Topic: What is your one most overrated and one most underrated games you've ever played?

Overrated : Rock Band, Guitar Hero (Never like these games)

Underrated : DrumMania and GITADORA by Konami

@Offolsense @Tyranexx You two are Professor Layton fans too? I have very vague memories of playing Professor Layton and Pandora's Box / the Diabolical Box. It has a very fever-dream like quality in its storytelling and puzzles. I used a guide for so many puzzles but they were very fair. Except the chess ones.

Overrated: Persona 5 (still a top game of 2017 for me but nowhere near as incredible as people claim it is)

Underrated: Catherine

@TheFrenchiestFry I agree. I played through Persona 4 a few months ago and I see so much of P5 in that game to begin with. It’s the visuals, the stylised menus, and the music that paint a different picture. And even then the music is similar in style and general feel. I prefer Persona 4’s characters, they feel much more complete and have amazing chemistry. The anime adaptation is also better.

@TheJGG The presentation is undoubtedly a strong suit but that's also been the case since P3 where they really started putting a lot of effort into stuff like the UI and the menus. P5 imo has the best gameplay of the neo-Persona games but the weakest story given the cast was a big mixed bag for me and it felt even more predictable than P4's already was

Yeah we don't talk about P5 The Animation. It's a vastly inferior alternative to just playing the game since it butchers a lot of the character personalities and the animation errors have been memed on for years for a reason

@TheJGG
Yes sir!
Pretty unique game, even compared to the others in the series.
But paved the way the the awesome third game, that is the one I really loved!

@TheFrenchiestFry Without Haru I would have argued the cast was relatively strong honestly. But she’s quite bland so that drags down the average quite considerably. By themselves the cast were okay but their chemistry was… lacking to say the least. In what world do some of the party beat up Ryuji after finding out he was alive after the destruction of Shido’s Place? Who would do that to a teammate? A lot of the party’s interactions is through cheap anime gags. Though the girls beating up Yosuke also gets old fast.

@Offolsense Am I imagining things or does your username come from the town of Folsense, from the game I mentioned? Either way the Layton series was very challenging when I played the DS instalments. Maybe a go on Switch is in order…

@TheJGG Honestly it's not that there are bland characters, it's that for every character I like such as Ryuji or Yusuke, there's a character I can't stand like Futaba or Mishina, or a character I find woefully uninspired or predictable like Akechi or Makoto

I'm actually in the camp that prefers Adachi as a villain to Akechi considering even if Akechi's motives are more """developed"""", it was such a cheap attempt at garnering sympathy or giving him an emotional arc that I just found it relatively underexplored, whereas the former literally just wants to cause disarray or chaos for the hell of it, even saying he entered the police force just so he could legally carry a gun. He's like if Kefka joined the police force as a detective

By comparison there is literally not a single character in the core casts of P2, P3 or P4 I didn't like

Overrated : FF XIII

Underrated : FF III NDS

@TheFrenchiestFry I realised that about Futaba in Strikers, the voice acting has such a pathetic fan-service element to it, like it’s a fan dub instead of for an actual game. Futaba has lost any semblance of personality and instead she’s a walking quote book of video game references. That’s not a character. Same with Makoto, I’m getting very sick of her ‘Fist of Justice’ line. At least Max Mittelman sounds like he’s having fun.

Adachi was such a hateable villain and that’s what made him a good one. He didn’t have an emotional backstory, or a motive, he was simply pure evil. A sadist who toyed with the Investigation Team like a snake plays with its prey. P5 subtly plugs the whole ‘we’re not so different, you and I’ thing with Akechi and Joker. Both had fantastic English voices though.

@TheJGG Every time in Strikers you pick up an item Futaba has to chime in with some lame video game pun and it gets so grating really quickly. I like Erica Lindbeck as a VA but that writing is doing her no favors

I actually felt that way about Makoto in OG P5. She ended up being the exact kind of character I was expecting given she's basically Courtney from Total Drama. Super strict about studying, doesn't initially play well with "bad boys", bad boy (Joker) comes into her life, she starts experimenting with social customs, and grows a soft spot (particularly in the Confidant route)

They even borrow the whole "scared of something extremely trivial" quirk with her being afraid of the dark all the time despite being badass in battle

@TheFrenchiestFry Plus whenever you load the settings option from the menu one of the voice clips is ‘boop’, and I have to resist muting the television whenever she does that. Erica Lindbeck has talent, she was alright as Jessie in FF7:R, but at this point it was borderline irritating.

