Tali'Thread vas Clan Zorah nar BSN 6.0

[TTTX]

Ah, happy birthday. Kinda overlooked that message.

thanks, well it happens.

[SciFlyBoy]

Well I'm now 32 years old.

Happy TTTX Day!

[TTTX]

Happy TTTX Day!

thank you.

[Dragaros]

Well I'm now 32 years old.

[Dragaros]

"Vicarious Visions merged into Blizzard, “fully dedicated to existing Blizzard games” going forward, The studio behind the Crash Bandicoot and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater remakes."

"Rumor: Resident Evil 4 remake overhauled as Capcom Development Division 1 takes over"

"F-Zero and Star Fox world and characters designer Takaya Imamura leaves Nintendo"

"Microsoft Tried To Double Price Of Xbox Live Gold & It Went Very Poorly"

"Microsoft Cancels Xbox Live Price Hike, "Today We Missed The Mark""

"New Cyberpunk 2077 Update Heavily Tackles Stability, Quest Bugs, And Open-World Issues"

[Spartanburger]

Well, if you're in the US, and can get your hands on a 3060 TI or a 3080, I'm willing to pay MSRP + shipping + small finder's fee. I have a stack of parts about a yard behind me that've been there since before Christmas that I can't do anything with.

I'll keep my eye out, but no guarantees. Last I heard, EVGA had some kind of a queue system for orders on their site, though I expect that's quite backed up by now. I'm really surprised that so few sellers have adopted a one-per-customer (based on shipping address or payment card/method to help try and prevent bots from creating thousands of accounts) queue system. When I went around trying to find one, the only one I could find was EVGA. Now Newegg has that lottery system thing but that setup is unnecessarily confusing. Are these companies really so afraid of appearing British that they don't want to set up a simple "wait in line" system?

Hopefully I will have my money in a month or two which will enable me to upgrade my rig.

Hopefully, stock has begun to stabilize around that time too. Good luck with it.

Though if you're citing tariffs, probably not a yankee, heh. Alas. Enjoy the card, man! Got lucky, be glad! We got a billion dollar lottery coming up, so maybe my luck is coming up, eh?

The tariffs affect us Yanks directly. The tariffs are the Trump administration's 25% tariff on imports from/goods manufactured in China, which includes the majority of computer equipment. The tariff was originally going to take place in late 2019, but GPUs (and other "accelerators" including products that have them in it like CPUs and Motherboards) were granted an exemption. That exemption expired at the end of 2020.

There's debates over what the effect actually is - depending on the product's pre-tariff margin, the tariff could be absorbed by the manufacturer and the prices could stay the same (Intel for example says the tariffs shouldn't impact the price of their upcoming 11th gen CPUs). But at the most basic level, no matter what your opinion is on the tariffs, the end result is that American consumers buying these "accelerators" that are manufactured in China should expect to see an increase in price by around 25%. This is why many of the 6900XTs on Newegg were delisted and then re-listed at new prices.

The card I got was the MERC319 6900XT. Yes that is the actual reason I got it. Yes I am 12 years old. But it's launch price was $1100. Now it's sold for $1500. That's not the scalper's price - that's the direct from XFX price for the card. Still cheaper than a scalper, but unless the new administration rolls those tariffs back, the prices should be expected to remain high. And even if they are rolled back, if consumers get used to paying the higher prices, there's no reason why the sellers should bring those prices back down again. Hooray for the """free market."""

My current GPU, a Vega 64, is still a rather powerful card. Rather than sell or recycle it, I'm think gonna throw it in my leftover parts from my old build (i7-6700K, 16gb RAM, previously with an R9-390) and use it as my living room PC so I can move my VR setup out of my bedroom. Those parts are still powerful enough for VR, and my room is smol, so meat beat saber should be more comfortable once I get those moved. Only downside will be increased difficulties playing Elite Dangerous.

So in the PC vs Console wars; in the end it's worth it to go through the hassle and heartbreak of trying to find and wait for the perfect cards and equipment to build the PC that you'll sit in front of for hours on end in a gamer's chair as opposed to buying one unit of console now and playing in front of a TV on your hopefully favorite, comfortable couch. All so that you'll have a better frame rate?

