Sae is hardly a saint in P5,Major P5 spoilers! I mean she emotionally blackmails her sister into a life she picked out for her and her Palace showed that she completely lost touch with true justice and instead got warped into someone who was more concern with winning and keeping her career than actually seeking true justice. Considering her position and the amount of grief she gives your party, I feel it's safe to lump her in with Shido who is also using their influence for selfish gain. Her crimes are not as bad as his, but if the events of the game did not transpire, she could have eventually become as bad as him.Originally Posted by Forsaken Lover
I think you're just getting too hung up on the language used, despite the fact the game makes it obvious the real issue is with the system. I mean never listen to Ryuji, it's like the one cardinal rule in the game. Besides, if the battle was simply against the "adults" then the party would have never moved past just changing the hearts of every adult that looked at them funny in real life. Instead they start moving towards bigger and bigger targets that wind up actually having a positive effect well until... .
I would agree that the heavier focus on the characters being buddy buddy is probably why it ended u being more popular than P3, but I would point out that P5's own surge of popularity despite having less focus on that aspect can also serve as a counterpoint to why it's not necessarily as much of a necessity to the franchise as believed.Fair enough if that is your preference but Persona from 3 and onward has been about making cool anime friends. The plot is a secondary concern. That's probably why 4 is so much more popular than 3. 3 didn't give you nearly enough time with your buddies and instead focused a lot more on the plot. In games where your "bonds" and friendships are what ultimately save the world, I think showing those friendships should always be paramount.
To be honest, I disagree that the point of the series is "making anime friends", while it is a gameplay feature, I feel they often serve a larger narrative purpose. In P3, the point of the Social Link system ties in with the game's central themes of Memento Mori and what is the meaning of life if we're all going to die anyway?, that we should make the most of every day and that it's our bonds with others that give life meaning. So it serves a deeper narrative purpose. In P5, your confidants are exactly that, allies who also want to fight back against the system that screwed them and a partnership which frankly I felt really worked well with the whole outlaw mystique of the game. So here lies my issue with P4, what narrative purpose does the social links serve? The game's theme is facing yourself and searching for truth in a world where people believe in convenient lies. We could agree the theme is explored through the social links but it doesn't change the fact that the SL don't serve a greater narrative focus for the game in comparison to the game surrounding them. It's probably why the core cast often overshadows the other social links. I think it's something that has always bothered me about P4. In fact, I feel like P5 ended up correcting a lot of mistakes from P4.
I didn't, but it had less to do with my companions, and more to do that taking it would have meant the ideal I was fighting for would have been for naught, and that brings me back to my point. That element of the plot wasn't about your bonds, it was about your end goal which is what the real focus of P5 was. Working to make the world a better place by changing the system. Taking the deal voids everything you had been doing up until that point.Fun fact: I initially took "The Deal" because I couldn't careless about anybody or anything, probably because everyone did treat me like dirt so I saw no reason to care about any of them.
Fair enough if it wasn't your thing, that happens. As for EP, it works a lot better when you play IS. The games were originally one title but got split into two releases due to making deadlines. A major element of EP is the idea of Deja Vu and so you end up doing a lot of the same things you did in IS except it's all slightly off.I never did finish Innocent Sin but I don't see how it was particularly complicated with its evil principals and Nazis out of nowhere for no reason. (I mean from a writing perspective. There was absolutely no reason to make them Nazis) It all felt incredibly hokey and silly to me. Granted my memory of the game is not perfect and I'll never play it again because its gameplay is unforgivably terrible and probably the worst I've ever seen in a JRPG. But it felt like the game was going nowhere until the revelations about Maya and Jun. I certainly wasn't really interested in anything until then. So much smurfing padding. Plus a lot of important dialogue is to be found from randomly walking around and talking to people instead of proceeding with the plot. That irritated me.
I hear Eternal Punishment is better but bleh. It apparently has the same battle system so smurf that noise.
As for the wacky elements, the Nazis make sense due to many of the rumors in the game being based on real conspiracy theory nonsense. Hitler survived WWII and hid out across seas biding his time for a new war. Aliens are responsible for the pyramids and they'll come back to bring mankind into a new age. Even some Japanese urban legends get shout outs. In EP they keep this going but adult it up a bit with a NWO plot, people believing in some New Age health benefit, and even secret cabals that really run everything. It's a subtle but interesting twist. MegaTen, especially of the classic variety, is pretty kooky and weird in a hokey way, but I feel its part of its charm and it works as contrast for the darker elements the series usually brings up.
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