Quote Originally Posted by Bright Shield View Post
No, you called it the "definitive" version.

Definitive:
most reliable or complete, as of a text, author, criticism, study, or the like:

Which, since it lacks all the content for the female main character, is quite debatable. There's probably more content in the female version than there is in The Answer.
It is the MOST complete version, since it's the only one to contain The Answer. The Female Protagonist is a fantasy scenario that has no place in the canon/official P3 continuity. While The Answer is canon/official. So lacking the Female Protagonist is not as crucial as lacking The Answer. FES is the only version to contain the entire P3 story which leads into P4:Arena, thus making it the most complete.
Again, claiming that Female Protagonist is not as crucial as The Answer is purely opinion. In my mind, the "more" complete version is the version with the Female Main Character. I gain a lot more content, and lose some lower quality content. While we're at it, you should realize that the definitive version of the game usually features the best combat and gameplay, in which case P3P still beats out FES.

You'd really rather have the Gourmet King than a Social Link with Shinjiro? I don't think we're ever going to agree on this subject.
Shinjiro is my favorite character, so I might be biased for him. If I could pick and choose, I'd gladly get rid of some of the party member social links in favor of NPCs though.
Which ones would you choose given the options? The ones which were replaced for party members were Star (which became Akihiko), Justice (Ken Amada), Magician (Junpei), and Moon (Akihiko).

As I said, it's purely subjective. There is no "right" answer. In my mind, the value of the extra Social Links is far greater than that of The Answer.
Quality isn't the issue here.
Ok, so what is the issue? For a definitive version, the "most" complete would be the one with the most content. So, it's P3P.


There is no canon in these stories except what you want. If you choose to let the world end, there's your canon. If you choose to whore the male Main Character out to every potential romance, there's your canon. If you choose to not romance anyone, that's acceptable canon too. If you choose to not defeat Elizabeth or even open the Monad depths, that can be canon as well. Play a complete loner and never expand a Social Link beyond the ones the game forces on you. Perfectly acceptable canon. Only Atlus decides canon, not us fans. Besides, by that logic, no game has a canon story. In Super Mario Bros. I can jump in a hole, and allow Bowser to keep Peach forever. Canon-wise Mario saves her though.


Gaming is based around interactivity. Especially when games start designing themselves for interactive storytelling there is no canon. There, in fact, cannot be a canon story in a game based around an interactive storytelling experience. And, yeah, if you chose to kill Mario as a story element, I would be willing to consider than canon (it would certainly make more sense than her getting captured 15,000 times).

No every game features an interactive story even in potential, however. Go play Beyond Two Souls if you want an example for that. You can literally do nothing and the story won't change.
This is where you are 100% wrong. Canon = the official version. Considering that Atlus made both The Answer and Male MC canon, then that is the true canon. I can make Mario die in the first level of Mario 1, but canon-wise he's conquered that and every other adventure he's ever been on. What makes sense to you or me is irrelevant. All that matters is what the creators dictate to be canon.

canon: Another word for official. Used quite often in fan fiction to differentiate between the official storyline in which the fan fiction is based on.

To claim that the version that Atlus is following in the sequels isn't official, is rather silly. Atlus has chosen that male MC and The Answer are canon. Whether or not you like it, makes no difference.

I do feel your pain though. I despise the FFVII Compilation, but I have to admit that it is canon. Even if it makes me sad...
If ATLUS ever actually declared that a particular story was canon, yes, it would be canon. But they didn't. They chose a single path to use for the follow up games, but that's not the same thing. It's like arguing that in Mass Effect, the canon story is that Wrex dies, because that's what happens when you start up Mass Effect 2 with a new game.

ATLUS has never declared an official version of their stories for the most part. Other companies have. Nintendo, for example, made a declaration that Link's name is officially Link, regardless of what players named him themselves. That is a canon statement.

In Persona 4 Arena, none of your choices from Persona 3 or Persona 4 matter. Is that ATLUS saying that none of them occurred in the canon story? No. That is ATLUS trying to accommodate a huge variety of choices and options for their fans without using save file importing, or wasting hundreds of hours on voice acting and dialogue for each permutation of the situation. It's why they try to be as vague as possible on any issue in which player choice was a factor, because ATLUS believes in interactive storytelling, and that player choice matters.

The story of a game does not belong to the writer. Games are interactive. Without the player, there is no story. Heck, the entire point of the Shin Megami Tensei series is the power of free will to decide on a path for yourself regardless of whatever options you may be presented with. Way to miss all that by locking yourself down to the exact story that the game designers list as the "True" ending and following it blindly.
I missed nothing. I still get all endings, just to see them. Doesn't change the fact that once Atlus reveals an official version, that ending becomes the true canon.
ATLUS hasn't revealed an official version of most of the stories. The closest they've gotten is in writing the neutral path as the "True" ending in most of the Shin Megami Tensei games. They needed to choose a path going forward to minimize expenditure of resources and keep their writing focused. That is not the same thing.

I liked it fairly well. It was certainly better than any of the Shin Megami Tensei games. I don't like it nearly as well as Persona 3 or Persona 4 though.
I definitely preferred Devil Survivor 2 and DS: Overclocked to P2 though. Catherine as well, but I don't think that game counts as MegaTen. The story is good in P2, but the dungeons are just plain annoying.
I have Catherine, but I haven't played it yet. Catherine is in canon with Persona, though. Did you know that? Another way in which P3P is more "definitive" than FES.