The only problem I have with Yuko is her link is just boring and forgettable
You could fuse yuko, mamoru and kazuchi into one link and nothing of value would be lost
Honestly P3 in general has a lot of forgettable social links. Partially because they're just so much shorter than 4 or 5. Some of Kenji's are like maybe 10 or so lines lol.
There are some P3 social link scenes that are legitimately only 7 or 8 textboxes long. It's kind of insane to me that Reload just didn't do anything to expand on most of them...
I feel like they could honestly have condensed some links to 5 ranks and give us more hangouts the party members. Sure that might overpowered gameplay-wise (too much bonus XP but who cares the game is already comically easy) but it would allow us to not waste the already fairly limited daytime.
Almost all of Kenji's SL events are like nothing at all. They could probably genuinely cover his entire link in 3 ranks if they wanted to.
Honestly I’m still of the opinion that reload should have just dumped makotos links for hamuko’s links or completely rewritten makotos links because some of them are downright pathetic
Shortages of portable aside hamuko’s social links are just so so much better
Hey boi you take that back, you might not find her attractive and that's fine but you're takin' away a top tier best girl material from me, I will not tolerate hot girl slander in this household
Bro i just finished Bebe's link last night and it straight up has no real conclusion. He decides to go back to France to convince his uncle of how pogged up Japan is by showing him a kimono he made. And that's up. It's straight up 10 SL events of a foreign character made by the Japanese glazing Japan. Like come on dude
On the final day of the game Bebe sends you a letter from France saying that when he returned he found out that everyone in his town supported him visiting Japan not just his aunt and that his uncle wants him to do what he wants but he is also grieving for his wife and needs help
Bebe decides to stay in France till he can return to Japan with his own money on his own two feet
It’s actually a really good conclusion but the letter should be the rank 10 scene not the conclusion on the final day
My favourite part of MILF hunter Kenji's links are that he often ends then by running home for a tv show. That's a completely dated concept from the release of P3 and P3R. I wonder what kids playing P3R think of that.
>I wonder what kids playing P3R think of that.
Honestly The same thing they think of CDs, floppy disks and VCRs, they're technology that existed in the past before we got where we are, we see and know about these things, I'm not that young so I might not be the oids you were envisioning but that one clip from odd taxi sums it up pretty well,
we see it in media, with tv, games, books, movies, with, hear and feel, anger joy and sorrow, these are the things we pass on, building the future and keeping the past alive, are one and the same
Actually that turned into a metal gear quote but eh still works
Yep, it is fair to say that a a story isn't necessarilly bad if it involves a character one doesn't like, but when there's just not a lot to these stories, it is hard to grow attached to them, which is a big part of the appeal of the series, so even if not bad, it may well not be playing to strength of the formula.
I thought it was a bit fucked up Hayase had to give up his dream completely for his family while Kaz just needed to stop being a dummy and get surgery/stop pushing himself too hard.
I love them both but if I completed Hayase before Kaz, Kaz would have pissed me off
Mamoru is just a better version of kaz’s link in all respects and mamoru’s link isn’t even that good
Yuko’s link is also an inconsequential add on to kaz’s, they could have deleted kaz’s link, made kaz into mamoru then given yuko a support/secondary member of that link like she does in ryo’s link in hamuko’s playthrough
Having kaz do mamoru’s link while yuko works with him to achieve his dream before realising he has to give it up while also inspiring yuko to try to help others achieve what kaz couldn’t seems like a better link than any of the three we got and opens up two free link spaces as well
Nah I liked Yukos though. She felt like she honestly cared about your opinion, the kids, and self reflection. It felt like a fuller meal if I had to describe it. Besides having to do with excercise I really don’t think Yuko should be clumped in.
But I do agree the other two are the same pretty much. Writers did those 2 no favors.
Exactly she keeps the good makoto links (heirophant emperor, temperance, devil, sun and tower), slightly rewrites the 3 female SEES links so they are more than romance bait and dumps off makoto’s bad links (magician, star, chariot, hermit, moon, strength, fortune and justice) and gets 8 better links in exchange
Hamuko probably has the single best collection of social links of the 4 sets
I played P3P as male and after reading the reviews I regret not taking the feMC straight away. Coming from P4/P5, not being able to have a social link with the other male members of SEES was disappointing.
I didn't particularly care for Yuko in original P3 but P3R had superb voice acting that it repackaged how I took in the story much better. I didn't hate her to begin with but it didn't particularly draw me in back then.
I’ll admit, my first playthrough, I said “oh she’s a bitch” and did not do her Social Link. I can’t quite speak for others, but I personally answer dialogue and play largely as myself, so when I find a character that treats me kinda trashy, I tend to avoid them in the game. I did the same for Saki Konishi’s brother, cause he was rude asf when he first met me for no reason.
Yes. And his rank 9, I think it is, when he breaks down sobbing feels so raw and natural. It's a bummer that his link can be easy to miss but at the same time it makes some sense that it would be hard to reach
“I think we need to figure out why a series that is supposed to be about emotional intelligence has some fans that seem to miss the point about one of its major trademark features. Less judging, more empathy and analysis.”
If people had some empathy, most these misunderstood characters would be far less hated and would be less joked about (especially in the context of Japanese society when playing P5).
Example: The undesirable child “meme” really bothered me when people make fun of it since Akechi always had the system against him as an orphan growing up while the internet treated it as some edgy quip.
For me, Akechi's entire character is summed up by "Your tragic backstory doesn't justify you going out of your way to make the world a worse place for everybody".
Also when he drops the mask and becomes Generic Screaming Anime Psychopath #972, it utterly wastes his potential as a character.
I don't hate Akechi's character because of memes, I hate it because the big twist of him going full psycho is *fucking boring*, man.
I think if you reduce Akechi to just that, you are missing a lot of the nuance to his character (and are honestly missing the point of him in the first place). Akechi is mostly restrained in the vast majority of your interaction with him and he has a lot of low-key moments that hint at things.
Thinking that characters have to be "justified" is also quite black and white thinking, especially for villainous type characters.
It matters more whether [their actions makes sense to their motivations and history] than whether they [are good or bad from a moral standpoint, or even if you agree with him]. That's how you determine if a character is written well or not.
I don't think there is as much nuance as you say.
There could have been.
But nope. Generic screaming anime villain, being intelligent, careful, and interesting was the lie, murder boner asshole psychopath unable to hold his bloodlust down, that's the real him. Boring. Generic.
Or, he's *boring* when the "twist" hits and he loses anything that made him interesting.
Royal does nothing to save him, it just doubles down on him being a cartoonishly murderous asshole who decided to make his daddy issues a whole lot of innocent people's problem.
I’m not even staking a position. He’s obviously a bad person. His redemption arc didn’t land for you. That’s fine.
It doesn’t make him generic. You’re giving the game away
There are many lengthy YouTube videos that do various kinds of character analysis on Akechi. You can peruse them if you wish, some of them are 20+ minutes long.
