Board 8 > Persona 3 Reload Beated

(+) Yeah! (+)

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86:21

The first time I've managed to get through the game all the way to it's completion since the first time I did when the game initially came out, despite many attempts. Purchased blind on the recommendation of this very board! Such a long time ago.

Gotta say, they did a great job. Obviously I'm upset some stuff isn't here, but the quality of life and visual/audio glowup is pretty intense.

Theurgys are pretty busted. Trivialized a lot of the content.

New scenes were cool. The wierd thing is, since the male party hangouts are new hotness and the girl party member links are still the old meh for the most part, there's a huge quality disparity between them.

In the end, I don't think it actually changes my opinion; pretty easily the weakest of the 3 modern games for me, but it's very easy to understand why it's a lot of people's favorite. Just doesn't excel in the places that matter more to me that the other 2 do, mainly in party interaction and scene variety overall.

That last month is still a fucking mood, though. Absolutely no doubt that ending blows the other 2 out of the water.

Ken still sucks ass.

Obviously romanced Aegis.

Sun is still the best social link in the game.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

Ken still sucks ass.

Everyone always insulting me I didn't even do anything

Obviously romanced Aegis.

I thought you can romance everyone without any consequences in 3, did that change?

also became a 3 in the middle person but I never actually touched Portable

Did you use a guide to max out all Social Links?

Didn't they add friendship s links for the girls in Reload? Are those not higher quality?

SHINE_GET_64 posted...

Everyone always insulting me I didn't even do anything

Put on some pants.

LiquidOshawott posted...

I thought you can romance everyone without any consequences in 3, did that change?

You can but I don't want to do that.

Raka_Putra posted...

Did you use a guide to max out all Social Links?

Yes, that's how I have to play these games, personal issue. If I got to the end and didn't have that all maxed I would feel like I wasted my time.

MacArrowny posted...

Didn't they add friendship s links for the girls in Reload? Are those not higher quality?

They did not, just the regular S Links like they had before. There's other new short mini social things for everyone based around random activities, but the hangouts are just the guys.

You may be thinking about how they got rid of reversals so you have alternate dialogue now for near the end if you go that route, and that's definitely a welcome change for the end of the links, but it's still the same overall S Link.

Oh yeah, I just mean in the original P3 all the female S-Links were romance. I'd heard they added an option to not go the romance route with the girls.

Yep, but all those lovers flags are rank 8 or 9 so it's only crumbs.

I feel like even those crumbs though are still better than the lovers route endings, though, since I did all or them but Aegis'. I wonder if Atlus took to heart how upset people got about how rejecting Haru went down, lol.

Oh, I meantioned it in another topic so I forgot to do it here, but the new VA work is excellent across the board. Most of the VA work was solid in the original, but the misses that were there have all been cleaned up (Fuuka). Akihiko is the most obviously different, but still good. Junpei is a huge improvement, not just saying that because Vic stuff since I think regardless Vic did a great job back then. He sounds almost the same most of the time, but when he gets loud and upset Zeno Robinson (this guys really coming up nowadays, so good as Folgado) absolutely destroys it.

Speaking of Junpei, man, playing through the back half of this game for the first time in forever absolutely opened my eyes because he is so far and away the best starter bro character of the bunch. He's like a reverse Yosuke, with Yosuke starting strong but getting worse and worse, while Junpei starts lame but gets better and better.

Also there's an anime cutscene at the end where he has hit hat off for like half a second, and hatless Junpei is horrifying.

I thought you were super against this due to no FeMC/Answer stuff

maybe I'm mistaking you for someone else

colliding posted...

I thought you were super against this due to no FeMC/Answer stuff

maybe I'm mistaking you for someone else

Yep, that was me.

I am still pissed about the no FeMC stuff. I do hope The Answer comes as DLC as rumored, but what caused me to concede at the last minute was them saying there would be no rerelease like Golden or Royal, which was always my biggest issue with the exclusion of that content (assuming they would make you buy the game again and start from scratch for new content 2 years from now).

