she kinda a baddie and as a guy i like when girls are kinda mean to me so agree to disagree

ah yes the persona lovers arcana girl suffering from pushed "main love interest" syndrome.. i havent played any other aside from p3 and p5 but i heard rise gets worse. but like you said it is a systemic fault. to be real with you none of the romance options in p3 really enticed me despite 3 being hailed as ""the best dating sim"" out of all three modern games. maybe i just need to play portable. or be able to romance ryoji as makoto lmaoo (i saw a screenshot with ryoji saying he'd like you regardless of gender and. 😭 thanks for nothing i guess atlus?)

hard agree on the persona series as a whole having a tendency of doing something really good but then!!........ not. sticking the landing at all. theres so much to be said about it god these games are a hot mess on average its funny. as much as i adooore it, p3's pacing was so ass that i got severe tonal whiplash on oct 4. couldnt even begin to grieve cause i was so shocked

if you ever replay the answer (which. godspeed to you thats a whole grindfest i wouldnt wish on my worse enemy) i hope youre able to have fun and find new things about it to like! overall we can agree that its good so theres that. talk to you soon o7

[dolgelo]

ROMANCE HEADCANONS 

NAME:  Mitsuru Kirijo NICKNAME:  Senpai, President of student council, Miss/Milady, Imperious Queen Of Executions and also “Mitchan” by Teddie in PQ. GENDER:  Female. ROMANTIC/SEXUAL ORIENTATION:  Demiromantic & demisexual. While I think she’s leaning on boys considering her Social Link and words, I doubt she’d ever think of commitments of that kind without having a solid bond with the other party before. PREFERRED PET NAMES:  She really doesn’t care much for nicknames and such but she generally does not like most of them. The Imperious-Queen-Of-Executions and Mitchan have shown her actively not liking them. If she is especially close to the other party involved and the nickname does not comprehend execution jokes, she may close an eye or two. May or may not have grown fond of the idea Akihiko would have called her “princess” back in middle school days when he didn’t still call her by her first name just to tease her. 

RELATIONSHIP STATUS:  Canon-ly speaking she’s “sitting alone on her icy throne” – if we must take Arena games for accurate. I usually portray her confused and crushing relatively hard depending on the partner and the situation, but that’s not too different from the reality coming out of her Social Link interactions. Mitsuru speaks of a very important person in her life during the Arena ending, which may be a hint at a past relationship with the Protagonist or the fiancé drama she went through. The spicy tension between her and Akihiko as adults is fun to write. FAVORITE CANON SHIP:  She has no canon ships, my friends. No one does in Persona but Junpei and Chidori. The hints at my favs tho... the hints hidden in books... cowards... FAVORITE NON-CANON SHIP:  I am a proud Akimitsu ambassador until my dying day, I just love them too much. And if you’d let me do this, I would talk about them nonstop for days. The fact p3 and its spinoffs, novels, books and other merchandise made this ship walk on the thin line between canon and not are also fueling my soul so much you guys, you need to know it. So I’m really not sure whether the place for this ship is in this section, actually.

OPINION ON TRUE LOVE:  Growing up I feel Mitsuru came to think that it’s something almost unattainable, that there’s not such a thing as that unless you search for it in novels and romance books. The idea of finding a perfect partner is rather alien to her after all she had to endure, yet also mainly for mere lack of time and patience; secondly, her heritage and family name don’t make things easier for her on that front - which makes her pretty melancholic when it comes to love and descriptions of it. Still, she remains definitely the romantic type. True love may be as fortuitous as finding a precious gem somewhere -- hard but not impossible. She is not searching actively for that but, also due to her Arcana-based traits, is comparable to a great blessing and stroke of gratuitous luck. OPINION ON LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT:  That’s even worse than true love for her. She’d consider it something more keen to a mere infatuation - typical of youngsters or of people with no interests in deepening a bond beforehand. Since she never experienced it, Mitsuru bases the phenomenon on a hormonal illusion / physical appearance and beauty taking heed of one’s mind and nothing more. Well, she’s more of a brain-type anyway and always will remain so... but with age, she might come to understand what triggers “love at first sight” slightly more, and maybe to excuse it even. She falls in love just with people she know she can trust and that mentally would be able to challenge her own skills and... yeah, kids, max your Academics. HOW ‘ROMANTIC’ ARE THEY?:  Mitsuru can be too romantic at times-- a fact that deeply embarrasses the girl. For the longest time, she’s been reading romance novels of all ages and times, developing one idealistic version of the sentiment behind it and the dynamics two lovers have, according to classic literature. It’s a wrong impression but that’s all she was allowed to know of, I guess. I often repeat that she kinda feels in love with the idea of being in love, and being loved back, more than the idea of sharing her life and intimacy with a person so close to her -- she’s not experienced and she has her own thoughts, but that doesn’t mean it won’t change as time passes.

