SMT fans when you compare their game to Persona 5.

Burnsy

V.I.P. Member
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[quote="Burnsy" pid='265189' dateline='1635585916']

I'm sure normal people can like both games without fox holing themselves into one of the two camps. It's still just funny the level of elitism the minority show.
[/quote]

It is pretty funny, because on one hand, the SMT fans are being elitists for playing “hipster tier” games, and the Persona fans are being elitists for only playing popular games. Especially if you take the P5 fans into account.

Though the Persona fanbase is also pretty divided too…
 

If those games had more overlap on which platforms they were available on then there'd be a lot less of this. SMT being available only on switch/3ds does not do anything for it's popularity.
 
[quote="Burnsy" pid='265199' dateline='1635618719']

If those games had more overlap on which platforms they were available on then there'd be a lot less of this. SMT being available only on switch/3ds does not do anything for it's popularity.
[/quote]

Not really, RPG’s do well on the Switch and 3DS. JRPG fans rarely only own one console, they always own a PlayStation and whatever Nintendo handheld is out at the time. That and there’s all the P5 fans bitching about how P5R needs to be on the Switch and whine to Atlus when they advertise SMTV and the HD remaster of SMT3, and Atlus are wasting money and resources releasing games “nobody cares about”. So the Switch isn’t hindering anything.

You also have to consider the fact that there was a time when both franchises co-existed on the PS2, and Persona was the only one that took off. SMT3 didn’t get popular, Devil Summoner 1&2 didn’t get popular, and neither did Digital Devil Saga 1&2. It was really only Persona 4.

The reason for a lot of the despairity between the SMT and Persona fans boils down to the Persona fans primarily only caring about the life/dating sim aspects of the game, not the RPG aspects. When the SMT games on the 3DS came out, they complained about the lack of social links, and when they ported Persona 1-3 to the PSP, they bought Persona 3 and ignored the other two.

The same thing is happening right now to the Fire Emblem community because Three Houses basically plays like Persona, but with TRPG battles instead of dungeons. Then they go and play the other Fire Emblem games and hate them because there’s no dating sim aspects.

Though to be really honest here, it’s really only Persona 5 that has the popularity. Persona 4 kind of straddled that border between mainstream and cult following, and Persona 3 only made it to cult following. Persona 1, 2, and basically any other SMT games were only known by JRPG fanatics.
 
Not really, RPG’s do well on the Switch and 3DS. JRPG fans rarely only own one console, they always own a PlayStation and whatever Nintendo handheld is out at the time. That and there’s all the P5 fans bitching about how P5R needs to be on the Switch and whine to Atlus when they advertise SMTV and the HD remaster of SMT3, and Atlus are wasting money and resources releasing games “nobody cares about”. So the Switch isn’t hindering anything.

You also have to consider the fact that there was a time when both franchises co-existed on the PS2, and Persona was the only one that took off. SMT3 didn’t get popular, Devil Summoner 1&2 didn’t get popular, and neither did Digital Devil Saga 1&2. It was really only Persona 4.

The reason for a lot of the despairity between the SMT and Persona fans boils down to the Persona fans primarily only caring about the life/dating sim aspects of the game, not the RPG aspects. When the SMT games on the 3DS came out, they complained about the lack of social links, and when they ported Persona 1-3 to the PSP, they bought Persona 3 and ignored the other two.

The same thing is happening right now to the Fire Emblem community because Three Houses basically plays like Persona, but with TRPG battles instead of dungeons. Then they go and play the other Fire Emblem games and hate them because there’s no dating sim aspects.

Though to be really honest here, it’s really only Persona 5 that has the popularity. Persona 4 kind of straddled that border between mainstream and cult following, and Persona 3 only made it to cult following. Persona 1, 2, and basically any other SMT games were only known by JRPG fanatics.

Persona series is so much more than a dating/life sim. That alone would not have sold me on the game. It's got so much charisma and spunk that you can't help but love the characters, the settings, the music and everything else. I found the combat in P4G to awaken a love for a new combat system in me. Also, I hated RPG mechanics for most of my life in games. It's so lazily done in so many games and it's such a mind-numbing chore to grind and level up in some games like dark souls and Tales of Berseria.
The exception is when I really like the combat system enough to put up or even enjoy the RPG elements. This happened with Cold steel and Sekiro. And games like Mass effect, Horizon zero dawn and Cyberpunk did have some minimal RPG elements which were only a backdrop only compared to the whole package which could be largely ignored if that's not your cup of tea AND they had a great story or plot which kept me going.
Alternatively, if I don't like a game's combat and it has a lot of long and difficult fighting and major RPG elements, I will drop a game regardless how much I like it's story because I cannot stand it. And since Persona has a combat system I mostly really like and it comes with the whole package of being fun to play, addictive, very hype, a great cast and visuals and so I have no problem with it having RPG elements. 
It's so obnoxious when they think other people shouldn't like a completely different series to SMT because it focus on different things which doesn't even affect the mainline. And are they pretentious enough to tell others what they should and shouldn't like in their own circles? They don't get to decide that Persona should be a hardcore RPG and anything else is fluff or trash.
 
