Well THAT was a shift!

[The Wykydtron]

Even then the game goes into the darkest places a Persona game has really ever gone before. Attempted suicide, sexual harassment, physical abuse and so on. That's only the tutorial boss too. Persona was supposed to be the lighter side of the SMT series too, c'mon guys what gives.

Have you played any of the other main games in the series? Compared to the games in the main series and other spinoffs like Digital Devil Saga and Devil Survivor, this game is practically Barney and Friends.

Still, I appreciate the shift in tone back away from the overly-happy Persona 4. It was still great, but the tone made it play out like a bad anime, which led to me wishing that Teddie would grab Rise and Yosuke and hurl themselves from the top of the tallest building in Inaba. I liked the story and characters in Persona 3 more, and I like it that the developers decided to go back in that direction.

I did play Devil Survivor: Overclocked on the 3DS to near completion and I know the tone there is way darker but I did really like the light tone in P4 whereas all of P3 FES was ruined by the main character being literally the worst piece of shit in the world. Just emote for once in your goddamn life you joyless ****. All your party members are going through character development and shit and you're just in your room doing nothing the whole time. Playing DS:O made me understand more about it too, the protagonist of P3 feels more at home in an SMT game proper instead of SMT Persona.

The ending just topped things off for me too (spoiler alert). You make Aigis develop a heart then just die on her, breaking it in the process? Wow you're actually the worst, it makes me legitimately angry every time I think of it.

I should stop, i've written essays on the guy before because it truly ruined P3 for me. Everything else was pretty damn great but having to witness it through the eyes and actions of this awful human being was terrible.

Damn the MC for P5 is awesome though, he takes the crown as the King of Swag right off the head of the Broswagtagonist of P4. Everything he does is so cool and assertive but never crosses the line to overbearing dickhead who sticks his nose into everything. Also he actually can get into serious romantic relationships with his homeroom teacher and/or the sexy lady doctor which is greatly amusing to me for some reason. I liked how they just dropped all allusion to "they most likely had sex at max Social Link rank but there's a chance they didn't" to "yeah no, they are totally boning right now for sure" with a bunch of the female ones. Takemi especially, my god. Look that scene up if you haven't already, it's the best.

Only issue with the female Social Links in P5 is that they are all Based Girl so I can't decide. Makoto is the best party member wise but Hifumi is there as the dark horse ready to steal the show in the background and then there's just Futaba cruelly locked behind a Kindness wall for me when she's top tier as well.

 

[SlumlordThanatos]

I did play Devil Survivor: Overclocked on the 3DS to near completion and I know the tone there is way darker but I did really like the light tone in P4 whereas all of P3 FES was ruined by the main character being literally the worst piece of shit in the world. Just emote for once in your goddamn life you joyless ****. All your party members are going through character development and shit and you're just in your room doing nothing the whole time. Playing DS:O made me understand more about it too, the protagonist of P3 feels more at home in an SMT game proper instead of SMT Persona.

...That's not very different from every other protagonist from then on. They're intentionally designed as ciphers for the player to project themselves onto. That's why you get to name him (and in P3P's case, her) and choose your responses, and why they don't have much in the way of personality or emotions of their own.

But that's just, like, my opinion, man. Persona 4 played out like a bad anime, and I thought less of it because of that. I liked the darker plots of P3 and P5 myself.

Also, you can use

Spoiler

to tag spoilers in your post. People appreciate it a lot more if they're hidden by default.

 

[springheeljack]

Uh the original Fable had a pretty big shift in tone: It went from oh I've got to get a present to my sisters birthday party to all the death. Halo had a big tonal shift as well during the Flood mission. The first half of the game you are just dominating and constantly on the attack and then suddenly it becomes a survival horror game for about two missions. Bioshock Infinite also had a pretty dramatic tonal shift as well we went from witnessing a beautiful city in the clouds to just horrible racism.

I think the biggest tonal shift has to go to Muv Luv Unlimited It went from the fucking dumb and cliche high school antics to a dead serious war story

 

[NeutralDrow]

It's after that point that the game stops harping on notions of duty and patriotism and becomes downright confrontational and accusatory of the player, introduces horror-like visions suggestive of an infernal limbo and forces pointless moral choices on the protagonist. So far the game has been about whatever's going on in Dubai; after that it's clearly about whatever's going on with Walker. And you.