IDEAL PHYSICAL TRAITS:  Well, Mitsuru is a pro-fencer and is extremely dedicated to physical appearance and beauty. She’d love someone who puts great care in that, it’d mirror a part of her she holds very dearly, so it’s easy to imagined it. IDEAL PERSONALITY TRAITS:  Definitely intelligence and positive academic curiosity. It all fascinates her, with the possibility of being committed with someone as dedicated to studies as she is. Again, study harder, kids, and Mitsuru might notice you. UNATTRACTIVE PHYSICAL TRAITS:  Not actually physical but it is definitely not a personality trait. It’s headcanon time: I have always thought Mitsuru would have, BUT ONLY during her teen years, not have minded much someone smoking  ( perhaps with her fiancé also smoking too, eh, we don’t really know much ). She wouldn’t have minded not because she’s a rebel^TM, nor because she’d smoke herself -- quite the contrary, instead. Having developed a sort of “Electra complex” for her father  ( unfortunately confirmed by the books too ),  and being her father a smoker too, I hc’d she wouldn’t have been bothered by this trait, in a partner, simply because it would have reminded her of Takeharu. BUT. But. But. Actually, with years, the indifference faded away and she does not want someone actively smoking next to her – it is also a big unhealthy habit, and again, Mitsuru being an athlete would really care about it too. UNATTRACTIVE PERSONALITY TRAITS:  Basically all that her fiancé proves to be when scolding her for hesitating before a date: being arrogant, a liar, someone way too domineering - for the wrong reasons - and controlling, and so on.

DO THEY HAVE A TYPE?  Yes, she does and you can’t deny it. AVERAGE RELATIONSHIP LENGTH:  Oh no, she has zero true experiences, because the fiancé arrangement is just a source of angst for her - something she did not choose for herself but simply accepted to go through for the well-being of her Group. She never saw herself into it due to his “asshole-ry” but she’s not the type who’d be down for small adventures or quite insignificant flirts. She commits, one way or another. So be warned. Red cranes only have a partner, jan... PREFERRED NON-SEXUAL INTIMACY:  Probably intimate, soft touching, stroking or playing with her hair  /  the other’s hair. Do you know how much care she puts on the beauty of her hair ?  Mitsuru letting someone else touch her curls would be a sign of complete trust and love. She’s not too fond of hugs or frequent contact per se unless she gets used to them, which may require time.  COMMITMENT LEVEL:  As I said before, she’d give all she can for her partner, and with no reserves. Almost to extreme levels, ahah. Her trust and love have to be conquered through tears and sweat. She will haunt your dreams and never forgive you if you don’t do the same for her and still proclaim yourself to be her second half. She’s not spoiled or anything - she’s definitely not a primadonna too. but she wants love and romance to be true if really pursued, all of it, 100%, and if you’re sure of it as she is, then why are you even bothering ?  She’s Mitsuru hecking Kirijo, my dudes.  OPINION ON PUBLIC AFFECTION:  Did someone order a flustered Mitsuru saying nonsense out of sheer frustration ?  If said public signs of affection are almost hidden, too-subtle-for-you or happening in not crowded spaces -- or simply at home, when no one can see her, then perhaps she may close an eye or two. She’s not as bold as that. Stroking of hands, very gentle hand-holding... that is alright, but kisses or anything more than that is seriously borderline for her... unless it’s somewhere closed and private where no one can see you.   PAST RELATIONSHIPS:  Well, Mitsuru ended the marriage agreement before it was too late like a true boss, so don’t test her, she’ll make you cry. Aside from that, nothing relevant as I said before – mc’s relationship with her might have happened but has never been confirmed and the fact it ends right a couple of days before Nyx will always irk me ahahah 