I like Royal, but it's still bullshit that it exists, can't stand when games put stuff like that out (had the same problem with DQXI S).

I'm with you TBH, especially since they're such long games already.

Is it bad that Im like

Im going to forget most of it anyway so what does it matter if I dont max two social links

UshiromiyaEva posted...

Yep, but all those lovers flags are rank 8 or 9 so it's only crumbs.

I feel like even those crumbs though are still better than the lovers route endings, though, since I did all or them but Aegis'. I wonder if Atlus took to heart how upset people got about how rejecting Haru went down, lol.

What happens when you reject Haru? I dont remember at all.

catesdb posted...

Is it bad that Im like

Im going to forget most of it anyway so what does it matter if I dont max two social links

This is why YouTube exists

Anagram posted...

What happens when you reject Haru? I dont remember at all.

She gets extremely upset about it, like, devestated IIRC. It stands out because none of the other rejections in the game are like that.

I ended up romancing her in Royal so it's not super fresh in my mind (every time I play a Persona game with multiple years between playthroughs, I'm always amazed by how much my character opinions shift almost universally).

UshiromiyaEva posted...

(every time I play a Persona game with multiple years between playthroughs, I'm always amazed by how much my character opinions shift almost universally).

I;m intrigued by this. Mind sharing some exampels?

I'm not really good at breaking down my thoughts for stuff like this since a lot of it is just internal vibes, but I'll try.

Most noteable examples.

For the most recent one, Junpei. This one was definitely tainted by so many failed playthroughs over the years, since Junpei is, intentionally as part of the narrative, kind of unbearable for the first half of the game. However, back when it came out, I was a bit blinded by my lack of interest in the archetype. Now, man, does he ever land in the back half of this game. I think a lot of P3 characters suffer from kind of just being there for a lot of the game narratively (this is a bit of an issue for some characters in all 3 games, but usually it's made up for with fucking around filler moments I enjoy throughout), but Junpei has something active going on from the front to the back of the game. I REALLY like the Chidori stuff, I kind of wish there was a lot more of it? Time outside of the hospital before she leaves to Tartarus.

The rest for P3 is a bit superficial. Fuuka is way better now but that's just because of the voice actress, I never even tried to like her the first time because the VA work just didn't work for me (I also think the process of recruiting Fuuka is the only time in the game where it really feels like they even attempt to make someone joining the team matter). Shinji is still cool, but the extremely low amount of join time feels like a mistake (the major lack of any narrative within Tartarus itself definitely makes this worse....taking it the hangouts added in Reload away, he's barely even in the game after he joins).

P4, there's not really anyone I like less than I used to. There was a time BETWEEN playthroughs where I thought I like Yosuke more than I did, but both while playing and replaying In felt the same, lol. It's more who I didn't like before, which where Yukiko and Rise, two characters I didn't care about at all the first time through. In replay, they ended up being my favorite 2 girls in the game (Kanji is #1) and I have to attribute that to just being too tomboy focused at the time lol (which, you know, still a fan but my horizons have opened). Maybe my irrational, obsessive hate of Mendez' Chie hurt me there...Naoto I had a lot of confirmation bias for when I first played P4. I DECIDED Naoto was my favorite character before playing the game, and my main drive was to get to Naoto. When they shove you in the crappy video game dungeon between Rise and Naoto, I dropped the game for like a month out of frustration. When I played it again all those years later, I still really like Naoto, but her self appointed #1 spot didn't hold up.

P5 is the biggest, and it's noteable since that was only a 2 year gap between vanilla and Royal. The first chunk of characters, nothing there, but I didn't give a fuck about Yusuke when I played P5. P5R, and Yusuke is the fucking BEST. He sucks ass before her joins, but once he does he's nothing but absolute gold. Almost everything that comes out of his mouth is amazing. Meanwhile, I got swept up in the Makoto zeitgeist on P5's launch, but on playing Royal she was.....fine? The game treats her like she's the main character sometimes, everyone loves her, it gets kind of annoying. I like her design a lot but she's pretty mid. Haru, however, grew on me a ton on that second playthrough. Even with her minimal screen presence by comparison, she's just a pleasant character to have on screen, I became genuinely invested in interacting with her. She really deserved to have more content in the game.