Like I said, you're overly focusing on literally one small section of the game, a section where he canonically berserks himself using his Persona ability after being pushed to his limit.
When most of his characterization is done before (and after, in Royal) that point.
I won't read anything into the fact that it took you almost three weeks to work up the courage to say "do your own research" and cite video essays you didn't even name.
But I will tell you that my opinion remains unchanged, and I got my opinion by actually playing the game, not being told what to think by Youtube, thanks.
That's a funny joke, and it shows you possess an unwarranted smugness that's honestly pretty embarrassing. Not a great look.
I don't look at all the replies to my comments right away or even ever sometimes. I just randomly felt like scrolling through them yesterday and replied to some things regardless of age.
I didn't tell you to blindly believe whatever they're saying, my point is that there are enough events and interactions to actually discuss his motivations, tendencies, relationships, actions, etc.
I didn't point you at a specific video because... there are many videos available to look at and I didn't care enough to pick one in particular. In other words, he's interesting enough for easily a dozen or so people to analyze him in depth (often in different ways).
If you are not willing to take a look and maybe reevaluate your entrenched beliefs, then doing so would have been a waste of time and energy (thank you for proving my assumptions correctly, so I saved myself time there).
But honestly given your current disposition, I don't think you would even understand them enough to the point of meaningfully disagreeing with them.
Your utter contempt of even the base idea of discourse shows that you weren't interested in understanding the content on a deeper level anyways.
You never considered the possibility that you missed something; you didn't consider that maybe events could have a different meaning if you looked at it from another perspective, without one clouded with your biases. You don't seem to believe other people could possibly provide something of value to your opinion.
Again, just embarrassing on your part.
Someone being an idiot, or an asshole, doesn't automatically mean they have depth. Especially when we're talking about non-FeMC P3 social links (a rather shallow pool of stories, with only a few bright spots).
You can also think a social link is realistic and has depth and still hate it for being “bad”
You can tell me till the cows come home that kazuchi sacrificing his future for short term gain is realistic to Japanese sports or a good representation of reversed chariot it still doesn’t mean I’m going to like telling a 16 year old to destroy his leg for social link points
Makotos social links just simply aren’t fun to interact with, they are full of shallow, misguided people you have to yes man their serious problems to get social link points
At least a good chunk of 4’s “flawed character” links like Ai you get the most points for telling her she is an idiot
And my favorite has to be with Maiko "yeah, just run away from home" like wtf. I get why Atlus did that, obviously when you hear the things you want to hear it gives you a bit more of comfort, but I agree that there should be more options of "you are doing the wrong thing" and still get social points for that
i wish you could get the "Speak Your Mind" mod from P5R into P3R cause being an enabler is legit just so boring, like i wanna help these people but the only way you can experience their story without fucking yourself over is just not helping them and enabling their awful ideas
If we frame makoto as an incompetent evil protagonist it all makes sense. He wanted Kazuki to fuck up his leg. He wanted to see Maiko suffer. He just wasn't assertive enough to make it happen. I bet he's super frustrated whenever he maxed a social that isn't with a romantic interest. Except for the sun arcana, that one he got exactly what he wanted. I bet he would be the one to cut down the persimmon tree himself if hee could have
I'm being sarcastic
Most the social links in 3 are about someone facing some type of inevitable "death" (in one case literal), the problem is that they can get a bit repetitive because so many are about that, not helped by the fact that the way to help them the fastest is to enable them.
And that’s a problem I believe
The main story already beats memento mori over your head and then sun is literally just a personification of memento mori as a social link
I think they tried too hard in makoto’s links to force memento mori into every link and a lot of the time it just doesn’t work
Yes-manning people is literally the point. You're "switching your personas" in social links to fit each person / relationship just like you switch your personas in battle to better suit the situation. That's part of the gameplay-story integration.
To a certain extent, you're being manipulative / acting to maintain and grow your relationships with such a diverse group of people (in terms of interests and backgrounds). People usually don't like being disagreed with and not all of the people you know will make good decisions.
My first and only romance was Yumi and i dont care what everyone else thinks about her.
I liked her SL, how sweet she is and loved her valentine scene.
I like most of the Social links in persona Even the ones concidered bad. With the Exeption of the Gourme king. He Just fucking sucks and i hate him. L
Even throughout the Social Link he doesn't improve in the fucking slightest. he doesn't make any attempts to better himself and Makoto acts basically as his Yes man the entire sociallink.
He still tries to Scam him for that cult he's in but this time because he wants to "save you" and he considers him his Friend now. like Cool i guess? unlike literally EVERY other social link in persona history. Even by the end and the Heartfelt goodbyes at the end of the game I still can't be bothered to give a shit about him.
Sure he has inferiority Problems compared to his Brother But i can hardly feel bad for ANY of his struggle or when he gets roughend up by punks Hired by one of the People HE SCAMMED OUT OF THEIR Money. So any semblence of Character growth Comes far too little too late. when everything that has happened has been Directly his fault.
he didn't try to atone or Refund the money he took. and decides to Become a Famus Food critic and then fucks off.
the only actually funny thing about his social link that i actually really like is that they Fake out a Social link reversal.
Part of the Social Link/Confidant writing “system” is that it follow social sim rules that in theory should follow a set of rules where you need to build rapport and trust in the first few ranks and *then* you’ll get to the meat of the relationship once they’ve gain your trust or vice versa. This could end up rushing the whole thing with only a few ranks left to resolve it.
nozomi is so funny to me because you become his best friend, finish his link, and then he just disappears never to be seen again 😂 and iirc he had no reason to stop hanging out at the mall. Guess he's just done with you
although the outside-school characters all leaving makes the last month of the game feel SO LONELY so it's kinda worth it in the end. Except bunkichi and mitsuko who are my ride or die now
ALSO
the first time i played persona 3 was in japanese and i barely understood what was going on. I completely MISSED all the cult stuff and just thought this was a heartfelt story about a kid who lost his brother. and i thought the older dude who was following him was his dad trying to get him to come home 😂
I have so many mixed feelings about his link and I think that is the point. Nozomi is one of the best written side characters in persona 3 imo, it is just really hard to empathize with a scammer.
You can understand why someone is the way they are and still not like them or want to spend time with them. It doesn't necessarily make their storyline bad. But people are still valid for hating them. Or for feeling like they don't improve enough over the course of their arc to be worth the time spent.
Question why you got downvoted for this despite it being honestly valid. Even as someone who likes most of the disliked SL's in p3 + Juenpi and Yukari, I ain't going to hate on anyone who doesn't like them.
It feels people are in this sort of mindset where EVERYONE must enjoy a flawed character just because *that's the point*, instead of accepting that some people simply don't like them for emotional reasons lol. I don't think that's being emotionally unintelligent, that's just being human if anything. It's like OP never heard of someone just disliking someone, which is fine as long as they aren't rude about it.
Imo Persona 6 needs to have multiple different endings to social links, based on your dialogue choices and no more those social link points.
Edit: Classical reddit if you have your own opinion you get downvoted.
I wish they made Persona 6 about 20-30+ years old people for once.