TAGGED:  stolen oleh TAGGING:  @sabazio  @enshijou  @aragakisan  and whoever

[doktorpeace]

coffee emoji + Persona

I’m a big fan of Persona as an overall series, I actually just started Innocent Sin the other day so I can finally get P2 under my belt. As a whole the mainline franchise does a great job writing meaningful stories full of great character interactions which all serve to accent each entry’s core themes. Persona 3 has some of the strongest and most consistent writing of any RPG I've ever played with regards to quality and execution on its themes, which is a big part of why it's my favorite one. All of the members of SEES change meaningfully as characters by the end of just the base game, not to mention additional content like The Answer, or the Persona 4 Arena Duology (which, funnily, are way better through the lenses of the P3 cast than the P4 cast), and especially more niche but still canon content like the Drama CDs which do a great job of filling the listener in on what the other members do while Minato is away or sick or asleep. Spoilers: They're really gay and not in a queerbaiting way either. Did you ever think it's out of nowhere that Yukari and Mitsuru are dating at the end of Persona 4 Arena Ultimax? These explain how they started dating and also talk about Akihiko and Shinjiro's relationship in romantic terms, comparing it directly to Junpei and Chidori's. Basically, Junpei is canonically the Token Straight of SEES and I think that's wonderful.That said the franchise really botches it at times. Persona 4 especially fucks up by directly undermining its own core theme of ‘Be true to yourself’ with its treatment of almost every playable character. Like, seriously: Yukiko decides to abandon her dreams to do what she's told when that's what her whole social link is about not doing. Kanji is openly bisexual now but his sexuality still treated as a joke by Yosuke and Teddie. Rise decides to abandon her beliefs and just keep working in the idol industry because other people want her to. Yosuke was written as a closeted gay teenager but had all of his gay content locked away from access despite being finished and on the disc. And most especially Naoto, who they build up as a very good representation of a trans man with a strong personal narrative arc but the INSTANT he joins your party everyone's like "But you're really a girl, right?" and then in order to get him to date you you have to CONSTANTLY undermine his gender identity and what he's comfortable with. It's shitty content and really inexcusable regardless of what game it were to be in but ESPECIALLY because of this game's core themes.And that all is genuinely really sad and infuriating because 4′s plot and all of its NPC social links are REALLY good! There’s still a lot to enjoy there but like, damn if it isn’t disheartening how they got so scared to letting characters meaningfully change and/or be gay that they were actively willing to ruin the main theme of the game. The franchise after 3 really kind of has an issue with letting playable characters meaningfully grow and change and also with LGBT content in general, with some minor examples being good like Lala Escargot, but otherwise just removing it altogether unless it's for Jokes™ which aren't funny and are based on annoying stereotypes. Not even 3 is perfect about this but at least almost every adult member of SEES is canonically LGBT and good representation so I can kind of excuse how bad that one scene is. I've heard 2 is actually quite progressive even by today's standards and from what I know about it it is, so I'm excited to see how it handles this kind of content.Honestly, Atlus used to be really cutting edge and daring with the kinds of themes and content they were willing to put into Persona but ever since 4 hit it big and the franchise got mainstream attention they've been kind of cowardly about it. P5 is a big step up from P4 in terms of overall writing quality, the party members are more interesting and are allowed to change at least a little bit by the game's end but it still fucks up more than I'd like. Its representation of mental illness and people on the spectrum are quite nice in my opinion but it still won't let you be gay even though Yusuke has the most unique dates of any