I do want to add a note here though that I think every character here is good in P5 Strikers. I'm still super impressed at how much fun that game was, considering I am personally of the opinion that Persona characters get worse in every spinoff they're in (P4 characters suffer the most, as they devolve into charicatures of themselves more with every release). Now that I'm done with Reload I'm going to be playing Tactica, though, so time to see what that does with the characters. Don't have high expectations.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

Yes, that's how I have to play these games, personal issue.

understandable and also same

I went a step further in P5R on PC and gave myself some extra days in cheatengine so I could definitely max everything. I also had to figure out how to flip a choice flag because I was an idiot and ignored a guide for the like one hour I really should have looked at one

There was a moment in here where I got one step behind on Fuuka's schedule because I didn't have a Priestess Persona while gardening with her, and if it weren't for the new rewind feature I would have reloaded a 3 hour save.

Oh, it's good Fuuka sounds better. Kinda sad, though. Old Fuuka had such a weird inflection in her voice. She clearly was trying to indicate something; I just don't know what.

Oh, one thing to note: I think the anime cutscenes are a lot worse. Just like the new portraits, yes they're technically high or even higher quality, but the original cutscenes had an aesthetic to them that I think is lost with the new ones, in a way that the new portraits still pull off for the most part.

A lot of the in-engine cutscenes we get here are better than what the original had, but not all. The original Thanatos ripping out of Orpheus cutscenes is still not topped. It was a disturbing, strong moment on the PS2, that was neutered to trash in P3P, and is good here but is not conveying any dread, instead coming off a a "cool" moment like a P5 scene.

Oh, maybe I'm just gaslighting myself here, but P5 had full compedium Fusion, right? Like, you could do normal fusions from the compedium, not just special ones. That's not here, was it never there in recent releases and I'm just remembering wrong?

UshiromiyaEva posted...

Most noteable examples. [...]

Thanks for sharing! It's pretty interesting and I think your thoughts make sense. I wonder if I'll change my opinions on some characters to if I were to play the enhanced/remake versions one day.

How many free days did you end up with while following a guide? Cus I remember in Royal you could max everything like 2 weeks before the original final boss without a guide. It was pretty easy.

I think about 3 weeks overall. Plenty of free time, but enough stuff starts late enough that has to be done im uncertain window that you can't fuxk around too much.

Clairvoyant Relic is really kicking my ass.

It's not as frightening as it seems. Just make sure you can buff your defense and most importantly debuff it's attack, and that the MC's persona doesn't have one of the 4 elemental weaknesses.

Prioritize both of those rather than evasion buffing/debuffing, best to just assume it's going to get those 1 More's.

Of course I beat it one try after posting that.

Junpei is a top 2 character in the series for me and it frustrates me that he doesn't seem to be popular. (He's probably #2 behind Futaba but they are very close)

I mean I sort of get it since he's intentionally written to be personally unlikeable at times but I guess I wish that didn't seem to matter to people so much. Maybe it's just that if the character arc doesn't land for any particular player, a likeable character has something to fall back on but an unlikeable one doesn't.

pyresword posted...

Junpei is a top 2 character in the series for me and it frustrates me that he doesn't seem to be popular. (He's probably #2 behind Futaba but they are very close)

This is I think multiple issues.

A lot of Persona fans haven't played P3 (before now).

The most annoying one, which is that even some P3 fans haven't actually played P3 (I assure you this is much more common than you'd think)

Junpei relies on a full game arc from start to finish in a way that most Persona characters don't.

