any games similar to SMT in terms of themes ?

[qw90700]

the philosophy of making the self by who you communicate with and your social status is an interesting one. I didn't caught this when I played persona 3. so correct me if I'm wrong but what I get so far is that the game mechanics is entangled strongly with whom you'll choose to make stronger boundaries with. I guess with this in mind I can get along better with all those "deciding to who to hang out with" options and care more about the social decisions, thanks for the explanation.

Simply put Persona games uses "personality development" system to make you able to use stronger "creators you can use in battles" because these creators are a product of human mind so your "mind" has to get strong to use your "mind" to battle, which simply put these creatures are manifestation of your "mind".

In that context Persona 3 introduced the social stat system. It's simply has the logic of to make X character make you even care about your existence in their personal life you gotta develop your "Knowledge" stat by studying and reading books. Naturally an ignorant person cannot talk with knowledgeable person, they can only listen instead lol. So by developing social stats you can form relationship with people in later Persona games as friend or lovers, it depends on you, however what matters is max relationship level so you can unlock stronger "creatures" we call Persona as they are "social mask" and the creatures you fight against are "shadows" as in "rejected part of true self of people". After all it using Carl Jung's theories, and this is why SMT games have connection to mythology.

To make it simple and quick to explain, one of the Carl Jung's theory is mythologists, despite time and culture difference, they all have particular human elements. This is because humans are humans so they do human things. That's why humans comes up with human types as stereotypes like "wise man" and "caring mother" types. Because of this human aspect, every people belong to a "type of personality". For example a "hermit" is a person type that society wrongly calls them "introvert", and a "trickster" is a person type that most popular example is Bugs Bunny and Loki. Where things get complex is what the Persona games are about. So when people accept their true self, they realize, for example they are a "trickster" so thus they can "function as a healthy person" because they know what kind of person a trickster is so they live their life by it. But when a trickster rejects their trickster self, they will become a delusional person who is an empty "social mask" instead and thus their trickster self "turns into a shadow" by being the most negative and crazy aspect of a "trickster type". So in the game people become aware about this stuff and thus they gain the ability of Persona that's a healthy manifestation of a social mask and thus they awaken a mythological being that fits into their person type like a trickster type so the creature they can use is a "trickster type" in this context so the mytological being a trickster may initially start to use could be Loki or Hermes. It depends on whichever mythological being the person feels close to themselves for whatever reasons they have. According to Carl Jung's theories whatever personality you have, there are a mythological beings that you can feel close to yourself the most. Then that being would be your Persona!!! lol. Well Carl Jung would say your interest in mythology is not a random hobby but an awareness you have about who you actually are. It means you are beyond the limitation of this physical world, you are very connected to humanity itself... but it would be up to you to think what that would mean!!! lol

about the Persona 5 being a spin-off of spin-off of spin-off I think I get it. I had a Persona-fan friend who loved the games, he always said that "the third one has more gloomy vibes and the forth one is happy" but when it came to the fifth one even though he played it more than those two he always would say "well, this one is a different deal, but I'm not sure how to put it in words. it just has really cool characters" and the way you said they wanted to expand the high-school sim/dating sim aspects of the game makes it clear for me why my friend couldn't just explain the identity of the fifth game like the other two, and mostly talked about how cool the characters are instead.

Well IMO Persona 5 is broken version of a mix of Persona 3 and Persona 4 as in it maintains a serious tone yet it's not so serious as much as Persona 1 and Persona 3 and then it also try to be a "bleak not sincere happy" that's not like Persona 4, not even Persona 2. Persona 5 feels more like they took some "happy" stuff from Persona 4 and reused the same idea with bad execution. As a result the game manages to not be "happy" despite tries hard to be like that and its seriousness more close to be like Persona 3.

Well whole theme of the Persona 5 is "being cool" and that's all about it which is why the game was so successful. The game is really cool and stylish. Peak visual and musical art IMO lol.

I guess you are right about it, I'm just kind of more used to the SMT at this point and I need to kinda go looking at persona as a much different concept in some ways to understand it and connect with it, again maybe paying from the first ones helps soothing the transition and also I can see it your way how the game changes into these sub-branches and spin-offs.