character in the game! Come on, AT LEAST let us date Yusuke who already reads VERY MUCH as more than friends. Also make Ryuji a romance option and don't make Akechi a romance option because I don't want that shit. I want good characters to be romanceable.The spinoffs are all kinda just there to me. Like, they're a decent enough distraction but they absolutely do not have the love and quality put into the writing for me to really have much fun with them. Characters who were already kind of flat like Chie become really annoying and characters who WERE really well developed and three dimensional like Akihiko still get reduced to just 'Musclehead Protein Man' which is fucking stupid. Only P4A and P4AU really do any of the characters justice in terms of writing quality but even then only really the P3 Cast and Naoto get good and interesting story content. Everyone else just get schlock. So whatever. P4A and P4AU are super fun to play though, mechanically they did an excellent job realizing each character in a way that feels authentic to their personality, if not their gameplay niche, in their home games. I can only hope P5A doesn't have some bullshit timeline thing to get the P4 characters out of aging and advancing as people. They NEED the treatment P4A gave SEES. Show me out of shape middle manager at Junes 24 year old Yosuke, Atlus you fucking cowards. There's so much room for advancement and growth with these characters but at the same time I know they either won't do it by introducing some dumb timeline bullshit OR they'll fuck it up and like, make Naoto a big tiddie ultra femme looking person to REALLY try and tell us "NO REALLY NAOTO IS CIS IGNORE HIS ENTIRE CHARACTER ARC AND ALL OF HIS WRITING IN PERSONA 4 AND ALSO HOW IN PERSONA 4 GOLDEN WE LEANED EVEN HARDER INTO THE TRANS NARRATIVE WITH HIS ADDITIONAL CONTENT"You can always count on the gameplay to advance and get better at least, so that's nice. I'm not really gonna discuss that though other than to say P3 not letting you directly control party members serves its themes and writing well and isn't even hard to play around if you just use the Command Wheel to issue orders to your party members, the AI is pretty smart. Not Xenoblade Chronicles 1 smart, but still pretty fuckin' smart.Anyway, basically, I like Persona a lot as a franchise. It's a flawed franchise that I want and expect better out of than what it delivers in some aspects but on the whole it's hard to deny the quality of the overall products. I just hope that Atlus listens to the kind of feedback they've been getting in the last few years and really start becoming more daring again with the kind of content they put into the games again. Go harder on those themes and really challenge people's mindsets, this franchise has so much potential for that and it just scratches the surface really.Oh, also, Persona fans on the whole are some of the absolute dumbest motherfuckers I've ever seen on the internet. They'll really ignore blatant shit that's extremely clear just because it wasn't said in such plain wording a child would understand it while jumping through 70 mental rings to try and explain how Kanji isn't REALLY gay or how Naoto is ACTUALLY cis or how Akechi is actually the deepest most amazing character in the franchise, or whatever. That and/or they're just straight men who use the term 'waifu' and just reduce all of the female characters to 'which one do I want to fuck most' while ignoring everything else about the games because all they value these for are as dating simulators to try and fill the sad, gaping hole that is their social life. Some of them will actually get mad at people for discussing the psychological or political aspects of the series as if that's not what this IP is founded on because they're too stupid to think of anything other than which fictional underaged girl they want to fuck. Persona fans are fucking stupid and really make it embarrassing to like this franchise at times.This basically turned into me yelling about LGBT content in Persona but honestly that’s like, the aspect that needs the most constructive criticism. The psychological, theological, and political themes are generally really well handled. Worth discussion for sure but not what I want to talk about right now.

