Topic: PlayStation 5 --OT--

@Th3solution See, these Dissidia spin-offs are ones I'm entirely unfamiliar with... there's too many of them! Though, I say that as if I should be expected to be aware of anything as someone who hasn't played a single one, haha. A shame Kingdom Hearts didn't catch on for you! I haven't played any of them either (surprise), but I have always been interested for the Disney side of things. Like you said however, with all the constant criticism on how convoluted and ridiculous it gets... it's a hard sell to get into all these decades later with all those ridiculously long runtimes.

I feel like I should've known this information about you not playing any instruments or carrying a tune before we invited you into our bard band. Maybe you're a solid dancer? I totally relate to everything you said regarding your music tastes being rather basic nor noticing music all that often in games. When I posted my Xenoblade Chronicles impressions, someone rightfully called me out on that fact that I made no mention of its beautiful score. Like yourself, through no ill intent or dislike of the music, it's just simply not an aspect of a game I factor into my experience no matter how amazing it might be. I guess we can say all games are just trying to get our attention specifically with the music, because if they did, they know it's a hit!

I didn't even know the Persona games had rhythm game spin-offs! Huh. On one hand, I'd say it seems like an odd match, but then the music is often praised so... why not? I don't really have experience with rhythm games all that much (another huge surprise, I'm sure). Do we count LEGO Rock Band on the DS as a Guitar Hero-level jam-out? If so, I nailed that! 😅

@Tjuz The Persona music rhythm game spinoffs are really fun. Like I mentioned, I think part of the attraction is the music but also the way that you grow connected to the characters in the mainline games. The story setup for the rhythm games is pretty ridiculous and I remember rolling my eyes occasionally. I could be wrong but I think what happened is that the idea for a rhythm game spinoff sprang from the fact that one of Persona 4’s more popular characters is a pop idol (yup, as if she were lifted from the development pages of FFX-2) and so the setup is there for an epilogue story surrounding some music-based adventuring. Then I think after P4 Dancing All Night was successful, Atlus thought they could springboard off that game to make the Persona 3 and Persona 5 music spinoffs, which follow a similar design.

Like I say, I recall the narrative for them all to be fairly disposable and so it probably wouldn’t be too bad to play them without having played the associated mainline games, but I really don’t know why one would do that without knowing the characters and the setting of the world. In fact, as you get to the P3 and P5 dancing games, not only does the narrative depend on knowing the corresponding main game characters and story, but also being familiar with the story of the P4 dancing game. So to play those without the foreknowledge of P4 Dancing All Night would also be discouraged, technically speaking. So despite each Persona game being independent as a standalone narrative and unique unrelated characters, there’s a strange loose link between the music spinoffs, if that makes sense. It’s all a bit vague in my memory though.

Regardless, if you were looking for a good music rhythm game (which I don’t know that you necessarily are) then I can highly recommend the Persona ones but you’d really need to play the main games (P3-P5) first which is a 200-300 hour investment. 😂 The Persona games are great though. Like FF, you’ll get fans which have differing opinions on the best one but any of P3, P4, or P5 are all good jumping in points. The upcoming Persona 4 Remake (known as “P4 Revival” I think) would be a great place to start, as that game is probably the most iconic. I just don’t know if it’s coming to PC or only to consoles. Since you like the idea of the Japanese pop idol heroines then P4 might have some draw for you. It’s not front and center like FFX-2, but there is that one main character who’s an idol.

But yes, as far as my own musicality and qualifications of being a traveling bard adventurer, what I lack in innate talent I make up for with many hours of virtual dancing via an avatar whilst pushing buttons to the beat.
Or as Liam Neeson would say, “what I do have are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long [gaming] career…”. 😜