Okay I'm caught up on the p3 main story bits of p5x. I still got the character stories to go but this clown currency doesn't come as easy as the Joker currency and I don't like the gameplay so ... May be a while for that
"Hmm ... That's true ... Transforming into a costume..." Never give up on your magical girl dreams Ken I believe in you
".... As before..."? SHE ALSO KNOWS. Aigis is more immune to memory manipulation than everyone else and she definitely acts like post-December Aigis.
They find Laufel's feathers scattered around and follow the trail to the station, where they split up a bit to investigate. Aigis notes Wonder is very worried about Laufel, and finds that relatable as a fellow chronic worrier. Anyway Laufel has been frozen in a block of ice at the Fortune-Strength boss fight
The only difference is the Fortune boss will revive the Strength boss if they're not beaten first. [Squints]
Anyway we beat them, and save Laufe- hey. HEY. Who did the storyboarding here. RUDE??
Usually the last scene of the chapter ends on a teaser for the next location. THIS chapter ends on this slow dead-wife-esque turn around. Strangling them
C'mon BlackWings give us high def version of that body horror scene from the answer. Orphy nooooooo
Now for the Riko/ Yukari /Akihiko side story. They are stuck at a tower guardian because there's only 2 fighters, when one absolutely does a psychic attack at Yukari and Riko, which Akihiko takes the hit for. And lo, Shinjiro is summoned in a swirl of dust. they're not subtle about it.... Every character, before showing up proper gets at least one scene to show that they are already in Tartarus, and if they join in battle you are shown an animation where they dash in. Only Shinjiro shows up in a literal cloud of smoke. To put this story bit AFTER the Fortune Strength boss is the icing on the cake
"Really. I was just thinking and you suddenly show up. Still so impatient and barking orders"
Yukari doesn't comment basically at all. They end up beating the Chariot and Justice boss off camera, re-establish very staticy contact with Fuuka but gets interrupted by shadows before Riko could tell them they found Shinjiro. CONVENIENT.
Riko gets a chance to explain the situation to Shinjiro, and he asks if any of SEES had a delusion event like the p5x OCS. Riko says "No ... At least not yet. It doesn't seem like any of your group experienced that."
I'm almost caught up on the p3 stuff in p5x, happy pride
Where did we leave off, let's see... Beat the Emperor and Empress bosses, but when the shadows exploded it made a big chasm on the ground, splitting Riko, Yukari and Akihiko from the rest of the group. They decide to go into Meta-Tartarus the normal way through the stairs, while the rest goes through the plot convenient blue Monad door with eyes, hoping it'll warp them to the same place. No such luck, but found another of p5x's OCs, Shouki. I haven't met the guy in the main story yet, why does he talk like Mario
Upon confronting him it warps everyone to the Champs des Fleurs hotel, where after beating the hierophant boss and snapping Shouki back to his senses, the p3 crew warns the p5 underlings what is expected to happen next...
Oh no
Oh no. Who's in there. It can't be Fuuka, but if it's Mitsuru he might not survive. Could it possibly....
HAPPY PRIDE?
Shun is psychically compelled to clean the floor??
Options are: help him out/snap him out of it
He's embarrassed that he got mind controlled to clean but admits seeing things get cleaned just gives him a sense of satisfaction. Wonder can ask him to come clean his house then, to which he says stop making fun of him, but if Wonder genuinely needs help around the house he'll lend a hand.
Whewww that's the best possible way this scenario could go tbh I was so worried. Jokes on me 😂
Chapter 5-7 notable moments, up to middle of chapter 8
Wonder tells Junpei the nice things SEES said about him when he wasn't here and he's very surprised. Awww guys. Yukaricchi has been localized to Yukariqin in Chinese, which is like "my bestie Yukari" awwwww guysss
Aigis and Koromaru shows up to save everyone from a swarm. P5x underlings react appropriately to a robot and a dog being Mitsuru's employees
They keep doing this!! Ominous motherfucker I know you know!!!
They find Motoha and Tomoko in a cognitive illusion again. Motoha, bless her, is secretly smarter than everybody else and already knows it's an illusion, she just doesn't know how to break it. After some discussion they conclude whoever controls Meta-Tartarus wants them to play baseball.