[cosmiciaria]

Persona 3 PS2 and PSP consoles Review! (Spoiler free)

Persona 3 may very well be my favorite game on Earth, so this review is going to be nothing but PRAISE (except for one tiny complaint I have). But, hey, you may question, which Persona 3 is your favorite? Because, we have, like, two Persona 3. And that's right, folks: the original Persona 3 for the PS2 (and its expansion, FES), and the Persona 3 Portable for the PSP, released about four years later and after Persona 4 (and I say all this because the portable version adds MANY changes that were introduced in P4). I've played both, and now I'll elaborate on which I believe is the best version of the game and why.

But first, let's talk about Persona series for a bit. It's a spin off titles series from the main Shin Megami Tensei franchise, you know, those RPGS that are hard as hell, and whose normal mode is actually hard mode on every other game, and whose hard mode is actually chaos mode on every other game, and you get to negotiate with demons and recruit them into your party and… yeah, yeah, those games! Well, guess what: in Persona games, you don't fight demons, you fight shadows, and the demons you used to negotiate with in the SMT games, are now summons that you, Almighty High-Schooler Speshual Snowflake Main Character, can bring forth to fight evil and stuff. Pretty amazing, tho!

Persona 3 may be the darkest of the Persona Series. I can't personally speak for the first two Personas (I've read Persona: Revelations manga, to see where it all began, and tried to play Persona 2, but… don't kill me… I didn't… like the gameplay much… and the random encounters… and… well, you get me… although I know what happens at the end). Characters here must shoot their heads with a gun-like tool to summon their Personas, as if they have to break something inside of them to call them forth. People can transform into shadows, in a very, very gross way. The game revolves around 'death', and it's a tragedy after a tragedy after a tragedy. Not even the shiest and most sunshine character has a happy backstory. It's all about tears, sacrifice and effort. AND THAT'S AWESOME!

So, the story remains largely the same among the two versions of the game. However (and this is a big 'however') there are BIG changes from P3 FES to P3P.

In the original Persona 3 and its expansion for the PS2, you can only play as the Male Protagonist. People have been calling him Minato Arisato (like in the manga), but with the arrival of the movies, his name has shifted to Makoto Yuki, and I'll call him Makoto from now on in order to differentiate him more easily from the other Main Protagonist I'll speak in a second about.

So, Makoto's story is the canon one.  He's the one appearing in the Labyrithin… Q… or… however that game's name is written, for the 3DS, a crossover between Persona 3 and Persona 4. He's also the character referenced in Persona 4 Arena and Arena Ultimax (you know, when P3 characters say things like 'you remind me of him…'). He's the guy in the movies, yes, the boy with blue hair and lost light blue eyes. He's kinda the silent protagonist we're used to in SMT games, the cool and collected character, who everyone loves and you don't know why, because he barely opens his mouth throughout the story… hey, I'm not hating on him. In fact, I enjoyed playing as him: he's the noble type, the one who would go all out to save others. I did like him better in the movies, I won't lie: they made him funnier there, somehow aloof but in a hilarious way, and he even laughs, which made me go like 'woah, wait'.

I did have a problem with him, and it's that I've played the original version of the game after finishing the P3P version. And I found myself angry. You know, in Persona games, there's this mechanic called 'Social Links' (Cooperation I think they're called in Persona 5, and in Persona 2 they were just conversations during battles), which is a big aspect of the gameplay. They're events you can have with certain characters, with whom you can build a relationship: a friendly one, or a romantic one. It turns out, I didn't enjoy Makoto's Social Links at all. Except for the one with Mitsuru (NOTICE ME SENPAI), the other Social Links felt pointless, and added little to no character development for the characters we did have genuine interest for. The thing is that these Social Links work also as a love mechanic thing, similar to light novels in Japan, and Makoto could only have Social Links with her female party members, and Atlus forgot about the male party members that, you know, ARE IMPORTANT TO THE STORY AS WELL AND NEED CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT TOO!!

Aside from the Social Link's troubles, the PS2 version of the game is harder. Harder in the 'I won't make it easy for you, player' way. I'm not talking about difficulties, I'm talking about the aspects of the dungeon crawling. Tartarus is your main tower dungeon and the only place in which you'll fight shadows, and it has over 250 floors. The game won't remember the last floor in which you've trained, so the only way of advancing through the tower is accessing and activating the big teleport points (THE BIG ONES, NOT THE SMALL ONES) that are scattered every ten or twelve floors, and that precede the mini floor boss. You'll say: hey, it's fine, I can do ten floors each night I go to Tartatus, but you know what? Your characters can get easily tired, and they won't fight as good as you'd like to, and if you go back to the first floor to replenish your health and spirit points, they will leave your party because you're a bastard who has overdone them, poor little souls! So, if you were expecting to completely grind ten floors each night, you're gonna have a bad time. The best strategy is to avoid shadow-contact for as many floors as you can (that involves running around looking for the staircase to go up in a maze without touching a single shadow) and once Fuuka tells you that you're about to arrive to a big force or whatever the hell she senses, start training: it means the big teleport thing is just two or three floors above you. That was how I got through the freaking Tower of Demise, f*ck it.

But that's not just it! In the PS2 version you can't control your party members, you just control Makoto. You can give them orders though: to heal/support, to go all out without minding their health, to wait because sometimes they're useless as hell or won't help you defeat the monster… but it's still very random. When you give them the order to heal, you have to pray to Zeus that they heal the character you're expecting to be healed. Sometimes they'd heal one of them instead of Makoto, and guess what, Makoto's the one who has to survive, because when he dies, YES, it's game over! But maybe they thought that saving Junpei was more important! AREN'T VIDEOGAMES FUN?