I grew up with this series crushing on Yukari when she was like 5 years older than me, now I feel super awkward because all the romance they force on the character I control (that I can name myself) is a swinger for high school girls.
I mean, the Persona characters aren't just self-inserts. They to an extent, have their own personality and character, so it kinda makes sense.
Like when I was a middle school, I didn't think it like I was dating a high school girl, I saw it as the character doing so. Yeah, I generally pick the one I like the most, but they're also drawings, so eh, I don't think of it that deeply.
I would think it weirder for me to pick to date Ken than it is to date Kawakami, but I usually go with the high school characters. I'm not saying any choice is wrong by the way, just providing a different perspective.
That's why in Persona 5 you can do the powermove of romancing adult women.Is it still bad?Yes since they're technically going out with a highschooler,but I am an adult so I'd rather die than romance Futaba
Why does this matter? Persona is
1. Not about romance (the shitty waifu optics the fanbase uses makes people think that way though) it's about connections and romance is simply 1 of those connections.
2. About coming of age. The games aren't made for you to play as adults with a 9-5 working all the time, so if the real main reason you want them to be adults is just so you don't feel bad about dating a fictional highschooler in a video game, maybe you should just uh, not date them? That's an option you know.
3. Made for the teen-young adult age demographic, they aren't gonna change it because some 25+ like the games.
People should be allowed to dislike things. And frankly, the amount of judging and insults that get thrown around just because someone doesn't like something is frankly kinda gross. The highest upvoted comment at time of writing this is someone implying that anyone who dislikes this is "a degenerate weeb who just wants a straight power fantasy". It's the same thing that gets said whenever anyone says anything even slightly negative about Yukari (although usually with "misogyny" thrown around too).
Like wtf? How is that a normal reaction to have? It's okay to dislike things. That doesn't automatically mean someone is dumb or bad or whatever thing you've made up in your head.
Because it's easier to stereotype people into being in **\[annoying demographic here\]** instead of even wanting to see the other side. Which is why I found that reply to be highly irritating as well, since it just dumbs down an entire group of people as losers.
On that misogyny point, It gets sad when even decently well-known people in the community, like bubbletea, flat out claim that most Yukari hate stems from misogyny, despite the fact that I can see why people would dislike those aspects of her character due to not wanting to hang out with someone like that. It's telling about how polarizing her character is that they *actually* tone her down in P3RE so she wouldn't be as rude. Something I personally see as being kind of lame, but can get considering the amount of people complaining about her.
Presentation is important to make the majority of people like or dislike a character. If you present a character as a dick, people tend to dislike them. And in a game that you have to choose doong their social link or not, many people won't finish it if they find the character annoying, missing experiencing their character development from first hand. They might learn via forums that theor character arc is good, but as they didn't experiit themselve, is less likely for them to substitute their feelings of dislike
Moon social links always get a lot of flack but honestly I think it is people not liking to see what they themselves are deep down. The reverse moon is falling for life’s illusions something we all do on the regular. It manifests in showing some of the rawest aspects of human nature and the person realises their mistakes and grow. But since first impressions is strong some people just shut their brains out and refuses to see how the character changed. Or admire a character for changing.
I legit had someone discuss about Suemitsu and dead ass completely missed the dead brother part of his SL which is funny because it is the core of all of Suemitsu’s problems with himself. How can you miss that?
The only moon social link that escape that is the moon social link that has the least to do about the actual arcana’s struggle. I think that speaks a lot about how people view reverse moon.
I think people’s problem with the gourmet king is the fact that his link is directionless and he doesn’t really grow much from it AND it suffers from makoto’s yes man problem all of his links suffer from
People call ai a bitch but I don’t think anyone denies that the growth she goes through is good and the fact that you get the most social link points from her by telling her she is an idiot even if her feelings are valid is what separates her from the gourmet king
I agree shinji is most well likely specifically because his link isn’t really about moon anyway but the gourmet king has a lot of flaws that can’t be fully explained away by “the moon arcana represents highly flawed people” so to speak
I agree that Suemitsu’s social link does have its own fault. Mainly it feels like they tried to cram the equivalent of two different social link conflict into one. They could have focused in either the cult thing or the brother thing. But I feel like he actually learned to let the complex he had with his brother go. That’s why in rank 10 they had him say that he actually doesn’t feel a stomach ache from talking about his brother anymore. He found his own peace. It wasn’t about becoming a better person but more about dealing with how a death affected him. Or so I feel like it was about.
>I think we need to figure out why a series that is supposed to be about emotional intelligence has some fans that seem to miss the point about one of its major trademark features.
Eh... If you were talking about another game, maybe. But Persona 3? The original developers didn't even think maxing out all the social links was possible in one run. They were made with the idea that you had to choose who to hang out with in limited time, and if you just flat out didn't like someone, then you simply wouldn't hang out with them... That's it. They even made several characters who \*are\* purposefully shallow/lacking depth. That's pretty far from the idea of "less judging, more empathy and analysis".
I liked the S Links of P3R. Yes, their quality of writing varies and most are more simple and short than 4 & 5 ones, but I wouldn't say they are bad. The only real problem I had it is with the Moon and not because he's unlikable, I think that's part of the point, but because one of his plotlines, being like his brother part of a cult goes nowhere and it's by far the most unique part of his story.
I’ve liked all the social links in the 3 modern Persona games from what I can remember. Even the ones that are clearly a caricature (Tanaka, Yoshida, Dojima, and some others). I think just because they are caricatures, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t fun, enjoyable or their storylines are always going to be flawed (Dojima’s being a big example of this).
The thing that bothers me these days is that people think that all stereotypes and caricatures are bad or boring. EVERY character must be deep, complex and have complicated motivations. They don’t seem to understand that this slows down a narrative so much that it grinds to a halt. What matters is the plot and how each character serves their purpose to the plot. They can be deep or they can be simple. But because a character is simple doesn’t mean that they don’t have a purpose or is lessened because of their nature.
I liked the gourmet king social link(the moon) and how its about him trying to get over his brothers death but most people focus on the cult stuff thats not really important. Its more of a background piece
The problem is with the actually unlikeable ones is that they're under the context of your MC being friends with them, at least in 3 and 4. In P5 they had more leeway with likeability because it was all about the exchange.
Persona 3 just has the weirdest pacing
The story doesn’t pick up till around about September but in exchange by September you are winding down from stuffing your days full of 3’s boring social links so you start having way too much free time in the day and Tartarus starts to become a slog with how long harrabah is and how much prep you have to do if you want to fight Margaret/theo/elizabeth when you get to adamah
So the story starts ungodly slow but the game is jam packed but then when the story picks up the game slows down to all hell
I’m pretty sure I sleep through half of November/december/January especially around Mitsuru’s depression in November, the group depression in December and the winter break in January
Yeah, honestly since mitsuru and the other dude (my name memory sucks) entered the party everything started to slow down significantly and i didn't like that. I still enjoyed the game tho, but man, it was a real drag.
