Wolf Kanno
is a Level 99 Chocobo
Memento Mori
Site Contributor

I'll give them a look once I have Internet at home!

Though to be fair, with no Internet at home aside from my wife's phone, I've found that I'm actually spending more time doing things that I like, instead of just wasting my time away on facebook and youtube.

I still need to get Persona 2 out of my system so that I can actually spend all that free time writing instead of just consuming media!

Oh yeah, btw, watched that Botchling video you sent me a while back. Liked it a lot! The Witcher does that a lot, actually, putting monsters from folklore from all around Europe into a new context to deconstruct the human factor that made it. Fun stuff.

I mean, yeah, I wouldn't mind something new in, say, P6, but overall I still enjoy the standard MegaTen fusion system more than what we have in 1 and 2. I'm open to new things, and I like how experimental the earlier Persona games are and I genuinely love them and think the various parts really come together well - so I don't really wish it had the SMT fusion systems, it's just that I find it more satisfying in general. It would be total overkill to combine that system with everyone being able to change personas though.

I'll still think about which character to pick, but I'm definitely looking forward to EP. I hope the translation and old voices don't scare me off too much. I can handle a clunkier UI, but I'm mostly worried about that, since I know they kept parts of the old Revelations names for the P1 characters.

Btw, I just noticed that Garcon Soejima from Clair de Lune is actually a caricature of Shigenori Soejima (drawn by Soejima himself, btw!). I mean, how could I have not noticed it before? He has the name, AND the face! Are all the shop clerks references to the staff and I'm just missing them? I know about Satomi Tadashi and the Demon Painter being Kaneko, but that's all I do know.

So am I!

So far, I am enjoying Innocent Sin even more than the last time, which is really saying something! I really like the cameos from the P1 cast, although that bob really doesn't look good on Elly. Maki's pixie cut is just amazing, though. And then Brown has some... interesting sideburns. Still, it's really nice to see how much they've all changed and grown. Speaking of, I know that in EP at some point you have to decide whether Elly or Nanjo joins you. Any recommendations for a first run? I feel more attached to Nanjo, personally, although I do really like Elly, but I guess it all comes down to what the routes tell you when it comes to the story, so which do you think has the more crucial info in it?

Noticed an intersting thing, btw. As much as the later Persona games drift away from the SMT mainline, there's one thing that P3 brought back that's more inline with traditional SMT than what we had with Persona is fusion. While 2 handles it better than 1, I still miss the more traditional fusion mechanic. It felt much more flexible.

Also, knowing all of the twists from this game and having a vague idea of what Eternal Punishment is about, I find it amusing how 2 is pretty much a deconstruction of 4 before 4 happened. Sure, friendship is an important thing and bonds can help you out a lot, but not only do people unlock the true potential of their Personas by dealing with their problems on their own (which feels more in line with mainline SMT's generally anti-collectivist message, tbh), but it seems clinging to the idea that you have friends to fall back on and that as long as you're remembered you'll be okay, is kind of dangerous and is, in the end, what ends the world. Nyarlathotep took advantage of the gaping holes in the reliance of the power of friendship and pretty much won because of it. It almost feels like 2 should have been made after 4, if you know what I mean.

Maya is also great. Found her pretty grating for the first time, but it's interesting to see what she actually means by that positive thinking - for one, it's not about being midlessly optimistic, but of making the best of life even when things go bad, so maybe you can make things better. And it's also a coping mechanism for all the pain she's gone through (and perhaps still going through). Also, I noticed that I may have accidentally made one of my main characters from my novel a gender-swapped version of Maya

So guess what!

I've decided to use the fact that my brother is in Oregon now to my advantage. So I bought Eternal Punishment!

So old.

Also, I love Detective Todoroki and that it's all but outright stated that he's actually possessed by Kyoji Kuzunoha. I really miss the times when all the spinoffs were intertwined and referenced each other liberally. The Devil Summoner and Persona games mesh so well.

I find it interesting that this came out around the same time as FFVIII and features basically the same plot twist but with way more power. Probably because 1) the reason for it is a real-life thing rather than a fantastical thing and 2) the whole plot revolves around it rather than it just being handwaved and being more of a backstory detail than the main plot which revolves around the romance bit. And I say that as an VIII fan, but it really looks like FF could really learn a lot from Persona (which I think they tried to do with XIII ripping off from P3, but we both know how that turned out).

I've only managed to make one pact so far. For some reason, I'm finding it easier to make demons eager than happy here, whereas in P1 it was the other way around. So that's tough.

Also, totally gonna romance Jun this time around. The first time I went with Lisa, but as time went by I really came to the conclusion that either Maya or Jun are the more logical pairing, with Jun making slightly more sense to me as the relationship between Maya and Tatsuya always felt more like sibling love to me and it's just hard for me to look past that.

There's that, but the kids at school also explicitly mention his looks. But this is really the only thing | find weird. I still like Tatsuya a lot and am enjoying the game a lot. Good stuff. A lot of the scenes also seem much more poignant now that I know the twist later on. Stuff that felt kinda awkward at first now feel genuinely heartbreaking and real. It also feels much more important to have Yukki back on my team after finishing the SQQ!

I am having a hard time balancing battles and negotiations now, though. It's not longer enough to just make a monster eager once, you're basically encouraged to get their tarot cards indefinitely, so I'm worried I'm not spending enough time leveling up, discovering fusion spells, etc. Btw, I know the game is easy, but still, think it's a good idea to add points in a similar way to P1? As in, Dex, Ag, and occassionally Vit?

Oh yeah, there is the clinic, but I had the problem of just burning through my SP in the battle. With Naoya and Yukki spamming Megidolaon with their not-too-cheap Personas, the lack of chewing souls made the thing uber stressful

I mean, I like the geekiness of it too, but it;s just weird to me that no one really point it out in game. In game he's treated like straight-up beefcake and it's just hard for me to suspend my disbelief on this