The same goes for any other order. You hope they use magic, but instead they go for melee attacks and that kind of stuff. It can get really frustrating, but it's also really strategic: you have to make the most of every order you give, and also hope that Makoto doesn't fall or gets hit by his weakness, because that's a wasted turn in which the other characters will go on with the previous orders given that may be not useful anymore.

Speaking of wasted turns… yes, characters can fall by getting hit by their weaknesses or by a critical hit, and you'll have to wait one turn for them to stand up again and be useful, that if they don't fall AGAIN. Fun, fun, fun.

All of these ‘bad’ (let’s just say that they are uncomfortable) features… are not present in the Portable version. They took the best things they could get from Persona 4 and dumped them into this new version of the game: you are now in full control of your characters; you can still give them orders, but you can give also the 'direct commands', which lets you play as them. Tartarus now remembers the last floor you've been to, so it's not a fight against time and the tiredness of your characters anymore. They no longer waste a turn when they fall: as soon as you regain control of them, they stand up and are ready to fight. The 'tired' status doesn't affect them much anymore: they can only get tired once you leave Tartarus, so you can train all you want and screw their bodies out of them, because you're the leader and you can choose when to leave the dungeon, motherfrickers! The only drawback is that your health and spirits points won't replenish if you go back to the first floor, but I believe it's a small price to pay.

So, now, I'm done with complaining about poor blue Makoto. It's not his fault that his Social Links are dull (most of them, others are… quite interesting if you know what I mean), and that his gameplay in the PS2 version hates on the player. It's time to introduce the other Main Protagonist, who appears in the Portable version: the Female Protagonist.

The Fem Prot was given also two names: the first one was Hamuko, which I believe derives from the Japanese and it has something to do with the word 'female'. But if you don't quite dig that name, she's been also called Minako Arisato by fans, the counterpart of Makoto's manga name. I'm going for Minako here, because that was the first name I saw of her and I kinda like it more than Hamuko.

Minako’s story is not canonical, and that hits me right my heart, because many, MANY things were done better in her playthrough. The game story remains the same: a bunch of high-schoolers must go every night to Tartarus to wipe out the world from the shadows menace, yadda, yadda, yadda… but it's her Social Links that make the difference. Now that we have a female protagonist, Atlus remembered that the party had also male members and… yes! We get to go on a date with Akihiko Sanada! 10/10 recommend love the game see ya.

Alright, let's be serious: I don't know why Makoto didn't get Social Links with the male party members, like they did with Yu Narukami in Persona 4. It helps the player to connect with the characters, to learn from them, to love them. But it just didn't happen with Makoto, and it's a shame. They did do it with Minako, though, and it was perfect, even if you don't plan on romanticize their relationships. It adds a lot of depth to characters that deserved it: Akihiko, Ken, Shinjiro, Junpei. Don't tell me that everything that happened later with these dorks didn't have more impact hadn't it been for these Social Links. I just love the friendship between Minako and Junpei, that brother/sister kind of thing. It made me want to have Junpei as a friend, whereas in Makoto's story, Junpei came across as this stupid boy who can't tell an apple from a strawberry. And ALSO, ALSOOO you can now have an SL with Koromaru, the best dog in the whole damn universe!!! WITH A DOG!!! YOU CAN BE FRIENDS WITH A DOG, HOW COOL AND CUTE IS THAT FOR F*CK’S SAKE? TAKE THAT, MAKOTO! 

There's also a certain Social Link (I won't spoil it for you) that you MUST do at all costs because it adds SO MUCH to the story in general, and makes everything, EVERYTHING ten times sadder. UGH, I can't believe they didn't put this SL in Makoto's storyline!!

So, it's true! Minako's story is better! It's better presented, it was better implemented, and gameplay wise, it's as cool as it gets. So, yeah. Persona 3 Portable with the Female Protagonist is my favorite game in the world. The ending is so much more impactful with her than with him, and I spent the last hour of the game crying my heart out because everything was so unfair and I felt empty inside. And the music… the music is majestic. I still listen to Memories of You and I get goosebumps, and don't get me started with Memories of School or The Poem for Everyone's Souls… oh, my, is that something in my eye…?