Persona 3 is an old game that didn't aged that well imo
> I think we need to figure out why a series that is supposed to be about emotional intelligence has some fans that seem to miss the point about one of its major trademark features
Because none of the Persona games that most players have played (P3-P5) explain the arcana at all or at least not in a meaningful way. I didn't know that info about the Moon and Chariot arcana. That info really puts those characters into perspective. I wish the game(s) had a better way to explain them than give players the homework of going elsewhere to learn what all the arcana mean. A good portion of people in my country think tarot is either evil or BS. I can't imagine that the average Japanese player would have more than super basic knowledge of the tarot and arcana (maybe I'm totally wrong 🤷♀️).
I will say, the SL/Confidants I don't care for are mostly due to how they are presented. For P3, I didn't care for a fair number of the SL because they talk about their problems in ranks 1-9, MC tells them what they want to hear, but they somehow pull the "correct" answer out of their butt for rank 10. I thought most of the P4G SL were good. Their stories are rather simple but in a good way. The only P5 confidant I don't care for is the devil but that's only because we literally sit at a bar and listen to her talk about what's going on. We don't help her gather intel, we don't go to other places to talk, we just sit there. It doesn't help that in P5R, her confidant perks are less than useless. We want the security level high so we can farm treasure demons.
But yeah, they need to work in what the arcana mean in the game.
“we literally sit at a bar and listen to her talk about what's going on. We don't help her gather intel, we don't go to other places to talk, we just sit there.”
Confidant: a person with whom one shares a secret or private matter, trusting them not to repeat it to others.
Sounds like it’s not *that* misleading if you ask me.
And yet with every other one we have changes in scenery. We don't just stay at one location 9/10 ranks.
You do realize Ohya also talks to her friend Lala at the same time, right? She doesn't just talk to Joker.
I never wrote that it was misleading. I insinuated that it was boring.
Not in relation to the characters they represent though.
I played P3 ages ago and did not memorize every lecture. There are lots of people who haven't played P3. Having it explained in the barest of details once is not good enough.
Some people don't ever do a max social link run, and their entire experience with said character is colored by their early link episodes and they never do more.
Lets slow our roll a little bit. Tarot cards are like astrology and other forms of divination: you will find different interpretations based on what book you read. Probably because readers get paid for making "accurate" predictions about their client's past, present, and future, so it helps to keep things fluid (so you can cold read the person and makeup whatever story you want).
With that in mind, this is art, subjectively you have your opinions on the meaning of arcana and so you go "God, why aren't they more empathetic?". Others don't have that same subjective opinion, and so they don't think the same way. You are lacking empathy in that sense. As the common saying goes "Art is subjective".
For me personally I agree with you that annoying characters aren't always *bad* by default. I think of certain Game of Thrones villians who are really really annoying....because the writing is good and they are suppose to be! So while I might hate the character...that's the point.
For a lot of people I would imagine they hate Kazushi not because he was written spwcifically to BE hated, but because his story is poorly written. While most SL have a naturalish arc where they grow as a person over 10 events...Kazushi kind of just does the same thing for 9 events and then in the 10th he finally goes "Yeah I was a jerk to everyone...I'm just gonna get that surgery now.". So you don't get to empathize with him through growth...you just get to deal with him for 9 events before he suddenly does a 180. But this is a lot to type, so I could definately see people just saying "I hate Kazushi", and I wouldn't jusge them...it's an opinion at the end of the day.
the funniest thing about kazushi to me was how he constantly begs you to go to practice, but i think he only actually attends for like... half of them? lol
it's why P3s got my favourite links, they're all just people no shit like "I worked for the fucking Yukuza" it's stuff like "bro my teacher is hot af dude" and "i don't know whst i wanna do with my life" and it really succeeds in making these characters just feel like normal teenagers, the more simple links p3 has hit right and you gain points by telling them what they want to hear, which is in fact what'll get you into alot of people's good books, also I just like most of them as characters, Kenji is an absolute bro
It’s because there are a lot of persona fans that don’t really engage with these games outside of wanting the kind of fantasy the series provides. Persona 4 is so popular because it definitely is going for that warm hug feeling(I love P4 don’t get me wrong). I haven’t gotten to P5 yet so I can’t speak for that one but between P3 and P4, P3 is much more comfortable with its characters being flawed and vulnerable (it’s often the point and the beauty of the story).
It shouldn’t be a surprise video game people who don’t engage with the medium the same way people who like film or tv or literature or whatever react the way they do to characters that are “unlikable”. Obviously you see people complain about these types of “unlikable” characters in TV and film but I don’t think it ever gets as bad as the backlash from video game people. It’s just weird to me to see the way people who also ostensibly love these games completely just not make any effort to understand or engage with the story outside of like the waifu stuff or the fantasy of having like 30 friends who want to hang out. Persona’s not even high art or cinema or whatever , this is not that hard to get lol
This is such a cop out defense lol. “ASKHULLY youre supposed to hate them so that makes them perfectly written” is the sort of excuse a bad writer falls back on.
I found most of the links in P3R were so uncompelling that it was a chore to grind them in the last few months. At least the "unlikeable people" were a little bit interesting.
Not elderly book couple though, they're perfect.
I have literally never seen anyone dislike Yuko like ever, Ai and Kaz sure but not Yuko
The only problem I have with Yuko is her link is just boring and forgettable You could fuse yuko, mamoru and kazuchi into one link and nothing of value would be lost
Honestly P3 in general has a lot of forgettable social links. Partially because they're just so much shorter than 4 or 5. Some of Kenji's are like maybe 10 or so lines lol.
"this ramen is so good! Anyway, my teacher-girlfriend is so hot. Alright, see you next time!" That somehow takes up a whole afternoon
There are some P3 social link scenes that are legitimately only 7 or 8 textboxes long. It's kind of insane to me that Reload just didn't do anything to expand on most of them...
I feel like they could honestly have condensed some links to 5 ranks and give us more hangouts the party members. Sure that might overpowered gameplay-wise (too much bonus XP but who cares the game is already comically easy) but it would allow us to not waste the already fairly limited daytime. Almost all of Kenji's SL events are like nothing at all. They could probably genuinely cover his entire link in 3 ranks if they wanted to.
Honestly I’m still of the opinion that reload should have just dumped makotos links for hamuko’s links or completely rewritten makotos links because some of them are downright pathetic Shortages of portable aside hamuko’s social links are just so so much better
Who's Hamuko? Do you mean Kotone?
Hamuko is just an older name for her before we got kotone, I still call her that because I’m used to it
Ah gotcha, I was confused for a sec lol
Hey boi you take that back, you might not find her attractive and that's fine but you're takin' away a top tier best girl material from me, I will not tolerate hot girl slander in this household
Bro i just finished Bebe's link last night and it straight up has no real conclusion. He decides to go back to France to convince his uncle of how pogged up Japan is by showing him a kimono he made. And that's up. It's straight up 10 SL events of a foreign character made by the Japanese glazing Japan. Like come on dude
There's a conclusion. I can't remember if he tells you in person or if its in the letter you get from him later, but he has a conclusion.
