Just play the game.
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One of the most frustrating parts of the persona community is the weird aversion to playing the games. One of the most popular inside jokes in the community is that “Persona fans don’t play their own games,” though slowly this has gone from a punchline to a mantra that’s being upheld. I’m certainly not the first person to notice this, but it’s a trend that I’ve seen become more common as time goes on. While it’s easy to point and laugh at these people, lately I’ve been wondering the reason WHY this option is so appealing. If you’re watching this video, then there’s a very high chance that you view video games as art. One of the most important parts of video games is their level of interaction, and Persona is no exception. Interaction and player participation is the sauce that gives this medium its unique flavour, but lately, it seems as though people are allergic to this secret ingredient. This topic has been on my mind for a long time, and because of the recent trailers for Persona 4 revival, I figured it was time to put them into words. This video isn’t about shaming people, rather I want to understand why people experience persona like this, what exactly they’re missing out on, and most importantly, how we can get these people to overcome whatever hurdle is stopping them.
If you want to stop larping as a persona, then you came to the right place.
Persona’s larping problem. Persona is a video game franchise loved by millions. Persona 3, Persona 4, and Persona 5 are among some of the most recognized and loved JRPG’s in recent years. While games like Persona 3 Reload, Persona 4 Golden, Persona 4 Revival, and Persona 5 Royal have a lot of fans, there’s a strange subset that haven’t played the games despite what they’ve seen. A big problem with the Persona community is The Persona Community’s Larping Problem. This has been an issue for the past few years, but it’s been getting worse lately. Larping Persona means that instead of playing Persona 3, Persona 4, or Persona 5 yourself, you end up watching Persona Let’s Play instead. While this is a good way to get an impression of Persona 3, Persona 4, and Persona 5, it’s far from the best way to experience these games. In this Persona’s Larping Problem video, I will be going over why Persona Larping is so popular and what exactly these people are missing out on by not playing Persona 3, Persona 4, and Persona 5 themselves. This video will act as a guide for How to Get Into Persona while also debunking the most common talking points against Persona’s gameplay. Persona’s Larping Problem is the opinion of Nam’s Compendium and doesn’t represent the fanbase on the whole. Ultimately, I want people to play Persona 3, Persona 4, and Persona 5 the way they were meant to, as it’s the best way to experience Persona
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So my thing has been I never got to play 3-5 myself really because I had a crazy strict mentally abusive father who wouldn’t let me play any m rated games, so I had to rely on YouTube clips to experience the games. Now I have no problem being able to play them but the problem is I already know the plot of all those games like the back of my hand so there’s not a lot of motivation to sit down and beat them all. I’m maybe halfway through reload, and beat kanji’s dungeon on ps2. I’ll probably get there someday but it really relies on my interests. God though I don’t think I will ever beat 5. The introduction is too long and I genuinely don’t think it’s as interesting as 3 and 4. Again I know all those games like the back of my hand, it’s just that 5 is kinda over hyped for me.
I fell into the first camp with my Persona “larping”. I got into the series with Persona P3P and played it on a PSP I had in 2010, but I didn’t own a PS2 at the time and emulation was a no go since my laptop ran it really poorly at the time so the only way was to watch a playthrough (and later the anime). So I “larped” P4 and sometimes it felt like I larped P3P since the female route is a pretty different experience from FES.
However when P5 was getting released the gameplay looked really sick and I really didn’t want to have to settle for a worse experience. But I didn’t own a PS3 or PS4 and as a broke young adult I just had to pass it up until it finally got ported in 2022.
Since then I have played P5 and most of P4G. So I don’t blame people for doing it, Atlus did it themselves by being too stubborn to port their games to non Playstation platforms for so long and a lot of “larpers” were stuck with no accessible options. By the time they ported them, the larpers probably didn’t want to commit to a 100+ hour long game they already knew the story for.
Personally I don’t see a problem in watching a playthrough as a substitute as long as they don’t claim to know anything about the gameplay and mechanics. Lots of broke people and kids who can’t afford it and some games (not Persona since they’re pretty easy) have good stories but are too hard for someone to play.
At least watching a playthrough is experiencing the game. Some people claim to know media just from reading wiki summaries or watching opinion pieces on Youtube which is just ridiculous.
