Episode 5 Story Discussion

[Altiea]

Bumped has notes about EP5's Story Quests!

• Shared Story Progress: EP5 will be the first Episode to use this system! Progress you make in the story is global, so you can pick up where you left off on any character, instead of having to start from the beginning with each character.
• EP4~5 Mode: "EP4 Mode" will get upgraded to "EP4~5 Mode" after the update. While playing in EP4~5 Mode, you can swap between Episode 4 and Episode 5 Story Quests on the fly by talking to Xierra.
• Revised Cutscene Format: Reportedly, EP5 will have 2D cutscenes as well, much like the Portable series.
• Omnibus Quests: Get the scoop on EP1~3 with Omnibus Quests! Omnibus Quests let you run through the contents of Episodes 1 to 3 in a condensed format. Omnibus Quests will have drops too, and the drops can be stuff that were typically found on the Matter Board.

[Anduril]

I'm not too keen on points 1 and 3.
I really liked the fact that I could pick up multiples of rewards for running the story on multiple characters, so losing that kinda sucks in my eyes.
I guess it works to reduce the amount of cutscenes they have to make, especially because a lot of them have just been "let's stand here in the exact same position for 5 minutes talking," but I've really never been a big fan of mixing in-engine cutscenes with visual novel style cutscenes in games.

[AirinMikune]

But then how would they handle the conversation that requires your character? Or would they just use a generic place holder for your character

[Anduril]

But then how would they handle the conversation that requires your character? Or would they just use a generic place holder for your character

Usually, for silent protagonists, such as ourselves, the understanding is that these cutscenes are "first person," so they don't have to create a portrait.

[Dark Emerald EXE]

But how can i enjoy matoi freaking out when people.imply her and MC are a couple?

[loafhero]

I'm sure there's still going to be the standard cutscenes as last time and that the visual novel style cutscenes are just there to add more dialogue to the story without having to use so much of their resources. Chances are, these 2D cutscenes will mostly be used for heavy exposition scenes because who would want to go to the effort of animating a character talking about background information that may or may not be even relevant to the main plot? Case in point, Kohri's horrid exposition dump scene early in EP4 about "Phantasy Star Online 2" origins on Earth. Did we really need to have a full cutscene of her mouthing off all of that exposition towards Hitsugi who already knew all of that? That scene would have served better as a 2D cutscene with minimal animating.

That said, whether these 2D cutscenes is going to be bad or good wholly depends on how often its used and executed.

I've been wanting EP1-3's story content to be streamlined so I'm very happy about the Omnibus Quests. Goodbye Matter Board! I also heard that Alma will serve as the Omnibus Quest-giver.

[Altiea]

I've been wanting EP1-3's story content to be streamlined so I'm very happy about the Omnibus Quests. Goodbye Matter Board! I also heard that Alma will serve as the Omnibus Quest-giver.

I'm just curious whether finishing the final Omnibus Quest will serve as an alternate trigger for turning Persona into you when you fight PD, since as it is now, you still have to complete 3-8 for this to happen.

[Anduril]

Another thing regarding the 2D scenes is whether or not they are fully voiced. If they are not, it is likely that this is also a cost-cutting measure, since they can easily use characters whose VAs are unavailable or too expensive whenever they want/need.

[loafhero]

Looking back, voiceless, text-reading cutscenes are pretty standard of JRPGs. I'm surprised that PSO2 is only using them now as these types of cutscenes are very efficient. Even PSU had plenty of voiceless, text-reading cutscenes that only used recycled animations.

[Ryuhou]

Dude, it's 2017, not 2001.
This day and age any rpg worth anything has fully voiced and animated cutscenes. Can you imagine a modern FF without them?
TBH I doubt Sega will do this because that would inevitably cause huge backlash. So far 100% of the story has been well animated and choreographed and was fully voiced.
Turning that into a cheap 2D unvoiced story would piss off a large amount of people. Not to mention everything in the trailer suggests the exact same fully voiced cutscenes as we have now with FX and camera changes and all. This rumor is as baseless as everyone being convinced lvl 76-80 would not give additional SP.