In terms of PC vs Console, it is a lot more complicated right now.

In terms of the stock shortage pain affecting PC builders, those same stock shortages are affecting consoles. PS5s and Xbox Series X/S are being scalped and botted right now similarly to how PC components are. Part of the issue is that almost everything is running on the same chip Node. AMD is the manufacturer for the chips (CPU and GPU) in the consoles, and have their own CPU and GPU line for the PC builders. All of those parts are all on TSMC's 7nm manufacturing node. That means that TSMC needs to support all AMD 3XXX CPUs, 5XXX CPUs, RDNA2 GPUs, the semicustom CPU and GPU in the PS5, Xbox X and Xbox S. So supply issues affecting all of AMDs products are also affecting the consoles. Really the only benefit the consoles have here is that (a) they're generally not used for mining, though I bet someone probably could hack some code on them to use them for mining and (b) rumored manufacturing goals/bonuses from Microsoft or Sony encourage AMD to supply the consoles at a higher priority than the PC components. Basically, that "heartbreak" of trying to find new components is affecting consoles as well, and is an abnormality in the market - both PC and console buying is normally not like this.

Consoles certainly have a price advantage right now at MSRP, especially that Series S. I don't think it's possible to build a PC right now for the same price as a console that meets or exceeds the console's performance. This won't last of course - it never does - but generally around the time a new console comes out, price vs theoretical performance leans in the console's favor. Both consoles are doing something really cool with the storage systems too, with those new superfast SSDs they're using. These are generally faster than SSDs you can get on PC, but the tech they're using (DirectStorage) is also coming to PC, and IIRC you can already enable it in some cases, so that benefit won't last either.

Playing on PC isn't just for a higher framerate, though that certainly is one of the benefits. The PC benefit of higher framerates is being theoretically diminished with the current console generation, which new supports something like 4k 120fps. The problem though is that since the developers generally decide what the balance is between visuals and performance on consoles, it's up to developers to decide if they actually want that higher framerate or if they're going to try and push visuals. We've already seen toggles between "performance" and "quality" modes on consoles, which is great to see, and from what I hear, Microsoft is pushing developers hard to ensure every game on the new Xbox can do 4k 60fps.

Consoles aren't exclusive to couches, since building a SFF PC or just any living room PC and hooking it up to your TV is ez. Play with a controller, or get one of those lap pads you can get for keyboards and mice. Congrats, couch play with a PC. Gaming chairs are horrible, and as someone with a bad back, spend the money on getting a proper ergonomic chair. Even though those tend to cost a bit, you'll be spending less than you will on your "favorite" couch.

On PC, you are always going to have more games available to play. But with current consoles, this is being somewhat undone. IIRC, the new Xboxes are backwards compatible all the way back to the OG Xbox (in some cases at least). The PS5 though, is only backwards compatible to PS4 games. Still, you do get more games, and more customization with the playstyle. Keyboard/Mouse, controller, HOTAS, all on PC. Sony is being a butthead with the PS5's controller - you can use the PS4 controller with the PS5, but only on PS4 games. You have to buy their new controller. For all intents and purposes, their new controller is fantastic, but that lack of choice and forcing people to buy a new one is bad. Gonna be a lot of new e-waste thanks to that decision. With the new Xbox, afaict they support controllers all the way back to the 360, and the new controllers will also work on the old XBOX and XBOS.

PCs do also get some extra customization in the game settings, giving users more capability to fine-tune their performance to what works best for them. If you're fine with 45 fps, hate 30 fps, but find 60fps to be a negligible benefit, you can pump up visuals to meet the balance of performance vs quality that you desire. In theory, this shouldn't be exclusive to PC - all current consoles are basically just PCs with special operating systems and there's no reason why developers can't include those settings on console.

Also, VR is still a ways off for consoles. Current consoles might be strong enough for some VR, and the playstation has had PSVR for a while, but it's a far cry from anything the PC has for VR right now. Later in the XBSX and PS5 lifecycle, I wouldn't be surprised if we saw more hardware and game capability on consoles, but for the time being, it's still a PC exclusive.