Well starting from Persona 1 would be better for sure because as the series goes on it lacks features and the features that remains changes so gotta relearn. It would be a hard time to play Persona games from 5th to 1st for example lolol.

Relatively Persona 1 has more features for battles but less overall features for gameplay. The game is simple and simpler for SMT gamers so it's a great starting point.

But then Persona 2 is so different due to anime elements translated into the context of a video game.

However after Persona 1 and 2 playing Persona 3 feels like "dude I'm playing a different game" when I imagine when you had start playing Persona 1 you will feel at home. Persona 3 was a weird game because they changed Persona game style and they had no idea what they doing but testing the water. And then whatever you disliked in Persona 3 is "fixed" in Persona 4. And then Persona 5 is more like "weird opposite reflection of Persona 4". As the Persona game gets newer the more it gets complex, however Persona 5 got more easier on obtaining the creatures we call Persona.

In the end every Persona game has its own uses due to the themes they have:

Persona 1 offers high replayability for a good spoiler reasons.

Persona 2 is for those wanna play a game that's like an anime.

Persona 3 is for those who is an emo still living in early 2000s depression and edgy life style lol.

Persona 4 is for those wanna experience meaningful friendship and heartwarming situations as playing the game kinda feels like taking a nice vacation with friends despite murder mystery and supernatural stuff.

Persona 5 is for those they always wanted Kaitou Kid game or they just wanna play something cool in thievery theme lol.

So choose your Persona wisely and find the Persona fits your face the most!!! lolol

 

[Cantarella]

I remember playing the first one and it was very hard but also pretty fun, sadly I didn't paid attention to the story and trace of any mythologies back then but I'll revisit it and play the second game thanks !

Could just jump straight to 2. It'll spoil some stuff from 1, but if you really want to go deep into the mythology stuff immediately, just playing 2 is probably your best bet.

 

[Irman]

heyoo sorry for the late reply, wanted to find a fitting time to read your explanations attentively.

you can unlock stronger "creatures" we call Persona as they are "social mask" and the creatures you fight against are "shadows" as in "rejected part of true self of people". After all it using Carl Jung's theories, and this is why SMT games have connection to mythology.

I think I got it now, specially the shadow part was a questionable for me before, not sure if they themselves explained it at the beginning and I missed it or it like gets more clear farther in the game, I only opened Persona 1 or 2 a few days ago I remember and it was talking about that famous saying that I woke up and "I saw a dream of a being a butterfly and not sure if it was the butterfly dreaming of being a human or me dreaming of being a butterfly" I assume that is also related to Carl Jung right ? that sounds interesting I like to read more about Jung and his books someday.

It means you are beyond the limitation of this physical world, you are very connected to humanity itself... but it would be up to you to think what that would mean!!! lol

Woah ! really interesting stuff ! I checked and saw he is a psychologist, but his views on mythology and it's relation to humans and humanity field is really mindful and reminding me of a few Videos I saw from a Iranian sociologist recently sadly his stuff aren't available in English so I can't share but to explain his views, he would also say aside from the spiritual sides of believing in mythological (which because you believe them they will effect the way you think thus will effect your actions and then you find yourself that some creature that seems to be fictional at first is actually really playing a role in your life indirectly because you mentally believe in it or like it), it really does physically effect people and plays a big role in shaping social paradigm and motifs and tones, thus a country with the majority of a certain belief/religion can also effect the atheist side and should be taken serious. now I know it wasn't completely related to what you said but that way mentioned how mythologies show you are very connected with humanity itself instead of like something un-human like what it looks like at first, reminded me of this. it's also wonderful how they manifested it in a way of a secret-like knowledge that a handful of high-school student found out about and they use it to their advantage is fascinating.