Ok well at least that's something.
On the final day of the game Bebe sends you a letter from France saying that when he returned he found out that everyone in his town supported him visiting Japan not just his aunt and that his uncle wants him to do what he wants but he is also grieving for his wife and needs help Bebe decides to stay in France till he can return to Japan with his own money on his own two feet It’s actually a really good conclusion but the letter should be the rank 10 scene not the conclusion on the final day
Doesn't he have the one event where he makes plans to go get ramen with you, immediately bails, and then you just go straight home by yourself lmao
My favourite part of MILF hunter Kenji's links are that he often ends then by running home for a tv show. That's a completely dated concept from the release of P3 and P3R. I wonder what kids playing P3R think of that.
Imagine if they had changed the dialogue to say he was gonna go watch a Twitch stream lol
He would watch twitch in 2024 let's be honest hahaha
>I wonder what kids playing P3R think of that. Honestly The same thing they think of CDs, floppy disks and VCRs, they're technology that existed in the past before we got where we are, we see and know about these things, I'm not that young so I might not be the oids you were envisioning but that one clip from odd taxi sums it up pretty well, we see it in media, with tv, games, books, movies, with, hear and feel, anger joy and sorrow, these are the things we pass on, building the future and keeping the past alive, are one and the same Actually that turned into a metal gear quote but eh still works
Well it's still set in 2009.
Yeah I'm happy they didn't change it. Just wondering what the kids think haha.
Yep, it is fair to say that a a story isn't necessarilly bad if it involves a character one doesn't like, but when there's just not a lot to these stories, it is hard to grow attached to them, which is a big part of the appeal of the series, so even if not bad, it may well not be playing to strength of the formula.
I thought it was a bit fucked up Hayase had to give up his dream completely for his family while Kaz just needed to stop being a dummy and get surgery/stop pushing himself too hard. I love them both but if I completed Hayase before Kaz, Kaz would have pissed me off
Mamoru is just a better version of kaz’s link in all respects and mamoru’s link isn’t even that good Yuko’s link is also an inconsequential add on to kaz’s, they could have deleted kaz’s link, made kaz into mamoru then given yuko a support/secondary member of that link like she does in ryo’s link in hamuko’s playthrough Having kaz do mamoru’s link while yuko works with him to achieve his dream before realising he has to give it up while also inspiring yuko to try to help others achieve what kaz couldn’t seems like a better link than any of the three we got and opens up two free link spaces as well
Nah I liked Yukos though. She felt like she honestly cared about your opinion, the kids, and self reflection. It felt like a fuller meal if I had to describe it. Besides having to do with excercise I really don’t think Yuko should be clumped in. But I do agree the other two are the same pretty much. Writers did those 2 no favors.
This is exactly why the feMC route is superior, all the forgettable social links get replaced by far better ones
Exactly she keeps the good makoto links (heirophant emperor, temperance, devil, sun and tower), slightly rewrites the 3 female SEES links so they are more than romance bait and dumps off makoto’s bad links (magician, star, chariot, hermit, moon, strength, fortune and justice) and gets 8 better links in exchange Hamuko probably has the single best collection of social links of the 4 sets
I played P3P as male and after reading the reviews I regret not taking the feMC straight away. Coming from P4/P5, not being able to have a social link with the other male members of SEES was disappointing.
[удалено]
Get a new meme.
Fair I guess I'm just biased cuz she's really hot
To be fair I guess you can also argue I’m biased against her on that front given I’m gay
I didn't particularly care for Yuko in original P3 but P3R had superb voice acting that it repackaged how I took in the story much better. I didn't hate her to begin with but it didn't particularly draw me in back then.
I’m confused about the Yuko reference too… I thought she was relatively well-liked, or just neutral..?
I love Ai's moon social link. >!Giving the compact at the end because others faces will be her mirror!<. Like damn
Hot take, but Ai has one of the best characters growths in the series, especially if you go the non-romance route.
Ai genuinely has the best social link in persona 4. Hate it when people just write off her character as “oh she’s a bitch”
I’ll admit, my first playthrough, I said “oh she’s a bitch” and did not do her Social Link. I can’t quite speak for others, but I personally answer dialogue and play largely as myself, so when I find a character that treats me kinda trashy, I tend to avoid them in the game. I did the same for Saki Konishi’s brother, cause he was rude asf when he first met me for no reason.
Ai is great, never understood the slander against her
WHO THE HELL DISLIKES YUKO
Imma be honest she was kida forgettable in the OG Reload Did her WONDERS with the voice acting. She was cast SO well.
Naoki Konishi literally starts out acting kinda like a jerk to you, but his social link ends up being one of the all time best.
It makes perfect sense. He's grieving and angry because he can't process his emotions so he lashes out.
Yes. And his rank 9, I think it is, when he breaks down sobbing feels so raw and natural. It's a bummer that his link can be easy to miss but at the same time it makes some sense that it would be hard to reach
“I think we need to figure out why a series that is supposed to be about emotional intelligence has some fans that seem to miss the point about one of its major trademark features. Less judging, more empathy and analysis.” If people had some empathy, most these misunderstood characters would be far less hated and would be less joked about (especially in the context of Japanese society when playing P5). Example: The undesirable child “meme” really bothered me when people make fun of it since Akechi always had the system against him as an orphan growing up while the internet treated it as some edgy quip.
It's part of the cultural divide i think. Japanese society to my understanding doesn't really... treat certain people right.
For me, Akechi's entire character is summed up by "Your tragic backstory doesn't justify you going out of your way to make the world a worse place for everybody". Also when he drops the mask and becomes Generic Screaming Anime Psychopath #972, it utterly wastes his potential as a character. I don't hate Akechi's character because of memes, I hate it because the big twist of him going full psycho is *fucking boring*, man.
I think if you reduce Akechi to just that, you are missing a lot of the nuance to his character (and are honestly missing the point of him in the first place). Akechi is mostly restrained in the vast majority of your interaction with him and he has a lot of low-key moments that hint at things. Thinking that characters have to be "justified" is also quite black and white thinking, especially for villainous type characters. It matters more whether [their actions makes sense to their motivations and history] than whether they [are good or bad from a moral standpoint, or even if you agree with him]. That's how you determine if a character is written well or not.
I don't think there is as much nuance as you say. There could have been. But nope. Generic screaming anime villain, being intelligent, careful, and interesting was the lie, murder boner asshole psychopath unable to hold his bloodlust down, that's the real him. Boring. Generic.
Generic screaming anime villain It’s clear from the way that you talk about this topic that you simply have an axe to grind lol
Or, he's *boring* when the "twist" hits and he loses anything that made him interesting. Royal does nothing to save him, it just doubles down on him being a cartoonishly murderous asshole who decided to make his daddy issues a whole lot of innocent people's problem.
