Yeah it's definitely this for me. I've avoided the video because I haven't played the game yet since my computer can't run it, so it'll be a while before I watch the video but I definitely will watch it at some point down the line.
Yep. I’m a switch player, so I’m still hoping and waiting for a potential Switch successor port. Since I don’t want any spoilers, I won’t watch any videos on Metaphor until I’ve played it myself.
Maybe but I have to be honest I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would. When I go on twitter and other platforms I don’t see many memes or posts about it.
So Trinity Soul isn't just not acknowledged. It was actually de-canonized in the P3P Official Fanbook. Strikers also does directly reference Royal, with Morgana stating that their last battle was 6 months ago, which, going by Striker's timeline, lines up with the Day of Fates, (Royal final boss.) almost to the day, not the Day of Reckoning, (Vanilla final boss.) which would have been 8 months ago.
@@bubbletea_ Sure, but that seems like weak evidence to me, especially since Morgana was talking to Joker, who wasn't involving in freeing himself from jail. So it wouldn't really be "our" last battle in that case. It makes more sense to think battle = battle and take the statement at face value. And there was never any good reason to think that Strikers follows the "vanilla timeline" anyway. That whole thing comes from a game journalist misquoting the game director of Strikers. He said he wanted anyone to be able to enjoy Strikers regardless of their level of experience with the series, and she turned that into an article for Gamespot saying that the game director confirms Strikers is a sequel to vanilla, not Royal.
@@Laurcus omg! I remember that! Everyone was quating that interveiw as proof that royal is not canon. Heck, some people just bought the og persona 5 instead of royal at the time just becuase it wasn't canon and didn't matter.
The dancing games seem to still use art work that includes trinity mc, so it not like completely disregarding it. There are also other works in the series like novels, manga, cd dramas, musicals, anime/movie. So even if they might not be part of the main timeline, it probably best to think of each title as it own world with connections to other things in the series.
That... Does't even line up either though? By the time you have to do the first Jail (shortly after Joker comes back), it's *July* (specifically 7/25). 6 months before that is *the end of January,* which is before Royal's final battle on February 3rd. Like Bubbletea said, that's around when Joker's still under arrest in the "correct timeline" without Akechi's interference. Frankly it'd just be better to accept Morgana's words as a vague impression of time passing rather than literal proof, because it matches up with *neither* final boss.
Errrm actually, Persona 5 Tactica can only take place in the Royal timeline because Joker has a grappling hook, which he only gets in royal. Fake fan smh you have to DELETE this video RIGHT NOW!!!!!! (jk luv you bb)
Super Smash Bros also takes place in the Royal timeline since Joker has a grappling hook, so I can't believe he didn't mention how important that game clearly is to the Persona 5 timeline
Ok but fr, I feel like the Grabbling Hook just adds more to Joker's personality. I watched Royal first so it was kinda surprising to find out that it wasn't in the OG game lol
I remember people getting VERY bent out of shape over how Royal CAN'T POSSIBLY be canon to Strikers just because Sumire and Akechi aren't there. Most of it just comes from simps for those two who refuse to play anything they aren't in. My original stance is "it's like vanilla P4 Arena, which was made before Golden. Then Ultimax came out after Golden and showed that was canon"... and then Tactica happened. But even without the DLC, Ryuji in Tactica brings up "nosy councilors" at one point, as one of the annoying things about Shujin, which could ONLY be referring to Maruki. I admit, I like the concept of P1's split routes and wish it was in more things: you pick one route and someone else handles the other. Both are still canon, it just depends on which one your PoV party chooses to go on. (Actually Fire Emblem Sacred Stones also did this for its mid-game route split. The two protags split off and you choose to follow one of them, but the other twin's events still happened) ...I don't get why people question the canonicity of FeMC. Q2 explicitly establishes that the FeMC Route exists as an alternate universe to the Male MC route. There. And yeah, what you said is true. Persona games are designed so you can play them in any order, references to earlier games being limited to cameos. I'm glad they used Chihiro, a minor Social Link, as the one major P3 character appearance in P4, instead of a party member. But to contradict the point of this video a little, one thing people also debate is whether Persona 1 and 2 aren't in the timeline anymore due to writers issues. Actually a few TV broadcasts in P5 VERY late into the year make vague references to P2 characters, and all the P2 TV references in P3 were kept in Reload.
At the end of Royal it's implied that Akechi is alive but not in contact with the protagonist, and that Sumire is gonna be taking her gymnastics stuff more seriously, so I have no idea why people didn't assume that in Strikers they exist but they're just... Not talking to the protagonist for the duration of the game. It's such a simple explanation. There's no way the FeMC timeline doesn't exist, but people will go out of their way to ignore a female protagonist because misogyny. If the people who argue against it are totally okay with MCU having multiple timelines but refuse to accept it as a possibility for Persona despite all the evidence otherwise then they're just hypocrites 🤷
@@Nyxakeyin There's an unused scene in P5R that makes it FAR more explicit that Sumire is travelling the world training for gymnastics, in a way that links up well with Strikers. Not sure why it got cut, it would've clarified things. (Especially since Sumire gets basically no epilogue in the final game outside of showing up for a few lines in the ending cutscene)
@@BigKlingy I WISH Atlus kept that scene in the final game. It would’ve been a more satisfying way to end off Sumire’s story in Royal than what we got with Sumire simply saying “take care” to Ren and that was it. Maybe Sojiro would’ve told Ren that he got something in the mail and it would’ve been a package from Sumire since she’s preparing to leave for her gymnastics training and he would’ve gotten a letter saying how much Sumire appreciated Ren and his patience with her the whole time she was Kasumi and she would’ve gifted Ren her red ribbon and her old gymnasts ribbon to show how she’s trying to become herself as Sumire and Ren can take them to remind himself that Sumire is trying to accomplish her and Kasumi’s goal to be the best in the gymnastics world and make it to international competitions. Idk at least it would be better than what we got instead in Royal.
For FeMC, there's a big, big difference between "canon" and "this exists in an alternate timeline in a game where it's events have no long-lasting impact." Honestly, trying to discuss "canon" in a series where so many games are entirely separate and don't interact in any meaningful way is hard, because there isn't a singular canon timeline, only a string of products and connections between them. The timeline is about as conductive to an enjoyable play experience as Legend of Zelda's, or SMT's.
As much as people want to dimiss Kotone, they don't really have a reason to do so. Especially given her involvement in Q2 confirms that she exists in a parallel timeline where she existed instead of Makoto
People dismiss Kotone cuz Atlus themselves don't seem to care much about her. I'm not surprised about it, Kotone's entire existence was to just justify selling the PSP version cuz without her P3P is objectively a downgraded version of the PS2 game. I don't think Atlus ever intended her as the face of P3 as much as Makoto or Aigis.
The stated reason we don’t have FEMC in “Reload”, is that they would have needed to rebuild so many assets that it would have cost more money than what we got *plus* “Episode Aigis” on top of what they already spent. Make what you will of that; if you’re skeptical I can’t blame you, I don’t really know enough about it. I am inclined to believe that, since Kotone never had a full release in terms of content due to PSP limitations, it was probably more than Atlus was willing to chance on it.
At the very least in promotional artwork (especially the recent 25th anniversary of Persona), FEMC is included alongside all the other protagonists in Persona’s history. It’s not like they’re actively TRYING to erase Kotone from existence. PQ2 being a solid example with them explicitly stating that Kotone exists in a parallel universe to Makoto so technically they BOTH exist, just not at the same place at the same time.
Is the music good and does it have little menu animations for each menu, like how your character in p3 reload gets submerged in water for the in battle item menu or the save menu?
in 5 strikers case, even if the game is in the original timeline, there is no reason that the same events wouldn't happen in the royal timeline, the third semester wouldn't stop the creation of sophia and emma, and Joker would probably still visit leblanc during summer vacation
Plus there is unused cutscenes or code in the game files that hint to Akechi being in a rehab center (presumably the same place his mother was treated in and lost contact with Joker to focus on his own rehabilitation) and to Sumire going around the world to seriously focus on her gymnastics career by being herself as SUMIRE and not hiding behind a ‘Kasumi’ mask anymore. So there is nothing to DENY that Strikers can take place after Royal even if Ren or anybody else doesn’t explicitly mention either Akechi or Sumire. Akechi’s case is that Ren legitimately doesn’t know for sure what happened to Akechi since they lost contact. Sumire’s case is probably Ren being considerate about Sumire’s dedication to her gymnastics career and doesn’t want to distract her from achieving her and Kasumi’s dream. They probably stay in contact from time to time in Ren’s off time.
persona 1 contradicts it because of kandori and his lackey who's name idc about, persona 3 FES, reload or the vanilla game also contradict this because of takaya
Everytime FeMC hate was brought up my brain just went: You dislike P3P because of FeMC, I dislike P3P because of missing cutscenes, voice lines, and other content. We are not the same.
I feel like getting caught up in the idea of a single 'true' canon for Persona is an exercise in futility. Much like Mass Effect, certain broad strokes are canon, but a lot of things are up to the player's choice. It's your world just as much as it is Atlus'. Still, it's fun to look for subtle easter eggs and minor inconsistencies. And declaring Trinity and the Naoto manga non-canon is a-okay in my book.
I feel like the same could be said for multiverses... Like srsly what is the point in including multiverses in so many franchise, if they don't contribute something unique to say about the overarching story. Like a lot of times, I think exploring new concepts in the existing universe is more interesting than branching of to multiple universes, but that's just my opinion.