Joyfully, the writers did not forget that drama CD where due to Chidori's unintentional magic, Junpei keeps having dreams where he's playing baseball but Aigis is the pitcher using her grenade launcher to pitch speeds up to 300km/hr. But it made him sad ... More extremely pointed foreshadowing that maybe this DOESN'T take place pre Oct 4 2009 but maybe Jan or even Feb 2010 for the p3 crew... Was not expecting a drama cd reference, of all things.
After baseball game they got teleported to Escapade where cognitive Tomoko got hurt, which leads to Motoha losing control of her emotions and that awakened the hermit boss. They beat that, Motoha joins. Blue door teleports them to the dorm, where I had accidentally played before doing any of this in order 😂. Mitsuru establishes nap rotation schedule.
Other plot stuff, is the eyes on the blue monad door go dim when a full moon boss is defeated. They noticed two more eyes have gone dim, and they have jumped from Hierophant and Lovers to Hermit, which means Justice and Chariot must've been defeated by someone else. It wasn't Aigis, Koromaru or Motoha who did it, which means it's gotta be Riko, Yukari and Akihiko. But.... After losing contact with them, they've only reestablished very staticy contact with Riko, and can hear Yukari for a few words. Hmmmm...
Ken shows up during a tower boss, and the p5x underlings react appropriately to Kirijo group employing child labor
Because each p3 main story event is titled, I can see before playing them what they will be about. It'll be a few scenes further introducing Ken, get to the bottom of where Laufel is being held hostage and if it has anything to do with the psychic magic going on. It definitely does.
However, the segments where Shinjiro is getting introduced are labeled "SIDE" instead of "EXPLORE" or "STORY" SO................. Knowing what's established,
- p3 characters were able to resist the reality warping psychic attacks both by being in Tartarus (used to it) and by keeping themselves grounded by being near each other. Basically they reality check by seeing how the others are doing, and if their wishes manifest, it would be incongruous with being in Tartarus, snapping them back to reality pretty quickly. (Unless of course, their wish is to be in Tartarus.... Cough cough)
- if they are isolated there is a chance they would fall to the same reality warping delusions p5x characters fell under. They have mostly been found in pairs, or just got here.
- the Fortune and Strength boss is the Oct 4th boss, to be fought at the end of this chapter. I SEE IT IN THE TITLE. The p3 characters have made NO indication of not knowing which full moon boss comes next.
- Tartarus has an Adamah section. It's modeled out and playable in the side play grinding mode. Why would they know what the Adamah section look like if not in January.
- did Akihiko get fucking separated from Yukari and Riko and manifest Shinjiro
Little non-plot moments I thought were funny and worth sharing (translations in alt text)
"why are they... Always in front of the washrooms..."
The blowjob brothers...
This fcking door looks too damn similar to another door with eyes on it for me to be ok with this bro
"FIVE OF THEM?!"
"There's a huge stain over there. It's probably the clean up crew here to take care of it."
Shouki... Two coffins are on top of each other on the bed....
>" the coffins are upside down?!"
> "so there are techniques like this...!"
They go on a mini tangent wondering if it's comfortable to be in a coffin like that, if the blood is pooling in the people's heads and if they should flip them around for their safety.
"After some discussion, we have decided to respect other people's rights to their own fate, and will not interfere with the coffins..." P5x said no kinkshaming, we don't know their life
Koromaru is an AMAZING unit. Before each battle you pick one character Koromaru will lock in as handler. They get a little bone and wings floating beside their head. Koromaru will act right after them, and assist skills that are usually once per battle, Koromaru can use every round. They inflict weaknesses and raise damage from fire, ice, elec, and dark skills. Best dog best dog 🥹
Playing p3 on chrimbus has unintentionally become tradition now as y'all flood the feed with that one screenshot. Anyway here's the latest dump of stuff I'm noticing because I did spend Christmas in tartarus
Music on the background of the music room is the velvet room theme
Ken keeps reading fashion catalogues. I know it's a reference to a bit of off hand dialogue and they're Yukari's but he keeps reading them afterwards. Anything you want in there buddy? We can get em for you
I've somehow missed that this exit sign has a lil piece of idiot hair?? This whole time?? Am I blind
We sort of got Trish art???