Well whole theme of the Persona 5 is "being cool" and that's all about it which is why the game was so successful. The game is really cool and stylish. Peak visual and musical art IMO lol.

ah so it's safe to say that it took some elements from the past titles altogether and tried to combine them into a new thing, however you feel like it failed to represent the happiness like in Persona 4 despite all their hard try, right ? and yes I can agree, I haven't played the game even for a minute but anyone who sees the cover art of Persona 5 (and probably other ones too) they can see how it's shouting out stylishness and beautiful visuals, lovely job they did on the visuals I agree. haven't heard the music tho.

It would be a hard time to play Persona games from 5th to 1st for example lolol.

you're right about playing from 5 to 1, instead of seeing how it developed to what it is today, we'll see how it regress(not in a negative sense) to what it once was.

So choose your Persona wisely and find the Persona fits your face the most!!! lolol

thanks a lot for your explanations I'll keep them in mind when going through Persona.

Post automatically merged: Aug 3, 2025

Could just jump straight to 2. It'll spoil some stuff from 1, but if you really want to go deep into the mythology stuff immediately, just playing 2 is probably your best bet.

it's fine, I think I'll play the first game first just in case, even if they're not directly related it sets the base better for the second one, thanks !

 

[qw90700]

famous saying that I woke up and "I saw a dream of a being a butterfly and not sure if it was the butterfly dreaming of being a human or me dreaming of being a butterfly" I assume that is also related to Carl Jung right ? that sounds interesting I like to read more about Jung and his books someday.

Well it's fundamentally a concept that has relation to Carl Jung's theories. The quote is actually from a very old "Butterfly Dream" anecdote of Zhuangzi.

He simply mention about how we are being not actually live in a definitive "reality" but we live in a reality that's product of our own "dream" reality which is actually neurologically true. All brain does is generating a reality by being effected by external data from sensory organs, however it's more like seeing a dream despite you are awake. Some people are closer to see "the truth" that we can call facts but some are more prone to believe in not-so accurate aspect of real life. Everyone is greatly effected by their subjectivity but some are the most.

So Carl Jung's ideas are also about that but this is like 0.1% of what he wrote about, however Persona games relatively very small aspect of Carl Jung's theories as it's not just about how reality of people are and also about how this reality also about what people share and we simply call it "objective reality" but to Carl Jung there is way more about it and it seems things are "supernatural" in the context of what most people would think.

Woah ! really interesting stuff ! I checked and saw he is a psychologist, but his views on mythology and it's relation to humans and humanity field is really mindful and reminding me of a few Videos I saw from a Iranian sociologist recently sadly his stuff aren't available in English so I can't share but to explain his views, he would also say aside from the spiritual sides of believing in mythological (which because you believe them they will effect the way you think thus will effect your actions and then you find yourself that some creature that seems to be fictional at first is actually really playing a role in your life indirectly because you mentally believe in it or like it), it really does physically effect people and plays a big role in shaping social paradigm and motifs and tones, thus a country with the majority of a certain belief/religion can also effect the atheist side and should be taken serious. now I know it wasn't completely related to what you said but that way mentioned how mythologies show you are very connected with humanity itself instead of like something un-human like what it looks like at first, reminded me of this. it's also wonderful how they manifested it in a way of a secret-like knowledge that a handful of high-school student found out about and they use it to their advantage is fascinating.

This is actually a small part of Carl Jung's theories. Yes, he was a psychologist but he was more like human-fields scientists kinda no different than Einstein in this context. It means he was not limited by the field of psychology, he was exploring whatever scientific field that may possibily related to humanity. In his own way psychology was like surface level of laws of physics so he gone deep into quantum and was curious what's beyond of quantum level too.

So in Jungian psychology, for example the existence of Loki because of a side of humanity that's basically a rebel. Loki and related trickster characters could exist just because there are human genes for it that make people "a rebel". Naturally just because a human can be a rebel naturally they will come up with rebel characters. And why humans tend to create similar ideas is just because it's how human brain works. However Carl Jung has theories that goes beyond on what actually a human is and why everything they do is in X or Y way that goes supernatural and goes beyond laws of physics, even quantum lol. If Carl Jung has a merit of being right we will have to question that existence itself is not what it looks like and laws of physics are just the way how this "fiction" works so there may be a reality beyond this "fiction".

ah so it's safe to say that it took some elements from the past titles altogether and tried to combine them into a new thing, however you feel like it failed to represent the happiness like in Persona 4 despite all their hard try, right ? and yes I can agree, I haven't played the game even for a minute but anyone who sees the cover art of Persona 5 (and probably other ones too) they can see how it's shouting out stylishness and beautiful visuals, lovely job they did on the visuals I agree. haven't heard the music tho.

