Episode 6 Story Discussion

[Krystalwitch]

I could've sworn the story quests have a solo PD fight before ep 5. No matter - freeing Persona, even with Matoi's help, is a much greater achievement than just beating PD normally.

That was added as part of the onmibus quest, which btw does that with every single boss.... and that doesn't mean you actually fight them alone, it's just because story quest is a solo quest. And if you check out the cutscene that follows that PD fight, you can see many Arks in the flower field in naberius while you talk with Xiao and Matoi - everyone was there (plus there's also that Arks level thing with the EQ version).
Freeing persona is a great achievement, yes, but it was a risky bet that "only" needed you to weaken it to use Hitsugi's katana. It's way easier than beating it because even both guardians can't achieve that (plus don't forget Persona has restrained themself in several other occasions).

I'm not buying the "we are warriors who depend too much on photons" explanation - even if that's what Sega intended as a message then you, as a player character, never get offered an alternative to using photons, so now it feels like you're being punished for a choice you never got to make. Unless Dark Blast counts, but for some reason ep 6 seems to forget you even have that ability to begin with.

An alternative to photons was never even considered because there was no need to, that's actually the point itself, lol. Also Dark Blast is also photon powered, no point in there - plus all the falz agreed to help us with fighting Elmir, if they aren't lending us their strength again there isn't much we can do about it. They may appear again to save us if we need it, who knows.

There's also a difference between "it wasn't going to be easy" and "your actions are meaningless and don't matter". It's a serious problem of agency and disempowerment. I know it's hard to have player agency in a game like PSO2, with a linear story - but you can at least have character agency. Which is to say, are the actions of the player character impactful and do they make a difference?

Even as early as ep 1, there was player character agency. One of the very first things you do is take a detour to find Matoi, and I don't have to say how impactful in the long run that was. But in episode 6? All your actions were meaningless so far. If instead of participating the Guardian decided to stay home and take a nap, events would have unfolded in exactly the same way. Your presence doesn't matter, you're a passive observer. Sega tries to mask that fact by having the PC fight during cutscenes, but those fights are meaningless. You're fighting not to win but to hold the enemy off, yet the NPCs don't have any issues doing that by themselves. When Varuna retreats, it's not because of anything you did either. You fail to make a difference by getting to Sara in time - she has already failed to defend Kashina, but that also was meaningless because Xiao gets brought back anyway.

A good storytelling practice is to remove all elements that serve no purpose. When that element is the protagonist, you know your plot has problems.

EP1-3 we were just following Xion's wishes, she even made the matterboards for us so we could save Matoi.

If we took a nap, let's see... Maybe the AIS wouldn't have get improved since we helped with that. Lisa wouldn't be that cooperative ('cause she is thanks to us deciding to and saving Matoi before), meaning that both Matoi and Zeno could have been killed in the mothership invasion by Mitra and who knows what else. Quna probably wouldn't have helped in Amduscia if we got to that, even if Sarah got to the core she would have got killed, or not have got the courage back to try to help Xiao...

Yeah, story would have unfolded pretty differently. It's not hard to see that our presence and actions are full of meaning and guide many other characters, because thats what we've achieved after all these struggles and bonds we've formed - no, it's not meaningless, it's just the opposite.