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fuck it i& #39;m gonna do it (heavy spoilers for p3, p4, and p5 ahead) https://twitter.com/kHoneyblaze/status/1310112345692102657">https://twitter.com/kHoneybla...
p5r spoilers too probably
first of all, i love all of these games, and i totally understand why a lot of people don& #39;t like p3 as much as the later games. it& #39;s definitely a flawed game with awkward pacing, sometimes awkward voice acting, and of course, the notorious gameplay.
first of all, i love all of these games, and i totally understand why a lot of people don& #39;t like p3 as much as the later games. it& #39;s definitely a flawed game with awkward pacing, sometimes awkward voice acting, and of course, the notorious gameplay.
however, it did so much right that the other games failed to follow up on. most importantly, i think, is the characters. they& #39;re a pretty huge focus with every persona game and i personally think the cast of p3 is leagues ahead of the casts of p4 and p5.
maybe they& #39;re not the greatest in a vacuum, and i do think that p4& #39;s characters are a lot more unique than p3& #39;s, at least. it& #39;s the way these characters interact with each other and how they develop that p3 did best by far.
sees is set up differently from the teams of 4 and 5; it& #39;s an organization that& #39;s been around for a bit, and members don& #39;t choose to join. of course they have to choice of accepting or declining the invitation but they aren& #39;t just some friends that got together to stop whatever.
this means that characters aren& #39;t automatically best friends with each other. they& #39;re workmates more than they are friends. as the story progresses, the shit they go through together brings everyone together. the relationships between characters actually develop.
this makes the friendships between these characters feel so much more real, as opposed to, say, p4 and p5 where new people just join the team and everyone immediately acts like they& #39;ve been best friends with this person forever.
and, of course, p3& #39;s cast also develops on their own throughout the story, as opposed to character development being locked behind social links. i don& #39;t think social links with party members is a bad thing necessarily, i just don& #39;t think they should detract from the main story.
i also just generally like the characters on their own a lot more. i know they& #39;re a tad generic, but i found myself genuinely at least liking everyone in the party, as opposed to p4 where i either loved or hated everyone or p5 where i was mostly indifferent about everyone.
also, this isn& #39;t related to p3, but i want to say something a lot of people would hate me for. i liked p5 a lot more than p4 and a big part of that is the characters. of course i recognize how much blander p5& #39;s cast is than p4& #39;s, there& #39;s no getting around that.
however, p5 had so much less of a focus on these characters, which does kind of suck, but i still like that more than p4 making everything about these characters who barely develop and mostly boil down to the same joke. (chie likes meat, kanji is gay lol, etc.)
seriously the writing on these characters feels like they& #39;re already from spinoffs
anyway back to p3
all these characters being together, and, yknow, actually developing, makes it mean so much more when one of them dies. obviously nobody in the main cast dies in p4 or p5 but
anyway back to p3
all these characters being together, and, yknow, actually developing, makes it mean so much more when one of them dies. obviously nobody in the main cast dies in p4 or p5 but
if they did, it& #39;d mean so much less to me, even the characters i liked. shinji wasn& #39;t in the party for long, but that just makes it feel so much worse. everyone else develops, and i& #39;m sure a lot of people were excited to see him to grow and be less of a stoic asshole.
and then, of course, persona 3& #39;s ending. the protagonist never speaks a line, but you still know how much everyone in sees loved him and it is truly heartbreaking. seriously, this game& #39;s ending made me cry harder than literally any other piece of media. i looked like this emoji
https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="đ" title="Laut schreiendes Gesicht" aria-label="Emoji: Laut schreiendes Gesicht">
this game really slaps your ass with the theme. every persona game has a pretty clear theme, p3 being about death, p4 being about the truth, and p5 being about rebellion. the game ending this way is the perfect way to wrap things up and remind you what this game was all about.
p4 just feels confused sometimes. obviously it& #39;s about getting through rumors and finding the truth, but it doesn& #39;t feel super obvious until the end. especially with all the character& #39;s development being about completely random shit.
