Quote Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno View Post
Quote Originally Posted by Skyblade View Post
Wolf, he asked for answers "other than sloppy writing". When the reasons include "well, Junpei needed a partner", that's sloppy writing.
While I agree that the reasoning for the two teaming up is sloppy writing, I disagree that this somehow disavows everything else that I wrote. The groups do in fact line up with the classic MegaTen choice system. Yukari and Akihiko did both threaten the other groups that they would take their keys by force, and Junpei did want to talk the situation through more before making a choice. So it wasn't all "sloppy writing".
Yes, but the reasons for the threats and the entire setup was "it fed into the design", rather than "it felt natural for the characters".

I enjoy The Answer because it did two things, it did a good job dealing with a group mourning a death and trying to come to terms with it, and it showed a very ambitious take on what happens when a group gets a very difficult choice to change the past even if it meant dooming humanity. We got to see how P3 affected the cast and The Answer shows us why this game is so fundamentally different from P4's happy family cast. P4 cast walked away as the unknown heroes, P3's cast survived a difficult conflict.

It also gave the cast a happier ending, which is something when you consider only one Persona game's canon ending is actually upbeat (P4) while the rest are bittersweet at best.
I hate the way they changed the ending. The ending of Persona 3 was ambiguous, and deliberately so. Minato's fate was never declared. There were indications feeding both way, that he survived, that he died. You could take it any way, and have plenty of evidence supporting you (Ryoji: "Don't worry, time will continue for you, and for him". FRELLING LIAR!). It did, in fact, feed back into the entire theme of the game and the series: Hope versus despair, with freedom to choose being the determining factor between which fate awaits in the end.

The original ending was nearly perfect. The battle was one, but at the cost of the team's memories and friendships. Only Minato and Aegis remembered. Until the day of the promise, when they all remember, and join together. It was upbeat and hopeful. The Answer renders THAT reunion kind of pointless, since they just meet back up to beat the crap out of each other for contrived reasons.