So the p3 nui set is makoto aigis ryoji

The 5 set is ren morgana akechi

Imagine if 4’s set were narukami teddie adachi

what people dont understand is that "I hate persona fans" goes beyond the usual "I hate fans of this thing I like" line like no it's not just that a lot of them have bad takes and misinterpret stuff though that certainly is a thing it's more like, there is a significant portion of this fanbase that legitimately belongs in prison. and this also includes some of the writers

going to keep this vague on purpose but playing reload has reactivated brain chemicals in me that i forgot i had.

i think i'd want to make a more thought out post later, but i think my favorite thing about reload (aside from seeing minato in full HD glory) is how much it's made me think about video games as a storytelling medium- specifically with what mechanics and game design imply for characters.

there's a lot of quality of life features added to reload that help players easily enter a flow state and get immersed in the gameplay (most notable with tartarus)! which is so dope! reload has been such a nice blend of the mechanics from both FES and portable and it feels like a love letter to persona 3 fans.

there are definitely mechanics i miss from FES (minato's ability to wield multiple weapons being one of them). i can't deny that FES has some dated mechanics that don't necessarily feel fun for the player experience... but!

i think i mostly miss things from FES because i feel like so much of minato's characterization (for me) was informed by the gameplay experience and mechanics (e.g. fatigue system). obviously there's still other ways you can put together his personality (his dialogue responses), but i think game mechanics are a bit part of it, for me.

but in spite of that, i think reload is a really nice introduction to persona 3, it's so much more accessible and has a bunch of things to help make it more fun :) so far i think i'd recommend it to people :D

not to discount p3/4/5 yuri i love p3/4/5 yuri but on a character design front p1/2 were just otherworldly....

friendship ended with modernsona games. now oldsona games are my best friends

Oh also I just wanted to say that you are all welcome on my blog no matter which series you like more or what game is your favorite ♥️♥️♥️ I cherish all megaten games for different reasons and reblog content from all of them so:

If you like P5/modernsona? Wonderful Do you like oldsona? Cool! You like SMT IVA? Amazing! Nocturne? Valid! Old SMT/Megami Tensei? Great! DDS? Yay! And everything other and in between (mentioning all would take too much time lol) is still cool for me!

So yeah, you are valid no matter which series you like the most for me :33 Everyone is welcome and you can blabber about any of them to me (maybe except the one i hadnt played cuz spoilers hahah but only because of that reason) :333

tbh i don’t know when or if i’ll get back to playing desu2–strategy games are particularly draining for me when i feel as if they’re pushing too long without justification and that’s a problem i’m facing with 2.

i do want to inevitably talk about a couple more things desu2 put out there i appreciate it for over other megatens since there’s so much potential here. it’s by no means a bad game!!! it’s just too much. it’s heavily flawed. and though i see why people love it, those flaws still need to be acknowledged.

yes the gameplay improvements are amazing. yes i do think more time and effort was put into 2 than the first game presentation-wise, some of the battle improvements are much better, there are concepts no megaten would ever dare to even try and tackle at least in the pre-established format mainline is famous for, and though the writing is generally messy and contradictory, it’s genuinely entertaining at points… until day 8. we do not need a day 8 unless it’s post-game content like what overclocked did.

the problem stems the most from an identity crisis affecting the way it plays. of course it mainly struggles from its nge inspiration, but the biggest part of the identity crisis is one based in a criticism no megaten fan likes. hate to do it but imma do it—devil survivor 2 is one of atlus’s first attempts at persona-ifying the rest of the franchise. it’s a problem i want to touch on in the future so imma keep this brief.

desu2 clearly wants to be modern persona the most, judging by the fate system and how it does the cast, however a strategy game can’t pull this off without jumping major hoops. fire emblem does the social aspect better because the process is streamlined and the characters you’re made to care about usually tend to be written well unless your name is fates. (anything that has the word “fate” in the title should be enough of a red flag for either garbage fandom or garbage product just saying lol.) however, with what success persona got beginning with 3, the dev team was tasked with replicating parts of modernsona to help it be some way to capture mainstream audiences. after all, most people’s introductions to megaten will be persona, and as we all know with how journalists were with smt 5 and likely applies to the rest of the franchise due to how different it is, anything megaten that isn’t persona has no heart. with shit like the fate system being forced in, the pacing further deteriorates.

