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PaperclipPerfector  8d ago (text post)   1799 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for November 21, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Requesting help to decide how to spend the next 100 hours of my video game time. I just want a game that makes me feel something (anything, really: wonder at visual spectacle, curiosity for the world, some sort of emotional engagement with story or characters, satisfying movement mechanics, etc.). Preferably would like a game not requiring sweaty gamer skills, since I don't have the patience to replay a boss 20 times to move on. Current backlog leaders in no particular order: Elden Ring, Cyberpunk 2077, Metaphor Refantazio, Clair Obscur, Mass Effect Trilogy, Death Stranding 1&2, Spider-Man 1&2. Open to other suggestions as well.

Have you played the Persona games? (3, 4, 5)

I get a rare amount of emotional engagement with the characters in those games. No sweatiness required.

Funny, Persona 3 Reload is the game I'm currently playing (I finished 5 Royal some years ago). I thought about jumping straight to 4 Golden, but decided to wait for the upcoming 4 Revival since I think 200+ hours of Persona back to back could start to feel too repetitive. Agree on the engagement though. I can't articulate the secret sauce but they know how to make you connect to characters.

I have some concerns about P4R, mostly about localizers possibly diddling with Naoto's characterization. My source for these concerns is ultimately my ass, but enough of the Modern Audience Discourse about P4 revolves around a motivated misreading of Naoto and Kanji's characters that I'm very much suspicious of how the localizers will handle it.

Then I have a design gripe that isn't a huge deal but still struck me with P3R - I kinda like the less P5-streamlined combat. Baton Pass/Shift removes some of the friction between hitting a weakness and setting up an All-Out attack, which I liked in P5 but I realized that abilities felt less impactful because they reduced down to "hit the right color in single target or AOE and then get the bulk of your actual damage from All-Out". When your All Out setup relies on the turn order and double-tapping enemies to down them and keep them down, your ability damage matters more, you're more directly incentivized to use physical attacks and discover how massively useful crits are (fun fact: I played P5 first and didn't realize critical hits were physical only until late game because there was only one physical damage type that wasn't disincentivized by limited ammo and I was conditioned to fish for All Outs with magic attacks). There's a whole bonus dungeon that relies on your mastering the knockdown -> dizzy mechanic to not get swept by some crazy enemy groups while your SP is actively sapped after each fight. The combat system has a grit to it that I really enjoyed that got smoothed over in P3R, IMO at least a bit to its detriment.

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