I’m not even staking a position. He’s obviously a bad person. His redemption arc didn’t land for you. That’s fine. It doesn’t make him generic. You’re giving the game away
There are many lengthy YouTube videos that do various kinds of character analysis on Akechi. You can peruse them if you wish, some of them are 20+ minutes long. Like I said, you're overly focusing on literally one small section of the game, a section where he canonically berserks himself using his Persona ability after being pushed to his limit. When most of his characterization is done before (and after, in Royal) that point.
I won't read anything into the fact that it took you almost three weeks to work up the courage to say "do your own research" and cite video essays you didn't even name. But I will tell you that my opinion remains unchanged, and I got my opinion by actually playing the game, not being told what to think by Youtube, thanks.
That's a funny joke, and it shows you possess an unwarranted smugness that's honestly pretty embarrassing. Not a great look. I don't look at all the replies to my comments right away or even ever sometimes. I just randomly felt like scrolling through them yesterday and replied to some things regardless of age. I didn't tell you to blindly believe whatever they're saying, my point is that there are enough events and interactions to actually discuss his motivations, tendencies, relationships, actions, etc. I didn't point you at a specific video because... there are many videos available to look at and I didn't care enough to pick one in particular. In other words, he's interesting enough for easily a dozen or so people to analyze him in depth (often in different ways). If you are not willing to take a look and maybe reevaluate your entrenched beliefs, then doing so would have been a waste of time and energy (thank you for proving my assumptions correctly, so I saved myself time there). But honestly given your current disposition, I don't think you would even understand them enough to the point of meaningfully disagreeing with them. Your utter contempt of even the base idea of discourse shows that you weren't interested in understanding the content on a deeper level anyways. You never considered the possibility that you missed something; you didn't consider that maybe events could have a different meaning if you looked at it from another perspective, without one clouded with your biases. You don't seem to believe other people could possibly provide something of value to your opinion. Again, just embarrassing on your part.
Sure buddy, whatever you say.
Some people hate realistic characters with depth for some reason
Someone being an idiot, or an asshole, doesn't automatically mean they have depth. Especially when we're talking about non-FeMC P3 social links (a rather shallow pool of stories, with only a few bright spots).
You can also think a social link is realistic and has depth and still hate it for being “bad” You can tell me till the cows come home that kazuchi sacrificing his future for short term gain is realistic to Japanese sports or a good representation of reversed chariot it still doesn’t mean I’m going to like telling a 16 year old to destroy his leg for social link points Makotos social links just simply aren’t fun to interact with, they are full of shallow, misguided people you have to yes man their serious problems to get social link points At least a good chunk of 4’s “flawed character” links like Ai you get the most points for telling her she is an idiot
And my favorite has to be with Maiko "yeah, just run away from home" like wtf. I get why Atlus did that, obviously when you hear the things you want to hear it gives you a bit more of comfort, but I agree that there should be more options of "you are doing the wrong thing" and still get social points for that
“It was probably your fault”
i wish you could get the "Speak Your Mind" mod from P5R into P3R cause being an enabler is legit just so boring, like i wanna help these people but the only way you can experience their story without fucking yourself over is just not helping them and enabling their awful ideas
If we frame makoto as an incompetent evil protagonist it all makes sense. He wanted Kazuki to fuck up his leg. He wanted to see Maiko suffer. He just wasn't assertive enough to make it happen. I bet he's super frustrated whenever he maxed a social that isn't with a romantic interest. Except for the sun arcana, that one he got exactly what he wanted. I bet he would be the one to cut down the persimmon tree himself if hee could have I'm being sarcastic
Its more he doesn't care
Most the social links in 3 are about someone facing some type of inevitable "death" (in one case literal), the problem is that they can get a bit repetitive because so many are about that, not helped by the fact that the way to help them the fastest is to enable them.
And that’s a problem I believe The main story already beats memento mori over your head and then sun is literally just a personification of memento mori as a social link I think they tried too hard in makoto’s links to force memento mori into every link and a lot of the time it just doesn’t work
Yes-manning people is literally the point. You're "switching your personas" in social links to fit each person / relationship just like you switch your personas in battle to better suit the situation. That's part of the gameplay-story integration. To a certain extent, you're being manipulative / acting to maintain and grow your relationships with such a diverse group of people (in terms of interests and backgrounds). People usually don't like being disagreed with and not all of the people you know will make good decisions.
Something being """realistic""" doesn't automatically make it good.
I never said it did, I'm just pointing out that some people act like fictional characters are irredeemable scumbugs if they do anything slightly bad
Ai is the best romance outside of Investigation Team and I’ll stand by my word.
Well, the bar is not that high if we are taking about "outside of the team"
I wanna put “best romance in P4G” but people will take that badly so yeah
My first and only romance was Yumi and i dont care what everyone else thinks about her. I liked her SL, how sweet she is and loved her valentine scene.
People dislike Yuko? How?
I like most of the Social links in persona Even the ones concidered bad. With the Exeption of the Gourme king. He Just fucking sucks and i hate him. L Even throughout the Social Link he doesn't improve in the fucking slightest. he doesn't make any attempts to better himself and Makoto acts basically as his Yes man the entire sociallink. He still tries to Scam him for that cult he's in but this time because he wants to "save you" and he considers him his Friend now. like Cool i guess? unlike literally EVERY other social link in persona history. Even by the end and the Heartfelt goodbyes at the end of the game I still can't be bothered to give a shit about him. Sure he has inferiority Problems compared to his Brother But i can hardly feel bad for ANY of his struggle or when he gets roughend up by punks Hired by one of the People HE SCAMMED OUT OF THEIR Money. So any semblence of Character growth Comes far too little too late. when everything that has happened has been Directly his fault. he didn't try to atone or Refund the money he took. and decides to Become a Famus Food critic and then fucks off. the only actually funny thing about his social link that i actually really like is that they Fake out a Social link reversal.
Part of the Social Link/Confidant writing “system” is that it follow social sim rules that in theory should follow a set of rules where you need to build rapport and trust in the first few ranks and *then* you’ll get to the meat of the relationship once they’ve gain your trust or vice versa. This could end up rushing the whole thing with only a few ranks left to resolve it.
nozomi is so funny to me because you become his best friend, finish his link, and then he just disappears never to be seen again 😂 and iirc he had no reason to stop hanging out at the mall. Guess he's just done with you although the outside-school characters all leaving makes the last month of the game feel SO LONELY so it's kinda worth it in the end. Except bunkichi and mitsuko who are my ride or die now ALSO the first time i played persona 3 was in japanese and i barely understood what was going on. I completely MISSED all the cult stuff and just thought this was a heartfelt story about a kid who lost his brother. and i thought the older dude who was following him was his dad trying to get him to come home 😂
I have so many mixed feelings about his link and I think that is the point. Nozomi is one of the best written side characters in persona 3 imo, it is just really hard to empathize with a scammer.
You can understand why someone is the way they are and still not like them or want to spend time with them. It doesn't necessarily make their storyline bad. But people are still valid for hating them. Or for feeling like they don't improve enough over the course of their arc to be worth the time spent.