I think people often overlook just how important harddrive space can be for games. The current console harddrives are using new fancy tech which is really cool, but their storage is so limited that you won't have more than a few games installed at once, and getting expanded storage will be much more expensive than getting an extra HDD or SSD for PC. This problem is especially the case if your internet is slow. If you have super fast internet, it doesn't really matter since you can just uninstall and reinstall games at will with little downtime. But if you're on limited speeds like most people and you don't want to wait, you need to keep it installed. Internet infrastructure does get better over time, but the size of games are also increasing, and they tend to increase faster than the internet speeds in many cases.

Any benefits of system/game updates are rather disingenuous. Sure, microsoft and sony manage the updates. Guess what, Microsoft also manages the updates to the PC. Steam/GoG/EGS/Origin manage the updates to your games, which will auto-install. Don't want them to auto install? Check a box. The only thing that might be a hassle are things like driver updates for GPUs - those are getting less and less painful to install, and often update and install just as easily as any other update. Plus, all updates install far faster than they do on consoles in my experience. In my experience with my PS4, there's no warning when a system or game update is needed to play a game, no background updating, I go to launch a game and it says I can't play until an update is installed. A simple 5gb update takes 45 minutes to install. In that same amount of time on my PC, I've updated 5 games, drivers, and my OS, watched a youtube video, and complained about the console's update times on twitter or something.

Consoles are (generally) expected to "just work," so (in theory) you have fewer issues like drivers that break, have to spend less time trying to get things to work properly, less time doing setup, etc. This is also a bit disingenuous since consoles will also experience bugs and issues that break games all the time. Since the updates aren't under your control, you can't just roll back an update or two to fix it either. That "one button" you have for troubleshooting is a limitation since that's literally all you have access to when it comes to troubleshooting. Guess what, PCs have restart buttons too. One Button. On console, if that doesn't work, you're screwed. On PC, if that doesn't work, someone who knows how to google will fix their issue within 15-30 minutes 99% of the time. Some like to say that PC hardware tends to break more, but console hardware has just as many faults, or have we already forgotten issues with the RROD, or the switch's launch, or the smoking PS4s, etc etc. Hardware has a rate of faults. They affect consoles just as much as they affect PCs.

There's arguments to be made about maintenance. Build a PC right and maintenance is really limited or non-existent. Achieve positive air pressure in your system and you'll never have to dust your PC again. Consoles have engineers designing their systems to have less maintenance. That's a benefit, but you still have to maintain your consoles. PS5 wouldn't be designed to be taken apart and dusted if not. I personally love solving problems too, so I don't really mind if there ever is an issue I need to solve - I always end up learning something new about how computers work at the end of the day too, which is cool. Some may not like that hassle though, and for those people, the ease of a console is useful.

The benefits of a PC are more about the universal nature of it. All on one system, I can do my work, chat here, shitpost on main in discord, capture and edit videos, animate, make music, and play games all on the same platform, and often all at the same time. If performance becomes weak in one area, I can upgrade my system on a piecemeal basis rather than having to wait for and buy an entirely new console. I don't have to switch systems entirely to go do something else. Multiple displays, multi-tasking, VR, etc.

This isn't to try and dunk on consoles - they have a place and a role. The law of reduced rate of returns applies - the more you invest in your experience, the less added benefit you get per dollar spent. You get a good gaming experience with consoles. But it can be better with PC if that's the thing you're looking for. PC vs Console really comes down to personal choice. If you don't want to spend a huge amount on your experience, and the extra choice/quality/framerate/customization doesn't matter much to you or isn't worth the extra cost, get a console. Nothing wrong with that and anyone who says otherwise has a superiority complex.

I think it's the idea of the perfect build that excites you the most. But the second you get that card you've always wanted something else comes by and now your perfect system isn't good enough and you go through that agony all over again. Is the cycle worth it?

This is a really ignorant assumption. This problem of always wanting "something else" once you get one "thing" is a problem with consumerism in general. It is in no way exclusive to PC building. It exists everywhere, perpetuated by the companies and their marketing tactics who rely on it to make greater and greater returns for a smaller and smaller group of elites who are all more interested in us fighting each other so we ignore the men behind the curtain.

