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[Manji]

The problem with this argument/discussion seems to be that people, perhaps including me, seem to be stating basically true things but then jumping to the point of using their personal opinion as some sort of truism. So yeah, we all know that characters are important. But there's some sort of assumption that P3's characters are shallow clichés whereas SMT3's characters are deep and meaningful. Personally, I can only come to the conclusion that the GRIMDARK world of SMT3 somehow convinced people that the characters were deep whereas the more lighthearted world (with admittedly forced DARK MOMENTS) somehow convinced people that the characters were shallow. But then that'd be me using my personal opinion as some sort of fact.

I do plan on replaying SMT3 someday but until then I'm going to have to admit that I can't even remember any of the characters' names; they made that little impression on me. What I do remember is that they felt more like plot devices or rather obvious metaphors for things - like those 4chan D&D Alignment motivational posters (e.g. Light Yagami with Lawful Evil written underneath). I wonder if  the P3 characters weren't represented by anime artwork but by some more realistic portraits, would people see them as such caricatures? Personally, I didn't find any of them to be any more dumbed-down, simple or cliché than people that you'll meet in real life; that is to say that even real people often revert to type and fit into a fairly rigid social type. I bet many of us here like a whole set of things that we believe to be disconnected from each other but, as other people see them, are all typical for "people like us" to like. That said, I still don't think that, say, Junpei was a stereotype or cliché.

To address someone's response about Tartarus: while it's true that games such as Zelda feature wonderfully designed unique dungeons, so many games - often highly though of games, and particularly older ones - will feature dungeons that are nothing more than different coloured corridors with random encounters in. In this I include pretty much the whole Dragon Quest series - a series I'm very fond of but not because of its varied and imaginative dungeons. Let's see, you have the brown corridor dungeon (cave), the grey corridor dungeon (castle) and then the grey corridor dungeon that you can fall off the side of and return to the world map (towers). In later games they added more variety to the appearance but they're still all just either something with grey bricks on the wall or something with earth for walls. At the end they hit you with a dungeons without any walls at all! It's like they've reinvented the dungeon, let me tell you.

The fact is that they're all just the same thing; a basic 3D space that you move through while periodically battling enemies. As we all know, you don't actually leave the "cave" and go back to the "outside" then travel across the "world" and enter the "castle". No, you tread on a tile that loads your avatar onto a different map that you walk across to another warp tile that then loads you into a different map. P3 just expected to get away with not trying to fool you. If at floor 10 you'd actually warped to a nice field with NPCs in, crossed the field (or returned home) and then been warped to floor 11 (but not actually called that) it would have been no different really from just going to floor 11 directly but it would seem as if you've gone into a different dungeon. As I said, it's rare in most games (RPGs, FPS, platform games, racing games - you name it) that different levels/areas are anything more than cosmetically different. Even in SMT3 they were just different coloured corridors (though usually dark grey). Remember, it's not a "school" or a "hospital", it's a generic 3D space with a certain colour scheme.

[Cap'n]

Cool thanks for all the words.

I totally agree, why should they EVEN ATTEMPT to try and craft unique and well thought out dungeons when they can be lazy and worthless by making them random!

[Manji]

Wow, talk about missing the point. Look at any highly rated RPG and it's likely you'll see dungeons that are essentially identical other than (a) the items in them (b) the enemies in them and (c) the colour/shape of the corridors. This applies to most Final Fantasy games, most if not all Dragon Quest games, SMT and pretty much any other RPG you care to mention. It's rare that a game will take care to make all its dungeons individual and consist of more than just rooms and/or corridors, actually having specific puzzles and elements found in that dungeon but not in others (even things like icy floors that make you slide).

Would you really notice if most of the dungeons in SMT3 were randomly created upon entry? They're just grey corridors and random battles. Sure, you go onto a world map that probably took them all of 5 minutes to draw (that accusation can also be levelled at P3 and P4, I admit) before clicking on a button that teleports you to the next set of corridors and random battles. Oh, but no! This set of corridors is different! See, I moved the blue triangle one step along on that drawing of a grey city!

That's all my point ever was; apart from the very welcome odd exception, most RPG dungeons change only in the three points listed at the start of this post. Some change visually more than others whereas some change only in colour scheme (P3 and SMT1-3, I can't comment on P1 and P2). They just feel more different than perhaps the different zones of Tartarus did because they do the neat trick of having you clicking on a drawing of a landscape to make you feel as if you've moved to a totally different location. Suspension of disbelief, as I said.