Is that legally distinct p4a poster LMFAO
(post Oct 4 under the jump, and thoughts on the art book)
Takaya's scampy lil tattoo really enhancing this scene
I was joking that since the MC still hasn't gotten a silly outfit we should get to wear Shinjiro's silly outfits since he's not here to wear them anymore. But I wasn't expecting them to let you equip his regular stuff? Nothing changes cosmetically since they're different slots now but uh. Putting his shoes on Akihiko like I'm Good Witch of Oz or something. I haven't watched Wicked.
It's mind boggling how much custom assets are in this game that people wouldn't even notice. Anglophone players especially wouldn't notice because they're all in Japanese and exist as background elements. Not all of it is important like, the drinks in the vending machines are the right colors and shapes of the drinks they are parodying, and some are actually pretty pointed environmental storytelling. The Torii gates at the shrine has prayers stuck all over it for traffic safety, for example (amongst others, but the traffic safety ones are the biggest). I'm STILL trying to figure out which painting the flying babies was from the July mission (I think it's one of the variants of Triumph of Galatea??? But idk). I only started really paying attention after noticing the painting of Le Cyclops from that mission, like oh, someone on the asset creation team GETS it and is putting in easter eggs.
(also as far as I've seen p5x hasn't reused ANY of it? Not even the sports posters for use in the schools. They're straight up out here grinding custom assets most people wouldn't even notice. I'm glad the junior staff are getting paid I guess? Is this why p3r was so expensive to make?)
People have basically posted the entire art book on rednote, and unfortunately it's mostly the finished artwork you already see in the game, not much concept art or dev notes. Except on the page for drafts for the cover, the layout makes so abundantly clear the rejected concept was the one they liked more. And I agree, it's bold and creepy and it fucks. Dev notes said they tried a few things after ruminating on the themes of the story but were ultimately told to go in a more energetic, shounen direction. Presumably because marketing was going for the P5 audience 😔.
In the UI page there was a dev note on the icons for the fatigue management system that went ultimately unused and I'm crushing a glass bottle in my hands. Looking at the little bit of concept art for Tartarus too - they were much creepier. Let p3 be horror plsss it wants to be horror so bad
It really nailed the writing in the added content I think. Summed up, it's characters getting existential while doing chores. Which, big mood, but also a nice throughline of them has been appreciating that even the mundane has meaning when someone helps you out, and you can find little joys in that. There's no stupid slapstick mean spirited OOC humor which is SUCH a relief from whatever that was going on in p4 and p5's "funny" scenes. The humor in the added content is like, aw Ken fell asleep at the dining table so Aigis and mc carried him to his room. Junpei barking sadly because he'd rather be a dog than do exams, and everyone's been sad lately. Akihiko suggesting the juniors boss Shinjiro around if he's gonna keep skipping class since they'll be in the same grade. It's mostly the dormmates noticing one of them needs help, and doing something endearing to help. It's nice and enforces the story. Especially during the September month, where everything the seniors and Ken personally says are subtly but deeply concerning, while everything that's happening on the surface has a railrolling of optimism that really highlights and foreshadows what's about to happen 👌
Uh back to dumb shit. I've started playin with a 3 person party limit, AND everyone on Act Freely because merciless still wasn't hard enough. And it still isn't. I know I'm p3 Georg but at this point I need that fatigue mechanic back. Why isn't this game kicking me in the dick on the "please kick me in the dick" difficulty
Also, thanks to an offhand joke that the moon phase is just a correlation and the actual causation is actually the MC's menstruation cycle (to be clear, made by me and not the game), I've started calling Pharos "period tracker jumpscare", so there's that
Here are all of the painting textures in the love hotel:
The first is a French painting from 1914 by Odilon Redon called The Cyclops.
The only results are chinese image libraries, which are very unhelpful and don't even link to the image. It did come up with this full version, though.
The next is Liberty Leading the People. These specific colours comes from here.
The next is portraying the baptism of Jesus, and there are a lot. Weirdly, there are a lot very similar to this, but slightly different. The closest is this, but the colours are slightly off. It seems to be this one.
