The other night, there was all sorts of Persona announcements and it was a pretty great time unless you were actually watching it as it was happening. Because that was a nerve-wracking experience, I'm told, what with Atlus trolling the shit out of everyone. On a molecular level. Which is...admittedly fun to experience after-the-fact as a sort of educational bit of how to endlessly torture someone in the span of the hours the actual event covered during the announcement parts. Regardless, the important part is the games that they revealed in the event and not so much the means with which they did so. Even if it was just...just hilarious and fantastic on some schadenfreude-laced level.
Probably the second-most high-profile announcement of the night was that of Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth which will release on the 3DS in June of 2014. Details were scarce at the time of announcement, but we've since learned a few more bits about it. First, there was a trailer (linked to the page, not the video itself) that showed off a good bit of the gameplay alongside some words in the actual page itself that seemed to suggest, yes, the SEES Team from Persona 3 and the Investigation Team from Persona 4 will be crossing over, but not in some sort of free-for-all. Which...is kind of weird to say when the actual video shows Yu, Yosuke, Mitsurugi, Yukari and Aigis in the same All-Out Attack, but they basically mean for story purposes. Which is precisely the wrong way to approach a cross-over game, but, hell, what do I know, I suppose. Not like I wanted Brosuke and Junpei to brofist and thus uncreate the universe through a Bro-Singularity or anything awesome like that.
Of course, there were even more details meted out since then, but they're fairly sparse in what's actually being revealed. The game takes place in Persona 4's school though there seems to be a Persona 3 Tartarus theme to it since there's a clock tower that just sort of appears out of nowhere and is rumored to usher in the death of all who hear it ring. You know, normal stuff. Of course, it also seems like there will be Day/Night sections to the game, as the page mentions school events as things that will happen that allow the P3 cast and P4 cast to have some limited interaction. Honestly, that means that it really just sounds like Persona 3 at Persona 4's location with both teams....which is fine by me. The same dudes on Persona Team seem to be handling the game as well, though perhaps not in their usual roles. Still, Shoji Meguro will be producing the soundtrack which means it's going to be awesome. Certainly something to look out for.
Probably the most....special announcement of the night was that of Persona 4: Dancing All Night for the Playstation Vita. If you were wondering just what would come of the recent buyout of Index by Sega Sammy, well, here's the first proper product of it. Dingo, the developers of the Hatsune Miku: Project Diva games are the folks behind this, so if you bought either of the versions of the game that Sega decided to localize over, you know, any fucking other game at all, then you'll know exactly what you're looking into here. From what I can tell, there's only Yu Narakami, Rise Kujikawa and a new character who has a Megidoloan Cute smile and a name I can't quite parse nor do I care to google for because ehhhhhhhhh.
I'm not really sure what I think about this game. I see the 3DS getting what essentially looks like a proper Persona game that's a cross-over of P3 and 4, albeit with an unpleasant art style for me, and then I see the Vita getting...a rhythm game. A rhythm game that only pulls from Persona 4 in music, and only has three announced characters that might not actually get more characters. I'm hoping there's going to be more to the game than what we've seen, but I'm just not seeing -how-, and that coupled with the knowledge that it'll still release at full price (as in likely $40) just seems to drag my potential mirth for the game to below sea levels. Especially since it's all but dashed my dreams of seeing Kanji do a righteous step to Mass Destruction. That's right. Tell me you don't want to fucking experience that now so I can call you a goddamn liar.
Persona 4: The Ultimax Suplex Hold (I don't know either) is getting the highly-expected Playstation 3 port next year to match the Arcade release of it. Uncle Dojima's partner Adachi was revealed as one of the new fighters in it, alongside Yukari and Junpei who were announced months back. That's...uh...
Yeah, that's about that.
So really, there were some assorted announcements and they ranged from pretty interesting to "okay", but overall it wa-
Oh, right, there was one other thing announced. Some little thing that you might not even really care about called Persona 5.
Persona 5 was announced for the Playstation 3 and will release sometime in "Winter" 2014 in Japan, which most likely means Winter Quarter which is...you know, the tail-end of the year. Which means we probably won't see it on American shores until 2015 and what part of 2015 is very much up for debate. After the other announcements, I'm sure you can guess, but there aren't very many details out there about the game except for a few tidbits released later. Tidbits that are, apparently, the only ones we'll see during 2013 which is kind of disappointing, but it only further serves to feed the hype-machine which is...what they want, after all.
Like Persona 3 and 4, Persona 5 will take place in a high school setting, though the theme of the game is a bit different. Instead of facing the miserable truths of the universe ala Persona 3 and facing the miserable truths of oneself ala Persona 4, Persona 5 will be about 'being restrained by modern society' and the breaking of those bonds. They also claim that it's going to have a different 'mood', but it'll still be familiar and reassuring for the fans. Which...I cannot even really fathom what it's going to mean. Between Persona 3's sometimes-overly-depressive narrative and Persona 4's always-upbeat-even-though-we're-tracking-a-serial-killer tone, they've covered a rather wide swath of moods, but I suppose there's still ground to be broken, though just where it is, I'm not sure.
So basically there was just so much Persona announced which is good for us fans, since, well, more Persona is always a good thing. Just what titles we'll end up seeing in the west and when are up for debate, but the big one is definitely coming over so that's what matters. Still...the wait is going to be painful.
I can pretty much just list a bunch of Persona 3 songs that I want Persona 4 characters to dance to, goddamnit Sega
A few sidenotes from your friendly Haplo:
ReplyDelete1) The Dancing All Night newbie, Kanamin (Kanami Mashita) is -essentially- a new character, but she's not entirely unknown to Persona players. She was mentioned in P4 as part of Rise's S-Link; Rise notes that since she's stopped being an Idol, her company has started promoting Kanamin more aggressively- and some people seem to think the Kanamin persona is less fake than the Risette one.
2) Persona 5 is looking to have a Q4 2014 release date. It took them about 6-7 months to release Persona 4 and Catherine in NA, and another 6-7 months after that to release it in Europe-Australia. Meaning we might end up getting it here in Australia in... Early 2016. :(
3) The notes about tone are interesting. One of, for me, the major tonal differences between P3 and P4 isn't just its -mood- but its approach. Persona 3 had an 'anime' approach to it with the story being full of conspiracy and tension; the events of the game are put into place by events that happened ten years ago, and nearly all of the main characters are linked in inextricable ways due to past events. And most of the mains are either orphans or missing at least one parent, with the only main-cast exception being Fuuka. The events are grim and threaten to affect the world on a global scale.
3A) Persona 4's attitude is on the whole a little more subdued. The mains may be unhappy for certain reasons, but these are pretty realistic and it's easy to relate to them. Their background are on the whole a lot more conventional (Naoto coming from some kind of detective dynasty being probably the most unconventional). Ultimately, P4's more down-to-earth than P3- and that isn't a bad thing, but it makes for two pretty interesting tones.