People are gonna lose their minds when Mass Effect 4 has to acknowledge a canon ending for Mass Effect 3. Why can't people just realise the developers don't always have timelines and canon planned out from the start, and eventually they have to make stuff up as they go along to suit their needs and not the fans?
I remembered the persona 5 strikers interview. The director said it follows the P5 timeline. But Atlus wants to make money, so I believe they would add P5R characters wherever they can in other future spin-offs (if any). But I do agree with what’s said in the video. The devs try to make the timeline kind of ambiguous in spin-offs so that everyone can enjoy the games more as standalone, without having to play other spin-offs.
with how the timeline splits and stuff like the yukari's bow incident this genuinely just feels like the whole "mega vs no mega timeline" situation from pokemon
Why would anyone think the Persona Rereleases were in their own timelines that’s separate from the original releases. That’s kind of the dumbest thing any fan of other video game franchises would hear.
I think another funny think to look into is Persona powerscaling because of how absurd it is. If you look into it, Persona is unironically one of the strongest fictional franchises ever that would wipe a vast majority of fiction just because it's connected to SMT and has some fuckery from dds2 that just makes the entirety of SMT really broken. It's stupid and shouldn't really be taken seriously, but if you want to giggle just look up male protagonist Persona 3 vs battle wiki.
Even someone who just has an all-reflect/null persona is practically invincible to everything unless the enemy has some sort of attack akin to an almighty spell.
@@Dazaiki No, you can also just use something not present in their game. Like, Demi-Fiend is immune to everything except almighty when he has Masakados. And then he can still be hurt by Earth and Gun attacks (in DDS and SMT4A respectively), because SMT3 doesn't have those.
The intent of "Snow Queen" is that it takes place before Sebec, basically the idea is you complete Snow Queen and move on to Sebec Questline wise, but from a gameplay perspective "Snow Queen" does serve more as a "challenging dungeon gauntlet" hence it isn't forced into the main game story.
6:52 ok hold on hold on hold on, i think you might be mistaken, Mary's Resolve could also very well be referencing Mary from Soul Hackers, the zombie like maid of the Goumaden
Just to react to the thumbnail, Golden and Royal contain everything that was in their base games. With the exception of some voice lines (all of Chie's and Teddie's, some of Yu's and some of Margaret's) Golden was pretty much Persona 4 with some new stuff added in, while Royal was exactly that with the changes being cosmetic to a degree.
Wait until you find out about the Shin Megami Tensei timeline or go further beyond that and look at the entirety of the Megami Tensei/Digital Devil Story franchise. Persona is just a small part of a much larger world.
I know it's controversial, but I'd love a persona 3 spinoff based on the femc timeline so we could maybe see an older shinjiro. I really wish we could've seen him grown up/ with an awakened persona/hear his thoughts of how femc saved this life (theoretically).
I really love the idea that if femc route almost like the butterfly effect then shinjiro being alive is a possibility but I can also honestly see his social link being the canon one if it’s not aki or aigis. Aigis still likes the mc regardless of gender which is cool, but there’s something that feels just right about Femc being able to positively changed shinjis life and leads to a happier outcome for him, even if he’s in a coma for most of the game to still stand in for the fact bro gone from your party lol. (Also IK the answer is as controversial but apart of me wish if portable got it it was about shinjiro getting femcs power even if they probably wouldn’t go that far… I just think with what I said in mind of him being the canon love interest instead + he got to live because of femc it be so raw)
@@jerry3115 shinjiros fate after the femc route is unknown, and chidori was also on the suppressants for much longer and turned out fine. While it's not confirmed he's alive, it's also not confirmed he died either. I'd like to think the kirijo group pulled some strings and got him on some treatment.
Plus it would be interesting to see in a hypothetical Episode Aigis FEMC edition how Shinjiro would be handling Kotone’s death. I would imagine he’d be filled with regret that he is still alive when Kotone should be as well, but when Akihiko and the others probably told him what Kotone had to sacrifice to save the world, it’d probably hit him like a truck. Plus it would be interesting how Shinjiro and Metis would interact in the hypothetical FEMC edition of Episode Aigis.
it’s so bizarre to chase some ephemeral idea of what viewers want to see instead of just making good stuff that interests you. Why would I watch some pandering paint by numbers crap made to get views rather than made because the creator had something to say?
I’d love to watch the Metaphor video but I have yet to start the game (planning to next week) and I want to go in as spoiler free as I can! I just have a ton of Metaphor videos in my Watch Later for this reason
Man, the answer is yes to everything, every possibility in an SMT game even spin-offs are cannons because they reside in one of the various possibilities existing in the Axiom, by the way, Persona is not inspired by SMT, it is SMT, it is one of the spin-offs with different target audience like Demi Kid, Lost Bible or Jack Bros, besides that, there are a lot of original content on mangas and anime
I interpret base P5 being the events of the game from Sae's understanding with Royal being closer to Joker's perspective. Yoshizawa and Maruki have nothing to do with the Phantom Thieves, so Joker would have little reason to bring them up. Jose just randomly bumps into the team in mementos thus has no relevance, likewise. Akechi's confidant ranking up automatically was Joker name dropping him at key points for Sae to take the hint. And the third semester being at least partially an illusion and at that point the team has no reason to keep her in the loop could be why she wouldn't remember it either.
@halaiazedwick203 yoshida helps teach negotiating. And chihaya was tied in that cult, which the leader turned himself in, so she'd vaguely recognize her.
@@79bigcat Kasumi helps with gymnastics and Maruki helps with mental training. The reason Joker hangs out with them is stated to be metaverse related, the same as the other two. Maruki LITERALLY studies cognitive psience if you get far enough in the confidant, and Kasumi will always awaken to a persona in an unfamiliar palace. There is 0 reason Chihaya or Yoshida would be more pertinent to the interrogation. In fact, they are less relevant than the other 2.
The main thing why I didn't watched the metaphor video is, because I barely had the time to finish it yet. Just finished the island part, and am really hyped for how it continues!
I mean... technically any playthrough (and adaptation) is a different timeline because no playthroughs are the same, so... Everyone can just make their own timeline in their head anyway 🤭 And somehow that still works better than other franchises that do have official timelines. Debating about stuff like that can be fun, but in a lot of cases it gets needlessly serious, even though at the end of the day, it really is something that doesn't matter. It's great when things fall into place, but the games are separate enough for each of them to take place in a unique timeline as well and I think that's pretty neat 😌
The fans got you covered. The FemC mod for Reload is nearly finished and "Moonlight Daydream" is a really good fan animation for a potential P3FES FemC route. There's also a lot of really good FemC fanfiction. I'm actually writing one myself that puts a new spin of the FemC route by FemC being a reincarnated Makoto with all the memories of and development from P3 who was offered to relive the events of his last year of life "from a new perspective" by Elizabeth in order to try to find a better solution to stopping The Fall. I make up that Minato (my preferred name for FemC) was actually a closeted trans girl all along and that's FemC is so much naturally happier than Makoto was. Post-character development + gender euphoria can do a lot. Also, this version of Minato is a lesbian so obvious shenanigans ensue.
Not sure if it’s just me but I love alternate realties in games/media, which is why the Megami Tensei timeline is so interesting. Still waiting for the day Ds1 makes a cameo though
P1 and 2 worked. Obviously. P3 sort of could work with the timeline too. Dark Hour stuff, sure. It's an isolated thing. But then they decided to do the same thing again twice. Each time there's a different dimension. No more human psyche affecting stuff, it's just random nonsense stories. Sure 4 worked as a murder mystery, but 5 absolutely did not. 5 is the case of "flashy visuals over substance", and yeah, it just further destroyed the Persona universe. It's just nonsense now, whatever the heck works. Sure, P6 on the internet or inside the phones, yeah let's go. As long as it looks pretty, people will play. But it's just that, no substance.
Yep…… that’s the toxic side of the Persona fan base for ya. Although to be fair, there isn’t anything saying that Royal COULDN’T take place before Strikers as much as Vanilla P5. Just because Sumire isn’t mentioned at all doesn’t immediately make P5R not canon.
@@leohernandez8751 If there's anything you can do to avoid it, it's to not interact with the Fandom (at least online) and enjoy it as a Not-Online Persona Fan.
Really agree here. I think people care too much about persona's canon in regard of this outside factors. Yes, the content in the games should be treated as canon as it's shown... Why does things like "canon mcs names" or "canon endings" matter that much? There is basically zero difference if persona 5 endings is vanilla's or royal's, the only game that follows that ending is strikers... which doesn't contradict neither. I think caring less about this type of "canon" is better. I always despise when people try to force call a ending canon in games that don't need that formula (like silent hill 2 if you want an example)
@@awoga2299 OOF, that is a WHOLE other can of worms the franchise has had over the years. Take any persona game and mention “canon romance”, grab the popcorn and enjoy the show I guess.
@leohernandez8751 there is another recently uploaded video about the "true" romances, and it's existence annoys me lmao. like we really don't need more fuel to the fire with this debate in the Persona community, let alone for a thing that doesn't exist.
@@awoga2299 It's a videogame, not the the bible. Why does this people care so much about canon anyway? If it has multiple choises that don't contradict each other or the main lore... than there is no canon choice.
