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But the existence of the "you" that you believe in is so tenuous - Shin Megami Tensei/Persona General

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Mutton said:
SMT has been defined for the past two decades as being dark. There's a good reason that modern Persona games have been cut away from the SMT branding. So when you come out and say "this is going to be a Fusion of the SMT games and X" you generally are telling the audience to ask themselves how many of their friends they plan on killing over ideological differences.
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I absolutely understand why people feel this way, but I also believe that they should take it as a cautionary tale about their own habits in regards to viewing announcements. People set their own expectations. That's a truism when it comes marketing generally, but in this case you had people invent a particular game from what amounts to a couple of people saying 'hey we're going to be working together.'

I remember when the announcement was first made, and someone on Spacebattles said something along the lines of 'I don't have any idea how this is going to turn out because these franchise are so different from each other.' I felt the same way at the time, because they really are nothing alike, from setting to aesthetics to thematics. You would honestly have to get pretty creative to fit this stuff together, and I think it's clear that they did, even if you don't like the result.
 
Ford Prefect said:
I absolutely understand why people feel this way, but I also believe that they should take it as a cautionary tale about their own habits in regards to viewing announcements. People set their own expectations. That's a truism when it comes marketing generally, but in this case you had people invent a particular game from what amounts to a couple of people saying 'hey we're going to be working together.'

I remember when the announcement was first made, and someone on Spacebattles said something along the lines of 'I don't have any idea how this is going to turn out because these franchise are so different from each other.' I felt the same way at the time, because they really are nothing alike, from setting to aesthetics to thematics. You would honestly have to get pretty creative to fit this stuff together, and I think it's clear that they did, even if you don't like the result.
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I think that's pretty unfair; when you say "we're making SMT x FE" you expect it to actually reflect SMT and FE. When they dropped SMT from the name people should have been warned off that it would be shit, but seeing as they were still somewhat emotionally attached to it thanks to loving SMT they still got hurt a bit. That's how emotions work. Personally I didn't have very high hopes for the FE side as the series hasn't been good in half a decade and the writing in more than that (although I am a terrible consumer and will still pick up Fates) and they obviously weren't doing this as an SRPG, but hey, as I said people get attached to their series and when it turns out that they were just using them as window dressing to get you to buy the game they get angry.

You can say "you shouldn't fall for the marketing" but that's kind of the point of marketing and it's pretty shitty to blame the people for getting given a crappy product instead of the marketing and production teams.
 
Mutton said:
Personally I didn't have very high hopes for the FE side as the series hasn't been good in half a decade and the writing in more than that (although I am a terrible consumer and will still pick up Fates) .
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Hey, Awakening wasn't that bad Gameplay wise. I just wish they took the right lessons from it, and not the understanding that Waifu bullshit sells.
 
Sucal said:
Hey, Awakening wasn't that bad Gameplay wise. I just wish they took the right lessons from it, and not the understanding that Waifu bullshit sells.
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Bwah? The maps were terrible, the gameplay broke down to "pair up, let them break against your face and laugh" and the harder modes had random skill distribution. They didn't even take the right lesson from FE4 and have your kids be available when the parents weren't so you ended up with a bunch of ubermensch and then their parents just kind of hanging out. I'm just hoping Fates has better gameplay as apparently the story is even worse. It wasn't a bad game, just bad in comparison to the good FE games though if that's what you're getting at and I'm cranky about it >.>

Enough about FE though, what was the team behind #FE known for before or are they a ragtag bunch?
 
Mutton said:
Personally I didn't have very high hopes for the FE side as the series hasn't been good in half a decade and the writing in more than that.
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I hope you're not implying Shadow Dragon was better than New Mystery and Awakening.

Also the writing in the earlier games ranged from sparse to nonexistent, in most cases abandoning characterisation entirely in favor of a Romance of the Kingdoms-style plot that only really worked in the case of Genealogy and 776. Most of the modern games embrace a more character-driven narrative cycle, which while I think personally articulates a lot more narrative skill and nuance than the earlier storylines (I grant this is partially a question of taste) a lot of people will dismiss it as "waifu bullshit". The GBA series had particularly wonky scripts that couldn't decide if they wanted the characters to be people or pieces in a war drama, and ended up settling in various awkward places in between.

(Sorry for the FE derail in the SMT megathread, I'm just tired of running into this opinion.)
 
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One Classy Hydra said:
Awakening was an ab


I hope you're not implying Shadow Dragon was better than New Mystery and Awakening.

Also the writing in the earlier games ranged from sparse to nonexistent, in most cases abandoning characterisation entirely in favor of a Romance of the Kingdoms-style plot that only really worked in the case of Genealogy and 776. Most of the modern games embrace a more character-driven narrative cycle, which while I think personally articulates a lot more narrative skill and nuance than the earlier storylines (I grant this is partially a question of taste) a lot of people will dismiss it as "waifu bullshit". The handhelds had particularly wonky scripts that couldn't decide if they wanted the characters to be people or pieces in a war drama, and ended up settling in various awkward places in between.