I was hoping to reply to this with a more concrete answer to the paintings question and write out a translation for the text but it kind of slipped my mind until today because I think I solved the mystery of why the images were in Chinese image libraries
I'm almost caught up on the p3 stuff in p5x, happy pride
Where did we leave off, let's see... Beat the Emperor and Empress bosses, but when the shadows exploded it made a big chasm on the ground, splitting Riko, Yukari and Akihiko from the rest of the group. They decide to go into Meta-Tartarus the normal way through the stairs, while the rest goes through the plot convenient blue Monad door with eyes, hoping it'll warp them to the same place. No such luck, but found another of p5x's OCs, Shouki. I haven't met the guy in the main story yet, why does he talk like Mario
Upon confronting him it warps everyone to the Champs des Fleurs hotel, where after beating the hierophant boss and snapping Shouki back to his senses, the p3 crew warns the p5 underlings what is expected to happen next...
Oh no
Oh no. Who's in there. It can't be Fuuka, but if it's Mitsuru he might not survive. Could it possibly....
HAPPY PRIDE?
Shun is psychically compelled to clean the floor??
Options are: help him out/snap him out of it
He's embarrassed that he got mind controlled to clean but admits seeing things get cleaned just gives him a sense of satisfaction. Wonder can ask him to come clean his house then, to which he says stop making fun of him, but if Wonder genuinely needs help around the house he'll lend a hand.
Whewww that's the best possible way this scenario could go tbh I was so worried. Jokes on me 😂
Chapter 5-7 notable moments, up to middle of chapter 8
Wonder tells Junpei the nice things SEES said about him when he wasn't here and he's very surprised. Awww guys. Yukaricchi has been localized to Yukariqin in Chinese, which is like "my bestie Yukari" awwwww guysss
Aigis and Koromaru shows up to save everyone from a swarm. P5x underlings react appropriately to a robot and a dog being Mitsuru's employees
They keep doing this!! Ominous motherfucker I know you know!!!
They find Motoha and Tomoko in a cognitive illusion again. Motoha, bless her, is secretly smarter than everybody else and already knows it's an illusion, she just doesn't know how to break it. After some discussion they conclude whoever controls Meta-Tartarus wants them to play baseball.
Joyfully, the writers did not forget that drama CD where due to Chidori's unintentional magic, Junpei keeps having dreams where he's playing baseball but Aigis is the pitcher using her grenade launcher to pitch speeds up to 300km/hr. But it made him sad ... More extremely pointed foreshadowing that maybe this DOESN'T take place pre Oct 4 2009 but maybe Jan or even Feb 2010 for the p3 crew... Was not expecting a drama cd reference, of all things.
After baseball game they got teleported to Escapade where cognitive Tomoko got hurt, which leads to Motoha losing control of her emotions and that awakened the hermit boss. They beat that, Motoha joins. Blue door teleports them to the dorm, where I had accidentally played before doing any of this in order 😂. Mitsuru establishes nap rotation schedule.
Other plot stuff, is the eyes on the blue monad door go dim when a full moon boss is defeated. They noticed two more eyes have gone dim, and they have jumped from Hierophant and Lovers to Hermit, which means Justice and Chariot must've been defeated by someone else. It wasn't Aigis, Koromaru or Motoha who did it, which means it's gotta be Riko, Yukari and Akihiko. But.... After losing contact with them, they've only reestablished very staticy contact with Riko, and can hear Yukari for a few words. Hmmmm...
Ken shows up during a tower boss, and the p5x underlings react appropriately to Kirijo group employing child labor
Because each p3 main story event is titled, I can see before playing them what they will be about. It'll be a few scenes further introducing Ken, get to the bottom of where Laufel is being held hostage and if it has anything to do with the psychic magic going on. It definitely does.
However, the segments where Shinjiro is getting introduced are labeled "SIDE" instead of "EXPLORE" or "STORY" SO................. Knowing what's established,
- p3 characters were able to resist the reality warping psychic attacks both by being in Tartarus (used to it) and by keeping themselves grounded by being near each other. Basically they reality check by seeing how the others are doing, and if their wishes manifest, it would be incongruous with being in Tartarus, snapping them back to reality pretty quickly. (Unless of course, their wish is to be in Tartarus.... Cough cough)
- if they are isolated there is a chance they would fall to the same reality warping delusions p5x characters fell under. They have mostly been found in pairs, or just got here.