Many people are susceptible to this. Console players are not immune to consumerist propaganda. Neither are PC builders. There are plenty of people out there who are easily removed from their money, and who absolutely need to have the newest stuff. The instant a new thing comes out, they need it. They exist in the console world just as much as they do in the PC world. These irrational consumers are an issue, but exist in all markets (sidenote, this is one of the reason why traditional models of free market economics are flawed since the mathematics involved rely on consumers being rational and informed of all options in the market - neither of which has ever been true or will ever be true). Don't go around falsely assuming all PC builders immediately need to go out and buy the latest thing when console players do the exact same thing with new consoles, just on a longer timeframe. This is a problem with consumerism in general.

Plus, if you look at the hardware breakdown on PC from the steam hardware survey, it's obvious that the majority of PC players aren't just always going out to buy the latest new stuff. The most common GPU that PC users on steam has is the GTX 1060, a card that came out in 2016, and in terms of performance, has 6 other GPUs in its same generation that are more powerful than it (1070, 1070Ti, 1080, 1080Ti, Titan X, Titan Xp). The most common CPU setup is a 4 physical core system, which has been on the mid to low side of things for like two generations.

I think you're also placing a lot more "agony" on this than actually exists. Sure, it's frustrating to encounter these stock shortages in hardware, but in the end, *shrug*. It's a GPU. Most PC buyers already have one. For me, the marginal benefit of getting a new one is worth it, but if I can't get a new one, oh well, I'll go do something else.

hope y'all missed my wall-of-text posts because I've only ever gotten worse at them since I've been gone

[TTTX]

thanks.

[Mazder]

Hopefully, stock has begun to stabilize around that time too. Good luck with it.

Thank you.
It's one benefit of having to wait for courts to finalise things, a better guarantee of stock.

[Vol]

@magnus: Well, shit. Hope you're fine then. No idea your odds, but all the same.

@TX: Happy Birthday, my friend! I have no idea how you celebrate over there, but well wishes and many more all the same!

@Sci: In my case, I was almost entirely a console gamer for most of my life. Didn't have a PC capable of playing anything decent until I was around 14-15. Still had consoles, up to the 360. Then the first I've gotten since then was a PS4, from the Christmas before last. Though I miss the purity of the old consoles, play the game, the CD/DVD, and little else, I can see why more people are into them now with all the bells and whistles. In my case, mostly a factor of the games I want to play being on PC, as well as spending most of my free time browsing and reading on the computer anyway, and the console games I _do_ want inevitably are evenly split across them, and I can't justify spending several hundred dollars to play 2-3 specific games per console per generation, when PC ports are getting more common.

Also certain PC exclusives, like Total War, plus one of my favorite genres is FPS, which is undoubtedly better with mouse and keyboard. If I were a wealthier man, I'd have a fantastic TV setup and all the consoles and all the games, assuming I'm still unable to start a family, but that ain't the reality I'm living in now.

[magnuskn]

@magnus: Well, shit. Hope you're fine then. No idea your odds, but all the same.

So far, so good, no symptons, no nothing. We'll see how it goes.

[TTTX]

@TX: Happy Birthday, my friend! I have no idea how you celebrate over there, but well wishes and many more all the same!

thank you.

I generally don't, just get a few happy birthdays and a few gifts.

[TTTX]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNB5uuXR9TE&ab

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0L_pN3VMYAw

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8NFUXHH_RM

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUOkARnR1Fw

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jahBkx7Eik

[Dragaros]

[Dragaros]

I don't even wanna know what the price tag for this is.

[Vol]

Painting skin on a miniature is hard. It seems as if the best method is to dilute the paint well past the usual point, or dry brush, to avoid the stipple building up as you layer. Though blending in general is a weak point, and modeling light sources, so maybe it all comes together with more consistency.

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEfs9ACFga4

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpWyN5OyvM4

[Dragaros]

https://www.warhammer-community.com/202 ... he-divine/

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4Ftvn2JYng

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tapebz-7KoU

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXkxMYjzdbs

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2qvnXI5ijA

[Dragaros]

https://www.warhammer-community.com/202 ... s-of-hysh/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXm4YrsFLtg

[Alienmorph]

The Crimson Court, and it's about vampires too... ?

