Poll: Which series has the best writing: Persona vs. Mass Effect

[Soviet Heavy]

Persona... by a fucking lot. Mass Effect started with a really unique setting (space MI6 taking out rogue agents) that turned into a fight against the Necrons from Warhammer 40K only with less subtlety. Don't let this lead you to think that the writing is terrible, though. It's just glaringly mediocre when it isn't focused on dialogue and character interaction. Those parts stand out as being really good, but the story and plot just rehash the same Bioware "go to four planets to unlock the ending) quest structure they've been using since KOTOR.

I'll stick with Obsidian for writing in RPGs. If we need to limit it to RPGs, that is. Otherwise, I'd put Portal 1 and 2 on the list for great writing.

 

[Hectix777]

But you want to didn't you...? I know I did... Do I have a problem with robots?

Honestly, I thought the stalker vibes were already unsettling with Aigis. They probably could have stuck with trying to ask what makes us human without the euphemisms for robo-sex.

The way Atlus handled topics like gender identity and sexuality in P4 is light years ahead of what is in the Mass Effect series.

How so? Cause Mass Effect didn't make a big deal about it?

Wait what robo-sex euphemism? When she asked the player to touch her AI core?

 

[Hectix777]

But you want to didn't you...? I know I did... Do I have a problem with robots?

Honestly, I thought the stalker vibes were already unsettling with Aigis. They probably could have stuck with trying to ask what makes us human without the euphemisms for robo-sex.

The way Atlus handled topics like gender identity and sexuality in P4 is light years ahead of what is in the Mass Effect series.

How so? Cause Mass Effect didn't make a big deal about it?

They had a story about a group of teenagers defeating a big bad. Standard stuff. They then explored the struggles that teens go through during puberty and throughout high school in regards to their evolving sexuality and gender identity. Not so standard stuff. In fact, it was a really ballsy move. Your entire group was just a bunch of kids going through the struggles that teens go through. You weren't Dr. Phil, you were a friend who was just a pillar of support for them. Atlus made those characters feel human to me. I didn't get that from Mass Effect. Atlus actively explored sexuality, Bioware threw in some homosexual romance options as an afterthought in the third game.

I think the reason you thought the Mass Effect characters weren't human, was because a couple of them were aliens?

Alright, I'm sorry, I'm sorry I had to.

Anyways, yeah in that context Atlus does do it better. I think Bioware games are more like vehicles for Bioware dialogue. It'd be interesting to see them put all those writing assets solely into a story and less into dialogue. Like in an FPS or maybe a TPS.

 

[Mikejames]

They had a story about a group of teenagers defeating a big bad. Standard stuff. They then explored the struggles that teens go through during puberty and throughout high school in regards to their evolving sexuality and gender identity. Not so standard stuff. In fact, it was a really ballsy move. Your entire group was just a bunch of kids going through the struggles that teens go through. You weren't Dr. Phil, you were a friend who was just a pillar of support for them. Atlus made those characters feel human to me. I didn't get that from Mass Effect. Atlus actively explored sexuality, Bioware threw in some homosexual romance options as an afterthought in the third game.

While Kanji's development probably made him my favorite character of Persona 4 (to my surprise given his introduction), I don't know if I'd say that Bioware handled differing sexuality poorly by not making it a huge issue. It's just a different focal point, having adults in an affirmed relationship rather than having teenagers question what kind of relationship they want.

I think where the interactions felt stronger for me in Mass Effect was with the protagonist's reactivity. Sure Commander Shepard was hardly the most interesting character, but he/she did have the option to give legitimate input, and relationships throughout the main story could reflect it. In Persona games, 3 especially, I felt like I was just being talked at when it came to a lot of the social links. Sometimes you'd get to choose between a nice response and a dickish response but I didn't feel like I provided much emotional support for anyone, and relationships didn't change how they acted in the main story. I suppose the group interacting as a whole was where Persona was meant to shine though.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

They had a story about a group of teenagers defeating a big bad. Standard stuff. They then explored the struggles that teens go through during puberty and throughout high school in regards to their evolving sexuality and gender identity. Not so standard stuff. In fact, it was a really ballsy move. Your entire group was just a bunch of kids going through the struggles that teens go through. You weren't Dr. Phil, you were a friend who was just a pillar of support for them. Atlus made those characters feel human to me. I didn't get that from Mass Effect. Atlus actively explored sexuality, Bioware threw in some homosexual romance options as an afterthought in the third game.

While Kanji's development probably made him my favorite character of Persona 4 (to my surprise given his introduction), I don't know if I'd say that Bioware handled differing sexuality poorly by not making it a huge issue. It's just a different focal point, having adults in an affirmed relationship rather than having teenagers question what kind of relationship they want.

