Im actually looking forward to it.
You're going to be so sad when it's all over.
We need more game stories about the human condition. The Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone (the shorter of two expansions) storyline is up there, being one of the best constructed gaming narratives I've played in recent years
Yeah its pretty neat, while the mechanics don't change much, the dynamics are changed based on the story. The reason they are not called social links is because none of these people are truly your friend as much as they are your accomplice in your endeavors. The game is far more plot driven than the slice of life titles of past. You don't get as much free time to rank everyone up, but they do rank up faster and one confidant teaches skills to help rank the others up even faster.
Ooh, cool, i heard the Witcher does it too. You can sleep around with whomever, but if you lead on the two main romance options romantically, not just sexually, you end up with neither and they humiliate you. It's great that they integrated the main theme of the game into the mechanic though! Sounds really refreshing.
The two biggest differences between P5 and its predecessors, and I didn't really notice until your question made me think of it, is the fact the game takes advantage of the idea that your character is a delinquent and thus he's more assertive. Unlike the older games where the girl confesses their opinions and you either accept or reject, they simply drop a line saying they're open to the idea and its up to you to pursue it with your options, thus the MC feels like he's the one pushing for the relationship. Its subtle but kind of nice. The bigger change is the fact the game deals with more taboo relationships. You can date four girls your own age. One who is underaged (consensual in Japan but would easily get your ass thrown in prison in the U.S. and parts of Europe. The other half of your options are all older than you and would probably get thrown in prison for dating a high school student since most of them are career people. The subject comes up a bit in the confidant links but since I've only played through the game once so far, I can't really tell you how it plays out for all of them. You do get the option to cheat on the girls and date multiples again like in P3, but unlike P3, there is a special event during the true ending where they will find out about each other. You get a special scene if you date all of the girls in the game where they beat the trout out of you for being a two-timer.
It's really rare for games to really pull romances off well. I usually prefer a pre-established romance since usually it feels pretty like "pick the set of characteristics you like in a partner" but in Persona it really felt like it was done well, mostly because you get to spend so much time learning about the characters and their internal struggles, making them rounded people before making them into boning-material. The Witcher doesn't do it through so much exposure, but it has the benefit of being an established canon with all the major romance options having history with the main character, as well as Geralt not being a mute blank slate but his own character (that you can still influence to a degree). So there's really more opportunity for the writing to flourish, and the writers definitely took their chance because all the romance options feel like they could work, mostly thanks to very strong characterization of both Geralt and all the romance options. So how well do you feel the romance aspect of P5 was executed?
Some obsessions can be healthy. I had a similar experience turning down the Drama Club Sun Arcana in P4. I was really invested in her story, but kind of already had another character in mind to date, so when the sequence at the end of her social link happens concerning her wanting to date you happened, it was just so awkward and I kind of felt bad ditching a girl whose estranged dad was dying.
Oh my God, I don't think I've ever felt so bad for rejecting a girl in a video game before. And not because of some contrivance that makes your character into some kind of villain, but because I really felt like it could've worked out but was commuted to someone else and really didn't want to hurt her since she was definitely set up as a one-time fling but she just wanted someone to settle down with. She ended up hurt, and things got awkward, but they still want to end up friends and damnit, this feels so real and human God, I am like a broken record, aren't I
For now, I haven't done enough research into add-ons and expansions done by the community or the developers. I'm probably going to build a few versions, just to get the hang of the basics before adding on too many options.