both desu1 and 2 are easy for the most part but require an ungodly amount of grinding just to build your team because money is scarce and everything is overpriced, be it in the auction or the compendium. you need demons with a certain skill and resistances? get grinding. and with what little ways to actually play around with the fusing without grinding because of the stupid add ons and expensive fusion chains and how exp you can get for demons gets significantly harder to obtain, you’re already at a strategic disadvantage. you can’t fuse mitamas without unlocking it after fucking beating the game, and even if you can, fusing elements and mitamas has a fee. this already takes up most of the experience, as this forces most battles to be either free or dlc battles for the sake of resources which ends in being over leveled, and since the ai for enemies and bosses aren’t the best, you’re already at far too great an advantage, so the mandatory combat goes by fast. then the socializing comes in. desu1 is definitely better since it cuts out the bullshit and makes so most of what you’re hearing contributes to the plot, worldbuilding, or actual development for the characters. in 2, the fate ranks affect nothing save for unlocks and maybe the occasional story relevance. you can’t skip this, as most of the options are either free battles, waste 30 in game minutes viewing an event that doesn’t affect any other function, talk with teammates that you swore you’ve seen their archetype done better before, be given info about said character that may or may not actually mean shit based on when you talk to them, have a chance to up their fate rank, and that’s it. not like you have the threat of being unable to. you can prevent anyone in death videos from dying, and there’s no consequences for choosing a route since you can re-recruit everyone except a certain alignment rep if you oppose them, not counting daichi. all that changes is the ending and if an alignment rep dies again not counting daichi. this is all the game is, rinse and repeat.

i’ve never had something simultaneously be worse and better all due to anime tropes and inspiration. it fucking hurts me. 2’s a good game, just way too big and way too focused on capitalizing on persona, neither of which i can fault the team behind it for since it was clearly an issue of ideas and expectations being thrown onto them. maybe one day i’ll power through the final day, but right now, it completely lost me.

if you want to make your game’s main campaign long, justify why it’s that way. if it’s long because of padding without a way to grip the player, your product serves as a way to waste time and money that could’ve been spent on something else.

Sometimes I get way too excited about cute plushies....

(And yes, kanji tatsumi is my favourite modernsona character. Why do you ask x)

I thought reload would make p3 more popular but it seems people still don't know the best modernsona friend group and the only real bitches in the world... this is so sad.

WATCHING FES AND WAIT THATS RISE SHES REALLY A REFERENCE IN ALL MODERNSONA!!!! I just realized I never met yukiko in p3p, did I fuck up? Is she only in femc??

heads up: commenting something like "im glad persona seems to be done with being homophobic after 3-5" on youtube will summon people you never even imagined could exist into your notifications

People who are assholes about smt vs persona or like modernsona vs oldsona annoy me like i will do everything in my fucking power to get people to play these games

been playing through p3 fes and… i genuinely love that maxxing out minato’s social stats ended up coinciding with the “ryoji is the appriser" reveal on december 2nd. so here’s a tangent about some hcs / thoughts i have surrounding december as prompted by gameplay experiences.

i feel that the reveal as is, already hits hard, given the moral and existential question that ryoji’s proposal raises. SEES are forced to reevaluate their actions under perceived hopelessness and it’s!! good shit!

but there’s an added layer of depression when you think about the player choices during the afternoon and nighttime segments of the game, and what that implies for minato’s mental state.

since i had minato’s social stats maxxed out (and already completed the tower and devil SLs)... during december, i ended up sending minato to game panic EVERY single night since there’s… not as much left to do. the idea of minato constantly engaging with repetitive activity at game panic just to burn time gets me fucked up. the weight of the decision he has to make by the 31st leaves this suffocating silence that’s hard to push away. and he can’t completely turn away from the impending feeling of “doom” looming over him- during december there’s fliers all over paulownia mall for strega’s cult to worship nyx and antagonize SEES.

hell, you could also just… send minato to bed early and not bother to do anything for the night given that gameplay-wise it’s not “productive” for the player to visit the social stat raising places. december feels extra fucked up when you experience it in-game because it almost feels that minato is just going through the motions of Life™ while trying to grapple with a heavy decision and the existential dread that comes with it. i also think minato could have insomnia- and it just gets WORSE this month.

the dorm’s atmosphere also completely shifts this month as well. aigis is out-of-commission, and each member of SEES is attempting to process the information that ryoji dropped on them- making sense of it in their own ways. when they do join together to talk about it- it’s messy, and emotionally charged by this imminent threat. i love how well the gravity of this situation is reflected in-game, and how SEES musters the resolve to fight nyx, no matter what the future may hold for them.

