I’ll happily dive in, but why not make this a trade deal, hmm? I get into Souls, you get into the Witcher?
I had heard that SMTIV had a lot of infighting between the new developers and the older ones, which is why the game felt a bit off from previous SMT titles. Sadly, as Persona gets more popular, I imagine the company is going to keep trending more towards the ideals in those games over the classic franchise.None of this is helped that most of the old team are now administrators at the company which means their only concern is whether the game will ship in time. Some fans speculate that due to Strange Journey being a "flop" for the company was enough to justify kicking Kaneko upstairs and letting fresh blood take over. I know he came up with the main premise of SMTIV as well, but the team was left to decide how it unfolded. The other aspect hurting them is likely the growing popularity outside of Japan. It was easy to get away with their ideas on religious figures back when it was just Japan, but branching off into more "religious" territories probably has some of the higher execs telling them to lighten up. Let's be honest here, Lucifer phoned it in for SMTIV compared to his more prominent role in SMTII and III. Devil Survivor also lightened up Law and SMTIVA sounds like it finally gave the series the saving throw to change the whole dynamic with YHHW. We'll have to see what the future holds. I just pray the series doesn't stray any further into Devil Survivor territory. Were you aware that they are Remastering Dark Souls for PC? Seems like it would be a great time to take the plunge and join the rest of our dark and masochistic cult.
Yeah, Team Maniax just seems to... not really get it, I’m afraid. I’ve already heard complaints to that degree to SMTIVA, but this is some next level bs. I get that they want to make the series more marketable, but it just pains me to see the one thing that truly set it apart from the other games in the genre. It’s what worries me the most aboit SMTV since it’s done by the same tram, but who knows - maybe they’ll get it by that time. Or maybe, you know, I should just get over myself and accept that times are changing Speaking of, do you know what other series has great ambiguity? I’ll give you a hint: it’s the Witcher Althoigh honestly they kinda messed it up with the big bad from the Wild Hunt since he was an interesting, sorta morally gray presence in the books, but a genetically doomsday villain in the game. It’s good that the rest of the game’s content make up for it, sspecially the expansions - ESPECIALLY Hearts of Stone which is fricking amazing with how it handles it’s moral dilemma and people still cannot agree which of the two endings to that scenario is the good end and which one is the bad one, and there are solids argument for and against both.
Well, I mean there is a reset button and savior figures in MegaTen, they will just dramatically and forever change humanity to a point of no return, therefore removing our very nature. I mean a large part of the greater conflict in MegaTen is YHHW and Lucifer trying to amass "Worlds of their Order". Mankind is flawed, but we're also the master's of our own destiny, but even SJ gave off the impression that the very nature of the incident in Antartica was due to mankind reaching a point of no return for the planet and the ancient earth gods taking a stand against it. The heroes prevent the world from changing, but even they won't really be able to change the humanity to fix the downward spiral they are heading in, and even Heaven basically treats the neutral ending as "oh well, we'll succeed next time". Neutral has always been bittersweet since the second entry. Only in more recent years has it either be treated as more negative (SMTIV) or plain optimistically (Devil Survivor) though I feel the nature of the changes regarding SJ to be a bit alarming cause it sounds to me like the newer teams are disregarding the very punk elements of the franchise which is what made them so different and interesting to begin with. I'm fine with Persona being the positive Shonen Jump series of positivity, but I prefer MegaTen classic as the more ambiguous and morally questionable series. Large reason why Dark Souls appeals to me as well, because you get endings, but whether they are good or not is up to your interpretation.
While I disagree, even if that was the case, the core MegaTen sensibility is supposed to be aboit how humanity is flawed. If the neutral ending suggests this flaw might repeat the cycle at best and destroy humanity at worst, then that’s what it is. There is no magical resent button or savior that will come and just fix our nature. And SJ was so good about this. Still, I still can’t wrap my head over the logistics of Lucifer fathering a human daughter. Especially since he’s a woman in this continuity.
Ouch, really feels like the Persona influence is trying too hard to change the MegaTen teams ideals. I wasn't really excited for the game anyway, but that confirms I'll give it a pass, though I would argue the endings of SJ do all kind of imply the world is screwed no matter which ending you get. Even Neutral is heavily implied throughout the game to be mankind destroying the world in a foregone conclusion.
She is Lucifer’s daughter (uh). From the future (ughhh). Sent so that she can help you get a better ending because apparently all three default endings lead humanity to ruin in the end (eugheughhhhh). And to do that, you convince Zelenin and Jimenez to not do the thing (... I can’t). So yeah, we get an everybody lives ending. Screw consequences! The goal of Megaten now is to have everyone live happily ever after, consequences and horrific implications of ideologies be damned
How so?
So I read up a bit on the additions to Strange Journey Redux and... they’re really dumb. I expected them to be dumb but I’m still surprised. Alex is worse than I thought.
Well despite saying I was burnt out, I still got an hour or two in today. :sweatdrop: With that said, I did get some writing in, so today wasn't a total loss for me.