[Gen Eric Gui]

You're missing the point.

We're not talking about the APPEARANCE of the dungeons.  We're talking about the fact that a dungeon that has been specifically planned out is able to have elements that mean something, like puzzles or specific shapes or can contain very specific items placed in very specific locations.  Random dungeons -cannot- achieve this.  At best, they can have a handful of non-randomly created floors to hold important fights(like P3) or can have broad set events to always spawn on a floor number (like P4), but they cannot be planned any more carefully than that.

A properly crafted dungeon gives you a feeling of accomplishment when you finish it.  You feel like you overcame something and beat" the game designers.  With a random dungeon, it's exactly as you're saying, just a bunch of tile sets with monsters in them.  Set dungeons like in Nocturne require planning and careful thought on the development side of the game; it requires them to properly balance the game and plan where and when to give the player access to things, and to design clever traps for the player to overcome.  Random dungeons are lazy because they just require the developer to make some tile sets and program the game so that they all line up with each other.

There is a -very- distinct difference here.

[Golby]

The problem with this argument/discussion seems to be that people, perhaps including me, seem to be stating basically true things but then jumping to the point of using their personal opinion as some sort of truism. So yeah, we all know that characters are important. But there's some sort of assumption that P3's characters are shallow clichés whereas SMT3's characters are deep and meaningful. Personally, I can only come to the conclusion that the GRIMDARK world of SMT3 somehow convinced people that the characters were deep whereas the more lighthearted world (with admittedly forced DARK MOMENTS) somehow convinced people that the characters were shallow. But then that'd be me using my personal opinion as some sort of fact.

So you're basically going to argue the people making the argument rather than the argument itself because you haven't really provided a single new fact or piece of evidence to this discussion with that statement.

You're also saying the same thing over and over again which is a waste of our time.

The rest has been adequately covered by Gen (what) and Cho, so I'll leave it at that.

[Biohazard Kitty]

Not to mention, actual design makes the game look less like ass. I'm pretty sure that if Tartarus looked as cool from the inside as it did from the outside, it would have been a lot more interesting; when the map actually matches up to look like the INSIDE of someplace, it has more aesthetic value, and helps us all pretend we're wandering around inside some ancient technologically advanced castle whose makers were damned by their attempts to usurp the gods.

[Erdrick]

Would you really notice if most of the dungeons in SMT3 were randomly created upon entry?

Yes. And if you'd played through the Amala Temple or the Tower of Kagutsuchi, you'd have known better than to ask such a deriding question.

I'm also insulted that you're implying character art has any influence on whether I like a character or not. What did I talk about in my post? Characterization. How does one provide characterization? Through well-crafted writing.

I'm a writer. I may not be one of any great standing, or even one of any great skill, but I'm talented enough at least to be able to tell good writing from bad.

[Magic Pink]

Yeah, dungeons in the Persona games pale mightily in comparison to Nocturne's, that's for sure.

And could Persona 4 be more of a "Friend of the Week has a Problem" anime? I love the game but I really wish there was a cutscene skip button.

[dkn29]

At least thus far P4 hasn't been a chore to play through like P3.  But it still doesn't give me that "I gotta keep playing" feeling that Nocturne gave me.

As far as the dungeons go, changing the themes of each dungeon has helped, but it's still fairly boring to go through randomized floors that take very little time to traverse.  Nocturne's dungeons were intelligently designed and progressively got more challenging.  Going through the Tower of Kagutsuchi on Hard mode is one of the most challenging and thrilling things I've done in an RPG or any video game for that matter.  One wrong move can equal death, but I'm sure a lot of you already know this.  The thing is, the randomized floors, don't equate to that level of excitement I got from trying to get from save point to save point in Nocturne's dungeons.  No matter what you say even if every dungeon in Nocturne was painted the same color, it was far more fun and intense than anything P3 or P4(from where I'm at) has thrown my way.  The Tower of Kagutsuchi isn't the only "dungeon" that is memorable.  Many of the the end game locations were just as exciting; the maze in Yoyogi Park, the confusing Diet building, and of course the unforgiving Labyrinth of Amala gave me many good and bad memories.  P3 and to a lesser extent P4 just haven't provided that memorable of an experience.

[Erdrick]

At least thus far P4 hasn't been a chore to play through like P3.  But it still doesn't give me that "I gotta keep playing" feeling that Nocturne gave me.