I do understand the perspective that the game started to get better and more serious at that point...unfortunately, if the game's actually not talking about you, for whatever reason, the shift in tone is passive-aggressive and irritating. After the accident, I kept waiting for the game to explain why my overall course of action was wrong, but it settled for snipping at me from the loading screens.

It's kinda funny how that scene was a legit tonal shift to two polar opposite extremes, depending on the player.

 

[The Wykydtron]

I did play Devil Survivor: Overclocked on the 3DS to near completion and I know the tone there is way darker but I did really like the light tone in P4 whereas all of P3 FES was ruined by the main character being literally the worst piece of shit in the world. Just emote for once in your goddamn life you joyless ****. All your party members are going through character development and shit and you're just in your room doing nothing the whole time. Playing DS:O made me understand more about it too, the protagonist of P3 feels more at home in an SMT game proper instead of SMT Persona.

...That's not very different from every other protagonist from then on. They're intentionally designed as ciphers for the player to project themselves onto. That's why you get to name him (and in P3P's case, her) and choose your responses, and why they don't have much in the way of personality or emotions of their own.

But that's just, like, my opinion, man. Persona 4 played out like a bad anime, and I thought less of it because of that. I liked the darker plots of P3 and P5 myself.

Also, you can use

Spoiler

to tag spoilers in your post. People appreciate it a lot more if they're hidden by default.

Spoiler

I disagree on them not having a somewhat set and distinct personality because basically the gripe I have comes down to the range of responses available. Yes you can tailor the guy's personality to an extent but the range only varies on a scale of huge asshole to kind of a dick. No character development at all, the "I don't care" option never stops appearing throughout the game which drove me crazy (yes you don't have to pick it but knowing it's there was enough for me.) Like I wanted to play him as a decent human being but the game never managed to work with me to do so y'know? The "nice" responses were just the least dickish thing on the list.

Meanwhile if we ignore everything but the dialogue choices in P4, bad anime or no, the Broswagtagonist has his few dick responses for the first several hours but grows as a person to be a pretty chill guy, the range being from nice guy to a complete bro. The asshole responses are straight removed from then on for the most part. With P5, it's tough to not be a complete badass, likely with a heart of gold with some witty joke responses scattered in there on occasion.

If they all had not much personality, i'd be unable to make a case differentiating between the three. P4 and P5 fit the bill for a game based around genuine social relationships between people perfectly. Then there's just P3 in his dark and brooding loner corner, the fuckin' scumbag. I'm not starting a proper argument with you btw, I just hate the guy so much I can never resist bitching about him given the chance. It's a curse really. I've heard the female protagonist in P3P removes all my problems though, it sucks that it was PS Vita exclusive. I think it would be interesting if P6 (after the decade or more it takes for that to come out) has a female protagonist too.

 

[hermes]

In terms of movies: From Dusk Till Dawn went from a mediocre murder thriller (sorry Tarantino, you are a great director, but a lousy actor), to a cheesy horror movie in the spam of one scene.

Another example is the original Predator. It went from an standard gung-ho murica movie in the vein of Commando or a dozen other 80s movies, to a bloody science fiction thriller about a hunting alien and the people that were sold as badasses a few minutes ago got turned into helpless victims in a slasher.

Both examples are classics at this point, but I can see them being very effective bait and switch for the people in the theater.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Another example is the original Predator. It went from an standard gung-ho murica movie in the vein of Commando or a dozen other 80s movies, to a bloody science fiction thriller about a hunting alien and the people that were sold as badasses a few minutes ago got turned into helpless victims in a slasher.

Both examples are classics at this point, but I can see them being very effective bait and switch for the people in the theater.

Er, doesn't Predator begin with a spaceship sending something down to the Earth? Or am I mixing that up with something else?

EDIT: Youtube says I'm right
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqswoKEL9wo

 

[hermes]

Another example is the original Predator. It went from an standard gung-ho murica movie in the vein of Commando or a dozen other 80s movies, to a bloody science fiction thriller about a hunting alien and the people that were sold as badasses a few minutes ago got turned into helpless victims in a slasher.

Both examples are classics at this point, but I can see them being very effective bait and switch for the people in the theater.

Er, doesn't Predator begin with a spaceship sending something down to the Earth? Or am I mixing that up with something else?

EDIT: Youtube says I'm right
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqswoKEL9wo

Ok, my mistake.

I forgot about that scene. To me Predator always started with the team going down the helicopter and Schwarzenegger and Carl Weathers shaking hands...

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

OH OH OH, I just remembered!

