4593 réponses à ce sujet

[TheChris92]

I could potentially overlook this issue if the region lock doesn't stick with Ultimax but I guess I'll see. This had better not be how they are gonna do it for all Atlus titles in the future.

[Liamv2]

Yeah I understand that. I wish it would get a physical release but it seems to be happening less and less for us. The main problem comes from JRPG's selling incredibly poorly over here

[CrazyRah]

I see little reason for why i should accept that much worse treatment because i happen to be a European. If someone is fine with the treatment that Europe get as of now then i wont change their mind but i got more than Atlus gunning for my wallet and some of them even treat the consumer i am alright. 

[TheChris92]

Be mindful that I am still excited about Persona 5 as much as I ever was -- I'm gonna get Ultimax. I love the Persona franchise. Golden & 3 are still on my super-star tag team line up of best RPGs I've ever played. It's the games I love not the developer. I'll respect Atlus for faithful localizations, good voice acting, well-written mature characters etc but that doesn't mean I'll overlook let them ****** in my ear.

[TheChris92]

Yeah I understand that. I wish it would get a physical release but it seems to be happening less and less for us. The main problem comes from JRPG's selling incredibly poorly over here

But see that's where the paradox lies -- Atlus games are generally still considered a niche, so it shouldn't be too much of a factor. The Persona games are evidently selling well enough for Atlus to warrant releasing Golden in Europe along with Persona 3 FES and Portable. So I consider this argument flawed.

[Liamv2]

Huh that's actually a very good point. A persona game isn't exactly some experimental new IP.

[Mr.House]

Enjoy talking about the persona series with friends, however Atlus screwing over my European friends is getting old. In order to play SMTIV you need to now buy extra crap because hey, **** physical copies for them right?

[AventuroLegendary]

SMT4 isn't that good as far as I've heard. The important part here is that without the choice of physical hard copies -- I'm in the long term renting the game as opposed to actually owning it.

 

A great game on its own. "Meh" when put side by side with other mainline SMT games. (well, namely Nocturne and DDSaga)

 

Atlus' treatment of EU fans reminds me of Capcom's treatment of NA. We're finally getting PLvPW but only in crappy digital form

[TheChris92]

PE-SONA!... yep... 4 Ultimax dubbed trailer

 

 

Nothing new but at least the dub acting is in it.

[Mr.House]

Yay.

[TheChris92]

I couldn't hear Yu's voice.

[TheChris92]

Well, now, would you look at that. https://twitter.com/...422390252339200

[AventuroLegendary]

PE-SONA!... yep... 4 Ultimax dubbed trailer

 

Nothing new but at least the dub acting is in it.

 

If it weren't for the last 20 seconds, I would have mistaken it for the original game.

[Matieo]

Persona Q Standard and Premium edition pre-orders now available.
 
http://www.atlus.com...q/purchase.html
 

Neat! I've always wanted Persona Tarot Cards. Shame it's not a full set. Hopefully I can order this on Amazon, they're having a 30% off promo thing for E3.

[TheChris92]

And that's that -- Let's all take a moment to remember that sometimes.. people die.

http://www.twitch.tv...1579?t=1h19m30s

[Dominus]

So, sell me on Persona. Why is that game series worth playing? What does it bring to the table that others don't?

I've seen bits of the game - I know it's Anime-Inspired, Turn-Based, a bit wacky, and that's about it.

[Liamv2]

I would try and explain why but I know that I would inevitably get crushed under more detailed analysis by Chris and House. So simply put it has strong characters, tense story, (most of the time) and gorgeous music

[TheChris92]

So, sell me on Persona. Why is that game series worth playing? What does it bring to the table that others don't?

I've seen bits of the game - I know it's Anime-Inspired, Turn-Based, a bit wacky, and that's about it.

Alright, here goes.