Im aware the point of this was to talk about how persona timeline shenanigans arent like zelda timeline shenanigans. But hearing u talk about Trinity Soul awakened this burning desire in me for Atlus to readapt it into a game.
the kuzunoha agency also implies that devil summoner, soul hackers, soul hackers 2, and the raidou games duology all happen in the same timeline as persona but mayhaps in different branching paths. you can even see references to raidou in games like persona 5 where appart the cosmetic clothes, there's an in game item called kuzunoha's tube, which is a device raidou kuzunoha the 14th uses to capture demons instead of a demon summoning program. Lets also not forget that SMT IF is a what if situation for SMT 1, making persona a branching path from SMT 1 SMT NINE SMT 2 and the SMT MMORPG game. Funilly enough this makes persona 5 more connected to shin megami tensei 1 than shin megami tensei IV is to SMT 1
You missed some of the most important aspects of the SMT timeline. You would only call it the "Persona timelime" for the algorithm boost, since a lot of the games are connected. Persona is not its own series, it has and will always be part of megaten and is a subseries/branch as much as Devil Summoner, DDS, or Devil Survivor is. 1: Raido 1&2 are canon to Persona and are the earliest games in the main SMT timeline. Raido 2 has 3 endings each leading to a vastly different timeline. Raido 2 law leads to SMT1 and SMT2, Chaos leads to SMT3 and SMT5, and neutral leads to the Devil Summoner and Persona games. 2: Law Timelime goes like this: SMT1 Pre-timeskip, SMT Nine, SMT Imagine, SMT1 post-timeskip, 50 year timeskip (SMT1 neutral is canon), SMT2. (SMT2 Law is canon, world ends and everyone dies) 3: Chaos Timeline. SMT3, True Demon is the canon ending, Demi and Luicifer fight The Axiom, lose, go to another world to fight the God of Law which is SMT5's world, kill him, SMT5 happens, either CoV Law or CoC True Neutral is canon. Possible split in SMT3 where Freedom Ending leads to Strange Journey Redux where any of the 3 "new" endings are canon. 4: Neutral Timeline. SMTIf instead of SMT1, then OG Devil Summoner, then Persona 1, then Soul Hackers, then P2 Eternal Punishment. (P2 Innocent Sin is non-canon) Both the Snow Queen Quest and SEBEC are canon in P1. Female route is canon in SMT If. Good endings are canon in Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment. (only affects the fates of certain characters and not the entire story result) 5: Neutral Timelime continued. P3 Aigis the Last Mission, P3 Reload up to the beach episode, P3 Em, the rest of P3 Reload, P3 Reload Episode Aigis, P4 Golden, P4 Arena, P4 Arena Ultimax, P4 Dancing, P5 Royal, P5 Tactica, P5 Strikers. 6: The PQ games and P3+P5 dancing are dream worlds and didn't really happen. All the bad endings are non-canon what-if senarios. P3P FemC is an alternate timeline and another what-if. In P4G True Ending+Golden Epilogue is canon considering P4 Dancing. In P5/P5R either the Good Ending or the Royal Ending are canon since the only people changed by the difference are Sumire and Maruki who arent relevant to any of P5's spinoffs, but strikers was made with the base game's good ending in mind and not the Royal Ending but can still happen after the Royal Ending it just doesn't tie-in as seemlessly. 7: Nyx and The Axiom are connected. In primordial times the alien god Nyx crashed into the planet and became the moon, and with its sacred plumes gifted humanity with the concept of "death." Death gave life meaning and purpose, but in order to prevent humanity's inherit pursuit of death gifted by the plumes, humanity developed a collective unconcious and a cognitive world within that collective unconcious called "The Expanse." The Expanse was inhabited by thought beings known as "daemons" that were shaped by humanity's thoughts, beliefs, ideals, ideas, concepts, and various other things.. 8: Long ago, daemons were worshiped as gods, and through humanity's reverence of them they gained power. But the most powerful of the daemons, the embodiment of humanity's desire for order and peace, essential for establishing early civilization, decided for Himself that He alone should have absolute power and authority, declared himself the sole God and cast down all the other daemons, removing their "knowlege" or their "ability to gain power through worship." 9: A servant of the God of Law, the angel Lucifer, was angry and jelous that humans refused to bow to him, so he planted a tree which contained the daemon's knowledge and tricked humans into eating from the tree, giving humanity a part of daemonic essence which manifested as brain stem cells known as "magastuchi" which could be manipulated to perform "magic." The God of Law deemed this new power an "abomination" and cast humanity out of his paradise. Daemons sought to feed on humanity's magastuchi (brains) so they could use the cells to form a vessel to inhabit the physical world with with the eventual goal of finding their knowledge and challenging the God of Law. 10: In some timelines, the harsh yet just God of Law was corrupted by humanity's belief into a wicked God of control who hated free will and freedom in general. Thus the Great Will, the True God who sent Nyx to grant humanity the means to ascend, brought for "massiahs" to slay these wicked gods and free the worlds they controlled from their tyranny. Meanwhile, in some other worlds, the God of Law continued to rule as a kind and just, but harsh overseer of the world, while daemons still lurked in the shadows. 11: Daemons from SMT and shadows from Persona are quite literally the same being, thought beings created by humanity's collective uncomcious and shaped by their wills and belief and can be either good, evil, or neutral, lawful, chaotic, or neutral. 12: All humans in megaten are part-daemon due to their knowlege inplantation, which allows them to use magic with enough training or sometimes even turn into daemons themselves or fuse with them. 13: All the areas you explore in Persona (Dark Hour, Shadow World, Metaverse), are all either literally the Expanse or places in space and time where The Expanse and the physical realm overlap. 14: In the multiverse of SMT all universes are on a cycle. They are born, shaped by humans, are destroye d, and then are reborn, being reshaped into a new form by humanity wills. This is called the "Mandala System" and is a constant across all worlds in the SMT multiverse. All worlds will eventually end, be reborn, and then end again. The only way to escape this endless cycle is to reach enlightenment and ascend like Steven (and arguably the P3 protagonist) did and what Philemon, Igor's master, desires for all humans to acomplish. 15: In SMT5, it was an alternate timeline of SMT3 where the conception was prevented and ended only dragging Tokyo into the expanse. The rest of the world in SMT5 is perfectly fine. 16: In SMT3 it's conception was not at all part of God's plan, neither the God of Law or The Great Will wanted the world to end when it did. The Freedom Ending is basically the TRUE ending because you save everyone and restore the world. Everything else, including True Demon, is a bad ending. 17: Devil Survivor 1 happens in arguably the same universe as SMT3 and SMT5 since God is actually good in that timeline, and the True Neutral Route (Gins route) is the canon one where the government covers everything up. 18: Devil Survivor 2 is its own seperate continuity disconnected from the first game or any other SMT since it has its own seperare low and its own cosmology. In DeSu2 for the first arc a combination of the Perfect Liberator and Kingmaker endings is canon and for the second arc the Record Breaker ending is canon. 19: DDS is its own universe where Brahman won the throne, not the God of Law. The Sun in DDS collects data from all worlds, including the worlds of SMT1/2 and SMT3, which is why Satan and the Archangels from SMT2 and Demi Fiend from SMT3 appear as superbosses.
One thing that I always believe is that Persona 4 and 5 party members do not evolve their persona in their direct sequel so Social Link may or may not canon in their direct sequel. Also, is Persona 4 the true ending that defeats Izanami canon or not? Because if Izanami is defeated, then both Persona 4 Arena shouldn't be happening because there is still TV world and shadows and stuff
0:05 I actually think this would be a good video down the line (whether from Bubbletea or someone else). As much as I liked Metaphor (I had my qualms and criticisms but overall came away from it positive, definitely on the higher end of experiences with Atlus games), I really haven't noticed any staying power with it the same way I saw with Persona 5 back when I was introduced to the series. Now granted Persona / SMT was always fairly niche up until 5, and 5 took some time to grow into it's own (especially with how weird Atlus used to treat streaming guidelines back in the day). And Metaphor HAS only been out for 2 or so months. But I say it's weird because Metaphor came out of the gate HOT. Like 1 million units on launch day hot. And yet it's playerbase decreased to the point that it's now on par with Persona 5 Royal's Steam database numbers (in terms of trend it's slightly higher - 6k on average vs. P5R's 5k - but P5R tends to hit higher during peak playing time). And that wasn't recently either, that's been observed since I want to say mid-to-late November. Anecdotally, I also haven't seen a ton of traction when it comes to fan content, whether that be art, analysis, etc. Sure you have the dedicated Atlus channels that cover it, and I've seen some really good fanart, but outside of it's bubble I haven't seen much. It's definitely there, but not nearly to the extent that 1 million out of the gate would imply. And the views really haven't been there outside of the first month. Not to mention that the game is rated T and (in theory) should be more accessible. Just something I thought was interesting as I wrap up my 100% completion of the game
Saving this video for later don’t know how long it will take me to beat all of the main line games. But I will definitely watch this when I’m done. Beat: Persona 5 Royal (December 2024) Work in progress: Persona 5 Strikers Persona 1 psp ver.
I always find it nuts that the first SMT is canon to the Persona lore. Yet it's never talked about that the world was almost nuked. And any world that references Soul Hackers means a world where Nemissa existed.😂
It never make sense to me why people make a big deal out of it, as the timeline is pretty linear with little divergence. It starts with if, P1, Devil Summoners, Soul Hacker and P2:IS, which then create a new timeline after IS ending that the rest of the series followed, starting with P2:EP, P3, FES, P4G, 2 Arena games, P4G epilogue, P5R, P5T, and P5S. Strikers was simply developed concurrently with P5R, hence there are little to no reference until Tactica DLC reinforced that Royal did happened, just like first Arena game released before Golden so no mention of Marie until Ultimax. Trinity Soul is obviously non-canon since it contradicts the prior lore. P3P is a more in-universe parallel divergence as PQ2 shown. Reload does contradict Arena games and PQ series, but it's pretty minor that wouldn't affect the story at all. The only games that kinda questioned the canon placement is Dancing series and Soul Hacker 2, as P4D has Naota talking about Apathy Syndrome as if she and others never learned it from Arena game as I remember she did learn about it from a Kijiro file in Ultimax, while Soul Hacker 2 era is way too technological advanced for the realistic setting of Persona series. Tbh even I find it hard to fit Soul Hacker games to Persona series due to the cyberpunk setting.