Most Persona characters, even the good ones, are pretty stagnant. Even P4, a game that is partially ABOUT changing how you present and perceive yourself, doesn't see much character evolution. When characters so change through the narrative, it's typically more jarring too. A prime example is Yusuke, a character who sucks as before joining and then just suddenly doesn't afterwards. As much as I like the idea of Persona's changing at max rank, P3 made much better use of having the characters reach a point in the narrative where the Persona's evolving make sense.

Junpei embodies this perfectly in a way that I don't think would work if he was in a different Persona game.

And, lastly, the one that got me for years....is that visually he's a pretty bland looking guy, lol.

Does getting a wand card increase the exp your equipped persona earns?

Yes, experience is fully spread. I THINK it's actually 6 ways by the time you get Fuuka: 3 party member, MC, MC's persona, and Fuuka. MIGHT just be 5, never did the exact math.

The leveling speed difference between grinding solo with the MC versus as a group is insane.

Ok I finished it and was kinda underwhelmed by Nyx. Maybe cus years ago Woolie overhyped it and made it seem like going through the arcana journey was this epic, mind blowing revelation about what MC has gone through, but it was more generic like all fortune telling is. 5 > 3 > 4 as far as evil god boss fights go. Can't beat "Pillage him, Satanael".

very good ending for the SEES crew though

P3's finale blows P4's and P5's out of the water. Picking P5 in particular as the best one is a "does not compute" for me.

I think it says it all that the "True Final Boss" of P3 doesn't feel like a "True" Final Boss, it just feels like "The" Final Boss.

Technically The Hanged Man could be the final boss of this game and the very idea is hilarious. P4 does it TWICE, and you can technically end the game after any of it's 3 final bosses. P5 is the worst at this, I don't think that's controversial. I'm actually, and I think this is the minority, am a big fan of Shido as a character and would have loved to have just built the game up more with him as the actual end. I don't find much value in the post Shido stuff. Maybe if I care about Morgana even, like, a little bit.

Nah, I agree with you on P5. The fakeout final boss feels like a more epic confrontation than the actual one.

The silver lining is that I actually really, really like the final boss of Royal. It's something that matches the rest of the game but still manages to stand out as it's own thing so much. It's still a big swerve of course, and is clearly tacked on, but unlike most of the others it justifies itself and actually has you (or me at least) invested.

Also I'm a total sucker for the MGS4 moment.

P5 Tactica needs to do something quick because 3 hours in and this is not, uh, good?

Kind of just feel like playing Royal again lol.

Tactica is awful, dont waste your time. I say this as someone who did waste his time and beat it.

I think I'm just not into these homogenized, cover based Tactics games. I couldn't get into Mario and Rabbids either and this appears to be the same game.

What couldn't it have been an FFT/Tactics Ogre style? :/

At least I'll have Unicorn Overlord next month.

It is what it is when the order you play them is 5 then 4 then 3

UshiromiyaEva posted...

I think I'm just not into these homogenized, cover based Tactics games. I couldn't get into Mario and Rabbids either and this appears to be the same game.

What couldn't it have been an FFT/Tactics Ogre style? :/

At least I'll have Unicorn Overlord next month.

The difference in quality between Strikers and Tactica is insane.

As a Musou hater, Strikers is a very good game.

Strikers is fun but as a Musou fan it doesn't tick any of my Musou boxes. I almost feel lied to for expecting something Musou-y. Probably a plus overall since my kind are dying out!

UshiromiyaEva posted...

I think I'm just not into these homogenized, cover based Tactics games. I couldn't get into Mario and Rabbids either and this appears to be the same game.

What couldn't it have been an FFT/Tactics Ogre style? :/

At least I'll have Unicorn Overlord next month.

UO is real-time, sadly. I'm skeptical about how good the gameplay will be, since GrimGrimoire and 13 Sentinels didn't have amazing combat.

Bro these modders are fucking wild.

https://youtu.be/SacwPbPmLPw?si=VzpDooosr6SlKo2n