I think where the interactions felt stronger for me in Mass Effect was with the protagonist's reactivity. Sure Commander Shepard was hardly the most interesting character, but he/she did have the option to give legitimate input, and relationships throughout the main story could reflect it. In Persona games, 3 especially, I felt like I was just being talked at when it came to a lot of the social links. Sometimes you'd get to choose between a nice response and a dickish response but I didn't feel like I provided much emotional support for anyone, and relationships didn't change how they acted in the main story. I suppose the group interacting as a whole was where Persona was meant to shine though.

I know I went off on a tangent about sexuality, but I see people point to Bioware games as a good example when the conversation comes up and my reaction is "Why?". Shepard comes off as too preachy and presumptuous (and sometimes downright manipulative) to me in character conversations. It is a popular opinion that the MC from 3 was a jerk. Even his character design screams douchebag. The female MC is so much better.

 

[Mikejames]

I know I went off on a tangent about sexuality, but I see people point to Bioware games as a good example when the conversation comes up and my reaction is "Why?". Shepard comes off as too preachy and presumptuous (and sometimes downright manipulative) to me in character conversations. It is a popular opinion that the MC from 3 was a jerk. Even his character design screams douchebag. The female MC is so much better.

The fact that they're one of the few developers who grant the option for a non-straight romance aside, I think it may just be the idea of having substantial characters who aren't defined by their sexuality. A character may be gay or bi, but their story arc and interaction with you doesn't have to revolve around that aspect. It's just another part of their characterization.

Depending on how you played Shepard (s)he could be all sorts of cruel and manipulative, but you're usually given the option. I'd probably prefer the female MC in P3 if given the choice. It'd have to be better than ignoring everyone with a Y chromosome and not being able to talk to a female without having them immediately fall in love with your apathy.

 

[Another]

I'm gonna say persona. At least 3 and 4(can't speak for 1 and 2 because I haven't played them).

The reason is that I think both have well written fun characters, but I feel that the psychological elements really enhanced the experience in Persona 3/4. I also think 3 and 4 had the better overarching plotlines that, while not as epic, fell into less problems than Mass Effect did. I love Mass Effect, and while the story in 1 is excellent, number 2 was a character vehicle for your team members, and 3 had a few issues as well.

That being said the comparison is apples and oranges. The Persona games were my favorite games last gen and the Mass Effect games are my favorite for the current gen. They are both excellent as far as I'm concerned.

 

[FPLOON]

However, from a personal perspective, I do choose to focus on the initial character-building than the initial world-building...

When a guy hangs out with his friends then admits he's wet his bed for the first time in years...Is not good character-building. In fact, when this happened in P4, I laughed my head off at the clichéd Japanese writing.

Well, I never said every character-building sequence has to be...
*puts on shades*
Golden... [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YMPAH67f4o]

Besides, those little moments sometimes do add up in the long run... even if they may not seem like it...

 

[Rack]

I'm going to go with Persona because I've played Mass Effect, no other information should be needed. Actually I'm about 12 hours into Persona 4 Golden, so far the writing isn't abysmal.

 

[BrotherRool]

Mass Effect actually has pretty poor writing. In the first game in the first half Shepard doesn't seem to be aware of basic facts about Turian's, Asari and Solarians or the wider galaxy (and no, good writers don't need to make the player an idiot to info dump all this. Check out KOTOR2 for an example of how you do this write *hint, have the player tell someone else, instead of some loser instructing a Spectre badass on how guns work). And the appearance of Sir-Dying-In-The-Next-Scene and all his 'gee whizz I'm such a new happy recruit, I sure hope I don't get killed off in the frist mission' dialogue was particularly stupid when compared with his run-at-the-enemy-without-taking-cover-or-shooting death scene.

Also the entire starting conceit relies on Shepard blinding believing the words of a drunk smuggler hidden directly behind the corpse of someone who was shot in the back, with no other evidence. Plus 'you've got to believe my visions, I recently had severe head trauma so I can't be imaging it' isn't great motivation. Most of the initial motivation of the game involves the characters being hot-headed idiots who call people stupid bureaucrat for saying things like 'we won't arrest a man based on your word, when even you admit you didn't see him do it or even see him within 10 lightyears of the crime scene' and the other party members being stupid enough to follow someone with this motivation.

Naturally ME3 is really flawed, introducing a Deus Ex machina in the first 5 minutes and never strengthening it. Cutscene immortality and the ending etc

And ME2 doesn't fit with the idea of Cerberus of ME1 or ME3, dedicates the entire middle third of the series to an almost entirely irrelevant threat and makes it's own plot a sidequest in comparison to the sidequests.


That's not to say the Mass Effect series is bad, in fact it's brilliant. The characters individually are really well written, like seriously well written. The universe is established well, the gameplay is good and the game-story combinations are good with inspired things like the suicide mission. The level design in ME1 is divine. But the specific plotty writing is shoddy throughout the series

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

Mass Effect 1 2 and 3 do not fit together seamlessly as one story, and I think that's pretty bad writing for something designed as a trilogy. Ideally you should be able to simply have them back to back and have it feel like one large story. Obviously this isn't the case with sequels all of the time, but it should be the case when it's designed as a trilogy from the start.

