joshth

I've only just finished the first act, and it still could definitely go either way. The main thing I'll say is that while there is some real mental health stuff on the surface, like depression, anxiety, and grief, the game is seeming like it's going in the direction that it's not that they're crazy, they're just the only ones who can see the truth. Because some of them also seem to have some kind of magical powers, maybe? It's very Lovecraftian.

I'm having the same problem with the new Bring Your B-game video from GBeast. I can download the UPF from this week fine but it says I need to be a subscriber to watch the GBE video. Is this something that can be addressed by either the App dev or GB? It bums me out that I can't download it for my daily train rides.

Rivers in the Desert is definitely one of my favorites as well. My top is probably the vocal version of the song that plays as your walking to the bosses

But I also need to give a serious shout out to Regret, which not only perfectly encapsulates an emotion better than just about any other piece of music I've heard, but I love that the first time they chose to show it was with the first villains confession, making that scene even stronger.

finished it a few days ago and love the game as a whole, but I did want to echo and add to some of the talk around Akechi. I went through such a roller coaster ride with his character. I noticed the Pancake thing as soon as it happened, and all signs seemed to be pointing toward him being a villain. It was SO obvious, that as the game went on I assumed they were doing it on purpose, that they wanted us to distrust him just because he was vocally against the phantom thieves.

When he did his turn and started talking about how he thought something didn't add up with the phantom thieves, I was elated. I assumed they had actually made this fleshed out character with a complicated notion of truth and justice, and that while he didn't agree with what the phantom thieves were doing, he also was smart enough to know that they weren't the true villain/culprit. I thought they may do similar to what they did with Makoto, but lean harder into this notion of him having his own brand of justice that wasn't fully aligned with the group as a whole.

When they took it a step further and had him join your party, I thought my dreams had come true, and they were just trying to get you to believe that this character was a villain/traitor. I absolutely loved his Persona, his weapon, his finishing art, and the way he interacted with the team. All of his character stuff that happens in the casino was great. As they built up to the return to present day, I assumed that again they were leaning into Akechi being the traitor to make players distrust him while pulling some kind of switcheroo.

When I decided to purposely get that bad ending first, I got so angry when I saw that psychotic anime face. I was really hoping that they were gonna pull some kind of redemption arc for him and bring him back into the party for the last boss. I had assumed they wouldn't have put all that effort into a party member for them to only appear in one dungeon. Again I was wrong.

Then just when things are starting to get interesting: revealing his tragic backstory/relation to Shido, his dark powers and other persona Loki, his interesting struggle in his relation with the main character, you have one underwhelming fight against him and then he's gone. Almost certainly the most interesting antagonist since Kamoshida, definitely more interesting then Shido, and that's it. They didn't lean hard enough either way for any of it to have been satisfying. it's all too quick for me to feel good about his redemptive death, or for me to feel satisfaction at a vanquished foe, he's just gone from the story. All the way till the very end I was waiting for him to come back into the story somehow, I mean they brought back Morgana for seemingly no reason.

It's only made worse by the fact that it's revealed that the two main players of evil Igor's game are you and Akechi. Just like how the MC, Adachi, and Namatame all were different pieces in that God's game, except that was satisfying because they played against each other for the entire story, and each got time to feel fleshed out.

I don't know, I'm sure I'm rambling at this point, but I was just so frustrated. I liked him so much as a character, but it feels like they completely threw out every possible interesting direction they could have gone with him.

Still love this game though.

If I could have gone for Akechi you better believe I would have. But since I couldn't get the "justice" man, I went for the "justice" girl/best girl Makoto. She's the most fleshed out character in your party, her personality is complex and interesting to me. She can be cute, strong, quirky, and beautiful all at the same time.

I like Futaba a lot as a character, but for various story reasons it seems super weird for me to romance her, it just feels like the wrong choice. Haru might as well not even be in this game. And as for Ann, some people here were saying she's like the best parts of Rise without any of the bad? As someone who's best girl in P4 was Rise, Ann feels like Rise with anything exciting or interesting about that character taken out.

I'm not gonna defend them as handling this perfectly, but I do think there are two details that make this better. One is that Futaba does ask them to change her own heart, meaning they don't necessarily force change on her, they do so at her request. Two, many of the party members, including the way I chose to play the protagonist, are wary of this and very unsure if this is the right thing to do, but don't see any other way out of the situation. I think through most of the dungeons they are playing with the idea of "is this really good/correct/right/just?"

I've always thought of it as a Mcelroy bit. I've never been a big fan of the Kinda Funny guys, though admittedly I've never really seen any of their stuff.

@redhotchilimist: I want him to not be the villain so badly. It just seems like they are making it too obvious. He's also my sweet detective justice boy and oh god please don't make him the villain.

Ryuji sucks in a way that I find totally realistic. His character is written in such a way that his actions make sense, but they certainly don't make me like him.

He actually reminds me of a situation I had in middle school, where me and this other kid became friends because we were both social outcasts. But that friendship of convenience turned out to not be great because we had very little in common, but I toughed it out because we were "bros".

His Social Link stuff is certainly some of his best and most redeeming moments (I'm around August by the way), but almost all of his main plot stuff and interactions with other party members have made me not like him.

But then again, I legitimately like Yosuke quite a lot, and it seems like how you feel about him tends to have an effect on whether you will like Ryuji.

Like many others, I'm going to go English first, but I'm very excited to do a Japanese run afterwards.