Neo-Persona's Insane Game Over Mechanic

 

Persona 3 Reload is on the horizon and I'm sort of torn about it.  On the one hand I am completely fucking sick to death of remakes.  The constant remaking and remasting of various games that were already good is tiring. It feels like a big chunk of the industry at the moment, both AAA and indie, are just constantly re-treading old ground for nostalgiabucks and safe bets rather than pushing anything even remotely creative.  On the other hand though, Persona 3 has a number of glaring issues that probably need fixing and could be fixed in a remake.  For example, the biggest example actually, Tartarus is one of the most boring dungeons ever conceived not only just for Megami Tensei but for JPRGs just in general.  Hundreds of floors of samey bullshit with the most monotonous music ever written, it's actually fucking awful.  Juding from the gameplay trailers we have of Reload so far it looks like that won't get fixed and this whole thing is pointless but we've seen very little so far so let's withold judgement for now.

But what I really want to talk about is a problem that has plagued Persona since the third game and is probably the most annoying aspect of the franchise and that's the instant game over on main character death.  This isn't something that's new to SMT, there are a number of games in non-Persona entries that also have this mechanic.  For example Shin Megami Tensei 5 also has this feature but in that and other games it sort of makes sense.  In the other entries in the series you are a demon summoner of some description, either through some kind of magic or the series mainstay, the COMP, so when you eat shit the control you had over your party of accumulated demons gets broken and they leave you to die.  That's what you get for relying on demons from hell to help you fight God, I suppose.

But in Persona it's a different story.  You aren't negotiating with demons, (mostly, 5 is the exception but even then it's different) you are a group of high school friends, quite close knit ones we are led to believe, going into a shadow world to fight weird Carl Jung bullshit. So when you eat shit in those games the instant game over makes absolutely ZERO sense.  You can be surrounded by characters that are holding actual kilograms of Revival Beads in their pockets and monsters in their brain that can use magic to revive you but instead they leave you for dead, fade to black, game over.

What makes this even worse is that this never happened in Persona 1 or 2.  The MC or Maya in those games can eat a big attack and have their HP reduced to zero but their friends are able and more than likely will pick them up before the battle is done.  Imagine if you had the ability to revive people from the dead with a magic spell and while you're walking down the street someone rolls up and shoots one of your parents in the face with a shotgun. You aren't just going to run away, you're gonna wait for the guy to leave and then pick them up and dust them off, right?  Makoto, Yu and Ren all have the worst fucking friends of all time.

What makes this mechanic even worse is that SMT has spells such as Mudo and Hama which, if they connect, insta-kills you.  If it's your first playthrough and you are unaware that demons in whatever dungeon you are in are packing those spells then there is a fairly high chance that you are going to take one right to the chops and lose a bunch of progress.  Obviously there's counterplay to this with you being able to fuse Persona's that have resistances to this stuff or null it outright but if you don't know it's coming then kiss your progress through the dungeon goodbye.

I hope it's a feature that Persona 3 Reload changes.  Hell, I would be OK with the next player turn being forced by the AI to use a revival bead or a recarm spell and you only get a game over if you have no items in your inventory OR you are completely out of MP.  At least then your friends being unable to revive you makes sense for a game over rather than they just run away from your unconcious body as soon as you get knocked out ONE time.

At the end of the day, just get better fucking friends

Some Persona Fans Piss Me Off

I can feel the hate mail coming just from the title so hold your fucking horses and let me start with a clarifying statement.  I fucking love Persona 5, it was an amazing experience with both style and substance and is probably my personal favorite game on the PS4 right now with very little chance of being overthrown any time soon.  I'm also a big fan of Persona 3 and Persona 4, also great games that I sunk many many hours into and loved dearly.  Persona 4 Golden (and Dancing all Night) was pretty much the entire reason I bought a Vita.

But with that said, god DAMN some of you Persona "fans" on the internet piss me the fuck off.  Now I'm not talking about the legions of Weaboos that seem to make up the games fanbase, that's just sort of par for the course when it comes to titles like this and while they are cringy as fuck their slightly overzealous enjoyment of games in this style aren't really the problem.  My problem comes when I see posts from supposed "fans" shitting on mainline SMT or Persona 1 and 2.

First I think it's important to understand where I am with this series.  Way back when I lived in the UK, I remember my mum telling me about this game called Lucifer's Call on the PS2.  God knows how she came across it but it piqued my interest and I grabbed a copy and went from there.  This game blew my goddamn mind.  It was a bit like Pokemon but instead of shitty little woodland animals coming out of my balls and winning the day with friendship the whole game was basically a struggle to survive in a harsh world of demons that you had been thrown into (there's more to it than that, but for another day).  So I played the fuck out of that and then I don't remember playing much of the series until Persona 3.  It wasn't until that game that I realized that I wasn't just playing "Persona 3" but I was playing "Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3".  So I did some research on the series at large and the obsession grew from there.

Now the reason I can't stand the people who shit on Persona's 1 and 2 is just because I'm a ponce.  Those games are harder and a bit dated but it just seems silly to shit over the first two games and then go around the internet touting yourself as "a fan of the series".  Let's face it folks, Personas 3 and up and designed for ages 3 and up.  Easy mode SMT for people new to the series, a nice little way to break you in.  It's a great place to start if you've never played a MegaTen game before (although I'd argue that Digital Devil Saga is better) but by ignoring the rest of the series because it's "too hard" for you is just a crying shame.  As Souls fans say, "Git gud" because you're really missing out on so much and if you just spent even a LITTLE bit of time learning the basics of these games even notoriously hard entries like Strange Journey won't seem so impossible.

The people who get my back up though are the ones who shit on SMT as a whole.  The ones who are elated to point out the fact that ATLUS dropped the "Shin Megami Tensei" off the front of Persona 5.  The ones who will type out pages and pages of stupid, backward reasons about why the series sucks and Persona is the only thing keeping it alive (untrue).  These people are a bunch of stupid fucks that need to shove a Mara up their gaping assholes.

I can get why one might say "I don't like these games, they are hard and dated" because they are.  I'm currently replaying Megami Tensei on the NES (not even Shin) and coming off the back of P5 GODDAMN it's taken some readjusting.  But to turn around and say that SMT sucks is just fucking stupid.  Without SMT there wouldn't even be a Persona and as much as you probably don't want to admit it you are just playing easy mode MegaTen.  Hell, you could rename Persona "Shin Megami Tensei USA" because that's almost what they are at this point.

For those of you who didn't get the joke

Persona as we know it today wouldn't even be a thing if it wasn't for a very specific Shin Megami Tensei game called Shin Megami Tensei If...

It wasn't a hugely successful or popular title but two things in this game were direct inspirations for Persona.  First was the high school setting and the second was the guardian spirit system but if you think Persona 1 and 2 are dated you don't stand a chance with SMT: If...  The point is, everything that you love about the later Persona games has been tried, tested and perfected throughout the rest of the series at various points.  Disliking it is fine but shitting on it just makes you look like a fucking moron.

If you've tried the games and felt that they are dated or too hard, I implore you to go give them another try.  Use a guide if you have to or play the next best entry game after Persona in terms of difficulty, Digital Devil Saga.  If you think that SMT in general just sucks and you aren't willing to try again or even accept the massive impact its had on your so called "favorite" game, then have Morgana put you to bed and then do the world a favor by never waking up.