[Guest]

PS: So what does a Mickey emote really mean then?

Mickey/Mikey... harhar.  Jeewhiz you're thick sometimes.

Oh you just went there

Look who's talking, Mister-"this thread is rife for philosophical discussion."  Although I think you meant "ripe," since there really isn't much in the philosophical bent in the whole board.

Let's pick apart your points here, shall we?

You're mearly choosing to adopt an easy purview of the human condition. Specifically existential humanism. Which is a great principal by which to articulate ground rules for a maturing society. But its by no means the bedrock of existence itself. If you attempt to appraise everything in terms of the individual, of course your notions of common-sense will differ. But you're playing with symbols, not concepts. The concepts themselves are patterns both macroscopic and micro which repeat and propogate themselves throughout the natural universe (however you wanna define that)

I can't tell if this is supposed to be Pavlovian or some weird, didactic version of New Age-ism but...  If you're trying to say that art/music can be judged good or bad (and applicable to the whole) based on how the art in question is constructed, I can sort of see where you're coming from, but patterns themselves have only so much meaning as each individual puts into them;  Art, by definition, IS existential.  Though patterns can repeat and are necessarily mathematical and can appear the same to multiple individuals, that has nothing to do with the emotional responses a particular piece of music can induce and/or memories that are triggered.  Concepts can be experienced communally but each response is different in everyone and categorizing music as listenable/unlistenable really only applies to yourself.  Even if you're going for "intellectual understanding," it's still your own personal response.  Own up to it.  You can't pass it off to consensus unless you're against an "intellectual understanding," as you put it and for quantifying all of humanity's emotional responses (which is impossible and completely pointless).

Small caveat, you're needlessly shifting the argument here away from "bad/wrong" to "evil" or mixing the concepts. Frankly evil is much easier to delineate than bad, as it is an absolute modality. Bad/wrong on the otherhand are purely situational in most realms of thought, however within the realm of atistic merit this is in most practical instances of debate not the case, so we're in the clear.

My small caveat: as I've put it before, "There are absolutely no absolutes," or if you prefer the less facetious version: "The only absolute is that there is no absolute."  Really you're just splitting semantic hairs.  You're the one who mentions evil first, my posts are in response.

Notice how you've gone from questions of taste to some very broad philosophical dilemmas (which I was attempting to avoid)

editted: Also notice, to say, "Wow I really like/dislike this music.", is a radically different statement than "This music is bad/unlistenible." Of course you can disagree with this observation, but then you're just mincing symbols again I think, which gets us nowhere.

Exactly as you maneuvered it.  I don't exactly see why laying the blame solely on me gets you anywhere since it obviously takes two to tango, as it were.  I'm well aware of the differences between saying you like/dislike something and saying its good/bad.  Originally I didn't make the distinction by mentioning I think before my first post, but I didn't exactly predict getting into a philosophical debate about the nature of art and music in general, though obviously you did somehow...  I wonder why? :program:

In the country huh?

Since P3 was in the city and the music was mostly pop, rap, maybe we'll get country music this time around. lawlz

Actually... that's an awesome idea!  The closest thing to Japanese country music is enka, which would be a welcome change of pace if ATLUS chooses to go that route.  And if they make it so you can go to more than six places in town that would be great too...

I don't get the glasses-thing though.  That just sounds plain retarded.  I mean, the whole suicide with guns thing I can sort of understand but eye glasses...? really...

...

Really?

EDIT:
I spy with my little eye... Izanagi?  That Soejima guy is really struggling with the Persona designs.  Anyone know who "Jiraiya" and "Tomoe" are supposed to be?

Hey thanks again!  Don't feel bad about the ISOs.  My copy of the first disc of Soul Hackers is too scratched to play so I had to do the same thing.

I was knocking myself for digging deeper into an analogy than was obviously appropriate. What is with the Mickey emote btw? A custom emote for taunting me? Or am I missing out on something?

Nah, the Mickey emote is in the smilies bar...  emeyesee-kayeeewhy-emohyouesseeeeeeeee  

Everyone knows there is a consensus for good/bad even if they don't really comprehend it / grasp the detail. To say otherwise any sane person would give you a dubious look.

Well of course that's debatable, I mean the only consensus that exists for good and evil is an arbitrary one of temporary attitudes and cultural movements relative to the times in which they are experienced.  And really your response is so dismissive...  The easiest and often most immediate reaction of people whose fundamental beliefs are challenged is to question the sanity of the challenger.

Its no different with music. There is no opposite culture out there. There is archetypes built into music and all forms of communication which are derived from axioms of reality/the very nature of being that probably transcend all concepts of artifice. You can't say 1 is arbitrary, nor is good music. Of course we discuss music, but really this a conceit of all art or even judgment.

I didn't say there was an opposite of culture, I'm saying that culture itself is nebulous and transitory.  And though I think what Freud and Jung had to say about cultural archetypes to be entertaining, it's essentially fiction and self-delusion to think that these archetypes could provide some sort of compass or insight into the nature of a broad-based and applicable (to the whole of the natural world) definition of right and wrong.

I'm not suggesting you have to be introspective to enjoy music. Perhaps quite the opposite. Chances are though if you're not you'll attach yourself to a particul imprinting of what music means at some point in your life and never be able to enjoy good music which comes from other venues. This association of music is really tied to sex/attraction, where as the alternative way to enjoy music derives pleasure  indirectly from the rush of intellectual understanding.