I’ve just finished Natsume’s Jail but I can’t say I expect any dramatic character changes or arcs. It’s not even being hidden at this point, each Jail Monarch corresponds to one of the party members in the exact same order they entered the party. Couldn’t they at least get the CEO person out of the way first? Instead we have to put up with a lust villain while listening to Ann drabble on, then Yusuke, then Makoto and so on.

Speaking of Makoto… you have a point. One of my favourite character arcs in the series is Kanji for me, because it’s obvious he wants to be nice and make plushies but… something just holds him back. Him and Naoto hiding her being female is a fascinating dynamic.

@TheJGG The way the Monarchs are set up in Strikers is very similar to Persona 5 itself

You can basically swap out Kamoshida and Madarame with Alice and Natsume and the setup is almost the same. They played it incredibly safe there. The spinoff games aren't usually revered for their storytelling as much as they are for their gameplay and faithfulness to the IP, and especially considering it's like half the length of a main Persona game the nuance and character work is nowhere near as prevalent or spread out

@TheFrenchiestFry When I first saw gameplay of P5S I was shocked by just how faithful it was to the original. The disparities are very clear though, as shown by the writing. That’s the direction Omega Force are taking now and I like it a lot if I’m being honest. Age of Calamity was another gameplay fusion game, which borrowed heavily from the source material, to tell a new story that’s based on the original one. From taking graphical assets to the music, to the voice work… it’s a nice new genre.

@TheJGG
Yup!
@Tyranexx noticed it too.

You know, I been on this site for like 8 years, off and on, and no one ever really mentioned it that I can remember. You guys are the first 2 to mention it! Lol

@TheJGG tbf Strikers seems like it's following that structure for the first two palaces but doesn't quite...

Personally I love the Persona 5 cast, although I only have P4 for comparison. I'll admit that Haru isn't particularly strong, and Futaba is hit or miss, but otherwise I find them all too be great. And the new additions in Strikers are excellent IMO.

Persona 4's cast is just a bit more bland to me. Not incredibly keen on Yukiko, Rise or Naoto, and Teddie is more annoying than anyone in P5. Really, Chie, Kanji and Nanako/Dojima are the highlights for me.

@timleon Yeah me too. Haven’t played 3 so the 4 cast, which I personally think is a high bar in of itself, compares to 5. I initially didn’t like Rise but she eventually won me over thanks to the outstanding voice work by Laura Bailey. Most of her personality is the “UwU Senpai” stereotype but she unironically has a lot of charm and is fun to be around. Teddie’s a little more annoying but his deep character moments hit home for me.

Futaba’s a gamer girl with irritation factor turned up to 11. Even when you date her she still has that annoying gamer talk. So that’s why I won’t spend my entire second playthrough dating her. Or Haru seeing as how she has less personality than a particularly sadistic potato. Her acting saves her from being an unmitigated disaster.

One of Naoto’s funniest moments is when she suddenly texts you out of the blue and she’s all clingy and doubtful. She asks you in abbreviated text to ‘please respond”. Funny how a character as composed as her can have that level of.. vulnerability, perhaps?

@TheJGG Yeah Rise is probably my favourite out of the three I mentioned. Tbh I think in these kinds of games appearing late can have a massive effect. I tend to like the earlier characters simply because I've had more time to get to know them - and later characters get shafted because they have less screentime. I think this may have been especially the case for Rise and Naoto - with Persona 4 being my first Persona game, I didn't really take the time to max out their social links. That said, although I appreciate how much more screen time Haru got in P5 Strikers...she still has a personality that doesn't quite gel with me as much as the others do. And I found Yukiko to be quite similar despite her appearing through almost all of 4.

Hopefully I'll grow to appreciate Rise and Naoto a bit more in my second playthrough of 4 Golden. Not as convinced that Teddie and Yukiko will grow on me though...

@TheJGG LOL UwU senpai, you funny dude.