Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26463535-20150614033930/@comment-25555436-20150614125030

Maki Kuronami wrote: A gameplay/story split is likely the best bet. Just look at Persona 4 for the finest example of that.

We have the mainline game, Persona 4. An JRPG with a heavy emphasis on story while still being the best game ever. (Opinion Subjective) The best game ever? You really haven't played SMT before. P4 is stupidly easy, I felt my hand was being carried all the way, in Hard mode. Hell, I defeated the (true) final boss in 2 motherfucking turns the 1st phase (Mind Charge+Ziodyne, not amped), and 8 the second one (Mind Charge and then Black Viper). Only used Huang Long, Satan and once in a while Hachiman. (They...were the only Personas I had right then).

The gameplay/story split....not sure. I mean, a gameplay feature that works via character development, and as such helps develop the sidestories, is pretty cool. But the main story and the gameplay is often...not quite split, more like 80/20. Unless you want to grind for Margaret (which trust me, you don't need to do to beat her), you have 0 reason to go to the TV unless someone has been taken, which happens about once per month. Money? get a job, which gets you more money than the TV.

So you basically spend the whole game speaking with your friends and only a handful of moments going into the TV, which thanks to the game being so easy, can be solved in just 1 in-game day. Not a really balanced gameplay/story split.