That's what you get when your lead writer gets bumped off and replaced with Casey Hudson.

The ME series is going to suffer in any sort of writing competition due to that change. Which is a shame because Drew Karpyshyn's other works were pretty good.

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

OMG, Persona. Though the first 2 games really didn't quite nail it home, Persona 3 and its extension Persona 3 FES, Persona 4 Golden and Persona 4 Arena (which is a fighting game but is STILL canonical to the RPGs) stories all mesh together into one beautiful story. Granted, the link between 3 and 4 doesn't become relevant until the protagonist from 4 interacts enough with Margaret from the Velvet Room, though it does become more intertwined when playing Persona 4 Arena.

I think that just the fact that Persona has a followable, canonical story between 2 RPGs and a fighting game alone deserves it the acknowledgment of having a superior story to Mass Effect.

Also, I don't think Commander Shepard could take on Mara. Nor would any of his squadmates. But that's just my
$0.02

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

OMG, Persona. Though the first 2 games really didn't quite nail it home, Persona 3 and its extension Persona 3 FES, Persona 4 Golden and Persona 4 Arena (which is a fighting game but is STILL canonical to the RPGs) stories all mesh together into one beautiful story. Granted, the link between 3 and 4 doesn't become relevant until the protagonist from 4 interacts enough with Margaret from the Velvet Room, though it does become more intertwined when playing Persona 4 Arena.

I think that just the fact that Persona has a followable, canonical story between 2 RPGs and a fighting game alone deserves it the acknowledgment of having a superior story to Mass Effect.

Also, I don't think Commander Shepard could take on Mara. Nor would any of his squadmates. But that's just my
$0.02

I just wanted to commend you for having the best avatar that I have ever seen.

 

[Caiphus]

Oooh, this is tough. I'm a big fan of the party members in the Persona series, if you want to call them that. Not such a huge fan of the ones in Mass Effect. A few, Zaeed and Wrex come to mind, were cool. A lot of the others were either Mary Sues or just boring/annoying.

However, I'm a sucker for sci-fi and the heaps of pseudoscience in Mass Effect made me wet, I'm not going to lie. Arrgh.

So the character interaction of Persona and the setting of ME? Now we're making magic.

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

OMG, Persona. Though the first 2 games really didn't quite nail it home, Persona 3 and its extension Persona 3 FES, Persona 4 Golden and Persona 4 Arena (which is a fighting game but is STILL canonical to the RPGs) stories all mesh together into one beautiful story. Granted, the link between 3 and 4 doesn't become relevant until the protagonist from 4 interacts enough with Margaret from the Velvet Room, though it does become more intertwined when playing Persona 4 Arena.

I think that just the fact that Persona has a followable, canonical story between 2 RPGs and a fighting game alone deserves it the acknowledgment of having a superior story to Mass Effect.

Also, I don't think Commander Shepard could take on Mara. Nor would any of his squadmates. But that's just my
$0.02

I just wanted to commend you for having the best avatar that I have ever seen.

Thanks go to Caramel Frappe for helping me get the avatar and Grandia for having such lovable characters!

GOOOOO PUFFY!

 

[lapan]

The problem with this comparison is that you compare a triology with an ongoing story against multiple seperate games with their own story and only a few select references to each other.

Both have their problems:

Mass Effect started off strong and promissed too much, then delivered a second part that was still well written but didn't advance the plot, then made a last game that was hated by a lot of people.

Persona 3 had a decent story, but the calendar system gave it severe pacing problems. Persona 4 had less of these problems, but the characters were anime stereotypes.

I still enjoyed large parts of both (I didn't play Mass Effect 3, Persona 1 and Persona 2, so i can't give a personal opinion on those)

I will however withhold my vote as both are too different to compare in such a binar poll

 

[Fappy]

God bless Mass Effect, but.... it really does have A LOT of poor writing in it. Having only played Persona 3 & 4 I can safely say they each trump all three ME games in quality of writing.

 

[Foolery]

They're not really comparable. But if I had to choose, I'd pick Mass Effect. And I don't even like Mass Effect that much. Neither of them has the 'best' writing. It's subjective. Whatever floats your boat. I appreciate the universe and lore of Mass Effect, more than I appreciate another half-baked demon plot.

 

[Asclepion]

Persona wins by default due to the utter disaster that was the Mass Effect 3 ending.

I'm referring of course to the catalyst: who gets my vote for the worst character in gaming history.

Why: quite simply, he single-handedly symbolizes the abandoning of Mass Effect's central design idea, theme, and even narrative cohesion. And he does all this in the space of a mere 14 lines of dialogue: unraveling a 150+ hour experience in less than five minutes.