I’m pretty sure smt v takes place after the innocent sin time line around a year before P5 because they reference kamoshida going around soloing teams. And how creepy he is.
I will say, I purposefully haven’t watched the metaphor video yet just because I’m still slowly making my way through it and want to form my own opinions first
Really hope if they remakes P1, they choose Yukino Mayuzumi as the leader character for the Snow Queen Quest and then have Brown or Ayase to be the one that started the Snow Queen curse instead of the MC/Naoya/Jihei
Multiple timelines have been a thing since the first Raido Kuzanoha game introduced the Amala Network, so really there shouldn't be any issue with all games being canon Hell, STEVEN pulls protagonists from all the SMT games to fight him in SMT4A
I am avoiding everything metaphor in case of spoilers. ... only just got around to playing P3R since I figured its finally on sale enough. (Played P3P and FES before but something always happened to my save around december in game time, so never beat it before... just got to december again so hopefully nothing happens again.) (Still have to play persona 1, and eternal punishment since I lost my save from around the Joker Ulala fight too)
Ive always been of the opinion that the only real canon for a long standing series is whatever game youre playing says it is. Not including like world breaking retcons and the like, i see them the same way i see different tv shows using the same cast (example being tmnt)
When it comes to anything that I personally believe is Canon to the Persona Timeline, it's these: 1. Persona 1 (PSP) 2. The Persona 2 Duology (PSP) 3. Persona 3 FES 4. Persona 4 Golden 5. Persona 5 Royal 6. Persona Q1 7. Persona 4s Arena + AU and Dancing All Night 8. Persona 5s Strikers and Tactica There are other games that I consider canon such as the Raidou Kuzunoha duology (which I believe take place in the P2: EP Timeline) and SMT if..., but I just wanted to focus on Persona Games specifically. Edit: Then again, Persona 3 & 5 Dancing could easily take place during the 3rd Semester since the memory-wiping that happens at the end of P5: DIS could be interpreted as Levanza erasing the PTs' respective memories of those events so they can focus on defeating Maruki toward the end of the 3rd Semester.
I heard a theory that the innocent sin reality becomes the other world the shadows are from. Idk if that fits bc I haven't played the old games yet but it sounds interesting
I kno im not the only who likes an order to these things. Not having a canon from game to is fine but spin offs that are supposed to be in canon with the main title should. Cuz alot of us look at these as whole stories like then seem to be doin but when you have glaring mistakes and say oh there not canon invalidates some stories or completely kills the immersion.
To be fair, I do consider re-release versions to be on their own separate timeline, most of the spinoffs for the most part rather work better with vanilla versions anyway. Although they do mix it up for no reason, I get that they are trying to do "all is canon" thing, but I honestly wish the games were more neatly tied. But yea, I agree that doesnt really matter, in the same way I think people who care about a "canon protagonist name" are dumb, when its a game with a nameable protagonist, which that alone invalidates the "canon name".
I love your videos and i have watched most of them, to be honest, the only reason i haven´t watched the video about Metaphor Refantazio yet is because, due to financial reasons, i´m still like a monthe or two away from being able to get the game and i prefer to avoid spoilers of any kind, even gameplay. Not sure is this is reasons others haven´t watched it, but i personally plan to watch it as soon as i play the game.
9:31 I feel like that’s a big generalization. I actually find Femc really cute I just don’t like what she does with Shinji. Ruins two of my favorite awakenings.
I mean, you technically can romance Shinjiro without completing his last SL and he’ll still die… If that makes any better; still keeping with the P3 themes there.
@ he was going to die anyway, but again it ruins akihiko’s and Ken’s whole thing. Like it honestly, makes it less believable that the answer even happened the way it did in Femc timeline.
I *would* like FeMC but I can't stand Bishi Akihiko or the Pedo Ken romance and the dog social links. Also, the entire character arc for the MC was that he had escaped death two years ago and having returned to the city after being based off by all of his other relatives he was basically doomed to die so her vibrant personality was at odds with her story. And her Persona/projections should have been female because, you know, that's how Jungian psychology works. Basically, she was cute but the story was not adequately rewritten to accommodate a female protagonist.
Not gonna lie, now I kinda want spin-off persona games that take place in split timelines. Give me a Strikers game that take place in Royal's bad ending.
I haven't played all the personas and that's for good reason. This series seems so ass to get into. First it's SMT. Then it's spin-off. Then it's own thing. Then it has multiple endings but at the same time it doesn't csre about those endings. It's a pointless series. Press Turn is very braindead because of how they try to balanceit by using SP as a very limited resource. Unfortunately it doesn't really matter as you can make a single party member so strong you don't need a full team.
i just wanted to have fun on my first p3p playthrough and so just went with Kotone cause she is cute so when i shared my favorite characters i got bit of flake for putting kotone so high and makoto as they exist (when you play as Kotone you litterly learn nothing about him so he just exists i only know some things from memes which isn't exactly a reliable way to know a character) ^^'
Large part of discussion is left out by not referencing Shin Megami Tensai. So first off you can be a SMT and Persona fan. Second off SMT does reference specific endings over others. What this implies is much more detrimental to the audience than you'll initially understand. Because multiple endings are kind of the key take away. So let's examine SMT specifically V. So it's a direct sequel to the other games but also not because it is specifically referencing the Tre Demon Ending from SMT3. This is BOTH bad and good. It's good to give a continuity but at the same time why? By doing so you invalidate the purpose of having multiple endings. That's why acknowledging a continuity for games all about "Choosing how it ends" is fruitless. SMT shot itself by having sequels to a multiple choice ending and aaying only one is valid. Persona is having the opposite problem. Now there's no valid timeline so everything is just left up in the air as to how much it really matters. Which greatly changes my own personal feelings towards the games. There's honestly very little reason to have multiple endings. I have never seen this concept pulled off in a way that's satisfying. I don't even care if it makes "sense" but none of this is fun to think about. It's just a headache.
The game where you spy on Chie in a hotspring has no alternate timelines and therefore must be the one event we know is canon
It must be canon to someone.
@@beatziegraham6928 No, it has to be
It's more Canon then The Answer. My Dad Kenji Yamaoto told me
truly, the best timeline.
LMFAO
Don't worry the views in the metaphor vid are gonna go up, people might still be playing the game right now and don't want spoilers.
Yeah it's definitely this for me. I've avoided the video because I haven't played the game yet since my computer can't run it, so it'll be a while before I watch the video but I definitely will watch it at some point down the line.
Yep. I’m a switch player, so I’m still hoping and waiting for a potential Switch successor port.
Since I don’t want any spoilers, I won’t watch any videos on Metaphor until I’ve played it myself.
I agree with you
Definitely the case with me.
Maybe but I have to be honest I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would. When I go on twitter and other platforms I don’t see many memes or posts about it.
So Trinity Soul isn't just not acknowledged. It was actually de-canonized in the P3P Official Fanbook. Strikers also does directly reference Royal, with Morgana stating that their last battle was 6 months ago, which, going by Striker's timeline, lines up with the Day of Fates, (Royal final boss.) almost to the day, not the Day of Reckoning, (Vanilla final boss.) which would have been 8 months ago.
unless they count the period where they were trying to get joker out of jail as their "last battle" in a figurative sense.
@@bubbletea_ Sure, but that seems like weak evidence to me, especially since Morgana was talking to Joker, who wasn't involving in freeing himself from jail. So it wouldn't really be "our" last battle in that case. It makes more sense to think battle = battle and take the statement at face value.
And there was never any good reason to think that Strikers follows the "vanilla timeline" anyway. That whole thing comes from a game journalist misquoting the game director of Strikers. He said he wanted anyone to be able to enjoy Strikers regardless of their level of experience with the series, and she turned that into an article for Gamespot saying that the game director confirms Strikers is a sequel to vanilla, not Royal.
@@Laurcus omg! I remember that! Everyone was quating that interveiw as proof that royal is not canon. Heck, some people just bought the og persona 5 instead of royal at the time just becuase it wasn't canon and didn't matter.
The dancing games seem to still use art work that includes trinity mc, so it not like completely disregarding it. There are also other works in the series like novels, manga, cd dramas, musicals, anime/movie. So even if they might not be part of the main timeline, it probably best to think of each title as it own world with connections to other things in the series.
That... Does't even line up either though? By the time you have to do the first Jail (shortly after Joker comes back), it's *July* (specifically 7/25).
6 months before that is *the end of January,* which is before Royal's final battle on February 3rd.
Like Bubbletea said, that's around when Joker's still under arrest in the "correct timeline" without Akechi's interference.
Frankly it'd just be better to accept Morgana's words as a vague impression of time passing rather than literal proof, because it matches up with *neither* final boss.
Errrm actually, Persona 5 Tactica can only take place in the Royal timeline because Joker has a grappling hook, which he only gets in royal. Fake fan smh you have to DELETE this video RIGHT NOW!!!!!! (jk luv you bb)
Super Smash Bros also takes place in the Royal timeline since Joker has a grappling hook, so I can't believe he didn't mention how important that game clearly is to the Persona 5 timeline
Also violet appears in the game as dlc, with her own story.