- the Fortune and Strength boss is the Oct 4th boss, to be fought at the end of this chapter. I SEE IT IN THE TITLE. The p3 characters have made NO indication of not knowing which full moon boss comes next.
- Tartarus has an Adamah section. It's modeled out and playable in the side play grinding mode. Why would they know what the Adamah section look like if not in January.
- did Akihiko get fucking separated from Yukari and Riko and manifest Shinjiro
I'm almost caught up on the p3 stuff in p5x, happy pride
Where did we leave off, let's see... Beat the Emperor and Empress bosses, but when the shadows exploded it made a big chasm on the ground, splitting Riko, Yukari and Akihiko from the rest of the group. They decide to go into Meta-Tartarus the normal way through the stairs, while the rest goes through the plot convenient blue Monad door with eyes, hoping it'll warp them to the same place. No such luck, but found another of p5x's OCs, Shouki. I haven't met the guy in the main story yet, why does he talk like Mario
Upon confronting him it warps everyone to the Champs des Fleurs hotel, where after beating the hierophant boss and snapping Shouki back to his senses, the p3 crew warns the p5 underlings what is expected to happen next...
Oh no
Oh no. Who's in there. It can't be Fuuka, but if it's Mitsuru he might not survive. Could it possibly....
HAPPY PRIDE?
Shun is psychically compelled to clean the floor??
Options are: help him out/snap him out of it
He's embarrassed that he got mind controlled to clean but admits seeing things get cleaned just gives him a sense of satisfaction. Wonder can ask him to come clean his house then, to which he says stop making fun of him, but if Wonder genuinely needs help around the house he'll lend a hand. Gay Wonder and Asexual Shun confirmed?
Whewww that's the best possible way this scenario could go tbh I was so worried. Jokes on me 😂
More p3 shenanigans in p5x since I finally beat the chapter 4 boss
What kind of glitch is this 😂 this story bit has been out for months and they never fixed it? If this is still in the global version when it releases please let me know. Two of them....
Messed up. Port Island finally got weather.
There's a funny little sequence where Shun asked what's Junpei like (they are looking for him, he ran off to bait a shadow away from Fuuka), they tell him he's a spirited guy who does his best to keep the mood up, but nobody can remember how Junpei's little level up jingle goes except Mitsuru (everyone tries humming it, it's fully voiced but I've hit the image limit). The humor in the P3 story events are very subdued in comparison to the P5 story events. They're so... 🥺
Shun felt bad for losing control in the previous chapter and makes everyone ramen to make up for it. Makoto notices Fuuka staring at Shun cooking and volunteers them to help, and Shun puts them to make gyozas. Fuuka does an exceptionally good job and she hypothesized it's because she's used to precision work because she fixes electronics so much. And I breathe a huge sigh of relief. I'm so glad they're not making the "haha she can't cook" jokes anymore. P4 trauma haha... Also I just personally have attachments to dumplings. This Fuuka segment is for me specifically 😤. Also where tf is Shinji this is his turf? Come be bros with Shun already.
There's a lot of cute little touches in the p3 character writing in p5x in particular. The first instance I noticed was when Akihiko first showed up and Wonder seemed taken aback about how eager he was to fight things. This hesitancy flies straight over his deeply autistic head and he starts talking about training, during which Yukari and Makoto exchange a side glance, sigh, and leave. Other stuff like how Yukari is constantly worried about Mitsuru and Ken, Fuuka being able to pick out when someone is distressed outside of battle, Mitsuru keeping them from going off on wild tangents, the lil fist bump between Junpei and Makoto after an attack like they do it all the time...awwwwwh it's all just very endearing. None of the humor is mean spirited and nobody's a caricature of themselves, Atlus redemption arc...
I think I know where the story is going and if I'm right they are buttering us up to emotionally wreck us when chapter 13 or whichever is the last one will be. Which is in spirit with p3, they would've nailed it. And it's basically all fully voiced, which is just very nice to see the VAs being appreciated when the entire creative and performance fields feel like we're being suffocated by AI shit 🫠
I wasn't expecting p3mc to talk that much, but I think this might be the most talkative version outside of the movie. And it's completely dismantling the movie version. Ishida is going full uwu softboi, very polite, very occasionally will mutter some bratty stuff but still in a polite tone. Has stress lines so obvious Wonder keeps commenting on. Metaphorically coughing blood into a handkerchief and hiding it. Every side dialogue is hilariously ominous like Shinjiro in September. Good kid, this is probably the closest to the intended version (coz it's a little bit like Will MRF, lol).
