/vr/ - Retro Games

>>6373907
I agree. 1 and 2 are my favorites story and character wise by a lot, and I liked the stakes of 3 and the character's backstories a lot.

Story-wise, what worked in 4 was borrowed and similar to 3, how suddenly everything at the end boils down to a God fulfilling humanity's wish to end their own lives and what didn't was different, so where it wasn't original it was derivative, and where it was it wasn't better.

I think I knew what they were going for: they wanted things to be more personal and for what the characters went through to reflect more "real," "grounded" and "every-day" issues, also relating to cultural and societal issues in Japan such as the consequences of industry on small business, young and old populations, urban life vs the country, etc. All in all, the characters and the depth to which the game explores their personalities and arcs is done quite nicely in 4, but it sacrificed what made the characters great in the previous games while adding nothing good on its own merits to replace that.

Honestly, I think playing in the original Japanese (not the undub, but actually understanding the language) would help a lot. Though the first 3 games of course were anime to an extent in aesthetic and tone, it wasn't until 4 that I felt "I'm playing an anime" and that feeling seems worse still in 5 which is why I won't ever touch it. It seems silly to talk about people acting "realistically" in such a fantastical game, but the issue with 4 is that they aren't even likable or relatable, like they went out of their way to make the characters unlikable. I honestly asked myself, "are they expecting me to like her with an introduction like this?" when Chie kicked Yosuke as hard as she could in the balls over a DVD. It was just lame, and it didn't get any better when the game made a dramatic production over omelettes either, for just one other example. It was definitely funnier as a whole than 3, which made little effort for humor.