Ok but fr, I feel like the Grabbling Hook just adds more to Joker's personality.
I watched Royal first so it was kinda surprising to find out that it wasn't in the OG game lol
I remember people getting VERY bent out of shape over how Royal CAN'T POSSIBLY be canon to Strikers just because Sumire and Akechi aren't there. Most of it just comes from simps for those two who refuse to play anything they aren't in. My original stance is "it's like vanilla P4 Arena, which was made before Golden. Then Ultimax came out after Golden and showed that was canon"... and then Tactica happened. But even without the DLC, Ryuji in Tactica brings up "nosy councilors" at one point, as one of the annoying things about Shujin, which could ONLY be referring to Maruki.
I admit, I like the concept of P1's split routes and wish it was in more things: you pick one route and someone else handles the other. Both are still canon, it just depends on which one your PoV party chooses to go on. (Actually Fire Emblem Sacred Stones also did this for its mid-game route split. The two protags split off and you choose to follow one of them, but the other twin's events still happened)
...I don't get why people question the canonicity of FeMC. Q2 explicitly establishes that the FeMC Route exists as an alternate universe to the Male MC route. There.
And yeah, what you said is true. Persona games are designed so you can play them in any order, references to earlier games being limited to cameos. I'm glad they used Chihiro, a minor Social Link, as the one major P3 character appearance in P4, instead of a party member.
But to contradict the point of this video a little, one thing people also debate is whether Persona 1 and 2 aren't in the timeline anymore due to writers issues. Actually a few TV broadcasts in P5 VERY late into the year make vague references to P2 characters, and all the P2 TV references in P3 were kept in Reload.
Dang
At the end of Royal it's implied that Akechi is alive but not in contact with the protagonist, and that Sumire is gonna be taking her gymnastics stuff more seriously, so I have no idea why people didn't assume that in Strikers they exist but they're just... Not talking to the protagonist for the duration of the game. It's such a simple explanation.
There's no way the FeMC timeline doesn't exist, but people will go out of their way to ignore a female protagonist because misogyny. If the people who argue against it are totally okay with MCU having multiple timelines but refuse to accept it as a possibility for Persona despite all the evidence otherwise then they're just hypocrites 🤷
@@Nyxakeyin There's an unused scene in P5R that makes it FAR more explicit that Sumire is travelling the world training for gymnastics, in a way that links up well with Strikers. Not sure why it got cut, it would've clarified things. (Especially since Sumire gets basically no epilogue in the final game outside of showing up for a few lines in the ending cutscene)
@@BigKlingy I WISH Atlus kept that scene in the final game. It would’ve been a more satisfying way to end off Sumire’s story in Royal than what we got with Sumire simply saying “take care” to Ren and that was it. Maybe Sojiro would’ve told Ren that he got something in the mail and it would’ve been a package from Sumire since she’s preparing to leave for her gymnastics training and he would’ve gotten a letter saying how much Sumire appreciated Ren and his patience with her the whole time she was Kasumi and she would’ve gifted Ren her red ribbon and her old gymnasts ribbon to show how she’s trying to become herself as Sumire and Ren can take them to remind himself that Sumire is trying to accomplish her and Kasumi’s goal to be the best in the gymnastics world and make it to international competitions.
Idk at least it would be better than what we got instead in Royal.
For FeMC, there's a big, big difference between "canon" and "this exists in an alternate timeline in a game where it's events have no long-lasting impact."
Honestly, trying to discuss "canon" in a series where so many games are entirely separate and don't interact in any meaningful way is hard, because there isn't a singular canon timeline, only a string of products and connections between them. The timeline is about as conductive to an enjoyable play experience as Legend of Zelda's, or SMT's.
As much as people want to dimiss Kotone, they don't really have a reason to do so. Especially given her involvement in Q2 confirms that she exists in a parallel timeline where she existed instead of Makoto
People dismiss Kotone cuz Atlus themselves don't seem to care much about her.
I'm not surprised about it, Kotone's entire existence was to just justify selling the PSP version cuz without her P3P is objectively a downgraded version of the PS2 game. I don't think Atlus ever intended her as the face of P3 as much as Makoto or Aigis.
The stated reason we don’t have FEMC in “Reload”, is that they would have needed to rebuild so many assets that it would have cost more money than what we got *plus* “Episode Aigis” on top of what they already spent.
Make what you will of that; if you’re skeptical I can’t blame you, I don’t really know enough about it. I am inclined to believe that, since Kotone never had a full release in terms of content due to PSP limitations, it was probably more than Atlus was willing to chance on it.
@@awoga2299 kotone was reason why I bought the psp one.
@@awoga2299 they care, just not as much as they do about the other protags. She is still featured on Persona CD art for example
At the very least in promotional artwork (especially the recent 25th anniversary of Persona), FEMC is included alongside all the other protagonists in Persona’s history. It’s not like they’re actively TRYING to erase Kotone from existence. PQ2 being a solid example with them explicitly stating that Kotone exists in a parallel universe to Makoto so technically they BOTH exist, just not at the same place at the same time.
Instaclick click, I didnt watch the metaphor video because IM PLAYING THE GAME AND ITS PEAK
Same. I haven't had the time to finish it yet, so I'm avoiding all discussions surrounding the game until I do
It’s okay. Too easy and the story takes a nose dive
Is the music good and does it have little menu animations for each menu, like how your character in p3 reload gets submerged in water for the in battle item menu or the save menu?
@@omensoffateif I hear the word “anxiety” one more time I’m going to vomit
Fr
in 5 strikers case, even if the game is in the original timeline, there is no reason that the same events wouldn't happen in the royal timeline, the third semester wouldn't stop the creation of sophia and emma, and Joker would probably still visit leblanc during summer vacation
Plus there is unused cutscenes or code in the game files that hint to Akechi being in a rehab center (presumably the same place his mother was treated in and lost contact with Joker to focus on his own rehabilitation) and to Sumire going around the world to seriously focus on her gymnastics career by being herself as SUMIRE and not hiding behind a ‘Kasumi’ mask anymore.
So there is nothing to DENY that Strikers can take place after Royal even if Ren or anybody else doesn’t explicitly mention either Akechi or Sumire. Akechi’s case is that Ren legitimately doesn’t know for sure what happened to Akechi since they lost contact. Sumire’s case is probably Ren being considerate about Sumire’s dedication to her gymnastics career and doesn’t want to distract her from achieving her and Kasumi’s dream. They probably stay in contact from time to time in Ren’s off time.
Trinity Soul already contradicted Persona 2, since Baofu is 32 and a persona user. The entire cast of Eternal Punishment is actually 18 or older.
persona 1 contradicts it because of kandori and his lackey who's name idc about, persona 3 FES, reload or the vanilla game also contradict this because of takaya
Everytime FeMC hate was brought up my brain just went: You dislike P3P because of FeMC, I dislike P3P because of missing cutscenes, voice lines, and other content. We are not the same.
I feel like getting caught up in the idea of a single 'true' canon for Persona is an exercise in futility. Much like Mass Effect, certain broad strokes are canon, but a lot of things are up to the player's choice. It's your world just as much as it is Atlus'. Still, it's fun to look for subtle easter eggs and minor inconsistencies. And declaring Trinity and the Naoto manga non-canon is a-okay in my book.
I feel like the same could be said for multiverses... Like srsly what is the point in including multiverses in so many franchise, if they don't contribute something unique to say about the overarching story. Like a lot of times, I think exploring new concepts in the existing universe is more interesting than branching of to multiple universes, but that's just my opinion.
People are gonna lose their minds when Mass Effect 4 has to acknowledge a canon ending for Mass Effect 3. Why can't people just realise the developers don't always have timelines and canon planned out from the start, and eventually they have to make stuff up as they go along to suit their needs and not the fans?
11:53
"Just include her in arena Ultimax, don't make a big deal out of it, and it just works!"
-Todd Howard
Dead ass who I thought about when I heard that too. 😅
I remembered the persona 5 strikers interview. The director said it follows the P5 timeline.
But Atlus wants to make money, so I believe they would add P5R characters wherever they can in other future spin-offs (if any).
But I do agree with what’s said in the video. The devs try to make the timeline kind of ambiguous in spin-offs so that everyone can enjoy the games more as standalone, without having to play other spin-offs.
with how the timeline splits and stuff like the yukari's bow incident this genuinely just feels like the whole "mega vs no mega timeline" situation from pokemon
Why would anyone think the Persona Rereleases were in their own timelines that’s separate from the original releases.
That’s kind of the dumbest thing any fan of other video game franchises would hear.
Listen, Trinity Soul might have sucked, but it gave us Burning Men's Soul, which is a thing of great power.
Check it out, I'm in the house like carpet
@@CasuallyConsistenttoo many heads on my blunt and I won’t spark it
I think another funny think to look into is Persona powerscaling because of how absurd it is. If you look into it, Persona is unironically one of the strongest fictional franchises ever that would wipe a vast majority of fiction just because it's connected to SMT and has some fuckery from dds2 that just makes the entirety of SMT really broken. It's stupid and shouldn't really be taken seriously, but if you want to giggle just look up male protagonist Persona 3 vs battle wiki.
Almighty skills are funny af to powerscale
we will never know if persona stomps jojo or vice-versa
Even someone who just has an all-reflect/null persona is practically invincible to everything unless the enemy has some sort of attack akin to an almighty spell.