Do you think the CD Drama stuff is compatible with the games (specially the Arena games where their influence is most seen)? I'm thinking mainly of Mitsuru not inheriting the Kirijo Group.
Yeah they're canon afaik. I wish they're more accessible though, they do explain a lot...
The full moon/new moon ones especially, since everyone talks about it in ultimax. They kiiiind of gave it a reason why it's not in a main game (even though I think it should be, but alas 'tis the medium), being Pharos messed with p3mc's memories of it. Everyone else remembers though, so.
My thing with digimon is that like. How much of it is edible and how much is juts data? As a disclaimer I barley know anything but if I bite into one of them are my teeth just gonna pass through? Do they even have organs that could be consumed? How much is just spots to hold and filter data and how much is flesh?
I think 🤔 they're probably the same kind of solid as pokemon and megaten demons, which are also just data. And digital devil saga demons (and humans), they're all just data. And canonically edible.
It seems every franchise has cookbooks now but none of them have the balls to actually list recipes for the creatures canonically considered to be gourmet delicacies (except dungeon meshi, the GOAT as usual)
I haven't looked at the English version of p5x myself but just seeing some screenshots in the wild there are some odd translation choices. It's a bit of that thing where when you release the American version of a Japanese game, you gotta give Kirby angry eyebrows kinda thing. Kind of interesting. May have to look into this now
Okay so I haven't played the dancing games and IDK if the English version of the event is out but I don't think I'm strong enough for this level of ... Theatre kid energy to finish this event. And I hang out with theatre people irl.
So uh... Typically Joker is kind of standoffish in p5x. Wonder heavily implied to be intimidated by him (tho Wonder is such a wet cat he's intimidated by everyone). Joker is cordial and everything but everything from his skills to animation gives off a pissed off vibe, which is totally fair since Wonder shoots him in the opening cutscene. Here he is restraining himself from strangling Akechi after Violet says they seem real close:
But Dance!Joker?
The event is goofy as hell. A being taking the form of Merope is writing fanfiction about them and yoinked them into the WonderWorld fanfic dimension (the being calls itself Pulowei in Chinese, idk if that means it's meant to be Prove or Pylophe or Provi or something). According to this being, Wonder has lost his memories about the fanfiction it wrote about them, and must get the memories back by doing story events. It then points to Joker sulking over there.
(just to be clear, I think this whole thing is very funny. I just don't know if I can handle it)
His idle animation is either wiping his nose or adjusting glasses, in what I'm sure is intended to be a cool street punk kind of way. But with this framing it does looks like he's crying
Talk to him and he's pretty bummed out that Wonder can't remember the fiery night they had dancing together at the club
"But we've clearly danced together at Club Ludus 😔"
There's some small skits with the gacha's OCs where Joker is apparently just dancing in the middle of Shibuya crossing all the time, with the other characters saying stuff along the lines of "what's that guy doing...how is he so confident" objectively, hilarious
The gameplay is to collect clown coins by doing battles so you can use clown coins to buy little treats for him like you're trying to apologize for forgetting the one night dance. Typical gacha. You're supposed to be able to do this with all the characters they add but since Joker is the only one here right now...
Apparently Joker woke up in the club in the Wonderworld dimension and saw a pile of clothes and immediately put them on. Then ran into Wonder and they deduced this world wants them to dance, so they get on stage and do a little choreography for the club.
There is NO DANCING in the event, they didn't want to animate it. Whenever they dance in a story skit the screen fades to black and fades back in with the characters saying stuff like "WOO that got my heart POUNDING you're an amazing partner" and. You know how when they bleep out a non swear word people will assume the word was "fuck?"
"Started dancing with Joker..." Uh huh and did you spend a long time
(these are not animated, they're static images)
"HA! How's that! This feeling...? HAHA!"
"WONDER! Show the audience your passion!"