Wasurenai itsumademo keshite until my larp is exhausted
So i am the opposite? I literally play Persona 5 Royal after i went through smt 3 nocturne, 5 vengeance and raidou, i gained a lot of experience with some turn-based combat and fusion mechanic, my whole goal when i first set my foot on p5r was to fuse the strongest persona and complete the compendium
I think that, as long as you actually know what you’re talking about when you engage in a discussion, then it shouldn’t matter how you consumed a piece of media. Like, I’m not going to engage in a conversation about the original Doctor Who TV show—because while I don’t want to watch the original, the 2005 reboot is one of my all time favorite shows. When I initially got into Danganronpa in ~2019, I had no way to actually play the games, because all I had was a Nintendo Switch. Did it make me any less of a fan because I literally had no means of playing the game, but watched every walk through and lets play that I could? I don’t think so. Not everyone has access to modern consoles, or has the money to even buy cheap games—enjoyment of games, movies, comics and shows shouldn’t rely on someone’s ability to purchase or pirate the media. Just try not to talk about something that you don’t fully understand, and if you don’t understand something, just ask. A genuine fan won’t berate you for not knowing something, because they actually like what they’re talking about and would want you to be able to understand it.
I couldn’t play Persona when I first heard about it and got into it, so I watched the anime. Even now that I have P4G, and P3P, I struggle to play them because I can’t stand the dungeon crawling in them, and I much prefer P3R’s and P5R’s style. I’m not going to try and debate someone on the quality of P3P and P4G for that, because I know I’m biased against it and haven’t fully experienced the games.
Thank you for making this video❤
I've seen a lot of other creators addressing the larp in the Persona community and other games
Playing a game vs watching someone play the game are two very different experiences. Being the one to be able to control, choose, and interact a video games world impacts the feeling you get when you play a game. Cuz you were the one who made those impacts and decisions.
p4 fans getting ready to play p4 for the first time in february
How interesting! You're really and honestly saying that you really need to interact with and experience a piece of media for yourself to truly understand and enjoy it? What a novel idea!
Using myself as an example, I love God of War. Everything about the series are things I know would appeal to me (mythology, power fantasy, heartfelt character development, etc), but I will NOT call myself a true God of War fan until I play at least one of them.
"I've never played P3 because the fact that you can't control your party members makes the game bad because Yukari never heals and Mitsuru just spams Marin Karin"
You forgot one other factor that could scare people away from playing it themselves, but otherwise, it's a very good video. The factor you kissed is the time commitment. JRPGs are infamous for being a gaming genre that takes tens of hours to finish even with minimal sidequesting. Heck, I played a little indie RPG with P5 as obviously being one of the game's influences, and it still took around 30 hours for me to finish everything. And not everyone has that kind of time or has an ever-growing gaming library or other forms of entertainment to get to, so consuming it on Youtube, in their eyes, is a more efficient way to enjoy the series. At least, that's what I think.
I think you missed the number one thing: the time commitment. I’ve been fully onboard for anything megaten since SMT5, but after putting over 400 hours into 5 and 5V, I’ve only been able to play through P3R and Soul Hackers on 3DS while balancing other JRPGs since then. I’m playing through the original two Megami Tensei games now (from before they were Shin), and it’s great, but there are only so many hours in a year. This is especially true if you play other beefy RPGs like Xenoblade and also play other genres.
Eh, you need to work on your comparisons. Reviewing gameplay you havnt played is not the same as reviewing a movie based on its summary plot.
A game requires an activity, a movie doesnt. You can easily get a good gist of how the movie is gonna play out from a plot summary and a trailer. You will not be able to make a detailed review but you will know if its for you or not. The same can not be said for gameplay because its fun is valued in the activity.
Definitely agree! As someone who isn’t a big fan of turned based strategy games which initially put me off to the series. I found it so boring watching play through. And while I still don’t enjoy the combat as much I definitely enjoyed playing the actual game much more than attempting to watch a play through
A pretty good analysis on the topic. I admit, I was expecting you to discuss various adaptions as well. I'm certain there are people who've only experienced the series through the manga, anime, or stage plays, and might have a different view of the series because of those mediums.