 

When I played Persona 3 FES for the first time -- I was taken back by how it ended up playing. I thought I would be spending most of my time initiating turn-based combat scenarios every 5 minutes throughout the entire game, then occasionally fight some boss battles like how I thought most JRPGs generally played. I was surprised actually. When I heard people here talking about it I was skeptical about the high school scenario, but what I ended up with was nothing like how my expectations perceived it. The high school scenario actually adapts a believeable, coherent, and down to the earth portrayal of what it's like being a High schooler in Japan. The faithful and respectful english localization of Persona 3 & 4 makes it even better. Honorifics like Senpai and such are kept in so as not to break the immersion that we are in Japan as opposed to the US. I also kinda found the occasional rich drama, comedy and sometimes deep subjects of the social links to be amazing. The Social Links are one of the central factors of 3 and 4 -- You start social links with the people you do battle and dungeon crawl with or people you meet in the city or in school. These links can range from friendship, to mutual respect, to love or to understanding. One social link involves befriending a dying young man, who's been diagnosed with a disease where he won't live past his youth since he was a child. It's such an incredibly sad and powerful scenario that really speaks about how great Persona can be when its at its best.

 

You can also form a social link with a smug business man, who's interested in nothing but profits evidently -- Even when you complete his link he's not necessarily changed from that outlook, but he's not the same person. You see, the social links aren't necessarily about the protagonist trying to fix people. It can just be links that would you coming to an understanding about them as characters..

 

Aside from the simulation parts of Persona, and the intriguing story behind the links, there is also the gameplay importance of these links. The social links exists to also empower your Personas. The gameplay utilizes a sort of element based combat system.. like Pokemon of sorts, yes -- It's about exploiting these weaknesses as well as trying to cover your own. I can go in more depth with that in a another post.

 

As for the story itself. The games are unique solely because of the modern-age Japan setting which gives them a more down to the earth flow and connection to us as players. As the name would imply, Persona, it refers to readings of 19th century psychologist Carl Jung, specially about Personas and Shadows. The stories and characters are all well-rounded, some with more complexity, issues like gender, sexuality and other regular teenage issues, but they don't come off as jarring, cliché or some other mean words. The story shifts from being a mundane high school drama to intense world-shattering without spoiling too much. It's safe to say that Persona 3 is more dark than Persona 4. It is particularly noted in said game's social links, like the dying young man. The theme of Persona 3 would be death and it cause and effect on people, how people choose to live with the prospects of death and how it affects them. The game also reflects its Jungian-roots in its enemies, the Shadows, their design are generally based around the sub-concious thoughts of humanity, the suppressed darker emotions that you don't wanna admit, the things you shield from the rest the world, or the things you don't wanna become. These represent the Shadow. The Personas are the masks you wear every day when you traverse through life's hardships -- Jung once said in his studies of dreams, that there would always be a recurring pattern of the stories his patients would tell him. Some of their dreams would take shape of myths, legends or generally fictional figures. This relates to why the Personas in the games all take shape of Greek, Norse, Japanese, Egytian mythlogy as well as folklore characters. It relates back to the fact that they are manifestations shaped out of humanity's unconciousness. This is something one would have to study psychology or at least read about Jung to understand so I'll end it with that for now. Persona 4 Golden actually shipss with an elaborate study on Jung's psychology and how it has affected the Persona games.

 

In Persona 3, as established earlier, the overarching theme is death. It relates to how mankind interprets the meaning of death and how they deal with it, platonically and physically. It can also refer to Freud's concept of the Death Drive. We have both self-destructive instincts and survival instincts programmed into our psyche. The death drive is described as a return to the inorganic: "the hypothesis of a death instinct, the task of which is to lead organic life back into the inanimate state." Persona 3′s plot is all about death, but the game’s mechanics are an exploration of time in video games. The narrative itself takes place over an actual in-game year you see. The relationship between time and death is explored, appropriately, through the interplay of the mechanics and the narrative. If we accept my thesis that the overall theme of Persona 3 is time (which is explored through the gameplay) and a subset of that theme is the theme of death (which is explored in the game’s narrative) we can also draw an interesting conclusion about the relationship between the mechanics and narrative of a video game’s story (that the narrative is necessarily a smaller part of the mechanical whole, and that true storytelling in games is dependent on what your game’s mechanics communicate,)

I'd also add that the Persona games also have dungeon crawling too, while it might not be as elaborate as other JRPGs, it serves a purpose. In Persona 3 it comes as a giant tower, Tartarus (refers to the gate between the mortal realm and hte underworld in greek mythology), which only appears during a hidden hour every night after midnight called the Dark Hour. This is where time comes into play again. Unlike in the real world, the concept of time has no meaning during the Dark Hour, and yet it doesn't last forever.