Attaching personal meanings to life (and naturally, music) is what being a human being is all about.  Sure I suppose listening to music (or experiencing any sort of art really) can be a transcendent experience but you certainly can't expect this of a casual listener, or anyone that's not a completely dedicated listener.  Experiencing music is an intensely personal experience, and everyone's experiences are essentially different, though perhaps not mutually exclusive.

Ultimately the measure of good music/art is the interest quotient, or how much is inspires you to think. And if you want a pure objectification, the measure is the degree it inspires god to think (where in god is defined as an all knowing/understanding singularity, or like a man that knows everything possible)

But see that's your own personal take on it.  It has nothing to do with culture as a whole or objectivity in any sense really.  Meanings and preferences are your own personal attitudes, not a generalized consensus to arbitrate judgments of a cultural good and evil.  Music, like all forms of communication and art, is existential.  Thus any sort of label ascribed to them, other than a personal one of course, is necessarily faulty.

The fact that you've *seen* Spartacus and are referring to it proves you have "bad taste."

What?  That movie's a classic.:lurk:

Right vs. wrong/good vs. bad is a statement of degree.  Of course Manson didn't just wake up on the wrong side of the bed, but he wouldn't have done what he did if he thought what he was doing was wrong now, would he?  And you can't exactly knock me for "stooping," to analogy when you essentially did the exact same thing.  

Following your logic assumes that there's some sort of arbitrary consensus for what's good and what's bad.  The distinction between goods and evils is a personal one.

Not to say I don't completely agree with you about the soundtrack.

I didn't say you couldn't judge music to be good or bad, I just said it's impossible  for that judgment to be valid since there's no good or bad that applies the same  to everyone.  It's like someone from LA saying, "This weather is terrible," and an Inuit saying, "This weather is great," when its 5 below and snowing out.

I don't think it's necessary to be introspective to enjoy music either, though I know it helps with certain genres.

Hey, you're awesome! :cheers:

BTW, if you don't mind me asking where did you get all the sprites from?

Thanks for these by the way, but does anyone have all the Devil sprites?

Who's the arbiter of what's good and bad taste though?  Some prefer snails and some prefer oysters and some prefer both, we've all seen Spartacus (hopefully).

I still think the music in P3 is crap, I just don't want to catch hellfire (pretty avoidable on this board though) for thinking thus.

Glad I'm not alone at least.  I just couldn't believe there wasn't one initial dissenting opinion...

Music is a pretty nebulous topic though, I mean one man's crap is another man's treasure, there really is no accounting for taste.  P3 was just trying way too hard to be contemporary/appealing with their soundtrack which is understandable to a point but makes for an entirely unlistenable experience.

Well, recently while experimenting with various disc images with both versions of the game I discovered the opening dialogs to be actually fairly similar. The major differences seem to be cosmetic but they obviously gave everyone English-sounding names and omitted certain details, like Ayase being a "ko-gal troublemaker" and so forth.  I haven't played extensively since all the discs I burned inevitably freeze after leaving the Hospital so I can't really say for sure.  I would imagine they had to be at least a little faithful to the plot.

With that code in place is the script still in English during the quest or is it in Japanese despite being the U.S game? I might have to invest in a gameshark for random things like this if that is the case.

It's garbled English text I think.

I'm finding more and more that I don't really like Persona 3 very much, if at all.

I wanted to give it a sporting chance but there's so much about it that sucks that I can't really play it anymore.  I mean you can't control the other members of your party?  Then why make it turn-based?  In fact, that's the only part about battle that is any difficult at all, is accounting for all the absolutely retarded actions of your party members.

The characters are lackluster; they're all really a bunch of stock anime characters really.  I can't think of one single character that doesn't instantly remind me of other characters in popular anime/manga.  The whole thing about Commu levels is just a joke.  You seriously just manipulate people to raise your Tarot card levels?  It's just not Persona.  I probably wouldn't have a problem with it if it was like a gaiden to the first two but since they put 3 on it... It's just kind of defeating... It's like, this was designed by adults you say?

Sorry to revive this tired old post but I just HAVE to provide some sort of counterpoint to all the apparent love the soundtrack is getting.

First of all, IT SUCKS.  I see a lot of people above seem to think it fits the mood/story of the game somehow, though I don't believe anything could be further from the truth.  I found myself constantly feeling how the soundtrack did not mesh with the game at all.  Move that body movethatbody make sure you don't hurt nobody?????  What the shit is that?  I thought I was playing a game about fighting evil shadows and summoning eldritch creatures with Tarot cards...  And then there's all those annoying horn-synths and that Japanese chick singing broken English BADLY.  I mean, seriously, what was Atlus THINKING?

If there was some feature about the game that required you to listen to the music (ala Mother 3) I would've declared it unplayable.  As it is, it mars the whole experience of playing the game.  However, there are a few tracks that do fit the game nicely, the Tartaros music is a good example, but the new Velvet Room music is god awful too.  I mean there are parts to when she's singing so high its almost ear piercing.

All in all, the music in P3 gives the whole game a very disposable quality, whereas the previous games could be looked on as rather classic.  I would never want to play through P3 again, whereas the MIP and P:Tsumi and P:Batsu I might think about fondly from time to time, even pop in and play for a bit.  I'd love to say that about P3, but I can't, if only because of the music, so I won't.