Saturday, 14 February 2015

Persona 5 (Its Coming, The Hype Is Real)

There are no words, if you haven't seen the damn thing, the video is above, click it to watch it in all its glory and fabulous glamour.

I know I'm late to the party, but I've honestly been busy pretty lately. I was a few days late to the trailer (and this post is at least 10 days late), but better late than never. This is it guys, we've waited YEARS for this shit to drop, and here it is. "Persona 5", its real, its coming, its not a myth, and it looks amazing. No, amazing doesn't even come close to describing it, just from this trailer alone, I've came more times than I ever have while watching porn. Yes, its that good.

Now then, I'm going to wipe all the white stuff that's been splattered all over my desk for the past 10 days from watching this trailer over and over again. I'll get back to you in a bit about what I think about this game.

Story And Concept

So "Persona 5" is going to be pretty different (and yet similar) to the previous 2 games, "Persona 3 & 4". For what's worth, we're going to have a "Phantom Thief" theme going on, which is quite...unique. To be fair, all the previous "Persona" games have had some sort of theme going on for each one of them, and "Persona 5"'s theme may be the weirdest one yet. Its weird, but at the same time, its something new that we haven't seen before. A group of thieves (like Robin Hood or the Assassins in AC) can be a really cool concept when put in contrast with SEES of "Persona 3" or the exploration group of "Persona 4".

We seem to not know too much about our protagonist as well, but we DO know that he's a transfer student, that much has been confirmed. How does he fare into the whole thief thing? We do see though, that his variation of the Velvet room is now a prison cell, and he's trapped behind bars while in it. How this affects him or how it comes about, we don't know, but I can expect a darker over tone this time around. Maybe not as bright and cheery as "Persona 4", but somewhere along the lines of "Persona 3". I'm hoping to see a mixture of the 2, a cheery cast like that of "Persona 4", but a more dark story like that of "Persona 3". Still, we get to see the entire cast run around in jumpsuits and masks, as the theme "Phantom Thief" comes into play. How does this play out? Once again, there's not much we know, but I'm excited to see it bear fruit.

Visuals And World

Now this is a freaking big deal. While the previous "Persona" games looked pretty good for games that were released in the previous era, its no longer acceptable if we get something like a minor graphics upgrade. Luckily, "Persona 5" looks...nothing short of amazing, in terms of the visual aspect at least. The world looks so much more colorful, the graphics, polished. It uses the game graphics engine as "Catherine" (which I still have yet to complete), but a lot more well refined. Character models are great, and while the people in the background do look a lot less fleshed out as our main characters, its still a massive upgrade from previous games, as the areas definitely look a lot more CROWDED and ALIVE, while in comparison to older games, where areas felt somewhat dead. We'll be able to walk in the crowds of Tokyo!

The experience seems to be a lot more interactive as well. People will be moving around as you do, making it feel as though you're really walking along the streets of Tokyo. The teacher throws shit at you as your main character day dreams about nonsense. Your character gets squeezed along the train doors in a train that's packed to the brim with people. Its just so much more dynamic and fun to watch now. As for the night aspect of the game, we don't really know how that plays out. We get to see the protagonist jump over Chandeliers and run through secluded corridors of what seems to be a mansion (even letting us see stealth elements of some sort). So yeah, the only area we got to see so far is a mansion that's creeping with these knight enemies. It looks good, can't wait to see more of how the dungeons look like (it appears that they'll be randomly generated again though).

Menu Speculation And Interface

There are no words. The brief glimpse of the menu that we got to see in the "Persona 5" was some of the most STYLISH things I've even in ANY RPG game. Talk about over-stylizing your menus. It would be pretty bad in other games, but this gets away with it because its "Persona", the theme is ALL about being stylish. As you interact through the menus, the character even switches poses like a model, its freaking cool. We've got the usual here, skills, items, equips, persona, party (which I guess let's you see stats and stuff), missions to track quests, and system for options. Cooperation is something that piques my interest, since we have no idea what that is. Co-op in "Persona"? Yes please, that'd be quite the treat. If not, I assume that's just this game's representation for the "Social Links" tab.

The shop menus also look like we've got something going down, because they look real good. We have the weapons shop menu and probably the medicine shop menu shown in the trailer. Props, we finally have a sexy school nurse to suck up to, sweet (social link route for her Atlus, it better be in there, please). While the medicine shop menu is nothing special other than just looking really good, the weapons shop menu tells us quite a bit. For one, there are 4 equipment slots. 2 for weapons, one for armor and another for accessories. This may apply just to the main character, but if its for everyone, that's a pretty swell, because in the previous "Persona" games, it has always been just one weapon. A weapon for melee and another for range? Now that's how things should have been all this time, if freaking Naoto gets a gun, I don't see how I can't get one. Now I get to choose a gun AND a sword (or knife)? Now w'ere talking.