most everyone in p3 deals with death at some point either before or during the game. minato, his parents, yukari, her father, junpei, chidori, etc. really, the only one who doesn& #39;t is fuuka.
compare that to p4 where chie& #39;s development is about becoming stronger, kanji& #39;s is about embracing his interests, rise& #39;s is about god knows what, etc. there& #39;s nothing tying the themes of the game together.
even p5 does this better with most everyone& #39;s confidant being about rebelling against the adults who were shitty to them, which is harder to give applause to because of these characters being so flat and generic as well as everything still being locked behind confidants but still
even p3& #39;s social links deal with death a pretty good chunk of the time, but still not so much that the themes feel completely forced like with p5. p4 has the opposite problem, it acts like its constantly talking about "the truth" but doesn& #39;t actually bring it up much
instead, most of the themes of truth and lies come down to the team thinking someone is the killer and then they find out they& #39;ve been mislead, it doesn& #39;t get brought up for a while while you go to a dungeon about something totally different, and then it happens again.
when adachi is revealed to actually truly be the killer, i didn& #39;t really feel... anything about it. his role as funny comic relief man just doesn& #39;t lead well into being a twist villain often and p4 is not an exception.
honestly, i can& #39;t really even think of anyone who i think would make a good surprise villain in that game.
anyway p5
p5 is all about rebelling against gross fucked up adults, which made me excited to play it because, well, i have a lot of anger about gross fucked up adults
anyway p5
p5 is all about rebelling against gross fucked up adults, which made me excited to play it because, well, i have a lot of anger about gross fucked up adults
this theme is definitely very prevalent in p5, but also not done very well. with a theme like that, you gotta send a message, and p5 didn& #39;t really. they just say "go look at that shitty adult and get mad at the generic bad shit they did and steal their heart"
persona 5& #39;s horrible lgbt representation is probably the biggest thing that makes its problems clear. the game is about a found family of teenagers forming a rebellion against terrible adults. gotta be honest, that& #39;s not very straight.
yet all they do is make a joke about gay men being predators? also lala i guess? i still can& #39;t help but feel like she was there as a joke. i know they "censored" the predator joke in p5r (people got mad about that???), but really all they did was make it slightly less homophobic
yes, i know p3 has that one horrible transphobic joke from operation babe hunt, but they at least had the decency to get rid of that shit in p3p. anyway, yeah, p5& #39;s themes are rubbed in your face and yet feel very shallow because of people at atlus being sacks of shit
p5r& #39;s final semester, however, is incredible, and if the whole game was like that, maybe it could rival p3 in my mind. however, it isn& #39;t, it& #39;s only a month long.
speaking of final months, holy SHIT p3& #39;s january is incredible. the atmosphere is done so well. between the wintery weather, the nyx posters everywhere, the general morale of the characters, and GOD january& #39;s music is so fucking good. it truly feels like the end is coming.
compare that to the end of p4. it feels like it& #39;s trying so hard to be p3, and while the atmosphere with the fog everywhere and the 40 second loop of foreboding sounds replacing the music does feel unsettling, it means so much less. the fog isn& #39;t even explained until later.
the last month of p5 is different from the others. the world isn& #39;t actually in danger, just joker, and as such there& #39;s no unsettling atmosphere outside. the music doesn& #39;t even change, which does suck a little bit. i don& #39;t think it& #39;s a bad finale but it doesn& #39;t hold a candle to p3
p5r definitely fixed this with the last month now being the new epilogue, which does actually feature changed music, and as opposed to the other games, the world isn& #39;t in danger, it& #39;s the complete opposite. everything is fixed, everyone is happy, but everything is still... off.
the atmosphere here is done beautifully, but still, it& #39;s an epilogue and it& #39;s detached from the main story, meaning it still doesn& #39;t wrap around and hit you with the themes of the game like p3 did.
uhh i wish i had a better way to end this. but i did just want to get these thoughts down and i definitely did that, holy shit this thread is fucking long and now definitely nobody will read it. anyway yeah p3& #39;s good play it