"It was truly a heart thudding experience... We danced until we were totally spent"
"Right, Wonder, how about a dance session right here?"
Options: "of course!" "Let's dance the night away!"
I... I'm not strong enough I'm going back to Tartarus 😭
Here to report I did end up finishing the Joker events because clown money came stupidly easy. Wonder is shocked Joker's glasses are fake. Joker supports lying to people for fashion and offers to help Wonder pick out a pair. Wonder remembers they visited each other's rooms (cough) and Joker FINALLY makes Wonder a cup of coffee. Now that Wonder has recovered his memories they vow to make new ones together (look I know it texually makes sense but it sounds just as embarassing in Chinese as it does in English)
Since there's no one else there that's it for the dancing event for now it's such a nothingburger 😂. It's just very funny how hard they went for P3, especially with what direction I think they're taking the p3 storyline (fusion of third semester and episode Aigis... Gonna be absolutely devastating folks).
Joker is also an absolute coffee SNOB. He's always been a hipster but I think they added idle dialogue in Wonder's mind palace where he just rambles about beans and brewing techniques like that's just what he thinks about for fun.
I also only now noticed there's Mind Palace banter? I haven't seen a lot of them but they're pretty fun. Aigis gets excited about B-tier action movies and talks to the other characters about it. The games OCs will spawn in and have their own little friendships. P3mc says it would be nice to visit the real Shibuya in person some day (ha ha fuck you)
And it does lead to some very funny framing
"you wanna explain why you have a conspiracy wall with all these giant paintings of me, Wonder?"
(not what he says, but man the framing)
Cute when it's Mona though. It's wagahai!
God I love this game's glitches. Look away Mona we're becoming one
In all seriousness, even as I'm not THAT far in (like 1/3 through second dungeon) to the p5x main story the writing is aight. The stakes don't feel as high as in main p5 and the characters are a little more light hearted, but there wasn't any point that made me go 😬 like certain points in p5. It could change, but I have decent hopes considering P3R and MRF had pretty good writing. The main characters are pretty likeable, and the coop characters are interesting. My favourites are the alcoholic half blind grandma, your teacher who used to be a sukeban leader or something (Y-Yukino...), and the fashion student who is a furry because I swear I know her irl
(more thoughts under the cut. TLDR, Writing: decent for its genre imposed limits. Art and Design: on par. Gameplay: BAD. Technical performance: well.....)
Now that I am further in, yeah, it's Apathy syndrome just by a different name. When people's hopes and aspirations are "taken" they lose the will to live and become a "Phantom" (the Lost). And it is the same as Shadowmen from early personas because guess what The Lost was called in Japanese lmao. They will never stop reworking this metaphor for the nihilistic depression caused by East Asian socioeconomic situation.
I'm slowly working through the p3 content and even if things are janky on a technical level, considering its limits on how deep it should get into the plot as basically an ad for P3R, it keeps them all pretty in-character and doesn't exaggerate them to the point of parody unlike PQ. It teases SEES's issues as parallels of the games OC's issues, while it doesn't go particularly deep, it does show that they've put thought into how to incorporate it in a more meaningful way that isn't just fanservice. The tone of the P3 content is mostly serious. Intentionally or not, the way all the characters keep checking up on each other's health because Meta-Tartarus is very draining is both sweet and Very Ominous if you Know haha....
I haven't done as much of the p5vanilla/royal content but it is overall goofier than the p3 content which makes sense. There's overtly funny moments in the p5 events, whereas the p3 content so far mostly had "sensible chuckle" type humor.
And can't deny BlackWings worked pretty hard on the main story dungeons. They're simpler because mobile, but massive. They made new music and custom art and all the demons got shiny new portraits. The antagonists and personas visual designs are pretty consistent in quality with regular p5. The non dungeon environments are also very nice to just run around.
I'm playing with the Chinese text but Japanese dub, there is a Chinese dub that I might check out eventually. It's interesting to see how Chinese localizes Japanese language specifics. Chinese doesn't have an equivalent of -kun, so it seemed to have settled for 同学, which means "fellow student (gender neutral) (friendly)". Shun uses the "-san" honorific with their former sukeban teacher instead of the expected polite "-sensei" to indicate familiarity, but Chinese doesn't have a "-san" equivalent either. So they've landed on 姐, which means "older sister". Really makes it sound like she's his boss. Etc etc. It's been interesting!