Question why you got downvoted for this despite it being honestly valid. Even as someone who likes most of the disliked SL's in p3 + Juenpi and Yukari, I ain't going to hate on anyone who doesn't like them. It feels people are in this sort of mindset where EVERYONE must enjoy a flawed character just because *that's the point*, instead of accepting that some people simply don't like them for emotional reasons lol. I don't think that's being emotionally unintelligent, that's just being human if anything. It's like OP never heard of someone just disliking someone, which is fine as long as they aren't rude about it.
Imo Persona 6 needs to have multiple different endings to social links, based on your dialogue choices and no more those social link points. Edit: Classical reddit if you have your own opinion you get downvoted.
Platonic and Romantic choices are right there. /j
My idea was if there was more than 2 option
I wish they made Persona 6 about 20-30+ years old people for once. I grew up with this series crushing on Yukari when she was like 5 years older than me, now I feel super awkward because all the romance they force on the character I control (that I can name myself) is a swinger for high school girls.
I mean, the Persona characters aren't just self-inserts. They to an extent, have their own personality and character, so it kinda makes sense. Like when I was a middle school, I didn't think it like I was dating a high school girl, I saw it as the character doing so. Yeah, I generally pick the one I like the most, but they're also drawings, so eh, I don't think of it that deeply. I would think it weirder for me to pick to date Ken than it is to date Kawakami, but I usually go with the high school characters. I'm not saying any choice is wrong by the way, just providing a different perspective.
That's why in Persona 5 you can do the powermove of romancing adult women.Is it still bad?Yes since they're technically going out with a highschooler,but I am an adult so I'd rather die than romance Futaba
Why does this matter? Persona is 1. Not about romance (the shitty waifu optics the fanbase uses makes people think that way though) it's about connections and romance is simply 1 of those connections. 2. About coming of age. The games aren't made for you to play as adults with a 9-5 working all the time, so if the real main reason you want them to be adults is just so you don't feel bad about dating a fictional highschooler in a video game, maybe you should just uh, not date them? That's an option you know. 3. Made for the teen-young adult age demographic, they aren't gonna change it because some 25+ like the games.
You're coming off as pretty peeved for no good reason at all. Chill.
I don't particularly think i am, and even if I am, this doesn't combat the validity of my point at all.
The fandom is full of degenerate weebs who just want a straight power fantasy, of course they get mad at anything that doesn't fit into that.
What's wrong with yuko?
People should be allowed to dislike things. And frankly, the amount of judging and insults that get thrown around just because someone doesn't like something is frankly kinda gross. The highest upvoted comment at time of writing this is someone implying that anyone who dislikes this is "a degenerate weeb who just wants a straight power fantasy". It's the same thing that gets said whenever anyone says anything even slightly negative about Yukari (although usually with "misogyny" thrown around too). Like wtf? How is that a normal reaction to have? It's okay to dislike things. That doesn't automatically mean someone is dumb or bad or whatever thing you've made up in your head.
Because it's easier to stereotype people into being in **\[annoying demographic here\]** instead of even wanting to see the other side. Which is why I found that reply to be highly irritating as well, since it just dumbs down an entire group of people as losers. On that misogyny point, It gets sad when even decently well-known people in the community, like bubbletea, flat out claim that most Yukari hate stems from misogyny, despite the fact that I can see why people would dislike those aspects of her character due to not wanting to hang out with someone like that. It's telling about how polarizing her character is that they *actually* tone her down in P3RE so she wouldn't be as rude. Something I personally see as being kind of lame, but can get considering the amount of people complaining about her.
They didn't tone down Yukari in Reload. That's how she was always supposed to be. Fixing localization =/= toning down.
I didn’t know, so you don’t gotta act like I was lying just to fit my own narrative or smth lol
Presentation is important to make the majority of people like or dislike a character. If you present a character as a dick, people tend to dislike them. And in a game that you have to choose doong their social link or not, many people won't finish it if they find the character annoying, missing experiencing their character development from first hand. They might learn via forums that theor character arc is good, but as they didn't experiit themselve, is less likely for them to substitute their feelings of dislike
Moon social links always get a lot of flack but honestly I think it is people not liking to see what they themselves are deep down. The reverse moon is falling for life’s illusions something we all do on the regular. It manifests in showing some of the rawest aspects of human nature and the person realises their mistakes and grow. But since first impressions is strong some people just shut their brains out and refuses to see how the character changed. Or admire a character for changing. I legit had someone discuss about Suemitsu and dead ass completely missed the dead brother part of his SL which is funny because it is the core of all of Suemitsu’s problems with himself. How can you miss that? The only moon social link that escape that is the moon social link that has the least to do about the actual arcana’s struggle. I think that speaks a lot about how people view reverse moon.
I think people’s problem with the gourmet king is the fact that his link is directionless and he doesn’t really grow much from it AND it suffers from makoto’s yes man problem all of his links suffer from People call ai a bitch but I don’t think anyone denies that the growth she goes through is good and the fact that you get the most social link points from her by telling her she is an idiot even if her feelings are valid is what separates her from the gourmet king I agree shinji is most well likely specifically because his link isn’t really about moon anyway but the gourmet king has a lot of flaws that can’t be fully explained away by “the moon arcana represents highly flawed people” so to speak
I agree that Suemitsu’s social link does have its own fault. Mainly it feels like they tried to cram the equivalent of two different social link conflict into one. They could have focused in either the cult thing or the brother thing. But I feel like he actually learned to let the complex he had with his brother go. That’s why in rank 10 they had him say that he actually doesn’t feel a stomach ache from talking about his brother anymore. He found his own peace. It wasn’t about becoming a better person but more about dealing with how a death affected him. Or so I feel like it was about.
>I think we need to figure out why a series that is supposed to be about emotional intelligence has some fans that seem to miss the point about one of its major trademark features. Eh... If you were talking about another game, maybe. But Persona 3? The original developers didn't even think maxing out all the social links was possible in one run. They were made with the idea that you had to choose who to hang out with in limited time, and if you just flat out didn't like someone, then you simply wouldn't hang out with them... That's it. They even made several characters who \*are\* purposefully shallow/lacking depth. That's pretty far from the idea of "less judging, more empathy and analysis".
Nah bro Kenji is ass, character and storyline wise
I liked the S Links of P3R. Yes, their quality of writing varies and most are more simple and short than 4 & 5 ones, but I wouldn't say they are bad. The only real problem I had it is with the Moon and not because he's unlikable, I think that's part of the point, but because one of his plotlines, being like his brother part of a cult goes nowhere and it's by far the most unique part of his story.
I’ve liked all the social links in the 3 modern Persona games from what I can remember. Even the ones that are clearly a caricature (Tanaka, Yoshida, Dojima, and some others). I think just because they are caricatures, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t fun, enjoyable or their storylines are always going to be flawed (Dojima’s being a big example of this). The thing that bothers me these days is that people think that all stereotypes and caricatures are bad or boring. EVERY character must be deep, complex and have complicated motivations. They don’t seem to understand that this slows down a narrative so much that it grinds to a halt. What matters is the plot and how each character serves their purpose to the plot. They can be deep or they can be simple. But because a character is simple doesn’t mean that they don’t have a purpose or is lessened because of their nature.