*has Darkest Dungeon flashback*

[Vol]

Alright, someone at GW has a real big hardon for battle mechs with exposed pilots. Three times is a pattern.

[Dragaros]

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU8wlHlgrK0

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDAPE5S7VCM

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoPPuUTrfOM

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7PzbAlrXxE

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm6fdTnju6g

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdG0h0Q_Ljk

[Alienmorph]

Preordered the Munky, Godzilla is the same one that came out in 2019, just with the spikes painted up, and an extra pair of hands. Also finally got my hands on the Rodan and Mothra 2-pack, so now I need to make some good stands and finally put all the monsters on display... I've had the giant Ghidorah action figure sat in my closet for over an year :p

[Mazder]

So, you computer building savvy people, could you help me out?

I need a new PSU for this proposed rig upgrade.
Now the specs for the GPU say the minimum requirements are 750W for it. And as you can see my current PSU that I have not changed, while compatible, is sitting right on that threshold. I prefer to have more power being drawn than I need in case of some emergency or so the system isn't strained as much.

So, does anyone know of a good PSU I could get/would recommend?
I was thinking 1000W in something Corsair because I know of them and have been using their brand but I am honestly not sure what to get.

[Vol]

I use a Rosewell 1300w, which is tremendous overkill for my PC, but when I first built it I lowballed and was slightly too low, so I overcompensated as well. Served me well for these 8 years, and as you said, better to be in excess.

[Ragabul]

As it turns out, sitting around on your butt during a pandemic is a great way to get longass games done. I've managed to play multiple 80+ hour long RPGs in the last few months that were chronically backlogged.

Persona 4 and 5, finally, *finally* finished Deadfire and its expansions, just finished Divinity Original Sin, and am now going through Divinity Original Sin II.

Persona 5 in particular seems to have single-handedly converted me into the Japanophile club. I expected to like it but it ended up being one of my absolute favorite games of this generation (the only real competitors are The Witcher 3 and Red Dead Redemption 2).

Divinity is very fun, but also has some notable frustrations. It is leaps and bounds superior to both Pillars of Eternity though and is the most fun I've had playing an isometric game in literal decades at this point. Larian, unlike Obsidian, seems to remember that the point of these games is to be fun and not just pedantic. That at least bodes really well for Baldur's Gate III.

[Alienmorph]

So there's a rumor floating around that SW: Knights of the Old Republic III has been already cancelled, and will be replaced by a Knights of the High Republic game. Because apparently tHR is going to be retcon galore and the two storylines just aren't compatible.

[TTTX]

So there's a rumor floating around that SW: Knights of the Old Republic III has been already cancelled, and will be replaced by a Knights of the High Republic game. Because apparently tHR is going to be retcon galore and the two storylines just aren't compatible.

so basically cancel something people want and replace it with something people don't want.

Going to be honest this sounds very unlikely since there is already a rumor that the people of the high republic is using outrage and such to promote the high republic (because no one cares) that is pretty close to a failure at this point (since no one cares about it, because of what happened in the mandalorian season 2) and this basically fall into that.

+ video games is expensive to make, RPG's especially, so making something like that would be a major risk especially since the story is based on something in SW that already isn't popular among the fans.

[Alienmorph]

so basically cancel something people want and replace it with something people don't want.

That has been the M.O. of almost everything Lucasfilm did since the buyout, so while there doesn't seem to be much concrete informations, frankly it wouldn't surprise me all that much if this rumor was true.

[Mazder]

I use a Rosewell 1300w, which is tremendous overkill for my PC, but when I first built it I lowballed and was slightly too low, so I overcompensated as well. Served me well for these 8 years, and as you said, better to be in excess.

Apparently EVGA do decent ones.
I am glad my cautious mindset pays off with electronics.

I am confused about this SSD price listing weirdness though.
I am looking at the 860 PRO series. The 1TB model is down from well over £400 to £207ish and the 2TB one is only down from £372 to £362.
Why is the 1TB one at an original higher price AND has a higher discount off?!?!?
Makes no sense!
Overstock?!
But why would the original price be so much more for half the storage?!