[quote="Burnsy" pid='265201' dateline='1635642040']

Persona series is so much more than a dating/life sim. That alone would not have sold me on the game. It's got so much charisma and spunk that you can't help but love the characters, the settings, the music and everything else. I found the combat in P4G to awaken a love for a new combat system in me. Also, I hated RPG mechanics for most of my life in games. It's so lazily done in so many games and it's such a mind-numbing chore to grind and level up in some games like dark souls and Tales of Berseria.
The exception is when I really like the combat system enough to put up or even enjoy the RPG elements. This happened with Cold steel and Sekiro. And games like Mass effect, Horizon zero dawn and Cyberpunk did have some minimal RPG elements which were only a backdrop only compared to the whole package which could be largely ignored if that's not your cup of tea AND they had a great story or plot which kept me going.
Alternatively, if I don't like a game's combat and it has a lot of long and difficult fighting and major RPG elements, I will drop a game regardless how much I like it's story because I cannot stand it. And since Persona has a combat system I mostly really like and it comes with the whole package of being fun to play, addictive, very hype, a great cast and visuals and so I have no problem with it having RPG elements. 
It's so obnoxious when they think other people shouldn't like a completely different series to SMT because it focus on different things which doesn't even affect the mainline. And are they pretentious enough to tell others what they should and shouldn't like in their own circles? They don't get to decide that Persona should be a hardcore RPG and anything else is fluff or trash.
[/quote]

Tbh a large chunk of SMT fans actually like the Persona games, it’s honestly more common for Persona fans to hate the rest of SMT. A lot of the Persona fans only care about the dating/life sim parts and hate the actual RPG parts of the game. Since SMT is just Persona without the dating/life sim parts, it’s missing the thing they enjoyed the most about Persona. They rarely mentioned the dungeons and Persona fusions, they’re focused on “omg, who is your waifu in Persona 5?” That’s why they hate the other SMT games and the first two (technically 3) Persona games. After SMT3, the two franchises aren’t really that different from each other. One just has a dating sim and the other doesn’t. The combat and stuff is basically identical.

After Persona 4 got popular, SMT 4 came out, and they initially were like “oh I like Persona, lemme try the new mainline game. Then they hated it. After Persona 5 came out, and SMT3 got remastered, the P5 fans went and bought the game, and they hated it. The same thing is going to happen when SMT5 comes out.

At least in my experience in the community, the Persona fans are more annoying. I can bring up Persona around SMT fans and have a conversation, but when I bring up SMT in front of Persona fans, I get bitched at.
 
[quote="Burnsy" pid='265203' dateline='1635646780']

Demon fusion and dungeons are hardly the most interesting parts of the game. I would definitely play SMT5 if it was on PC even after all I've heard because if it's the hardcore difficult combat focused version of persona that is something I would also like because it scratches that other kink of mine, really difficult games. So no reason I wouldn't like them both for vastly different reasons.
Also I straight up don't believe you get bitched at just for bringing up SMT. You must be provoking them.
[/quote]

You can choose not to believe me all you want, but when you get involved with any fandom that has a “one hit wonder” related thing, the fans of that one hit will bitch at you for acknowledging anything else that isn’t that one hit. I’ve been playing JRPG’s for 20+ years, and a shorter list is what series isn’t a “one hit wonder”.

You’ll get bitched at for mentioning a Tales game that isn’t Symphonia, you’ll get bitched at for mentioning a Dragon Quest game that isn’t 11 (previously it was 8), you’ll get bitched at for mentioning a Star Ocean game that isn’t Til the End of Time, etc etc. I’ve seen this constantly over the decades in JRPG’s and I’ve seen it constantly in the music community as well. Just mentioning you acknowledge anything outside of that one hit will trigger a ton of ire in those fans.

Not to say the hipsters have clean hands, but the reverse hipsters are just as guilty. You don’t get exposed to it as much when you’re new, so you’ll just see the hipsters sticking out and being pretentious, but when you’ve been in something as long as I have, you’ll be exposed more and more to the opposite as well.

Essentially you have a situation where you had the pretentious hipsters being dicks at first towards the noobs, but then the noobs retaliated by going too far in the opposite direction.
 

I didn't start playing games yesterday either and I have never experienced anyone getting bitched at for mentioning an older game. It's usually the new games that the old fans hate if it does something they don't like and even then it's rare for anybody to lash out for saying something positive about the sequel. Or are you saying it's a JRPG specific thing?
 