You CAN'T talk about sudden jarring shifts without talking about Freedom Planet.

It's a cute little Sonic-style platformer where there's a literal goofy sleepover scene near the start, and only a handful of darker moments peppered throughout...

Then THIS infamous scene happens:

Spoiler

I get that the point is to show that the villain is SERIOUSLY evil and that the heroes are just kids going up against intergalactic warlords, but god DAMN. The VA literally screaming in pain is a bit much.


Not to mention the same guy then later threatens (with a gesture) to slit the throat of the lost little puppy character he captures later, only to then make her mutate into a monstrous boss you have to destroy and it REALLY makes you believe she's dead, until the very end when it turns out she's ok. Traumatized but ok.

It's really kinda jarring 0_o

 

[sageoftruth]

The first one that came to my mind was the ever-famous Ctrl+Alt+Delete miscarriage. The moment that basically said, "Okay, this webcomic is getting tired of telling weekly jokes. We're going to awkwardly try our hand at drama."

 

[sageoftruth]

OH OH OH, I just remembered!

You CAN'T talk about sudden jarring shifts without talking about Freedom Planet.

It's a cute little Sonic-style platformer where there's a literal goofy sleepover scene near the start, and only a handful of darker moments peppered throughout...

Then THIS infamous scene happens:

Spoiler

I get that the point is to show that the villain is SERIOUSLY evil and that the heroes are just kids going up against intergalactic warlords, but god DAMN. The VA literally screaming in pain is a bit much.


Not to mention the same guy then later threatens (with a gesture) to slit the throat of the lost little puppy character he captures later, only to then make her mutate into a monstrous boss you have to destroy and it REALLY makes you believe she's dead, until the very end when it turns out she's ok. Traumatized but ok.

It's really kinda jarring 0_o

OOH yeah. There's a reason I stick to Classic Mode when playing that game. I hope the sequel turns out to be less jarring story-wise. After all, the gameplay, music and level design were all pretty awesome.

 

[TrulyBritish]

It's after that point that the game stops harping on notions of duty and patriotism and becomes downright confrontational and accusatory of the player, introduces horror-like visions suggestive of an infernal limbo and forces pointless moral choices on the protagonist. So far the game has been about whatever's going on in Dubai; after that it's clearly about whatever's going on with Walker. And you.

I do understand the perspective that the game started to get better and more serious at that point...unfortunately, if the game's actually not talking about you, for whatever reason, the shift in tone is passive-aggressive and irritating. After the accident, I kept waiting for the game to explain why my overall course of action was wrong, but it settled for snipping at me from the loading screens.

It's kinda funny how that scene was a legit tonal shift to two polar opposite extremes, depending on the player.

It didn't really help that the player has no real choice in the matter other than (as others point out whenever I bring up this point) simply turning off the console and not playing (Which I find to be a dumb excuse).
I've honestly felt a lot worst about actions my character has done when I'm the one that's done it, when I made that choice.

 

[ArcaneGamer]

When done right, sudden tonal shifts can be amazing.

Does "White Phosphorous" mean anything to anybody?

I knew something was coming when I played that game, because people told me "bad things happen", so I was expecting something like that to happen. It still hit pretty damn hard because of how damn WELL they pulled it off.

Spoiler

Making you walk THROUGH that devastation before you get to the gut punch was an incredible touch

To me, the shift was the final final segment. Holy shit, did NOT see that coming and it left me emotionally wrecked.

--

Custom Robo had a shift too.

Like, most of the game is this lighthearted goofy series of battle tournaments, with some minor crime fighting going on. And then there's a handful of serious moments involving an autonomous killer robot.

And then suddenly:

Spoiler

Oh yeah, BTW, the world you know is just a tiny little neighborhood inside a dome. The real outside world is completely obliterated because of what that Killer Robot used to be before it got stuck inside the robot. There are giant fucked up canyons and holes full of static-y stuff everywhere, complete post-apocalypse outside the hidden exit to the dome, holy shit.

-

Not to mention Kid Icarus Uprising which is nothing but tonal shifts.

Spoiler

Yay, let's fight medusa and her minions...OH WAIT suddenly Hades rips up the credits and starts ruining things! Oop, hold on now the goddess of Nature is dropping Reset Bombs on human cities and killing them all! Time to deal with her and then we- ALIEN INVASION EVERYONE TEAMS UP HOLY C- Three year time skip! Hero was trapped in a ring the whole time and now his goddess is evil and has been murdering the world! Quick team up with the Goddess of Nature and, save your goddess from the thing possessing her! Whew, ok, that's dealt with. What were we doing again? OH RIGHT, let's kill Hades! All with some random hilarious humor peppered throughout!

