So how you like vengence?

Excellent, I think it stumbles a bit near the end but it was strong enough to be one of my favorite games released this year. Vengeance re-invigorated me to go back to SMT stuff as well, might play IVA since I havent touched that one yet

Apocalypse is my personal favorite

Raidou is coming back, probably will get announced at TGS. Probably going to be a duology bundle as some achievements is Raidou 2 content

Amazing news

The battle theme

Easily the best Atlus game this year

This update seems random as hell, really nice for whenever I get around to replaying it though, I wonder if they are going to add more demons down the line

This and Unicorn Overlord are still my favourite games this year, I haven't played Persona 3 yet but the gameplay loop in both these games are really fun to me compared to the calender stuff

No lying. Definitely did not expect anything else from the game. I know there's a modder who's been adding demons to the game, which is pretty cool. Pretty sure the new one from today's update was added in by the modder a few months back lol.

I'd say P3R is for sure up there for me as well, but it's just a remake of a 15 year old game I've played before. The calendar system in Persona games don't really bother me, but it did a decent bit when I was playing through Metaphor.

what about Metaphor's calendar bothered you?

Maybe it's not necessarily the calendar, but the game itself since I wasn't too hot on it in the first place. At first, I oddly got a bit of decision paralysis lol, then realized it's incredibly easy to max out everything no problem so it just became a non issue. I'm sure if I really enjoyed the game, it probably wouldn't be a "problem".

ah i got ya. the objective deadlines were pretty forgiving so, i guess in the end the calendar system just acted like preset points of plot progression although embarrassing, i was left one away from maxing Eupha, Bas and Catherina fml

Yeah, it definitely felt like just moving the plot along. Though I suppose in its defense, it keeps things more stress free instead of trying to minmax what you're doing like you would in the Persona games.

I do like that there are only 8 levels compared to the 10 in Persona. Granted Persona games have wayyyy more days to go through, but Metaphor kept most of the fluff out of each character's story, which was nice.

I think Bas was my final one, though I did only have like a couple days left so I did cut it kinda close for him lol. I did like the ending to Eupha's. I wish she got more of a spotlight in the game. She lowkey just felt like Haru in base P5.

Metaphor is on pause right now but I’m on the last month and will probably write a bit more about it later but I guess my issue isn’t necessarily the calendar system since I thought it was fine in Persona but it’s more about the narrative having to be designed around it.

In general though I think the game is fun but it’s also pretty forgettable and I’m disappointed that the “3rd pillar of Atlus” has the exact same gameplay loop as one of its other pillars.

I think this image kind of encapsulates my issues on it

Also the “fantasy” in this game is just… not interesting at all; to me it feels very “safe”, conservative and afraid to do anything too outlandish

they at least did an alright job of justifying waiting till each deadline date
each of them required a rank 5 virtue i didn't have at the time (Kindness, Eloquence and Wisdom) so my delay was fixing that. then i think HarEupha's max event only happened on the runner but i had no time to go anywhere at that point lol loved how my newfound wisdom was used to convince her to break into a church tho

outside the Bosch-inspired/lifted human designs, i agree that the monsters weren't that fantastical in appearance, at least not "Atlus fantastical". though, i feel this is same issue Soul Hackers II had working within its limited non-Persona/SMT lvl budget. the most interesting locales were the matte paintings you stop and chat at on the way to a repeat/color swapped dungeon lol. however, they weren't slacking on the runners and king face. they went off on those

still, a great game i want more of

Somehow enjoyed SH2 more than this 1000% agree with everything you said though. Like I said in the Metaphor thread, I really wish I enjoyed it more. Definitely not a bad game at all; it just did not work for me

The human designs were really cool and I wish we got more of them instead of generic wolf and skeleton monsters

I really hope they take more risks when they eventually make a Metaphor 2 and maybe an increased budget too because outside of the beautiful presentation you can really see where they cut corners

hopefully with the great reviews and the director still attached, Atlus will build this new brand up right

are the Dagda and Konohana Sakuya DLCs worth it? if they are, i would want to cop before I get too far

Its two boss fights and you also get the demons. That being said Sakuya is broken and easily the best healer in the game.

Also her design is fire

say less

Which canon/route you guys recommend for newcomer

@Thread_Critic_PhD @redtruth @wes what yall saying

If you want to get the absolute full experience, I'd do Creation (the OG) and then Vengeance. The Vengeance route has a better story (though I'd say it's not anything particularly amazing or anything), so you can do that if you want a better experience without having to do another playthrough prior lol. If you're still wanting to play more, you can always just do Creation after.

There's some secret bosses tied to each route, so you'd have to run through both if you wanna fight them.