Andriasang got their hands on an issue of Famitsu for this week and spared no detail in delving into the delicious, delicious information within, as far as it concerns Atlus. And they're all Persona-flavored which, depending on your tastes, may just be the best flavor. While my dips into the pool that is Persona and, well, Shin Megami Tensei in general have been shallow at best, more Atlus news is always good, as Atlus is always good to us.
The first, and possibly most exciting announcement of the bunch, for me at least, is that Persona 4 is getting the portable treatment like Persona 3 before it, but unlike Persona 3 Portable Persona 4 will be a Vita title. Now you see where the excitement comes from right? Right, of course you do, because I am pretty damn transparent and am not at all mad at the fact. But it also does come from a place of genuine curiosity as well, since, well, I haven't played Persona 4. I own it, in possibly one of my few instances of gaming excess, but I have yet to start it since I have been told on numerous occasions that playing Persona 3 after Persona 4 is, for all intents and purposes, less fun than to do so in the proper order.
Of course, that would suggest that I have to play Persona 3 to completion, which I just haven't done yet. Despite owning one of the first run of Persona 3 prints, what with the art book and CD that came with it, as well as FES, which I found at a garage sale from a nice middle-aged couple who had simply exhausted it for themselves, I just have not sat down and played Persona 3 from start to finish. Mostly from crippling Game OCD, since I know that there is an incredibly hard-to-get Persona towards the start of the game that you have to follow a stringent set of activities in which to obtain. After trying to follow said set of activities, I quickly burned out and burned hard and drifted off to play something else.
With my PS2 time almost non-existant, I'm forced to look towards the PSP/Vita time for playing versions of these gems, so I imagine at some point I only have to purchase Persona 3 Portable and play it that way since I'm sure I'll find it much more manageable that way. Which.....seems a little strange and/or irresponsible but oh well, this is why I like the portable market since I can play it whenever I'm not playing consoles proper. Which....ends up being a lot of time, honestly! If I could rig up one of those handy portable console deals to play PS2 on whenever I wanted, I would be all over that, but instead I'm just having to rely on the generosity of developers to sell me their games on multiple platforms.
That said, the information on Persona 4 Portable, actually titled Persona 4 - The Golden, is fairly light. We know kind of what's going to be included, but details like if the game will be more like Persona 4 proper and less like Persona 3 Portable (basically in regards to losing the non-battle maps and, as such the barest of free-roaming aspects) haven't been really clarified. Then again, this is the first piece of information put out there about the game. Still, what we know is that, in true re-release fashion for the Persona series, there will be a new character, a girl named Mary as well as more voice-acting, new movies, some more elements that "fans of the original have heavily requested" whatever that means, and a neat-sounding wireless feature that will let you call out to your friends (nearby only?) to save you from certain peril in the dungeons. Somehow.
Also of note from the Famitsu information is that Atlus has decided to team up with Arc System Works (makers of the Guilty Gear and BlazBlue games, the latter pictured above) to work on a 2D fighter (surprise!) starring characters from both Persona 3 and Persona 4, taking place after the events of Persona 4. It's going to hit arcades first (surprise!) and then hit PS3 and 360 later on, but in what form, I'm not too sure. I'm....imagining they can't get many characters for a game, and as such I don't know if they'd do a disk version, but maybe they'll manage to flesh it out enough to make it worth that rather than a PSN/XBLA release. This, of course, might be showing my fighting game ignorance as well.
The article closes with the tidbit of information that Persona 5 is in the starting stages of development. That's.....about all that's been said about it, really. The usual Persona team is working on it, which is comforting, but no details on the game itself, platform(s) or anything else of the sort have been said. Just that a Persona 5 is indeed on the way. Honestly, do we need much more than that at this point? I mean....that alone is pretty sweet.
Update!: Siliconera has some screenshots of Persona 4: The Ultimate in Mayonaka Arena, which is the above-mentioned but never-named fighting game Atlus is working on with Arc System Works. They look rather nice, I must say! (I would embed one in here, but Siliconera links always go down and I am far too lazy to rehost it.)
I tried (and failed) to get into Nocturne, but I love, love love Persona 3 and 4. I probably put in 300 hours between the two games - and 4 is easily my favorite of the two. A slightly higher-res version of P4 is nothing less than a day-one special-edition purchase.
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