[Vol]

Persona 5 in particular seems to have single-handedly converted me into the Japanophile club. I expected to like it but it ended up being one of my absolute favorite games of this generation (the only real competitors are The Witcher 3 and Red Dead Redemption 2).

You preferred Persona 5 to 4?

Generally 4 is the more beloved, as a simple iteration on P3. But 5 is far more romantic, being in the city, where the protagonist begins, and the goals of the team. Plus the aesthetics were leaps and bounds better. I still found the cast of 4 more compelling, as the co-dependency between them and Yu to affect their maturity was more gratifying. Especially on the Naoto romance path, heh.

That said, the romance _options_ of P5 were stronger overall. Christmake Cakes need love too, and I don't recall any weird lolis.

So there's a rumor floating around that SW: Knights of the Old Republic III has been already cancelled, and will be replaced by a Knights of the High Republic game. Because apparently tHR is going to be retcon galore and the two storylines just aren't compatible.

I heard the HR project is doing very poorly tho, no? I really don't keep track of Star Wars news, but that much got through to me.

[Alienmorph]

I heard the HR project is doing very poorly tho, no? I really don't keep track of Star Wars news, but that much got through to me.

Yes, apparently so. But in a twisted way that might be more reason to push something like a big tie-in, to try to entice people into the whole thing and make it more of an official piece of core SW canon, which it really won't be until it's stuck just in books and YA graphic novels. And since right now adding another movie or live action show to the planned pile is out of the question, a big videogame would be the next best thing.

[TTTX]

That has been the M.O. of almost everything Lucasfilm did since the buyout, so while there doesn't seem to be much concrete informations, frankly it wouldn't surprise me all that much if this rumor was true.

eh, seems like they are trying rebuild the good faith with fans (because Disney need the money really badly) aside from the KK loyalists and from what we have heard they don't have any real power left (even KK apparently can't do much other then make her own projects that aren't SW).

I heard the HR project is doing very poorly tho, no? I really don't keep track of Star Wars news, but that much got through to me.

pretty much no one cares about it, I mean they literally are trying to make outrage just to put some spot light on it and have it put on some "best selling" list to try and boost sales, not really working from what I hear.

Yes, apparently so. But in a twisted way that might be more reason to push something like a big tie-in, to try to entice people into the whole thing and make it more of an official piece of core SW canon, which it really won't be until it's stuck just in books and YA graphic novels. And since right now adding another movie or live action show to the planned pile is out of the question, a big videogame would be the next best thing.

I mean the high republic would most likely be over long before the game comes out (at the minimum it would take 2-3 years before the game is most likely finished) and if the video games crash and burns well it would have the opposite effect obviously.

[Alienmorph]

We'll see. Hopefully is just nonsense.

[Ragabul]

I enjoyed 5 to 4 but I'm not going to die on a hill defending 5 as the superior game. I think they come out about equal really if you are trying to be objective.

4 has the superior characters in terms of complexity and subtlety. (In your party anyway. The non-party, non-family characters are all wretched). It also has a much more interesting theme than the fifth one. 5 is a much more typical sort of modern story thematically and 4 traffics in things that are currently novel due to rarity: be content with little things, limitations exist for a reason and learning to accept them is a sign of maturity, you actually owe people around you things and life is not just about your silly quest for self realization.

5 outshines 4 in other ways. Nontrivial since this is a game is that it's just multiple magnitudes more fun to play. The dungeons are better. The combat is better. The enemies are cooler. The "dick around town" stuff is more interesting and funny. It also has a much nicer art style and visual appeal than 4 (and not just because 4 is older). Joker is a much more interesting protagonist than Yu (though I named him Soji because I hate the name Yu). Joker has an arc and a point independent of everybody else whereas Yu is just a sort of faceless anydude who serves as a convenient POV to look at all the people and things that actually matter.

The plot and pacing is also much better put together than 4.

► Show Spoiler

I think everything post take down of Adachi in 4 is really, *really* dumb. Starting with the dickface Kamoshida and escalating up to the freaking *Demiurge* over the course of 5 is an excellent payoff and a progression that feels earned. The expansion with Maruki is also really well done and an excellent thematic extension. In 4, you are doing small town stuff, solving severe but very local problems and then suddenly out of nowhere saving the world from a horrible evil deity? And the expansion with Marie is a study in "whaaa?" Extra time with your party on the ski trip was fun but everything lorewise and themewise in the Marie expansion was so much unrelated and mostly nonsensical mumbo jumbo.

