@Mingo22:
@silence
Plenty of RPGs have character developments that occur outside of battles and the scopes of the main plots.
You completely miss my entire point for what ever reason. BUT MY point is.
Persona Story Telling would work BETTER outside an RPG Formatting.Away from the grindings, battling, leveling up, spells ect!
Christian, based on comments and current information, WILL be outside of the traditional RPG Formatting. Which I'll probably end up playing.
How ever. Persona as well as Atlus in general over the years hasn't been trying to make "great gaming". They try to do things "different". Sometimes it scores them mass appeal, some times it doesn't. But the fact they do things different alone has always, in the least, gathered cult appeal.
yet Atlus trying new things /=/ Great Gaming. Even though you may blind yourself to it persona has just as many stereotype characters to "balance the group out" as most other series.
But since you are the fan of the series/company you'll likely have your biased SOOO it's pointless to carry this discussion any further. Just keep in mind that I have played everything you felt listing and then some. Playing a lot of games does not equal sound opinions. Experience without reflection is worthless.
All I said in my original posts is Persona would be BETTER outside of the RPG genre with this brand of story telling. Simple as that.
Firstly, you could make your point a lot better without the insults or presumptions; your argument would be a lot stronger!
Second, Atlus has made some unforgivably shitty games: Hoshigami, Stella Deus, some of the weaker Megami Tensei games… being a fan doesn't make me a fanboy - but it strikes me as a little backward to diss on a company for trying to make games that are... different? I mean, Different isn't necessarily better, but trying to mix up the very, very formulaic RPG genre which is infamous for being unable to modernize or mature… how can that be bad?
It's not like people won't keep making games with the same plucky, spiky haired, sword-wielding protagonists getting revenge on the empires which burned down their home towns. Those games will keep getting made, and I like the good ones plenty. A few games with unusual premises won't hurt anyone - certainly not the genre.
Third, Atlus has probably one of the best localization and translation teams out there since Working Designs went out of business. This isn't like… some fanboyish comment being pulled out of the arse, it's just... fact. They respect the humor and spirit of the original japanese, but aren't afraid to use american pop-culture references and keep honorifics. They hold voice work in high esteem and don't mind making games that don't take themselves too seriously. Disgaea games, Odin Sphere, the Trauma Centers, the Persona games, SMT games and games they publish like Demon Souls... most of them are pretty solid if not excellent games. I find it hard to say that Atlus doesn't try to make "great games." They aren't Final Fantasies, but... that's what Final Fantasy is for. There's nothing stopping you from buying both, right?
Everyone working on this game worked on P3 and P4. If you don't "think" those games were good because they had some traditional RPG elements, you are probably barking up the wrong tree with this game.
That stuff gotten out of the way, let's answer your post:
I beat up the stripper so now the character is no longer bothered by her sexuality is a lil far fetched in the story telling department.
Let's take your example. The character in question has deep-seeded emotional issues with how shallow the idol she plays is and has all of these difficulties with her sense of personal identity - she doesn't know where she ends and the marketed idol begins. P4 places the cast in a world where they confront all the aspects of their personality that they deny: if your fear was people finding out that you weren't the pure, sweet, innocent idol you play, if you had to face that fear down in front of a crowd of people… would you fear it so much afterwards?
Say your secret is that you're gay and in denial. If you had to face your repressed feelings in this alternate world - stare them straight in the eye - and come out to a bunch of perfect strangers to whom your inner self was exposed to... would it be as difficult the second time, when you did it in reality?
In P4, the above happens. How many games at all address issues of masculinity - what a man should and should not do lest he look gay? How many of them address homosexuality as anything but a funny joke?
Regardless of whether you feel like the game shouldn't have boss battles and levels as a part of the plot progression (and it is far from the only way the plot advances), you've got to give that sort of thing credit where credit is due - for tackling issues people can relate to, doing it in a video game, and actually treating it seriously: It sucks to not be popular. It sucks to not be pretty. It sucks to not be taken seriously because you're a girl, or fat. Characters in the Persona games have drug problems, parent problems, self-esteem problems. The games aren't perfect, and sure, they have stereotypical characters just like any work of fiction in history, ever. But they're at least a lot less shallow than the adventures of Edge Maverick in Huge-Eyed Loli Land. The fact that the characters aren't perfect and that dealing with these flaws is literally the focus of the game should get some attention.
Try not to take this the wrong way, but you've watched some Youtube videos: that doesn't make you a Persona-storytelling-expert.
I have played everything you felt listing and then some. Playing a lot of games does not equal sound opinions. Experience without reflection is worthless.
Derp.
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