@@Dazaiki No, you can also just use something not present in their game.
Like, Demi-Fiend is immune to everything except almighty when he has Masakados.
And then he can still be hurt by Earth and Gun attacks (in DDS and SMT4A respectively), because SMT3 doesn't have those.
The intent of "Snow Queen" is that it takes place before Sebec, basically the idea is you complete Snow Queen and move on to Sebec Questline wise, but from a gameplay perspective "Snow Queen" does serve more as a "challenging dungeon gauntlet" hence it isn't forced into the main game story.
6:52 ok hold on hold on hold on, i think you might be mistaken, Mary's Resolve could also very well be referencing Mary from Soul Hackers, the zombie like maid of the Goumaden
Just to react to the thumbnail, Golden and Royal contain everything that was in their base games. With the exception of some voice lines (all of Chie's and Teddie's, some of Yu's and some of Margaret's) Golden was pretty much Persona 4 with some new stuff added in, while Royal was exactly that with the changes being cosmetic to a degree.
People don't watch Metaphor videos because of spoilers
And a lot won't play it until Metaphor Refantazio Golden or Royal or whatever is out
I'll watch the ReFantazio video once I actually finish it 😂
Wait until you find out about the Shin Megami Tensei timeline or go further beyond that and look at the entirety of the Megami Tensei/Digital Devil Story franchise. Persona is just a small part of a much larger world.
I know it's controversial, but I'd love a persona 3 spinoff based on the femc timeline so we could maybe see an older shinjiro. I really wish we could've seen him grown up/ with an awakened persona/hear his thoughts of how femc saved this life (theoretically).
I really love the idea that if femc route almost like the butterfly effect then shinjiro being alive is a possibility but I can also honestly see his social link being the canon one if it’s not aki or aigis. Aigis still likes the mc regardless of gender which is cool, but there’s something that feels just right about Femc being able to positively changed shinjis life and leads to a happier outcome for him, even if he’s in a coma for most of the game to still stand in for the fact bro gone from your party lol. (Also IK the answer is as controversial but apart of me wish if portable got it it was about shinjiro getting femcs power even if they probably wouldn’t go that far… I just think with what I said in mind of him being the canon love interest instead + he got to live because of femc it be so raw)
i hate to be that guy but he's gonna die from the persona suppressants he was taking anyway
@@jerry3115 shinjiros fate after the femc route is unknown, and chidori was also on the suppressants for much longer and turned out fine. While it's not confirmed he's alive, it's also not confirmed he died either. I'd like to think the kirijo group pulled some strings and got him on some treatment.
Plus it would be interesting to see in a hypothetical Episode Aigis FEMC edition how Shinjiro would be handling Kotone’s death. I would imagine he’d be filled with regret that he is still alive when Kotone should be as well, but when Akihiko and the others probably told him what Kotone had to sacrifice to save the world, it’d probably hit him like a truck. Plus it would be interesting how Shinjiro and Metis would interact in the hypothetical FEMC edition of Episode Aigis.
I always assumed that Shinjiro also died on that roof with Kotone.
The true timeline was the social links we made along the way
Erm you didn’t mention how the beginning of smt1 still played out and they were able to stop the nukes which is why IF is able to happen 🤓
pretending that liking FeMC is still an underdog take is contrived.
The Fandom doesn't reference Trinity of soul? Sir you must not be in the house like carpet. If you were maybe you'd C, velvet, turtle.
I didn't watch the Metaphor video because I'm still playing
it’s so bizarre to chase some ephemeral idea of what viewers want to see instead of just making good stuff that interests you. Why would I watch some pandering paint by numbers crap made to get views rather than made because the creator had something to say?
I believe that the Metaphor video didn't do so well because of people who haven't played it and don't want spoiler.
At least for me it was that
I’d love to watch the Metaphor video but I have yet to start the game (planning to next week) and I want to go in as spoiler free as I can! I just have a ton of Metaphor videos in my Watch Later for this reason
i have only not watched the metaphor video because i am currently playing through it and i don't want to get it spoiled for myself lmao
bro seems offended that his metaphor video didn't meet expectations lmao
Man, the answer is yes to everything, every possibility in an SMT game even spin-offs are cannons because they reside in one of the various possibilities existing in the Axiom, by the way, Persona is not inspired by SMT, it is SMT, it is one of the spin-offs with different target audience like Demi Kid, Lost Bible or Jack Bros, besides that, there are a lot of original content on mangas and anime
I interpret base P5 being the events of the game from Sae's understanding with Royal being closer to Joker's perspective. Yoshizawa and Maruki have nothing to do with the Phantom Thieves, so Joker would have little reason to bring them up. Jose just randomly bumps into the team in mementos thus has no relevance, likewise. Akechi's confidant ranking up automatically was Joker name dropping him at key points for Sae to take the hint. And the third semester being at least partially an illusion and at that point the team has no reason to keep her in the loop could be why she wouldn't remember it either.
But by that logic, wouldn't we not experience other condidants either, since they would be just as related? (Like Chihaya, Yoshida, etc.)
@halaiazedwick203 yoshida helps teach negotiating. And chihaya was tied in that cult, which the leader turned himself in, so she'd vaguely recognize her.
@@79bigcat Kasumi helps with gymnastics and Maruki helps with mental training. The reason Joker hangs out with them is stated to be metaverse related, the same as the other two. Maruki LITERALLY studies cognitive psience if you get far enough in the confidant, and Kasumi will always awaken to a persona in an unfamiliar palace. There is 0 reason Chihaya or Yoshida would be more pertinent to the interrogation. In fact, they are less relevant than the other 2.
@halaiazedwick203
The reason Joker would tell Sae is because she literally asks
@@sonicdml4175 LOL, Sae has dialouge about Maruki and Kasumi's help when their confidants start too.
The main thing why I didn't watched the metaphor video is, because I barely had the time to finish it yet. Just finished the island part, and am really hyped for how it continues!
I mean... technically any playthrough (and adaptation) is a different timeline because no playthroughs are the same, so... Everyone can just make their own timeline in their head anyway 🤭 And somehow that still works better than other franchises that do have official timelines. Debating about stuff like that can be fun, but in a lot of cases it gets needlessly serious, even though at the end of the day, it really is something that doesn't matter. It's great when things fall into place, but the games are separate enough for each of them to take place in a unique timeline as well and I think that's pretty neat 😌
Time marches on, and the era of a new king draws near.
I will never be whole again until I get some new FemC content literally anywhere. 😢
The fans got you covered. The FemC mod for Reload is nearly finished and "Moonlight Daydream" is a really good fan animation for a potential P3FES FemC route. There's also a lot of really good FemC fanfiction. I'm actually writing one myself that puts a new spin of the FemC route by FemC being a reincarnated Makoto with all the memories of and development from P3 who was offered to relive the events of his last year of life "from a new perspective" by Elizabeth in order to try to find a better solution to stopping The Fall. I make up that Minato (my preferred name for FemC) was actually a closeted trans girl all along and that's FemC is so much naturally happier than Makoto was. Post-character development + gender euphoria can do a lot. Also, this version of Minato is a lesbian so obvious shenanigans ensue.
Not sure if it’s just me but I love alternate realties in games/media, which is why the Megami Tensei timeline is so interesting. Still waiting for the day Ds1 makes a cameo though
P1 and 2 worked. Obviously.
P3 sort of could work with the timeline too. Dark Hour stuff, sure. It's an isolated thing.
But then they decided to do the same thing again twice. Each time there's a different dimension. No more human psyche affecting stuff, it's just random nonsense stories. Sure 4 worked as a murder mystery, but 5 absolutely did not. 5 is the case of "flashy visuals over substance", and yeah, it just further destroyed the Persona universe. It's just nonsense now, whatever the heck works. Sure, P6 on the internet or inside the phones, yeah let's go. As long as it looks pretty, people will play. But it's just that, no substance.
Ive been thinking about just this recently. Few i dont gotta research this myself. Rip metaphor my goat
Dude I still haven't even finished Metaphor so I'm avoiding spoilers about it
duh
I made a meme with Sumire and strikers and got bombed with comments screaming that strikers isn’t canon to royal
Yep…… that’s the toxic side of the Persona fan base for ya. Although to be fair, there isn’t anything saying that Royal COULDN’T take place before Strikers as much as Vanilla P5. Just because Sumire isn’t mentioned at all doesn’t immediately make P5R not canon.
@@leohernandez8751 If there's anything you can do to avoid it, it's to not interact with the Fandom (at least online) and enjoy it as a Not-Online Persona Fan.
True
@@oriongear2499 Yeah, that’s a valid point.
@@oriongear2499
I love Persona as a Street Fighter Fan
Really agree here.
I think people care too much about persona's canon in regard of this outside factors.
Yes, the content in the games should be treated as canon as it's shown...
Why does things like "canon mcs names" or "canon endings" matter that much?
There is basically zero difference if persona 5 endings is vanilla's or royal's, the only game that follows that ending is strikers... which doesn't contradict neither.
I think caring less about this type of "canon" is better. I always despise when people try to force call a ending canon in games that don't need that formula (like silent hill 2 if you want an example)
@@ammieferreira6148 "canon romance" might be the worst offender.
@@awoga2299 OOF, that is a WHOLE other can of worms the franchise has had over the years. Take any persona game and mention “canon romance”, grab the popcorn and enjoy the show I guess.
@leohernandez8751 there is another recently uploaded video about the "true" romances, and it's existence annoys me lmao.
like we really don't need more fuel to the fire with this debate in the Persona community, let alone for a thing that doesn't exist.