I also think the Metaverse in 5 is way more interesting. How you attain your persona in 4

► Show Spoiler

by accepting your inner demons

is more interesting than in 5, but the overall Jungian and Gnostic inspired weirdness and subtext of the Metaverse is much more apparent and layered in 5. 5 actually got me to go off and read Jung and a book about the Gnostics. Upon reading those, I just nerded out on 5 even more because it is crammed with subtle symbols and weird interesting worldbuilding based on those. To be fair, there *may* be just as much of that in 4 but since 4 is much more based in Japanese mythology, I may just be missing a lot of the subtlety because I'm not Japanese.

I also thought 5 had snazzier music.

I enjoyed the parties about equally though I concede 4 has the superior roster from a storytelling perspective. Nontrivial reason for my preference for 5 is also that I enjoyed the Futabamance more than the Naotomance. Mostly because the whole Futaba/Sojiro/Joker sub story is just so well done and so well integrated. Nanako was cute but it's hard to feel like there is a relationship there because she is just a little girl. She always felt more like a plot device. Also, Dojima came off as an active asshole to me for most of the game and then vaguely pathetic in a non-endearing way for most of the rest. I did like Naoto, but I think her character suffers from weird handling. Some of that is probably translation limitations

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For instance in the Japanese version, apparently she asks you if you want to stop referring to her with male honorifics but since we have no such thing in English, it's translated as her asking if she should talk in a higher pitched voice. This is just such a weird thing for her to even ask or for your character to have any input on whatsoever. Talk however you naturally talk, Naoto. Anything else is just weird.

The "kid genius" angle is just way more believable with Futaba than with her as well. I can believe 16 year old hacker genius is a thing. Heck, they *are* a thing. Kid genius who is a detective? A *real* detective that police call in to consult and yeah, no, come on. This again might just be a plot device that is accepted in Japan but my suspension of disbelief couldn't go that far.

I am not dissing Naoto. She is definitely the best female character in 4, but there is some real clunkiness to how she is written.

[Vol]

4 has the superior characters in terms of complexity and subtlety. (In your party anyway. The non-party, non-family characters are all wretched). It also has a much more interesting theme than the fifth one. 5 is a much more typical sort of modern story thematically and 4 traffics in things that are currently novel due to rarity: be content with little things, limitations exist for a reason and learning to accept them is a sign of maturity, you actually owe people around you things and life is not just about your silly quest for self realization.

I appreciated the pattern of initial dissonance->rebellion->honesty with self->acceptance->maturity so damn much. Yukiko especially, as hers is the most blunt (To me anyway). Kanji's was on the subtler side, as I always assumed

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he was ultimately bisexual

as it slots very neatly in his Shadow, dungeon, and reactions to Yusuke/Naoto. Quite a Japanese message too. You'd have to go back a few years to find that sort of sentiment in our media, I would think.

5 outshines 4 in other ways. Nontrivial since this is a game is that it's just multiple magnitudes more fun to play. The dungeons are better. The combat is better. The enemies are cooler. The "dick around town" stuff is more interesting and funny. It also has a much nicer art style and visual appeal than 4 (and not just because 4 is older). Joker is a much more interesting protagonist than Yu (though I named him Soji because I hate the name Yu). Joker has an arc and a point independent of everybody else whereas Yu is just a sort of faceless anydude who serves as a convenient POV to look at all the people and things that actually matter.

Persona 3 puts P4 into more context. It's a minor iteration. P5 is a major one. I suspect P6, if and when, will be a minor one again, but have that polish, and hopefully density of content, that made P4 so much more beloved than P3.

My biggest gripe with Joker is that, just like Yu, he immediately finds social (and financial) success, when the story has so nicely set him up to be on the margins, barely holding onto a chance at a future. Nobody likes him, he's living in some weirdo's attic, his teacher is pissed she has to take him, he's late his first day, and that's immediately deflated with a best friend, waifu, and a pet. The injustice done to him is good motivation to want to reform society, but that injustice barely has time to breathe before he's a Chad.