At least you can play Persona 1-3 Portable for free on PSP Emulator
Saw someone say they’re a fan of Persona because they love the music…like, ok man.
I remember when Persona 4 Golden dropped on steam, I was so excited. even though my ancient laptop couldn't even run the anime cutscenes in fullscreen mode
TWEWY MENTION SOUND THE ALARM
"Someone out there loves ubisoft to death."
Boy howdy
ngl no matter how much i replay, even with a 100% guide, i always feel worried im somehow not gonna max all stats and social links (outside of ng+ ofc)
So embarrassed to be in the persona community ngl…
"why is this option so appealing?" because for the majority of Persona's lifespan you couldn't play it if you didn't own a sony system? Like I don't understand why people are being kind of obtuse about this- okay, say I was a persona 5 larper and I wanted to play Persona 5. Assume further that I do not currently own a modern persona console or a decent gaming PC. Assuming I buy all these new rather than second hand I would have to drop roughly 665$ for a PS5 and a copy of Persona 5 Royal. You really cannot compare this to other mediums where a DVD player is like thirty bucks and the only time you'd be going over 100$ is if you want to be the entire run of a TV show at once, EVEN THEN probably not even broaching over 200$.
Like obviously gaming as a hobby is something many, many people have been able to financially support for themselves, but I think the idea of making it an issue some people don't want to fork over the cash for a possible hardware hurdle is ridiculous.
Nah. This is the most nothingburger ass thing I have seen. It's fine to watch let's plays or story comps. Also you completely glossed over the "financial reasons" bit.
I'm guilty of the same, though not with persona. Devil May Cry and Disco Elysium are this to me.
"Let's larp"
"Just this once"
One thing I'd say to anyone who is even a vaguely experienced gamer going into the Persona series that is contrary to this video a bit – play them on Hard from the off (not Merciless/whatever Hard+ difficulty the one you're playing has, those are generally easier than Hard for reasons you'll figure out on your own.)
The combat DOES get pretty mind-numbing in them besides a few spikes of interest when you get an influx of new enemies whose affinities you don't know, and if you have a tendency to instinctually optimise the way you play any game, Persona is going to be a walk in the park. Playing on Hard at least keeps you in relative danger most of the time, so you don't feel like the game is entirely turning off your brain during the grindier parts.
My main hope for P6 is that they come up with a way to make the Hard difficulty harder without just raising HP and damage numbers – I think Atlus have mistakenly thought the difficulty was a barrier to entry in the past when really I've heard more stories of people falling off the games because they were way too forgiving.
Kind of related, but another thing I've noticed with Persona is that a lot of people play by following a guide and recommend that other people do so as well. I think this comes from a fear of missing content combined with not wanting to do more than one playthrough of the game, but I personally think that following a guide for every decision kind of robs the player of the game experience as well. A big part of the game is about making choices as to what you want to do and who you want to hang out with, and following a 100% guide just removes that decision-making from the player entirely. You no longer choose to pursue relationships with your favourite characters. Instead, you're treating all the characters as a checklist to complete.
5:03 im a unique case of "oh hes in smash, character looks cool. Buys p5 on ps4 just to play his game. Takes 2 months to actually get into the game and finally finish it. It was all over then." I was hooked, and slowly started playing p4 and p3 before they got released to other consoles.
My first experience with Persona 4 was in 2010 when Headbutt Arcade, now Andrew Arcade, deleted his channel and all of the videos right before he finished the game. Even then, I almost didn't watch it because I had never played any JRPG before and I had been watching his Sims content because I didn't have a PC at the time. It forced me to buy it just so I can see how the end of the game went lmao. Immediately bought Persona 3 FES right after I beat 4 lol. I was a freshman in high school then, let's plays were still a niche hobby online with only a handful of channels with completed playthroughs of that or any other Persona game since it was still a very small franchise over here.
Hey Alexa, play larpzo
Playing: LARPING LARPING
TEAMING TEAMING
READING READING
Also, all fandoms are like that. Thinking critically is hard. Much easier to just be into the shipping.
I remember awhile back I tried making a "the world ends with you" ttrpg game system but when I got a new phone I lost it all lol
check it out im in the house like larpet