Persona 5

[Kong Wen]

Persona 5 was announced as a PS3 exclusive last year, and I managed to secure a pre-order for $35 during E3 (woot!) Now Sony and Atlus have revealed the game will be coming to PS4 as well! It's coming to Japan in 2015. Where all the TONe Persona peeps at?

[Niahak]

Definitely looking forward to this game!

I'm interested in seeing what direction the story goes. The teasers so far have indicated it'll focus on a sense of imprisonment / breaking free, with some likely commentary on bullying in schools and a setting of a big city.

I was really hoping for a more mature setting. While I prefer the flow of the newer Persona games, I liked the setting of the older ones, which focused considerably less on high school. I'm also a little concerned it will be really anime-trope-y, which has been an unfortunate trend of the PS2 games and expanded even further in the Golden re-release.

That said, I'll probably like this game regardless. I'm tempted to get it on PS4, since I'll most likely pick one up for Bloodborne anyway.

[Jelly]

I do sincerely hope this game will find its way to the PSVita eventually.

I personally enjoyed the high school setting in Persona 4, it was somewhat relateable, yet foreign enough to be interesting. High school was a good backdrop for one of the main topics of the game: friendship.

[Kong Wen]

I was really hoping for a more mature setting. While I prefer the flow of the newer Persona games, I liked the setting of the older ones, which focused considerably less on high school. I'm also a little concerned it will be really anime-trope-y, which has been an unfortunate trend of the PS2 games and expanded even further in the Golden re-release.

Do you think the "animization" is an Atlus trend, a video game trend in general, or perhaps a function of the "relationships" mechanics or something along those lines? I admittedly haven't played the latest entries in the series because I keep wanting to go back and complete the older ones first, which I have played, and which I remember being dark and anime-styled but not overly trope-y (if I get what you mean).

[VictorViper]

...High school was a good backdrop for one of the main topics of the game: friendship.

See, as far as trying this series, it's comments like that which remain the biggest single obstacle for me. I'm honestly not trying to shit on things here - I know it's a beloved franchise and, for the most part, I understand why. But these games are consistently touted as having excellent, mature storylines, which is great! But we're discussing M-rated games here, which usually involve high school kids, and a central theme straight out of elementary school. I just don't understand.

[Niahak]

Do you think the "animization" is an Atlus trend, a video game trend in general, or perhaps a function of the "relationships" mechanics or something along those lines? I admittedly haven't played the latest entries in the series because I keep wanting to go back and complete the older ones first, which I have played, and which I remember being dark and anime-styled but not overly trope-y (if I get what you mean).

It's hard to say. I don't think it's a function of the relationship mechanics, since IMO the worst offenders are the cutscenes while the social links are generally fine (e.g. bath scenes, beauty pageant, school trips). It's probably more driven by a market shift and not really Atlus-only. Catherine was actually pretty mature and felt very different from the Persona games, for example. Might get worse before it gets better, what with likely tie ins to an actual Persona 5 manga/anime.

The older games felt much different. I think it's because they don't isolate the world from the events going on. While in P1 and P2, the strange things are visible and affect the world around you (which I really liked - seeing the effects of the demon invasion on the police department in P1 was a lot of fun), in P3 and P4 the dungeons and truly odd events are happening during the midnight hour or in the TV world respectively, and your school life is isolated from that. It allows for the open-ended schedule stuff, but they throw in the tropes possibly as a "nostalgia for high school" thing.

[Claytone]

Adored Persona 4 Golden big time, so I'll be looking forward to 5. I hope the PS3 and 4 versions are more or less identical, because I really don't want to spring for a PS4 yet.

[Claytone]

This came out!

It's good so far!

[Kong Wen]

I had an ancient E3 preorder for the PS3 version, which I cancelled. I'll have to hop on the PS4 version at some point...

[Jordan]

I went to buy it and then one of the prongs off my PS3 power cord broke.

It may be awhile until I get a chance to play it. I'm trying to get a new one.