You can still play as Makoto in the Portable version, but I highly recommend that, if you've already play the original game, you should give Minako a shot. It will give you new a perspective on things, and it will add many plot points you'll be glad to have known. Even though her story is not canonical *cries in a corner*. Just look at Akihiko, look at the handsome guy, and everything will be ok.

I would've given P3P a 10 out of 10, had it not been for one tiny thing towards the end of the game. In the Persona Series, you accompany your character during a whole year. Well, during December in this game (both PS2 and Portable versions), there's nothing to do. No Social Links, no people, no activities, no missions, no Tartarus. It's just you leaving school for you dorm and getting back to sleep and do everything all over again the next day, for many days. It's annoying, it's repetitive, it feels like you're wasting time, PRECIOUS time, because everything in this game is about time and days, and you feel betrayed by the gameplay. But that's just it.

So, what's the best version? Let me summarize for ya:

Ps2 version: original experience, only male protagonist, mostly uninteresting or little impactful Social Links, pretty decent ending, gameplay annoying/strategic af. You also get to play in 3D environments, which is the reason why many people feel put off by the other version.

Portable version: improved experience, male and female protagonist, fem's Social Links quite interesting and meaningful, 'I got an RPG freaking sad ending in my eye' type of ending, gameplay improved for more enjoyment and less whining, more difficulties levels to choose from. BUT, everything's on a 2D environment, like light novels. Characters appear as portraits instead of 3D models, except for Tartarus, which is the only place where you'll see your characters in a poor 3D, due to hardware limitations.

So there you have it. Choose what you like the most. You can always play both versions and have your own opinion of it. In any way, Persona 3 is a great, great game, with great ideas, great gameplay and great and relatable characters. And with the best soundtrack in the world. And you get to summon a f*cking giant penis with an OP spell, guys, just name another game that lets you do that. 

So it should be a 9 out of 10 for the Portable version, and a 7 out of 10 for the PS2 version. Go check this game out (if you haven't yet) before Persona 5 arrives! It’s a meaningful experience, and I hope it changes your perspective of RPGS, like it did for me. 

[ninthextrication]

more vlr spoilers, ztd spoilers

i would like to thank every god out there for the fact that october 31st, 2071 is going to be a saturday, so I can have quark’s root beer float take place not only on halloween, but also on Junpei’s drinking night (well, day)

good idea: after the explosions, it takes a really long time, but people eventually start celebrating a few holidays. Halloween and solstice & equinox festivals are the ones that crop up first- there’s only ~100-200 people left in the area where Junpei lives, but they find ways to make things work. Farmers share extra crops, people find or make musical instruments, and everyone just comes together to celebrate another year that they’d survived.

I feel like Junpei gets really good at repairing mechanics and stuff, considering how he and quark both talk, so what if one year for a winter solstice festival, he managed to repair an old dvd player? he’d been working on it in secret for a long time (not even carlos would know), and he pulls it out and hooks it up to a TV like “guys check this shit out”

he doesn’t have any holiday movies, but that’s ok. 

oooh, or imagine he found a copy of frozen, ironic movie choice is ironic. I already like to think that he showed Quark Wall-e when he was really little, and he thinks the movie is rather hopeful.

the game mentions a travelling theatre that comes to town once a week, but that doesn’t mean junpei doesnt have his own dvd player, especially if we remember his... ehe.. grandpa videos.

i really wish we actually got to see the apocalyptic earth, but its a lot of fun thinking about what it’d be like. The way I see it, after the explosions, people were kinda separated into two categories- those who were able to manage to get to the moon, and those who couldn’t. THere’s 54 rhizomes, 53 active if we don’t count good ol’ rhizome-9, and I bet they could house a lot of people. Probably between a quarter and a half of the remaining human population went to the moon, leaving at most 1.5 billion people on earth.

that still sounds like a lot, but when we consider how big the earth is, and how far it’s spread out, it’s really not.

anyways, those on the moon are the rich and famous, the politicians, or the scientists. The cure for radical-6 was developed on a rhizome, and technology continues to move forwards and be developed. Even still, anyone who’s smart enough can work their way up to the top of a waitlist for a shuttle, if they’re able to create.