Yeah. For example Persona 1 is more like a result of SMT games. Persona 2 is just because of anime popularity. Persona 3 is because of popular emo culture of the time and they wanted to develop a game that's more like Persona 1 as a "vibe" because they had no idea what to do. Persona 4 is relatively a very different game in the context of SMT and Persona games. They really didn't care about anything else but to actually develop a game "they wanted". I mean Persona 4 is the only "sincere" game in the series that doesn't try to be like something else. Yes they used anime logic and all way more than Persona 2 and all but they actually used that logic for the benefit of what they really wanted to do. You can say it's like the whole development team enjoyed what they were doing despite they really didn't care to develop a SMT or Persona game, yet it still very much a SMT and Persona game perhaps feels like one way more than Persona 2 and 3. When it comes to Persona 5 you seem to have a sense of yet again as same as Persona 3 they had no idea what to do so they used a "safe bet" to produce a game. I like Kaitou Kid anime and I really like the artstyle of the game whether visually and soundtrack-wise which Persona soundtrack tend to be really good with the exception of Persona 1 and 3 but Persona 5 is the only game in the series that doesn't care about SMT and Persona identity the most. Persona 4 kinda indicated on that but Persona 5 is more like a spin-off game in the context of the series. However bad aspect of Persona 5 is, it was okay that it wanted to do its own thing similar to Persona 4 but Persona 5 was too much "wannabe" of Persona 4 just to "satisfy" Persona 4 fans however Persona 4 aspect they tried to use on Persona 5 didn't felt "properly fits" at all and they even did a bad job to be wannabe at it anyway.

thanks a lot for your explanations I'll keep them in mind when going through Persona.

Well come find me if you have Persona related questions!!

 

[Irman]

If Carl Jung has a merit of being right we will have to question that existence itself is not what it looks like and laws of physics are just the way how this "fiction" works so there may be a reality beyond this "fiction".

well this whole thing and Jung ideas are so interesting I do really want to read his stuff now. since I just remembered other than Persona there is another game made by Sega called, "Nights into Dreams" and if I'm not wring that game also was inspired by Jung theories.

Well come find me if you have Persona related questions!!

thanks a lot qw90700, really. these things sound like you learnt them by hours of experience and research and I could see you talked about them knowledgably and with passion and because of that I definitely feel like I already know so much about the game for a beginner to the series and I do really appreciate that.
Yes ofc I would like to talk about the game with you again after playing it for some time, thanks again.

 

[qw90700]

thanks a lot qw90700, really. these things sound like you learnt them by hours of experience and research and I could see you talked about them knowledgably and with passion and because of that I definitely feel like I already know so much about the game for a beginner to the series and I do really appreciate that.
Yes ofc I would like to talk about the game with you again after playing it for some time, thanks again.

Sure anytime. And I can say after finishing any Persona game you will learn x100 about these topic yet in the context of Jungian psychology no Persona game even in the context of the series as a whole was ever about more than 0.1% of Carl Jung's theories. He has lots of theories and he had lots to say about psychology so his ideas are made of lots of diverse topics regarding whatever is and may be related to humanity.

Well I actually learned about these stuff just to be able to get my university diploma lol, however despite our education only covered all of these without going deep into details much I personally saw the necessity of learning about his theories so I read all of his book especially because I'm sucker for psychology topic so I like to learn about such stuff for my professional and personal goals. As a result I awoke my 3rd and last persona Motaritilvistar and gained the ability to shape real life to my liking!!! *he imagines an outcome for him that he will eat a Nacho Cheese Doritos and a truck carrying Nacho Cheese Doritos loses its control and rolls over so hard one of the Doritos flies up and lands into his house* lolol