Completely agree. The entire concept of arguing over what is or isn’t “canon” seems silly to me.
@@awoga2299 It's a videogame, not the the bible. Why does this people care so much about canon anyway? If it has multiple choises that don't contradict each other or the main lore... than there is no canon choice.
Im aware the point of this was to talk about how persona timeline shenanigans arent like zelda timeline shenanigans. But hearing u talk about Trinity Soul awakened this burning desire in me for Atlus to readapt it into a game.
I liked your metaphor videos 🙂
I think it's just not as highly searched or recommended as Persona
Same
Nah, it's cause people don't want to get spoiled, while playing the game. It's that simple
@@benjaws5263 that too
Persona timeline is another thing about this series that Atlus doesn't take all that seriously as much as the fans.
Great video tho.
the kuzunoha agency also implies that devil summoner, soul hackers, soul hackers 2, and the raidou games duology all happen in the same timeline as persona but mayhaps in different branching paths. you can even see references to raidou in games like persona 5 where appart the cosmetic clothes, there's an in game item called kuzunoha's tube, which is a device raidou kuzunoha the 14th uses to capture demons instead of a demon summoning program. Lets also not forget that SMT IF is a what if situation for SMT 1, making persona a branching path from SMT 1 SMT NINE SMT 2 and the SMT MMORPG game. Funilly enough this makes persona 5 more connected to shin megami tensei 1 than shin megami tensei IV is to SMT 1
1:53 iirc she does off-screen right before the king leo boss fight in innocent sin but loses
unless you meant on-screen...
You and marsh should do a collab. It would probably blow up.
Didn’t even know there was a metaphor video tbh it never notified me about it… damn UA-cam…
You missed some of the most important aspects of the SMT timeline. You would only call it the "Persona timelime" for the algorithm boost, since a lot of the games are connected. Persona is not its own series, it has and will always be part of megaten and is a subseries/branch as much as Devil Summoner, DDS, or Devil Survivor is.
1: Raido 1&2 are canon to Persona and are the earliest games in the main SMT timeline. Raido 2 has 3 endings each leading to a vastly different timeline. Raido 2 law leads to SMT1 and SMT2, Chaos leads to SMT3 and SMT5, and neutral leads to the Devil Summoner and Persona games.
2: Law Timelime goes like this: SMT1 Pre-timeskip, SMT Nine, SMT Imagine, SMT1 post-timeskip, 50 year timeskip (SMT1 neutral is canon), SMT2. (SMT2 Law is canon, world ends and everyone dies)
3: Chaos Timeline. SMT3, True Demon is the canon ending, Demi and Luicifer fight The Axiom, lose, go to another world to fight the God of Law which is SMT5's world, kill him, SMT5 happens, either CoV Law or CoC True Neutral is canon. Possible split in SMT3 where Freedom Ending leads to Strange Journey Redux where any of the 3 "new" endings are canon.
4: Neutral Timeline. SMTIf instead of SMT1, then OG Devil Summoner, then Persona 1, then Soul Hackers, then P2 Eternal Punishment. (P2 Innocent Sin is non-canon) Both the Snow Queen Quest and SEBEC are canon in P1. Female route is canon in SMT If. Good endings are canon in Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment. (only affects the fates of certain characters and not the entire story result)
5: Neutral Timelime continued. P3 Aigis the Last Mission, P3 Reload up to the beach episode, P3 Em, the rest of P3 Reload, P3 Reload Episode Aigis, P4 Golden, P4 Arena, P4 Arena Ultimax, P4 Dancing, P5 Royal, P5 Tactica, P5 Strikers.
6: The PQ games and P3+P5 dancing are dream worlds and didn't really happen. All the bad endings are non-canon what-if senarios. P3P FemC is an alternate timeline and another what-if. In P4G True Ending+Golden Epilogue is canon considering P4 Dancing. In P5/P5R either the Good Ending or the Royal Ending are canon since the only people changed by the difference are Sumire and Maruki who arent relevant to any of P5's spinoffs, but strikers was made with the base game's good ending in mind and not the Royal Ending but can still happen after the Royal Ending it just doesn't tie-in as seemlessly.
7: Nyx and The Axiom are connected. In primordial times the alien god Nyx crashed into the planet and became the moon, and with its sacred plumes gifted humanity with the concept of "death." Death gave life meaning and purpose, but in order to prevent humanity's inherit pursuit of death gifted by the plumes, humanity developed a collective unconcious and a cognitive world within that collective unconcious called "The Expanse." The Expanse was inhabited by thought beings known as "daemons" that were shaped by humanity's thoughts, beliefs, ideals, ideas, concepts, and various other things..
8: Long ago, daemons were worshiped as gods, and through humanity's reverence of them they gained power. But the most powerful of the daemons, the embodiment of humanity's desire for order and peace, essential for establishing early civilization, decided for Himself that He alone should have absolute power and authority, declared himself the sole God and cast down all the other daemons, removing their "knowlege" or their "ability to gain power through worship."
9: A servant of the God of Law, the angel Lucifer, was angry and jelous that humans refused to bow to him, so he planted a tree which contained the daemon's knowledge and tricked humans into eating from the tree, giving humanity a part of daemonic essence which manifested as brain stem cells known as "magastuchi" which could be manipulated to perform "magic." The God of Law deemed this new power an "abomination" and cast humanity out of his paradise. Daemons sought to feed on humanity's magastuchi (brains) so they could use the cells to form a vessel to inhabit the physical world with with the eventual goal of finding their knowledge and challenging the God of Law.
10: In some timelines, the harsh yet just God of Law was corrupted by humanity's belief into a wicked God of control who hated free will and freedom in general. Thus the Great Will, the True God who sent Nyx to grant humanity the means to ascend, brought for "massiahs" to slay these wicked gods and free the worlds they controlled from their tyranny. Meanwhile, in some other worlds, the God of Law continued to rule as a kind and just, but harsh overseer of the world, while daemons still lurked in the shadows.
11: Daemons from SMT and shadows from Persona are quite literally the same being, thought beings created by humanity's collective uncomcious and shaped by their wills and belief and can be either good, evil, or neutral, lawful, chaotic, or neutral.
12: All humans in megaten are part-daemon due to their knowlege inplantation, which allows them to use magic with enough training or sometimes even turn into daemons themselves or fuse with them.
13: All the areas you explore in Persona (Dark Hour, Shadow World, Metaverse), are all either literally the Expanse or places in space and time where The Expanse and the physical realm overlap.
14: In the multiverse of SMT all universes are on a cycle. They are born, shaped by humans, are destroye d, and then are reborn, being reshaped into a new form by humanity wills. This is called the "Mandala System" and is a constant across all worlds in the SMT multiverse. All worlds will eventually end, be reborn, and then end again. The only way to escape this endless cycle is to reach enlightenment and ascend like Steven (and arguably the P3 protagonist) did and what Philemon, Igor's master, desires for all humans to acomplish.
15: In SMT5, it was an alternate timeline of SMT3 where the conception was prevented and ended only dragging Tokyo into the expanse. The rest of the world in SMT5 is perfectly fine.
16: In SMT3 it's conception was not at all part of God's plan, neither the God of Law or The Great Will wanted the world to end when it did. The Freedom Ending is basically the TRUE ending because you save everyone and restore the world. Everything else, including True Demon, is a bad ending.
17: Devil Survivor 1 happens in arguably the same universe as SMT3 and SMT5 since God is actually good in that timeline, and the True Neutral Route (Gins route) is the canon one where the government covers everything up.
18: Devil Survivor 2 is its own seperate continuity disconnected from the first game or any other SMT since it has its own seperare low and its own cosmology. In DeSu2 for the first arc a combination of the Perfect Liberator and Kingmaker endings is canon and for the second arc the Record Breaker ending is canon.
19: DDS is its own universe where Brahman won the throne, not the God of Law. The Sun in DDS collects data from all worlds, including the worlds of SMT1/2 and SMT3, which is why Satan and the Archangels from SMT2 and Demi Fiend from SMT3 appear as superbosses.
I will watch the metaphor video as soon as I finish the game I promise I just started man
Royal, Golden, and Reload are just the Vanilla Game Stories with More
I was just waiting to finish netaphor to watch your video, my bad
Didn't want to watch the Metaphor video because of spoilers
Saving for when i beat persona 4 and 5
0:00 I just haven't had time to play it for myself yet. My backlog is long and adulting is hard.
One thing that I always believe is that Persona 4 and 5 party members do not evolve their persona in their direct sequel so Social Link may or may not canon in their direct sequel.
Also, is Persona 4 the true ending that defeats Izanami canon or not? Because if Izanami is defeated, then both Persona 4 Arena shouldn't be happening because there is still TV world and shadows and stuff
im glad you shot down the "p5s is canon to p5 but not p5r" theory bc i always thought it was dumb
Honestly? probably the best conclusion ive heard regarding the multiverse. Good video!