Idk if this will survive localization but the goalie's name is literally Guard Gatesfield. Witness ass name.
But OURGH the gacha based gameplay SUCKS. It sucks so bad. Gacha is a blight on gaming. Every intrinsic motivation in the game to explore the world and figure out strategies for bosses is thrown out the window to grind for clown currency so you can brute force your way through. All the enemies are basically blind and every single chest just has clown currency. Really sucks the fun out of it. And this is from the freak who enjoys the P3FES version of Tartarus.
An ironic quirk is in the game there are in-universe gachapon machines where you can waste your yens getting little figurines that does basically nothing except sit on a shelf in Wonder's bedroom. I guess that's how they're squaring it. Gambling, like all other vices such as alcohol and smut, fine as long as you don't overdo it. Just know that it won't help with anything.
Oh and you can turn on the option to have your party follow you in dungeons but they didn't animate them platforming, leading to this unholy fusion accident right here. I... Love it honestly. I love glitches.
Okay so I haven't played the dancing games and IDK if the English version of the event is out but I don't think I'm strong enough for this level of ... Theatre kid energy to finish this event. And I hang out with theatre people irl.
So uh... Typically Joker is kind of standoffish in p5x. Wonder heavily implied to be intimidated by him (tho Wonder is such a wet cat he's intimidated by everyone). Joker is cordial and everything but everything from his skills to animation gives off a pissed off vibe, which is totally fair since Wonder shoots him in the opening cutscene. Here he is restraining himself from strangling Akechi after Violet says they seem real close:
But Dance!Joker?
The event is goofy as hell. A being taking the form of Merope is writing fanfiction about them and yoinked them into the WonderWorld fanfic dimension (the being calls itself Pulowei in Chinese, idk if that means it's meant to be Prove or Pylophe or Provi or something). According to this being, Wonder has lost his memories about the fanfiction it wrote about them, and must get the memories back by doing story events. It then points to Joker sulking over there.
(just to be clear, I think this whole thing is very funny. I just don't know if I can handle it)
His idle animation is either wiping his nose or adjusting glasses, in what I'm sure is intended to be a cool street punk kind of way. But with this framing it does looks like he's crying
Talk to him and he's pretty bummed out that Wonder can't remember the fiery night they had dancing together at the club
"But we've clearly danced together at Club Ludus 😔"
There's some small skits with the gacha's OCs where Joker is apparently just dancing in the middle of Shibuya crossing all the time, with the other characters saying stuff along the lines of "what's that guy doing...how is he so confident" objectively, hilarious
The gameplay is to collect clown coins by doing battles so you can use clown coins to buy little treats for him like you're trying to apologize for forgetting the one night dance. Typical gacha. You're supposed to be able to do this with all the characters they add but since Joker is the only one here right now...
Apparently Joker woke up in the club in the Wonderworld dimension and saw a pile of clothes and immediately put them on. Then ran into Wonder and they deduced this world wants them to dance, so they get on stage and do a little choreography for the club.
There is NO DANCING in the event, they didn't want to animate it. Whenever they dance in a story skit the screen fades to black and fades back in with the characters saying stuff like "WOO that got my heart POUNDING you're an amazing partner" and. You know how when they bleep out a non swear word people will assume the word was "fuck?"
"Started dancing with Joker..." Uh huh and did you spend a long time
(these are not animated, they're static images)
"HA! How's that! This feeling...? HAHA!"
"WONDER! Show the audience your passion!"
"It was truly a heart thudding experience... We danced until we were totally spent"
"Right, Wonder, how about a dance session right here?"
Options: "of course!" "Let's dance the night away!"
I... I'm not strong enough I'm going back to Tartarus 😭
Most of the other cases of demon modifications are like lengthening the clothing and swapping out skulls with skull shaped helmets (sorry fiends). But it's really arbitrary and seemingly random for what they consider to be "too revealing". For example, Apsaras had to put on bike shorts but Pixie doesn't?
And somebody thought Kumbhanda was too sexy and must cover up that thang
Incubus got bottom surgery and bike shorts that really accentuate his cheeks
