Will Persona 5 be big enough?

Since it doesn't look like there is going to be a 360 or PS4 version this game, the sequel to one of my favorite games of all time, will have to justify what will be, for me, a $200+ price tag. Taking into consideration the limited ressources of Atlus and the fact that asset generation on high res consoles isn't the same as asset generation on the PS2 do you think this game will be the same scope as its predecessors?

Even if they make a game that's twice as long a Catherine was, that's still a laughable, by JRPG standards, 25 to 30hrs. I trust in the Persona team to make a great game but a long one? I don't know...

(just to clarify, yes, I would be buying a PS3 JUST for persona 5 since I already got an overview of the best exclusives on the platform via a friend who owned one since it launched)

Asset generation has nothing to do with the length of Persona games, it's all writing and scripting. There are only a handful of set pieces in both Persona 3 and Persona 4. You spend dozens of hours in the same handful of places, it's the writing and dialogue in addition to copious amounts of combat that stretch things out. Don't expect the game to have much in the way of asset variety, but I don't see it being any less than 60 hours.

Yes.

It will be announced for 360 when they give it a Western date, it runs on the Catherine engine which has been ported to 360 ezpz

Why would they make a game thats twice the length of Catherine? Have you played previous persona games? Its gonna be 50-70+ hours with alot of dialogue, probably spanning another year in whichever school system they put it in

First off, Persona 5 does not run on Catherine's engine. Catherine's engine was Gamebryo, and Katsura Hashino straight up said in 2012 that they ditched that engine to build their own for the next Persona game in order to streamline development.

Secondly, I heavily doubt Persona 5 will be coming to the 360.

Persona 1 and Persona 2 weren't 50-70+ hour games unless you grinded like a crazy person.

Sure, i hear people liked the past games

The reason P3 and P4 were so long was almost entirely because of the way it was structured. The calender system made those games last way longer than they normally would have, even with limited resources, precisely because you were required to spend an entire year in it. If they do away with that calender structure (which wouldn't surprise me) I would fully expect it to be noticeably shorter, (for a standard playthrough), which wouldn't be an entirely bad thing.

Catherine really isn't a good comparison though, as that is a completely different kind of game. I do not believe that game was short because they couldn't make it longer, but rather they realized they shouldn't. Another 10-15 hours of that would been way too much unnecessary padding.

But I don't see any reason to believe P5 will be particularly limited in overall scope, especially compared to P3 and P4. This long into the console cycle they should have no problem pulling off a game like that.

If the sequel to my favorite game ever was on a $200 system with literally no other games, I would probably buy that system. It's obviously a little too early to answer for certain, so this is just speculation, but I think it will be similar in length and scope to the previous installments. They've spent a lot of time developing it, and development wise I think Atlus knows the corners to cut. They avoid using a lot of unique animation, they reuse locations pretty liberally, make the places you have to explore procedurally generated, copy various parts of models between characters, have recycled art between a lot of their games, recolor a lot of their enemies between dungeons, and don't go too crazy on voice acting. I don't think the games are worse off for it either, it's just them knowing how to keep their budget reasonable.

With the amount of time they have been working on it, yes indeed.

I will buy itfor ps3 but then i will wait and hope for an ps4 port, if that doesnt happen in a year or two i will dig out my ps3 and enjoy the game.

It doesnt need to be that big. They dont owe anyone anything for taking their time. The assets here will probably be used for several other games if recent Atlus trends continue (next devil survivor, SMT main game, P5 FES/gold, Strange Journey 2, etc.) so that's where this time gap will be made up. Cus they really need to retire those awful looking sprites they made out of decades old concept art.

Honestly, it's a PRETTY safe bet that Persona 5 will be 60 hours minimum.

I wouldn't be surprised if this is the biggest Persona game in the series.

they should remake persona 5 and make it bigger.

Also, by the time this comes out in the West, you'll be able to get it and a PS3 for like $200 combined. Shit, I've seen Black Friday ads for a 12 gb PS3 for like $150?

Don't worry. I'm sure it will come to 360.

It won't. There's no reason and no precedent for that. Atlus produces games for their audience in Japan. Catherine was an experiment on the PS3 and 360, but it was made clear early on that the game was coming to both platforms. Persona 4 Arena was developed by Arc System Works, who by that point had already done a lot of dual-platform development.

Persona 5, however, has only been announced as a PS3 game. Therefore, it will only be a PS3 game. Atlus isn't going to port the game to 360.

I would be shocked for a 360 port, and game length is completely unknown at this point. If you're worried about investing in a PS3 for one game, then I suggest you think about the other games on the PS3 or go about getting one second hand. Think about how easy and cheap it was to get a PS2 in 2007 and 2008, I'm sure the PS3 will similar by the time this game hits the west.

I'm not obsessed with massive, bloated overlong games. I'm not saying P4 was, or that the next game has to be short, but if the game is designed with a 15-30 hour playthrough in mind then I have enough faith in them that the Persona team will create a good, albeit smaller, game.

They are working on it since 2011 of course it will be big enough. MY guess it will have more content than 4 had^^

I stand corrected then.