It was a completely wacked out and hilariously awesome roller coaster.

-

Then there's the final segment of Read Only Memories.

Like, the game had a serious mystery but was also largely tongue-in-cheek, with the exception of one chapter that was basically a horror segment, as terrible things just followed wherever you went.

Then, you get to the end and after a fun little shooting minigame where you stungun enemy robots, BAM. Back into full-on horror mode for the final segment. 0_0 It was FREAKY.

-

And there IS that RPG that I made that has a tonal shift as the whole point of the game.

It starts off as an "after the credits" somewhat cliche-on-purpose silly game where you're trying to figure out why some people are "retro-izing" and looking all silly and pixel-y. And every time you complete a dungeon and find another non-answer to what's going on, things get just a little more concerning until finally things take one final turn to get really dark and serious. And you're left thinking "I feel like I should have seen this coming, but I really couldn't have, this is way out of left field."

Are you the creator of Off?

From the recent Samurai Jack episode:

Spoiler

We see Scotsman getting annihilated by Aku cut to his skeleton just sitting there on a wheelchair cut to his daughters mourning him cut to him cartoonishly turning into a pile of dust cut to one of the daughters plying to avenge him cut to Scotsman immediately comming back as force ghost.

Wew lad, what a rollercoaster of feelings that was.

You're not kidding, Jesus Christ. Then there's the "It is time." and Jack vanishes, just as Ashi is beginning to question if Aku is the real evil of this world.

 

[ArcaneGamer]

Even then the game goes into the darkest places a Persona game has really ever gone before. Attempted suicide, sexual harassment, physical abuse and so on. That's only the tutorial boss too. Persona was supposed to be the lighter side of the SMT series too, c'mon guys what gives.

Have you played any of the other main games in the series? Compared to the games in the main series and other spinoffs like Digital Devil Saga and Devil Survivor, this game is practically Barney and Friends.

Still, I appreciate the shift in tone back away from the overly-happy Persona 4. It was still great, but the tone made it play out like a bad anime, which led to me wishing that Teddie would grab Rise and Yosuke and hurl themselves from the top of the tallest building in Inaba. I liked the story and characters in Persona 3 more, and I like it that the developers decided to go back in that direction.

I did play Devil Survivor: Overclocked on the 3DS to near completion and I know the tone there is way darker but I did really like the light tone in P4 whereas all of P3 FES was ruined by the main character being literally the worst piece of shit in the world. Just emote for once in your goddamn life you joyless ****. All your party members are going through character development and shit and you're just in your room doing nothing the whole time. Playing DS:O made me understand more about it too, the protagonist of P3 feels more at home in an SMT game proper instead of SMT Persona.

The ending just topped things off for me too (spoiler alert). You make Aigis develop a heart then just die on her, breaking it in the process? Wow you're actually the worst, it makes me legitimately angry every time I think of it.

I should stop, i've written essays on the guy before because it truly ruined P3 for me. Everything else was pretty damn great but having to witness it through the eyes and actions of this awful human being was terrible.

Damn the MC for P5 is awesome though, he takes the crown as the King of Swag right off the head of the Broswagtagonist of P4. Everything he does is so cool and assertive but never crosses the line to overbearing dickhead who sticks his nose into everything. Also he actually can get into serious romantic relationships with his homeroom teacher and/or the sexy lady doctor which is greatly amusing to me for some reason. I liked how they just dropped all allusion to "they most likely had sex at max Social Link rank but there's a chance they didn't" to "yeah no, they are totally boning right now for sure" with a bunch of the female ones. Takemi especially, my god. Look that scene up if you haven't already, it's the best.

Only issue with the female Social Links in P5 is that they are all Based Girl so I can't decide. Makoto is the best party member wise but Hifumi is there as the dark horse ready to steal the show in the background and then there's just Futaba cruelly locked behind a Kindness wall for me when she's top tier as well.

What are your thoughts on the Overlord ending, and what was your favorite ending?

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

Are you the creator of Off?

Heh, nope. That game is leagues trippier than anything I could come up with. If anything I made got even half the recognition as that game did I'd die a happy camper. XD

And I prefer to make my combat feel more puzzle-like than a straight "Numbers battle" like Off appears to be.