Burnsy said:
I didn't start playing games yesterday either and I have never experienced anyone getting bitched at for mentioning an older game. It's usually the new games that the old fans hate if it does something they don't like and even then it's rare for anybody to lash out for saying something positive about the sequel. Or are you saying it's a JRPG specific thing?
It's not people bitching at you for liking the older games. What's going on is that you have a niche franchise that has that only one game (sometimes two) that gets really popular, and that entry gains its own fandom separate from the rest of the franchise. That fandom only cares about that entry and they bitch at people for being "pretentious hipsters" for acknowledging the rest of the franchise exists. So you have the duality in the fandom where you have the pretentious hipsters hating on the popular entry vs the "reverse hipsters" who hate the rest of the franchise because they're not popular enough.

Since Final Fantasy is the most commercially successful JRPG franchise (outside of Japan), its fandom does what you mentioned earlier, the older fans hate the newer games. Since the other JRPG franchises aren't very popular, they tend to have a seemingly random entry get popular, and the rest of the franchise might as well not exist in their eyes. For example, Tales of Symphonia is the 5th entry in the Tales franchise, and there's 17 games, but Symphonia is basically the only one that got mainstream attention.

It's not a thing that's exclusive to JRPG's, it's pretty common in more niche fandoms that have a one hit wonder entry that gets mainstream attention. Like I mentioned earlier with my identical experience in the music community. An artist popular like Metallica have the old fans hating the new stuff, but less popular artists like Radiohead will have people going "I only care about their song Creep or fuck off".
 
Grungie said:
It's not people bitching at you for liking the older games. What's going on is that you have a niche franchise that has that only one game (sometimes two) that gets really popular, and that entry gains its own fandom separate from the rest of the franchise. That fandom only cares about that entry and they bitch at people for being "pretentious hipsters" for acknowledging the rest of the franchise exists. So you have the duality in the fandom where you have the pretentious hipsters hating on the popular entry vs the "reverse hipsters" who hate the rest of the franchise because they're not popular enough.

Since Final Fantasy is the most commercially successful JRPG franchise (outside of Japan), its fandom does what you mentioned earlier, the older fans hate the newer games. Since the other JRPG franchises aren't very popular, they tend to have a seemingly random entry get popular, and the rest of the franchise might as well not exist in their eyes. For example, Tales of Symphonia is the 5th entry in the Tales franchise, and there's 17 games, but Symphonia is basically the only one that got mainstream attention.

It's not a thing that's exclusive to JRPG's, it's pretty common in more niche fandoms that have a one hit wonder entry that gets mainstream attention. Like I mentioned earlier with my identical experience in the music community. An artist popular like Metallica have the old fans hating the new stuff, but less popular artists like Radiohead will have people going "I only care about their song Creep or fuck off".
 
[quote="Burnsy" pid='265209' dateline='1635732039']

Pretty sure you're over focusing on the people hating on each other more than the people who just play a game because they think it's cool or they like what they like and don't interact with the community or even care about the community. You're putting layer upon layer of boundaries trying to pigeon hole people into different categories based on how deep they venture when I dare say the majority of people are just looking for something they like to play and community opinions be damned.
It really doesn't hurt either side when people stick to their own bubbles as much as you're making it out to seem.
[/quote]

It’s really just about the vocal detractors on both ends, and it’s not as multilayered or as complicated like you’re making it out to be. It’s literally just one side hates the popular thing, and the other side hates the non popular things. It all boils down to how much of a dick you are in the conversation when bringing up one or the other.

Most of the fans of these franchises don’t usually hate the popular entry, because most of the time there’s nothing different about them. Most of these seemingly random (at face value) one hit wonders were due to either timing or being on an “unusual” console, or had more marketing thanks to a bigger publisher.
 
[quote="Burnsy" pid='265217' dateline='1635750316']

Actually I said you were making it complicated when it was a simple issue. You are low key accusing anyone hating a newer/older game of being in the hipster/reverse hipster category when it's just as or more likely the game itself has issues that people didn't like which could be a super valid reason for thinking either side's entry sucks. Additionally for the ones starting out on the popular games will have a harder time going backwards in the timeline compared to going forward because every game will likely be progressively crappier in gameplay, graphics and QoL stuff. Old fans usually look for that special feeling when they got introduced to a series and if that doesn't strike twice even if the game is just as good they will be a lot more critical of it. None of these factors have anything to do with the community or trying to appease either side and are perfectly valid reasons to not play or like a game.
[/quote]

The reason why I said hipster versus reverse hipster is because their love or hatred of the game is entirely based on the game’s popularity, or lack thereof. The reason why I used the term hipster, is because they enjoyed that one entry before it got popular, but then after it did, they now hate it. The reverse hipsters will also ignore the next entry when that doesn’t get a big enough commercial hype. That, and having a guy bitching at you to play the other games also pushes people away more than being inclusive.

So when a lot of their bitching towards each other falls under the games popularity or lack thereof, that’s what it’s boiling down to. When you have an unpopular franchise have an entry that’s popular, the discussion surrounding it always is about its popularity. With the franchises that had an older game get popular, newer fans or fans who never played that one will always ask “so… I just played that entry, what’s so special about it?”, the common answer is always along the lines of “it’s the one that sold well”.
 
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