(Sorry for the FE derail in the SMT megathread, I'm just tired of running into this opinion.)
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4 through 9 had good to great writing for the most part and great gameplay. 10 had godawful writing but fun combat even if they made a ton of bad decisions. 10 was also around half a decade ago so that's what I'm setting the line at.

Shadow Dragon was just bad and New Mystery had a completely wonky class swap system so I'd say Awakening was better than them but that's not saying too much as it's still an weak entry.
 
One Classy Hydra said:
I hope you're not implying Shadow Dragon was better than New Mystery and Awakening.

Also the writing in the earlier games ranged from sparse to nonexistent, in most cases abandoning characterisation entirely in favor of a Romance of the Kingdoms-style plot that only really worked in the case of Genealogy and 776. Most of the modern games embrace a more character-driven narrative cycle, which while I think personally articulates a lot more narrative skill and nuance than the earlier storylines (I grant this is partially a question of taste) a lot of people will dismiss it as "waifu bullshit". The GBA series had particularly wonky scripts that couldn't decide if they wanted the characters to be people or pieces in a war drama, and ended up settling in various awkward places in between.

(Sorry for the FE derail in the SMT megathread, I'm just tired of running into this opinion.)
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Mutton said:
4 through 9 had good to great writing for the most part and great gameplay. 10 had godawful writing but fun combat even if they made a ton of bad decisions. 10 was also around half a decade ago so that's what I'm setting the line at.

Shadow Dragon was just bad and New Mystery had a completely wonky class swap system so I'd say Awakening was better than them but that's not saying too much as it's still an weak entry.
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Lets continue this argument over here
 
Mutton said:
You can say "you shouldn't fall for the marketing" but that's kind of the point of marketing and it's pretty shitty to blame the people for getting given a crappy product instead of the marketing and production teams.
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I think there's a pretty obvious difference between a thin teaser and other kinds of marketing, but to be perfectly honest consumers have to lift their game, pardon the phrasing, as well.

Critically they haven't actually used SMT as window dressing to make people buy the game. When it came time to market the game, as opposed to letting people know that some kind of thing was happening, it was under an entirely new subfranchise title.
 
The judgment begins. Prepare.

That's right, we coming to wreck yo' asses. PRAISE THE DIVINE WAKAMOTO! ALL HAIRU OPPAI!!!

Also, this better not be some SMTII bullshit where the final boss run for all the routes is always Divine Wakamoto. Because fuck that boring shit again, I want major variations for each route's final fights.
 
I'm the final boss of every route.

Or at least my pinky is, the part up to the first joint.
 
Sucal said:
Sorry.

Only Hitoshura and Aleph are worthy of the extension.
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Oh please, the former only took down one non-main aspect, the other only one of the actual Big Yellow.

Looks like Flynn and SMTIVFinal hero are gonna beat a whole legion of Giant Golden Heads
 
Big Yellow and Kaga are of the same importance, and the former effectively wiped out an infinite number of universes with his Kaga killing universal abortion punch.
 
So how many routes does FINAL have in the end?
Last time I checked I read there were supposed to be Fifty Three Shades of Neutral but those were all pre-release previsions.
 
Flynn said:
We are not alone.
i have faith in my relationships and bonds with everyone.
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Flynn, I'm sorry, but you've been diagnosed with terminal Purse-owner syndrome. Terminal as in "I'm going to GENOCIDE your friendship-loving ass."

Man, those rumors of the Peace ending being all Persona 4-ish super optimistic goody goody happy happy end better not be true. I'd rather the purely good endings should be relegated to side games, not mainline. Something must go wrong with any mainline ending because everyone and everything is a shit in mainline.
 
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Pocky Balboa said:

Flynn, I'm sorry, but you've been diagnosed with terminal Purse-owner syndrome. Terminal as in "I'm going to GENOCIDE your friendship-loving ass."

Man, those rumors of the Peace ending being all Persona 4-ish super optimistic goody goody happy happy end better not be true. I'd rather the purely good endings should be relegated to side games, not mainline. Something must go wrong with any mainline ending because everyone and everything is a shit in mainline.
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Deal with it.

Flynn just decided to pull down the zipper of his pants and gives a friendship speech to fucking YHVH right in his face in his own house. Deal with your happy ending. Mainline games can have happy endings. Flynn two friends, Walter and Johnathan died after coming back but the evil been defeated. Even the happiest ending still feels like an SMT game.
 
Usernames said:
Deal with it.

Flynn just decided to pull down the zipper of his pants and gives a friendship speech to fucking YHVH right in his face in his own house. Deal with your happy ending. Mainline games can have happy endings. Flynn two friends, Walter and Johnathan died after coming back but the evil been defeated. Even the happiest ending still feels like an SMT game.
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Too optimistic mang. Makes the Persona series less special that way to me. I like the divide between the cynical tone and views of mainline while Persona keeps the more upbeat view of people.
 
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