ANYWAY. i love december in p3- getting a chance to experience it in-game and translating gameplay experiences to the protagonist has really heightened my appreciation for it! even if the protagonists are ‘intended’ to be blank slates… there is so much that you can infer and piece together from the gameplay and AUGH! i love the MCs 😭

i keep seeing videos of this one person trying to play modernsona with nuzlocke rules, and it makes me think that i would love to do that for persona 2. but those games have the worst caveats ever for that kind of challenge

i did a bit of replaying of fes today and let me tell you I AM THE HAPPIEST LIZZY to have walked the earth!!! I LOVE THIS GAME!!! even if i only played the first four days (im on april 18th and i did NOT go up to the 4th floor to talk to ikutsuki). random talking under the cut...

i genuinely think that the animated cutscenes in fes still hold up. im so charmed by the manga panel expression cut ins + the little 💦❓⁉ types of emotes that pop over the characters heads and the waist-up portraits. and i unironically love the models they're really cute. minato is too cute he's too perfect for my eyes i think he needs to be blown up immediately.

i think it's really neat to see the different social links and other party members very briefly in those "minato walks through (xyz) location" scenes. i was so excited 2 see them i was like!! visible exclamation point over my head bc i do treasure some of these SLs so much...

for shits and giggles on the full moon on the 9th, when you're supposed to be running up to the 5th floor. i decided to walk around the second floor and interact with things. i really enjoyed the additional dialogue bits from yukari there.

honestly a common trend that seems to happen a lot whenever i play p3 is just a spike in my love for yukari. like. i already love her a lot as is but whenever i see her dialogue again i just am filled with so much overwhelming love for how much she sticks to her values i just think it's so so nice how much she values honesty and transparency and i think i would like to try and articulate it better at some other point. she's so good.

and i think whenever i see the yukari moments from playing through p3 it always makes me so... (microwaves myself and blows up), i guess, disgruntled? that she got shafted SO hard in the movies like damn no wonder why i didn't really get into her brain space they barely gave us any time to peel her brain layers 😭 (though this is hardly exclusive to yukari).

ANYWAY my replay will probably be a very slow one, i really enjoy sitting through cutscenes and thinking about them and uh! persona has a lot of them. i think it'll be nice to do this in the evenings sometimes, though. i forgor how good the opening to the game was it's such a fun way to throw the player into the experience.

AND!!! it's definitely causing my brain chemicals to jump for joy and yipee over art ideas like OHHH IM SO!!! i love interacting with the source material again it's so nice to be reminded of the bits that resonated with you or things that you might've glossed over yet still are significant in the grand scheme of things. i've wanted to draw p3 again but when a lot of my ideas were just hanging around in my brain for a year or two sometimes i get attached 2 how it looks in my head and dont think ill b able to translate that so. its nice. 2 have new ideas on the chopping block.

GOD i love p3 and hmgnhh. i will always love to revisit fes i think. even though reload will be a thing. i think i am oddly entranced by how "dated" some of these mechanics are. like tiredness. or no part-time job. or the no party control. its such a fun way of informing minato's characterization that isn't really there when you try to make p3 closer to "modernsona" methinks BUT ANYWAY. thats all from me.

Not sure if you've ever answered this before but: If you had to pick 3 MegaTen game soundtracks, which ones would they be? As in the entire OST, not just one theme.

ok this is gonna be long since i wanna spill my hot takes in the process.

gonna be honest only truly good thing about dds2 is the ost. 1’s ost is fire and i prefer less hype battle themes in turn based rpgs but all the battle themes in 2 fucking slap. by far the greatest pair of osts in the franchise but dds is treated as one complete thing and for good reasons.

i regained a lot of appreciation for 4’s. replaying it definitely gives a new layer just bc you know what’s going on. dungeon themes are especially the strongest part. my favorite track, as kinda a basic bitch opinion, is the domain boss theme :) the guitar riffs in 4 are godly as well as the more industrial elements of some of the dungeon themes. (4a has some good ones too!)

hard to pick an exact third fave since all the ps2 megaten osts are solid in general so imma do a massive hot take while acknowledging persona. p4’s fits the vibe the most and i think that’s what makes it stronger than other persona osts. idk man p1 and the 2 duology’s osts are great but got downgraded with the psp releases which is probably the hottest take in existence. they’re atmospheric and really fitting but despite how great they are they don’t feel very persona-y. even without the current identity of modernsona it doesn’t really fit with the setting and feels like they belong in different games. i love jazz so p5 and p5r have that going for them but i only really tend to enjoy the chiller tracks. jazz can be incorporated into battle themes amazingly but it feels underwhelming compared to both other jazzy megaten osts and other jazzy osts in general. yeah even last surprise. it’s good but lacking something that the way the jazz elements were handled don’t really hit. p3 has the best vocal tracks and i love the tartarus theme but it also reflects that weird transitionary period of the series where it had an idea of what it wanted to be but didn’t know how to execute it. idk never got behind a lot of the tracks and felt like the more melancholic lo-fi material ones were the most fitting. lotus juice was carrying everything else. p4/4g has the best since it does really fucking feel like it came out of the time period. the vocal tracks aren’t nearly as good as 3’s for the most part but really only with the battles. heartbeat heartbreak will eternally stick with me and i’ll face myself is fucking fantastic (especially the reincarnation version even if it’s more of a p4 anime thing). the music actually feels integral to 4 and helps enhance it. like this is the shit i would actually hear if i was chilling in a small town and if i went through similarly themed dungeons and a strip club.