For the people left behind though, things are a lot harder.

The only cars that people can get to run anymore are electric, because all the gas reserve’s dried up, and either nobody can reach the places to find it, or nobody cares enough. Solar power is useless, so people rely entirely on hydro and wind- nobody’s said it out loud, but there’s an implied agreement that nuclear and antimatter power is prohibited, in case another infected gets the same idea as before.

However, despite power being kinda hard to come by, people don’t really fight over it that much. The leaders of the communities are the ones who lived through hell, and they don’t have the energy to fight. the game mentions money, but i honestly feel like thing’s’d work far closer to a batering system- people offer goods and services to each other. Junpei’s essentially a parts dealer and mechanic, who works on anything and everything. He doesn’t really talk much to most people, but he’s the most skilled person in the trade aroun (or more accurately, the only one around).

Everything’s been rationed out pretty fairly, and capitalism only exists on the moon (which’s caused many problems there, that those on earth just ignore). They don’t have much in terms of medicine, nobody dares enter hospitals in case there’s remnants of radical-6 about, but people make up for it by working together.

There’s two people who are directly mentioned in game- a doctor, who looks after junpei at one point, and a female teacher, who taught quark how to read. Now, in all honesty- I don’t think it’s highly likely that the doctor is one as we know it. They’d probably all have either died in the outbreak or fled to the moon, leaving only students behind.

another point- Carlos. There’s no way he’d just up and abandon Junpei, so i figure they lived together for a long time. Carlos would’ve had emergency response training, and he’d likely be the closest thing the area had to a doctor. So, I headcanon he was the first ‘medic’ in the area, and he spent a lot of time taking medicine books from libraries to read everything in them, and commit it to memory.

The doctor mentioned in-game then, is Carlos’s ‘apprentice’, someone who was too young to remember life before the outbreak. He takes over once Carlos dies (and he’d have to die for things to make the most sense chronologically), but he’d be similar in practice- doesn’t charge anything, he just wants to help people. Now, obviously, people are grateful to both of them. Carlos is something like a leader for a long time, because he’s reliable and smart and kind. When things get rough, he ties them all together, and they’re made stronger as a community because of him.

Now, I haven’t named the community, but I like the idea of Junpei suggesting they name it after Carlos in some way, after his death. Perhaps even at his funeral pyre, who knows. But regardless, it’s an interesting thought.

The teacher from before is also someone Junpei’s age, a woman who was in teacher’s college and about to graduate when everything went wrong. This part is obviously all headcanon, but she’s dating the doctor’s sister (a woman who was about 18 when the outbreak occurred), and the two of them took care of the doctor during the nuclear winter.

For a while after Carlos’s death, Junpei’s kinda the drunk uncle of the community. People deal with him because they have to, because even as a drunk he’s the only one who knows anything about repairing that finicky part of the truck, or how to get that tractor working, ect. Once he finds quark though, he starts to straighten up. He doesn’t drink as much, he tries hard to look out for his son, and just by gosh he wants Quark to know that even in a world as shitty as this one, there’s still some hope for the future. Specifically, Quark is his hope for the future.

He knows that someday he’s going to die, but he also knows that Quark is a good kind person, and that he’ll continue to grow and mature and be a good person. He has faith that Quark will be able to look after himself, and he has faith that he’ll be able to live a good life, no matter what happens.

now, this doesn’t count on my other big headcanon though... namely, what the transporters do to aging.

we see that delta’s over 120, and it’s strongly suggested that the old phi is also still alive in 2028. This is really weird- unless you consider the fact that maybe, the transporters mess with how you age. I mean, they’re an alien machine, after allt

I see this as going one of two ways- either it messes with your body structure slightly in a bad way, and you’ll die younger than your original body, or it messes in a good way, and you life much, much longer.

So, consider: Junpei at 129, calling up Akane like the crusty old bastard he is, like “get down here it’s quark’s birthday and you’re not missing another one” “junpei im not his mother” “The last card you sent him said grandma on it” “ok fucking fine”

this went from kinda bittersweet to pure goddamned crack at the end, sorry--