I'm using Persona 5 as an excuse to pick up a ps3 regardless of it getting announced on other platforms. There are a handful of other games out now or coming out that I would like to play as well (such as Dragon's Crown, which alone doesn't justify a console purchase).

People seem so sure that it's a PS3 exclusive in the West, but until either Atlus, Sony or Sega actually comes out and specifically says so, it's probably safe bet that other platforms are on the table. I at least haven't seen anyone of note confirming it.

I wouldn't be surprised if it started as an exclusive, but now with Sega in the mix, they very well could have an external team doing the port work so as to not strain the relatively small Persona team.

What I'm most curious about is if they're gonna stick to their anime/ almost-chibi style character designs or are they gonna be more realistically proportioned as seen in the characters in Catherine. Either way, it's not that big of a deal since I'll playing it regardless.

Will Persona 5 be interesting enough? Probably not.

Not gonna lie, despite generally not liking JRPGs and not owning a PS3, I'm probably going to pick up a PS3 to play Persona 5. The ER sold me on that franchise like nothing else.

If this Dengeki PlayStation interview leak was accurate:

- The game will feature “life-sized” character models in the environments to make it look more realistic.

There's still no real reason to think that it won't come to the 360 in North America. There was just no reason to announce it in the Japanese-only launch event as that was for Japan only. Once the official announcement for localization hits, you'll know for sure one way or the other.

@fluxwavez said:

I'm actually kind of surprised. I almost would have expected them to go for a more conservative approach to save on resources. I'm still skeptical that it will be on the same level as Catherine though, given the scope of the game.

There are a lot of reasons to think it won't come to the 360 in NA, but I agree it's too premature to say that with 100% certainty. Even if there are a lot of valid reasons why it wouldn't come to the 360 there are certainly reasons why it could come to the 360, and that SEGA acquisition is kind of a wildcard, so anything could happen.

There is no precedent for that, except these two precedents which totally don't count.

@hunter5024: Well, they don't if we're talking about a 360 port being made after the fact specifically for the US. The only 360 games they've ever done were explicitly announced from the beginning. It's hard to say how or if SEGA will change this, but Atlus has always been a company that prioritized Japan and made their decisions based on Japan.

They don't count because:

1. ASW is not Atlus.

2. Again, it was made clear early on, even in Japan, that Catherine was multiplatform.

If Persona 5 were coming to anything other than the PS3, they would have made that clear in the trailer.

I wouldn't call P4A and Catherine precedents given how much their situations differ from Persona 5's.

@hailinel said:

Of the two games they've been involved with for these consoles, both of them came to both platforms. That's a precedent. I just think it's far too soon to be as sure about it as you seem.

A 30 hour Persona would be awesome.

@hailinel: @fluxwavez: Balls on the table guys. 100 Brad Bucks says this comes to platforms other than ps3.

*Drops pants*

*Teabags table*

You're on!

*Gets carted away for public indecency*

@hunter5024: In North America, right? I'll take that bet. I'm not 100% certain, but I still bet it'll be PS3 exclusive because all current signs point to that.

@fluxwavez: @hailinel: *Shakes FluxWaveZ Hand* *Does not shake Hailinel's hand due to lack of pants*

@hunter5024 said:

As in an immediate port or ever? Because I could totally see a Vita port down the line, but simultaneous launch on the PS3/360? Odds are definitely not in favor of that.

It might not come to the 360 because 360 people dont buy JRPGS.

If you have a 360, you already knew this for years. Don't complain now.

Yeah, I could see a Vita release or, heck, maybe even a PS4 release sometime after Persona 5's launch.

I intentionally left this ambiguous because it's in my favor.

Will it be able to live up to the ungodly amounts of hype? Probably not, but man I hope so! Will it be a game worth buying a console for? Probably, especially considering that the ps3 will most likely get a decent price cut soon. Or, do what I did and find someone with a ps3 who will be willing to loan or possibly rent it to you. This game definitely won't be worth passing up entirely though. I only have a 360 and pc, but I found a way. I'm sure u can too with a bit of effort and the power of friendship.

Yea sales are consistently in favor of ps3 when it comes to jrpg and not just by a few sale either. I am talking at least double the sale of 360. Now publisher need to wonder if the sale are worth it for the port job, as well as, if they are even going to get store shelf space on a last gen console game on a platform that typically have very little demand. Shelf space is a much bigger issue than just a matter of if it will sell or not. There is a reason Tales have pretty much abandoned 360 and low sales is only one reason.

It will be awesome! I'm getting it!

I wouldn't be surprised if by the time this game reaches the US a 360 version is announced.

Will that thing that was just announced into existence live up to your whack expectations?

Answer hazy - please ask later.

... but is it BIG enough?

Oh. Maybe it won't feature the 2D art that came up during dialogue in P3/P4, then.

@donutfever: I wonder. I could totally see them keeping them, because it's a lot easier to use those than animate everything on the models. If I had to guess I would suspect they would keep those portrait but do away with the little emotes that appear over the characters to represent reactions and actually animate them on the characters.