Outside of the Dark Hour and Tartarus, times progresses accordingly with the player's choice.

If the player chooses to explore Tartarus, the game switches over to Tartarus Time, in which the progression of time is automatic, and is represented by hours rather than days. This is discreetly communicated to the player in two major ways. First, the arrival of the Dark Hour is heralded by the appearance on screen of a giant clock, which strikes midnight before falling apart. The automatic progression of the hands of the clock indicates that time has begun to move on its own, and the collapsing of the clock indicates the destruction of the previous model of player-dependent time progression. Second, the entrance to Tartarus proper is through a door embedded in a massive clock. The clock represents the thematic “minimizing” of time- from Iwatodai’s days (That's the city where the game is taking place) to Tartarus’ hours- and symbolizes that unlike in Iwatodai, in Tartarus every minute counts. But that's enough over analyzing. I'll just leave the quote below.

 

Death is not a hunter unbeknownst to its prey. 
One is always aware that it lies in wait. 
Though life is merely a journey to the grave, 
it must not be undertaken without hope. 
Only then will a traveler's story live on, 
cherished by those who bid him farewell. 

 

It's quote from the game which usually will show up when you get a game-over. Quite deep for a game over, but taken out of context it can seem a bit funny and perhaps condescending even though it's not supposed to at all, hehe.

 

I'll add one last thing before I go on to write a big post about 4's theme. The mechanics of the Personas are all based on the Tarot Card Deck. You know, the cards that fortune tellers would use to predict the future, whether grim or hopeful. These are strongly related to that of the game's symbolism and plot. The Fool, is the first card in the deck, the card of the protagonist you name yourself, it is also meant to be the start of a journey, and represents free-choice of endless possibilities.

[Liamv2]

See ^ 

[TheChris92]

You all saw it coming! You knew it would happen, heh

 

 

I'd also like to mention something that won't need too much analyzing. That is to say the soundtrack. I think it's quite untraditional as far as JRPG soundtracks goes. There aren't any generic violin strumming of sorts. The soundtrack is catchy and feels so.. heart pumping in times of intense combat. Outside of the dungeon crawling they can be quite extra catchy. Have listen a below for some of Persona 3's tunes.

 

The shopping mall of the city -- It adds to the free-spirited youthy aspect of Persona

 

This tracks adds to the melancholic atmosphere of Tartarus, the dungeon crawling.

 

The intensity of combat is greatly signified in this track I'd say

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTx1uZ3kWTE

[CrazyRah]

I knew Chris would write a far better piece of text than i would, didn't disappoint me either! 

[Ozzy]

Holy *** at that answer, haha. Nice write up, bud. 

 

...

 

Not amused at the SMTIV digital only announcement to say the least. 

[Milan92]

Its a good thing Chris is a Persona fan. I don't think I would have been able to write even half that piece xD

 

Chris, is it okay if I save that and use it whenever I recommend someone the Persona games? I don't think its possible for me to add anything to that anyway

[Ozzy]

I'll just say that Persona 3 totally caught me by surprise. It was the first I had played and was given to me from a mate who worked with the company that published it in Europe alongside other things that I was much more interested in at the time. I looked at it like a nice 'extra' that I probably wouldn't play as I wasn't really into JRPGs. 

 

I was bored enough one day that I decided to pop it in to my PS2. An hour passed and I wasn't really sure what to think. Then two went by. Then three.

 

Several hours later I was wondering what the hell had happened. I was drawn in by the world and the themes that I didn't expect to face. Least of all from an 'anime game'. The music was beautiful and the characters were engaging. There was also the individual bonds with the various characters that were reminiscent of the companion relationships from Bioware games that drew me in further. 

[TheChris92]

Its a good thing Chris is a Persona fan. I don't think I would have been able to write even half that piece xD

 

Chris, is it okay if I save that and use it whenever I recommend someone the Persona games? I don't think its possible for me to add anything to that anyway

Sure, go ahead.

I'm probably gonna write some more about Persona 4 as well.