Literally everything in the smt/persona universe is canon due to the Amala network, so it actually makes no sense to discuss what is canon
0:05 I actually think this would be a good video down the line (whether from Bubbletea or someone else). As much as I liked Metaphor (I had my qualms and criticisms but overall came away from it positive, definitely on the higher end of experiences with Atlus games), I really haven't noticed any staying power with it the same way I saw with Persona 5 back when I was introduced to the series. Now granted Persona / SMT was always fairly niche up until 5, and 5 took some time to grow into it's own (especially with how weird Atlus used to treat streaming guidelines back in the day). And Metaphor HAS only been out for 2 or so months. But I say it's weird because Metaphor came out of the gate HOT. Like 1 million units on launch day hot. And yet it's playerbase decreased to the point that it's now on par with Persona 5 Royal's Steam database numbers (in terms of trend it's slightly higher - 6k on average vs. P5R's 5k - but P5R tends to hit higher during peak playing time). And that wasn't recently either, that's been observed since I want to say mid-to-late November. Anecdotally, I also haven't seen a ton of traction when it comes to fan content, whether that be art, analysis, etc. Sure you have the dedicated Atlus channels that cover it, and I've seen some really good fanart, but outside of it's bubble I haven't seen much. It's definitely there, but not nearly to the extent that 1 million out of the gate would imply. And the views really haven't been there outside of the first month. Not to mention that the game is rated T and (in theory) should be more accessible. Just something I thought was interesting as I wrap up my 100% completion of the game
Did i just discover persona cybershell?
Twilight Town theme playing was sick
Saving this video for later don’t know how long it will take me to beat all of the main line games. But I will definitely watch this when I’m done.
Beat:
Persona 5 Royal (December 2024)
Work in progress:
Persona 5 Strikers
Persona 1 psp ver.
Only reason I haven’t watched metaphor vid is cause I’m still playing it
I always find it nuts that the first SMT is canon to the Persona lore. Yet it's never talked about that the world was almost nuked.
And any world that references Soul Hackers means a world where Nemissa existed.😂
It never make sense to me why people make a big deal out of it, as the timeline is pretty linear with little divergence. It starts with if, P1, Devil Summoners, Soul Hacker and P2:IS, which then create a new timeline after IS ending that the rest of the series followed, starting with P2:EP, P3, FES, P4G, 2 Arena games, P4G epilogue, P5R, P5T, and P5S.
Strikers was simply developed concurrently with P5R, hence there are little to no reference until Tactica DLC reinforced that Royal did happened, just like first Arena game released before Golden so no mention of Marie until Ultimax.
Trinity Soul is obviously non-canon since it contradicts the prior lore. P3P is a more in-universe parallel divergence as PQ2 shown. Reload does contradict Arena games and PQ series, but it's pretty minor that wouldn't affect the story at all.
The only games that kinda questioned the canon placement is Dancing series and Soul Hacker 2, as P4D has Naota talking about Apathy Syndrome as if she and others never learned it from Arena game as I remember she did learn about it from a Kijiro file in Ultimax, while Soul Hacker 2 era is way too technological advanced for the realistic setting of Persona series. Tbh even I find it hard to fit Soul Hacker games to Persona series due to the cyberpunk setting.
No way im hearing Blow My high insreumental in the start of Persona vid,am i tripping😭?
I’m pretty sure smt v takes place after the innocent sin time line around a year before P5 because they reference kamoshida going around soloing teams. And how creepy he is.
I will say, I purposefully haven’t watched the metaphor video yet just because I’m still slowly making my way through it and want to form my own opinions first
Really hope if they remakes P1, they choose Yukino Mayuzumi as the leader character for the Snow Queen Quest and then have Brown or Ayase to be the one that started the Snow Queen curse instead of the MC/Naoya/Jihei
Multiple timelines have been a thing since the first Raido Kuzanoha game introduced the Amala Network, so really there shouldn't be any issue with all games being canon
Hell, STEVEN pulls protagonists from all the SMT games to fight him in SMT4A
TL;DW; FeMC is the only canon timeline.
So the series was even more shit all along... Fatlus, I kneel
"Yeah, the latest version of any mainline title is canon."
"What the fuck how am I supposed to keep track of that"
I love being a persona fan
I am avoiding everything metaphor in case of spoilers.
... only just got around to playing P3R since I figured its finally on sale enough. (Played P3P and FES before but something always happened to my save around december in game time, so never beat it before... just got to december again so hopefully nothing happens again.)
(Still have to play persona 1, and eternal punishment since I lost my save from around the Joker Ulala fight too)
Ive always been of the opinion that the only real canon for a long standing series is whatever game youre playing says it is. Not including like world breaking retcons and the like, i see them the same way i see different tv shows using the same cast (example being tmnt)
When it comes to anything that I personally believe is Canon to the Persona Timeline, it's these:
1. Persona 1 (PSP)
2. The Persona 2 Duology (PSP)
3. Persona 3 FES
4. Persona 4 Golden
5. Persona 5 Royal
6. Persona Q1
7. Persona 4s Arena + AU and Dancing All Night
8. Persona 5s Strikers and Tactica
There are other games that I consider canon such as the Raidou Kuzunoha duology (which I believe take place in the P2: EP Timeline) and SMT if..., but I just wanted to focus on Persona Games specifically.
Edit: Then again, Persona 3 & 5 Dancing could easily take place during the 3rd Semester since the memory-wiping that happens at the end of P5: DIS could be interpreted as Levanza erasing the PTs' respective memories of those events so they can focus on defeating Maruki toward the end of the 3rd Semester.
I heard a theory that the innocent sin reality becomes the other world the shadows are from. Idk if that fits bc I haven't played the old games yet but it sounds interesting
I kno im not the only who likes an order to these things. Not having a canon from game to is fine but spin offs that are supposed to be in canon with the main title should. Cuz alot of us look at these as whole stories like then seem to be doin but when you have glaring mistakes and say oh there not canon invalidates some stories or completely kills the immersion.
I hope you go back to refantazio content. I have to beat veilguard before I start it.
What's frustrating is that all the P5 spinoffs seem to ignore P5R
HE REMEMBERED HIS PASSWORD
It’s been like 6 days
To be fair, I do consider re-release versions to be on their own separate timeline, most of the spinoffs for the most part rather work better with vanilla versions anyway. Although they do mix it up for no reason, I get that they are trying to do "all is canon" thing, but I honestly wish the games were more neatly tied.
But yea, I agree that doesnt really matter, in the same way I think people who care about a "canon protagonist name" are dumb, when its a game with a nameable protagonist, which that alone invalidates the "canon name".
Time for more cut content
I love your videos and i have watched most of them, to be honest, the only reason i haven´t watched the video about Metaphor Refantazio yet is because, due to financial reasons, i´m still like a monthe or two away from being able to get the game and i prefer to avoid spoilers of any kind, even gameplay. Not sure is this is reasons others haven´t watched it, but i personally plan to watch it as soon as i play the game.
9:31 I feel like that’s a big generalization. I actually find Femc really cute I just don’t like what she does with Shinji. Ruins two of my favorite awakenings.
I mean, you technically can romance Shinjiro without completing his last SL and he’ll still die… If that makes any better; still keeping with the P3 themes there.
@ he was going to die anyway, but again it ruins akihiko’s and Ken’s whole thing. Like it honestly, makes it less believable that the answer even happened the way it did in Femc timeline.
I *would* like FeMC but I can't stand Bishi Akihiko or the Pedo Ken romance and the dog social links. Also, the entire character arc for the MC was that he had escaped death two years ago and having returned to the city after being based off by all of his other relatives he was basically doomed to die so her vibrant personality was at odds with her story. And her Persona/projections should have been female because, you know, that's how Jungian psychology works. Basically, she was cute but the story was not adequately rewritten to accommodate a female protagonist.
Not gonna lie, now I kinda want spin-off persona games that take place in split timelines. Give me a Strikers game that take place in Royal's bad ending.
I haven't played all the personas and that's for good reason. This series seems so ass to get into. First it's SMT. Then it's spin-off. Then it's own thing. Then it has multiple endings but at the same time it doesn't csre about those endings. It's a pointless series. Press Turn is very braindead because of how they try to balanceit by using SP as a very limited resource. Unfortunately it doesn't really matter as you can make a single party member so strong you don't need a full team.
I didn't click the Metaphor video because I'm still playing it. Big ass game and I'll be damned if I get spoiled. In due time.
Why I didn't watched Metaphor:ReFantazio - I want to play it myself (I'm still in my first playthrough)
I didn’t watch the metaphor video because I’m in the middle of playing it 😢
i just wanted to have fun on my first p3p playthrough and so just went with Kotone cause she is cute so when i shared my favorite characters i got bit of flake for putting kotone so high and makoto as they exist (when you play as Kotone you litterly learn nothing about him so he just exists i only know some things from memes which isn't exactly a reliable way to know a character) ^^'
Still gotta finish Refantazio, else you *know* that shit would've been devoured at work.
Tbh only not watching the metaphor video because I don’t want anything spoiled before I beat it
The Persona timeline is like the Zelda timeline: fun little references here and there but not something the devs actually take seriously
Large part of discussion is left out by not referencing Shin Megami Tensai. So first off you can be a SMT and Persona fan. Second off SMT does reference specific endings over others. What this implies is much more detrimental to the audience than you'll initially understand. Because multiple endings are kind of the key take away. So let's examine SMT specifically V. So it's a direct sequel to the other games but also not because it is specifically referencing the Tre Demon Ending from SMT3. This is BOTH bad and good. It's good to give a continuity but at the same time why? By doing so you invalidate the purpose of having multiple endings. That's why acknowledging a continuity for games all about "Choosing how it ends" is fruitless. SMT shot itself by having sequels to a multiple choice ending and aaying only one is valid. Persona is having the opposite problem. Now there's no valid timeline so everything is just left up in the air as to how much it really matters. Which greatly changes my own personal feelings towards the games. There's honestly very little reason to have multiple endings. I have never seen this concept pulled off in a way that's satisfying. I don't even care if it makes "sense" but none of this is fun to think about. It's just a headache.