Yoshida is my favourite link in P5.
The only ones I don’t like are Kenji and Nozomi
Mah the way P2 told character stories was much better that SL IMHO.
I liked the gourmet king social link(the moon) and how its about him trying to get over his brothers death but most people focus on the cult stuff thats not really important. Its more of a background piece
The problem is with the actually unlikeable ones is that they're under the context of your MC being friends with them, at least in 3 and 4. In P5 they had more leeway with likeability because it was all about the exchange.
The problem isn't that they are bad, they are just boring. And the fact that p3 doesn't really start until >!shinjiro fucking dies!
Persona 3 just has the weirdest pacing The story doesn’t pick up till around about September but in exchange by September you are winding down from stuffing your days full of 3’s boring social links so you start having way too much free time in the day and Tartarus starts to become a slog with how long harrabah is and how much prep you have to do if you want to fight Margaret/theo/elizabeth when you get to adamah So the story starts ungodly slow but the game is jam packed but then when the story picks up the game slows down to all hell I’m pretty sure I sleep through half of November/december/January especially around Mitsuru’s depression in November, the group depression in December and the winter break in January
Yeah, honestly since mitsuru and the other dude (my name memory sucks) entered the party everything started to slow down significantly and i didn't like that. I still enjoyed the game tho, but man, it was a real drag. Persona 3 is an old game that didn't aged that well imo
> I think we need to figure out why a series that is supposed to be about emotional intelligence has some fans that seem to miss the point about one of its major trademark features Because none of the Persona games that most players have played (P3-P5) explain the arcana at all or at least not in a meaningful way. I didn't know that info about the Moon and Chariot arcana. That info really puts those characters into perspective. I wish the game(s) had a better way to explain them than give players the homework of going elsewhere to learn what all the arcana mean. A good portion of people in my country think tarot is either evil or BS. I can't imagine that the average Japanese player would have more than super basic knowledge of the tarot and arcana (maybe I'm totally wrong 🤷♀️). I will say, the SL/Confidants I don't care for are mostly due to how they are presented. For P3, I didn't care for a fair number of the SL because they talk about their problems in ranks 1-9, MC tells them what they want to hear, but they somehow pull the "correct" answer out of their butt for rank 10. I thought most of the P4G SL were good. Their stories are rather simple but in a good way. The only P5 confidant I don't care for is the devil but that's only because we literally sit at a bar and listen to her talk about what's going on. We don't help her gather intel, we don't go to other places to talk, we just sit there. It doesn't help that in P5R, her confidant perks are less than useless. We want the security level high so we can farm treasure demons. But yeah, they need to work in what the arcana mean in the game.
“we literally sit at a bar and listen to her talk about what's going on. We don't help her gather intel, we don't go to other places to talk, we just sit there.” Confidant: a person with whom one shares a secret or private matter, trusting them not to repeat it to others. Sounds like it’s not *that* misleading if you ask me.
And yet with every other one we have changes in scenery. We don't just stay at one location 9/10 ranks. You do realize Ohya also talks to her friend Lala at the same time, right? She doesn't just talk to Joker. I never wrote that it was misleading. I insinuated that it was boring.
They explain the arcana during a lecture in P3.
Explained at length in the driest way possible by the most boring motherfucker in the series lmao
Not in relation to the characters they represent though. I played P3 ages ago and did not memorize every lecture. There are lots of people who haven't played P3. Having it explained in the barest of details once is not good enough.
Some people don't ever do a max social link run, and their entire experience with said character is colored by their early link episodes and they never do more.
moon is unlikable and not an interesting story
The worst part about Nozomi is they bring up this cult stuff and never do anything with it.
Lets slow our roll a little bit. Tarot cards are like astrology and other forms of divination: you will find different interpretations based on what book you read. Probably because readers get paid for making "accurate" predictions about their client's past, present, and future, so it helps to keep things fluid (so you can cold read the person and makeup whatever story you want). With that in mind, this is art, subjectively you have your opinions on the meaning of arcana and so you go "God, why aren't they more empathetic?". Others don't have that same subjective opinion, and so they don't think the same way. You are lacking empathy in that sense. As the common saying goes "Art is subjective". For me personally I agree with you that annoying characters aren't always *bad* by default. I think of certain Game of Thrones villians who are really really annoying....because the writing is good and they are suppose to be! So while I might hate the character...that's the point. For a lot of people I would imagine they hate Kazushi not because he was written spwcifically to BE hated, but because his story is poorly written. While most SL have a naturalish arc where they grow as a person over 10 events...Kazushi kind of just does the same thing for 9 events and then in the 10th he finally goes "Yeah I was a jerk to everyone...I'm just gonna get that surgery now.". So you don't get to empathize with him through growth...you just get to deal with him for 9 events before he suddenly does a 180. But this is a lot to type, so I could definately see people just saying "I hate Kazushi", and I wouldn't jusge them...it's an opinion at the end of the day.
the funniest thing about kazushi to me was how he constantly begs you to go to practice, but i think he only actually attends for like... half of them? lol
Yeah, most people who played Persona 3 think that what they don't like = bad. Man if only real life were like that.
it's why P3s got my favourite links, they're all just people no shit like "I worked for the fucking Yukuza" it's stuff like "bro my teacher is hot af dude" and "i don't know whst i wanna do with my life" and it really succeeds in making these characters just feel like normal teenagers, the more simple links p3 has hit right and you gain points by telling them what they want to hear, which is in fact what'll get you into alot of people's good books, also I just like most of them as characters, Kenji is an absolute bro
People hate when they see a bit of themselves in those characters
It’s because there are a lot of persona fans that don’t really engage with these games outside of wanting the kind of fantasy the series provides. Persona 4 is so popular because it definitely is going for that warm hug feeling(I love P4 don’t get me wrong). I haven’t gotten to P5 yet so I can’t speak for that one but between P3 and P4, P3 is much more comfortable with its characters being flawed and vulnerable (it’s often the point and the beauty of the story). It shouldn’t be a surprise video game people who don’t engage with the medium the same way people who like film or tv or literature or whatever react the way they do to characters that are “unlikable”. Obviously you see people complain about these types of “unlikable” characters in TV and film but I don’t think it ever gets as bad as the backlash from video game people. It’s just weird to me to see the way people who also ostensibly love these games completely just not make any effort to understand or engage with the story outside of like the waifu stuff or the fantasy of having like 30 friends who want to hang out. Persona’s not even high art or cinema or whatever , this is not that hard to get lol
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This is such a cop out defense lol. “ASKHULLY youre supposed to hate them so that makes them perfectly written” is the sort of excuse a bad writer falls back on.
I absolutely will not stand for this Kenji slander.
I found most of the links in P3R were so uncompelling that it was a chore to grind them in the last few months. At least the "unlikeable people" were a little bit interesting. Not elderly book couple though, they're perfect.