Aiming to outdo Personas 3 and 4, as they should!
Ah the venerable tidbit. I’m not sure if news for any other game I’m interested in comes in tidbit form as often asPersona 5, a weird combination of tight-lipped Japanese development (“please look forward to learning more when you play the game”) and insatiablePersonafans going for the granular.
These bits come fromPersonaseries director Katsura Hashino writing in “Persona Magazine #2016 March,” as translated byGematsu. The game isstill coming this summer! Not a fake out!
As we’ve been guessing from the few trailers, dungeon design “is vastly different from previous games,” and they all, “incorporate different stories,” likePersona 4. Atlus also calls its own “phantom thieves” motif a bit of a cliche and an intentional one at that.Persona 5aims to “combine contemporary drama withPersona.”
The cast are all misfits and social outcasts this time around, but Ryuji Sakamoto (his persona is Captain Kidd) is, “a ‘let’s change the world’ character who pulls along the protagonist.” And without bolstering the dumb “why do anime characters look white?” crowd, looks like the blonde Ann Takamaki (persona is Carmen) is “one-quarter American,” which, uh, what? I’m pretty sure you’re able to only be 100% American or 0% American, legally. Unless dual citizenship halves it. I don’t know. It’s really hard and expensive to renounce American citizenship, though. Partially because more and more people are doing it over the last five years. Ann also has some vague influence on Ryuji and the protagonist going over to the “other world” in the first place.
Morgana (the cat whose persona is Zorro) is responsible for training the crew as “phantom thieves” — I’m sensing a “culprit” style term that’s going to be way over used. And Yusuke Kitagawa is a painter/art student. There’s also going to be a Social Link style system, but perhaps the team’s success with more mature story-telling inCatherinehas them aiming higher this time around (which I both hoped for and expected):
“Is communication the driving force for those who are trying to make a change? With that question in mind, Hashino says that it will be good ifPersona 5depicted human relations a step abovePersona 3andPersona 4‘s Social Links.”
Agreed!
One final bit of tid: while we’re all looking forward toP5in June, this year is the 20th anniversary ofPersona, and, “Atlus is thinking about making an announcement that will please users,” perhaps after it getsP5out the door.
