Hey, I said nothing about FFXIII. Well, I have, but not here. I think. I don't know, this is a long thread. I will agree that Persona 3 does it better, mainly because the pacing of escalation is done better. From about October onwards, the pulse of the story really escalates, and the plot really starts churning out some hard-hitting scenes. FFXIII's main flaw is that the pulse quickens in Chapter 9, then deadens from the admittedly tedious Chapter 10 Ark segment, before building again from late Chapter 11. It's too uneven.
Honestly, though, the pacing of P3 never bothered me. I think it's kind of fitting that you're spending your days just blissfully unaware of everything, making friends, taking part in school stuff, and then BAM everything hits you on the head and nothing is ever the same for anyone for different reasons.
I also really like the organic dynamic between the party members. In that, they're really all in this together not because they're all now such great friends that love each other no matter what (ahem, P4, take notes), so they have their conflicts with each other, trouble communicating, etc. I always felt the characters here were much more human than what we get in P4, or in most other games that focus on characters in general. Your character's relationship with Junpei may not be as pleasant and heartwarming as the one you have with your bro in P4, but it feels real and you can tell his issues don't really circle around you but are just part of something much greater that he's been struggling with for much longer than from the point you entered the story.
Also, I don't hate Ken. He may be a bit withdrawn and not able to act upon all the things he has in him regarding Shinji, but it really makes sense for a kid who's lost his mom, found out the whole Persona shebang and who kind of has to live with kids much older than him now. He's gonna keep to himself, what can you do?
To be honest, the pacing didn't bother me when I was playing it. I think on reflection, there was improvement to be made, but it is by no means the worst offender of pacing in gaming. it's a niggle, but not a major flaw in my opinion. My favourite games have niggles.
I actually didn't mind Ken either. There was this weird thing in the Fem!MC path though where you could pursue a romance with him, which myself and Mr. Carny kinda... laughed at.
It's still made super innocent in the English version.
And honestly, it's not that I think the pacing "needs work" or anything - it is what it is. If you enjoy it, it's good. There is no one way to make a well-paced game. There are different types of pacing and they work to achieve different things. You may consider it a bad thing from a gameplay standpoint that you get characters late, but it helps reinforce the narrative.
I didn't have much of a problem with the overall pacing of how loaded the story is towards the back, TBH. Mostly because, when you do get to the heavy story points, the whole game unfolds beautifully and all fits together brilliantly (including those earlier slower parts).
My pacing problem is more the way the game punishes you for constant visits to Tartarus.
Honestly, I think the game would have played a lot better with no punishments for going every day. Make each day a little bit of Tartarus and a little bit of Social Links. Instead, because you are blocked off from your nightly activities, your crew gets sick, etcetera, you're encouraged to spend as much time in there at once as you can, do everything you can during one night, and then have really long days and days of just Social Links.
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I thought Tartarus was handled a lot better in P3P because it doesn't seem like you ever get tired/sick so basically you can balance Tartarus and Social Links much more freely. At one point though I was spending so much time on Social Links that Mitsuru forced me to go to Tartarus. xD
What is with the whole "slap them to calm them down"? I mean, if someone you know is upset, do you hit them? Reminds me how in Persona 2 Innocent Sin Maya is freaking out at one point and to help her you are given the binary choice of either slapping her or gently calming her down. Who would choose slap?
Still, Mitsuru's "resolution scene" was great. I love the music for the new Personas/maxed Social Link. I also love her new battle dialogue. It's so much more emotional and aggressive. The new battle dialogue for the characters is just a really nice touch in general.
And Chidori just died... Is there a way to save her then?
I love the "Hangout" music. Jump around, jump around, jump around now.
So I was right about Ryoji being Pharos but I was also underestimating the extent of the twist. Now everyone is freaking out but I want to know what happened to Aigis.
Also the Mitsuru Social Link is bulltrout. It's literally impossible to max it out. You can only do it after the class trip and she's only available to a couple days. But you lose out on 3 or 4 days for Career Week and now this trout with the end of the world AND exams is eating up pretty much all of December. This game is over in January, right? smurf.
So the Good/Bad end thing seems easy enough. Kill or don't kill Ryoji. I hear it's a lot trickier in Persona 4 as it's based on multiple decisions. Plus there's a Good Ending, a True Ending and a Golden Ending. What the smurf.
But right now I'm just irritated because I feel like I messed up with Chidori and Mitsuru-senpai won't ever think of me as more than a friend.... I'm gonna be like that one NPC girl who is in love with her but just spends her days standing in the hall.
In P4 it's a bit simpler because the Golden Ending is basically just an additional epilogue to the True Ending that you get if you max a very annoying social link and do an optional dungeon. The True Ending is pretty frustrating, but you get more clues as to how to get it in the Golden rerelease. And it's not really affected by your choices in the game itself as it depends on you doing some very specific things at the end of the Good Ending path.
So yeah, Overall it's a doozy.
Nope, you can still save her as a guy, as long as you're playing FES or P3P. Shinji will bite it if you're not a girl romancing him tho
You sure you weren't romancing both?
I had like three boyfriends
I was curious and looked it up. You need to motivate Junpei 3 times. I only did it once because i never talk to him because there's almost no point to talking to any of your buddies in this game outside of S Links. They just have the same stock dialogue day after day.
Still, leaving her dead makes the most sense. I thought this game was about accepting death. That's basically what Ryoji's choice is about, too. Reviving her seems like it undermines this.
Completely free. But fans complained. So they added a "fix".