As far as the dungeons go, changing the themes of each dungeon has helped, but it's still fairly boring to go through randomized floors that take very little time to traverse.  Nocturne's dungeons were intelligently designed and progressively got more challenging.  Going through the Tower of Kagutsuchi on Hard mode is one of the most challenging and thrilling things I've done in an RPG or any video game for that matter.  One wrong move can equal death, but I'm sure a lot of you already know this.  The thing is, the randomized floors, don't equate to that level of excitement I got from trying to get from save point to save point in Nocturne's dungeons.  No matter what you say even if every dungeon in Nocturne was painted the same color, it was far more fun and intense than anything P3 or P4(from where I'm at) has thrown my way.  The Tower of Kagutsuchi isn't the only "dungeon" that is memorable.  Many of the the end game locations were just as exciting; the maze in Yoyogi Park, the confusing Diet building, and of course the unforgiving Labyrinth of Amala gave me many good and bad memories.  P3 and to a lesser extent P4 just haven't provided that memorable of an experience.

Amen to that, brutha. That was my point exactly.

I know there's people that like roguelikes for whatever reason; power to ya, guys. For me, I'll say what I said already: random dungeon generation is lazy game design, pure and simple. Keep it in the realm of roguelikes, and keep it away from the actual RPGs, please.

[Cap'n]

What really irritates me is that in P4, there are certain dungeon floors that are predetermined... in other words, not random. And they still have the "Corridors and rooms" ass layouts that the random floors have.

[thejumper]

Hello all. New here, so try to go a little easy the first time.

I'm very impressed with how knowledgeable you all are regarding the SMT and Persona series. I have read most of the posts here.

Let me preface this by saying i do own Persona 1-4, as well as Nocturne.
(for reference, i am over 40 years old, and have pretty much played almost every console made to date).

To me, I don't believe Atlus expected much in the way of sales for P1 and P2, therefore they knew it would end up being a niche group of people purchasing the games, and developed it for the more "serious" gamer. Back then, i'm not really sure Atlus thought there would really end up being that big a cult following of the games. I was incredibly disappointed we didn't get innocent sin. Still am to this day.

After the success of SMT: Nocturne on the PS2, i feel atlus decided to spurn those who take the Persona series seriously, trying purposely to break the mold of the niche game, and opening the path for more gamers to play it.  Or, to put it more bluntly, dummied it down for a wider audience to enjoy.  I think they are willing to sacrifice the hardcore SMT fans in exchange for better sales.

In all fairness, i don't happen to have any issues with the dating aspect of the games, as i rather enjoyed it in Thousand Arms, albeit a game not connected to this particular topic.

As far as the game itself, i popped the game in, and found myself 16 hours later finally putting the PS3 controller down. But to me the persona fusion is like alchemy in the AI series, and i find myself addicted to that type of gameplay. Or maybe i'm getting too old and finding myself happy with what i can get my hands on, instead of having higher expectations.

[Kalanyr]

I don't think the Persona games (even P3 and P4) are set to appeal to a wide audience, there's too much Stupidly Arbitrary Difficulty in them like the dungeons with part way mini bosses and no way to save before hand, and leaving and healing (and saving outside) isn't going to help much because you have to fight your way throught he lower floors to get back leaving you drained again and to add insult to injury there's not even a save *after* the minibosses and there's the most difficult floors of the dungeon to go for you to be wiped out along the way, these things don't appeal to the average gamer, they appeal to the average SMT player who has strong masochistic tendencies.

P3 was even worse, if you returned for healing and saving you'd probably lose your party members since the chances you'd be returning for healing before your party members were tired was tiny.

There are ways around these things but they tend to either require a Guide or a lot of time and a natural tendency to exploid the crap out of a game (like Fusing a Kaiwan on an early skill change day, mutating Tetraken into Victory Cry and then passing Victory Cry onto some persona that has no weaknesses so you can use it for a quick Protaganist refresh so you have an unlimited amount of healing).

Thats not to say I dislike the Persona* or other SMT games just that you've got to play them with a certain expectation of seeing your party mowed down without mercy 2 hours from the last save point which is not appealing to the casual gaming masses in my experience.

*Okay I wish upon a star that P3 and P4 had a skip cutscene button because I don't want to see the static scenes 452 times due to resetting due to forgetting to pick up a quest.

[Golby]

The hardcore difficulty that casuals hate, and the *japanese wannabe* pretend japanese schoolboy *poop* and utter detatchment from the main series that drew us in that the oldschool core fanbase despises.

[Noccy]

Persona 3 was cake compared to Nocturne in my opinion.