Protagonist And Character Designs

If your game characters that look like shit, nobody will probably want to play your game. When it comes to "Persona" as long as Atlus didn't deviate from teenage age group when it comes to the characters, they are probably safe, because its already got such a huge following. At first, when I saw the old teaser trailer, the main character didn't look all that good, he was pretty much Yu Narukami, but skinnier and had curly hair. But in this new game play trailer, he looks really cool, ESPECIALLY at the end when he goes into some semi-Devil Trigger state that we know nothing of, THAT WAS AWESOME! I know he's kind of an anime Harry Potter, but come on, I'm sure this guy tops Harry in many ways. At night, he looks like Tuxedo Mask from "Sailor Moon", or a random masquerade fella from AC. Either way, I'm quite alright with our protagonist's design.

Now onto the rest of the cast. I'm just going to quote the internet here, other than our protagonist, we have what looks to be a grown up Naruto, Junko Enoshima from "Danganronpa" and a random cat mascot in our initial party. While they make good parodies of the above characters, I don't really have any qualms with them, they look cool enough. As long as they retain their crazy personalities as we have seen in the trailer, hey, I'm all for those guys. Design wise though, they're okay. The cat however, looks to be a really funky addition to the team. But please, make him less pun-driven like Teddie, we have had enough of his nonsense. Apparently, their names are Sakamoto Ryuji (Naruto lookalike), Takamaki Anzu (Junko's Doppelganger) and Morgana (the cat). There'll probably be more characters to come, like in other "Persona" games, I can't wait to see what shows up. As for other characters, we don't quite know who's who. We do know that we have an old man weapons seller, a hot school nurse, and...oh yes, Igor, that old fart is back as well. He's also sporting two new twin assistants, hopefully they are as charismatic as his older ones.

Dungeon Exploration And Battle

Oh god the dungeons...they look f**king sick. The moment I saw the main character jumping over chandeliers, I lost it. We're actually going to be able to INTERACT with the dungeons like we saw in the trailer, and hopefully with different dungeons, we get to traverse them differently, and not just have same dungeons with different skin designs. That alone gave me a hard on, and the possibilities are seemingly endless. Looks like we can also do falls or jumps, that could impact our exploration quite a bit. There was also what seems like a stealth segment somewhere in the trailer. Is there going to be an alarm system or something? I mean, that's a possibility, and I kind of like that. It adds more intensity than just running up to shadows and slapping them in the back for a quick preemptive strike.

And speaking of shadows, it looks like they're gone. As seen in the above image and in the trailer we're fighting what seems to be PERSONAS this time around. Are demons back? I can assume so. It may not be in "Persona" fashion, but its a thing that the SMT series has been doing for a long, LONG time, and the recent "Persona 3 & 4" games have been deviating from it by making us fight shadows. Fighting demons can be a nice change of pace, though I'm not sure how they're going to make it relevant. Still, it brings a lot of possibilities to the table. Can we persuade them like we usually do in other SMT games? Do we just beat them and they join us? Or was what we saw merely a boss battle that allowed us to acquire Personas? Either way, demons or not, I'm excited to see what they'll do.

Okay now THAT is one hell of a sick looking all out attack. I mean, HOLY SHIT, everyone looks like they're about to go ham and break the noses of their unfortunate foes. Makes you wonder what kind of personalities these guys have, especially with those expressions. Anzu looks like the naughty kind of girl, Ryuji looks like the mischievous gangster type, Morgana's all swag like, and our main character gives off the kind of look that practically spells "I'm gonna mess you up so hard that your mom won't even recognize you when I'm done". Either that, or they're all just trying to act cool.

The Devil Trigger...Or The DDS Transformation

As if the trailer wasn't hype enough, Atlus decided to throw us a little teaser towards the end showing how the main character "transforms", as a blue flame engulfs his eyes, then his face, then his entire body. We then get to the hear the "ching" sound that plays when any character in the "Persona" universe invokes a Persona. cool, I admit, but there's going to be a lot of speculation. Is that what happens when our characters invoke Personas in "Persona 5"? Does our protagonist actually BECOME the Persona, like how the characters in "Digital Devil Saga", another SMT title, turn into demons for battle? Or is this just some bad ass devil trigger esque mode that powers up our main character? Whatever the hell it is, it looks amazing, emphasizing that this new protagonist is a born badass, and he's more than ready to take over the likes of Naoya, Tatsuya, Makoto and Narukami as main character. Step aside guys, a new lead is coming in, and he's about to Personify our lives, just as you guys did before him!


I'll cover more of "Persona 5" as more trailers pop up, but for now, this first trailer has left me (and many others, I'm sure) one hell of an amazing impression. There seriously are no words to describe it, I'm hyped as all hell for this game. After being left in the dark for years and having to deal with remakes and spin-offs, Atlus finally gives us the appetizer. My body is ready for this has been since 2008, when I first finished "Persona 4" on my now dead PS2. 7 years Atlus, you've kept me waiting, but now that you've shown me this, I'll deal with it. I can wait some more, I've already waited 7 years, a few more months is nothing. SHOW ME YOUR MOVES, "PERSONA 5"!