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I think everything post take down of Adachi in 4 is really, *really* dumb. Starting with the dickface Kamoshida and escalating up to the freaking *Demiurge* over the course of 5 is an excellent payoff and a progression that feels earned. The expansion with Maruki is also really well done and an excellent thematic extension. In 4, you are doing small town stuff, solving severe but very local problems and then suddenly out of nowhere saving the world from a horrible evil deity? And the expansion with Marie is a study in "whaaa?" Extra time with your party on the ski trip was fun but everything lorewise and themewise in the Marie expansion was so much unrelated and mostly nonsensical mumbo jumbo.

I didn't care for the final sequence in P5, honestly. P4 was at least sorta set up with some random lore tidbits, though I was completely blindsided by how you're supposed to access that content, much less what is actually happening. But it made sense at least. P5, it thematically fit, distorted desires writ large, and JRPGs are well known for

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having you kill God/gods because they don't quite get western theology

, but it was a bit anti-climactic given everything else we'd done, and what I assumed Momentos was actually going to be. It could've ended at the previous boss, which unlike P4's equivalent, was a good ending point, as the stated goal of the PT would have been as best fulfilled it could be without going into those sorts of shenanigans. Probably a matter of personal tastes, since they really are similar, but P5's isn't drenched in arcane Shinto.

I enjoyed the parties about equally though I concede 4 has the superior roster from a storytelling perspective. Nontrivial reason for my preference for 5 is also that I enjoyed the Futabamance more than the Naotomance. Mostly because the whole Futaba/Sojiro/Joker sub story is just so well done and so well integrated. Nanako was cute but it's hard to feel like there is a relationship there because she is just a little girl. She always felt more like a plot device. Also, Dojima came off as an active asshole to me for most of the game and then vaguely pathetic in a non-endearing way for most of the rest. I did like Naoto, but I think her character suffers from weird handling. Some of that is probably translation limitations

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For instance in the Japanese version, apparently she asks you if you want to stop referring to her with male honorifics but since we have no such thing in English, it's translated as her asking if she should talk in a higher pitched voice. This is just such a weird thing for her to even ask or for your character to have any input on whatsoever. Talk however you naturally talk, Naoto. Anything else is just weird.

The "kid genius" angle is just way more believable with Futaba than with her as well. I can believe 16 year old hacker genius is a thing. Heck, they *are* a thing. Kid genius who is a detective? A *real* detective that police call in to consult and yeah, no, come on. This again might just be a plot device that is accepted in Japan but my suspension of disbelief couldn't go that far.

I am not dissing Naoto. She is definitely the best female character in 4, but there is some real clunkiness to how she is written.

Having played both recently as well, I enjoy both paternal figures for entirely different reasons. Dojima ain't that much older than me, his character is much simpler, and objectively a worse man than Sojiro, so Yu is coming in as a nephew, son, and brother, while Nanako, the girl everyone loves, is looking at Yu as a father and brother. So given the theme of maturity, acceptance, it's a tremendously weird place for Yu to occupy. It tickled an odd place to picture being the man (boy) trying to be all these male roles for these 2 family members at once. Though Yu having such limited variability didn't help. I suspect if the genders were all swapped, I'd not enjoy it either.

Whereas Sojiro is a pretty straightforward story. The transition from barely tolerating you, but taking you on all the same, to training you up good, to treating you like a son, hit straight in the heart. Good man who'd been dealt a bad deal.

The one bit about Naoto that tripped me up was

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needing to tell her to dress in women's clothing in order to trigger an intimacy scene.

In hindsight it made sense, but given that she didn't drop her masculine persona (hur) right away, my western sensibilities didn't register a very hard nudge in the new direction as the appropriate one. I would've simply kept the honorific line, they used them in the dialogue anyway, simple to grasp with a few sentences of exposition if need be.

Pretty sure it's a Japanism. A lot of their creative works around high school have "natural geniuses" or "best in their field at only 1X years old!" I find it obnoxious, but hey. And Akechi's take on it is fun.