@OmegaChosen said:

Ohhhh yeaaaahhhh.....Niiiiiice. Day one purchase.

would agree with you its gross. 
 
they're basically saying we are stupid, show them some boobs and get their money.

@Hailinel said:

@The_Nubster said:

@Neurotic: I don't hate that there's a bath house, because they don't care very much about going, but it's the way the game lingers on the naked teenagers. It's implied, you know? They're in a bath house and naked. What purpose is there to show asscracks and soapy tits, other than to get players excited? And if you want to go that route, I'll bet there's plenty of hentai featuring those characters, so that kind of renders those scenes moot. It's just weird and unnecessary.

Oh, and they're 15/16 for the events of Persona 4, you're right. Thought they were younger for some reason.

The scene is weird and unnecessary because there's unlicensed hentai featuring the characters?

That correlation makes no sense.

That isn't what I said. It's not because there's hentai. My point was that scene doesn't service the game, its characters, or anything about it. It exists only to get the person playing the game aroused and excited. For that to be in the game, it cheapens the characters and the experience. There are other venues to pursue if this sort of thing is what you want from Persona. It just doesn't have a place in the game. Exploring teenage sexuality, as the game does, is fine. Fanservice, like what's in P4 Golden, is cheap.

@mutha3: Dude, spoilers.

Jesus.

@The_Nubster said:

@Hailinel said:

@The_Nubster said:

@Neurotic: I don't hate that there's a bath house, because they don't care very much about going, but it's the way the game lingers on the naked teenagers. It's implied, you know? They're in a bath house and naked. What purpose is there to show asscracks and soapy tits, other than to get players excited? And if you want to go that route, I'll bet there's plenty of hentai featuring those characters, so that kind of renders those scenes moot. It's just weird and unnecessary.

Oh, and they're 15/16 for the events of Persona 4, you're right. Thought they were younger for some reason.

The scene is weird and unnecessary because there's unlicensed hentai featuring the characters?

That correlation makes no sense.

That isn't what I said. It's not because there's hentai. My point was that scene doesn't service the game, its characters, or anything about it. It exists only to get the person playing the game aroused and excited. For that to be in the game, it cheapens the characters and the experience. There are other venues to pursue if this sort of thing is what you want from Persona. It just doesn't have a place in the game. Exploring teenage sexuality, as the game does, is fine. Fanservice, like what's in P4 Golden, is cheap.

Is the scene there to ogle the girls, or to put in yet another comedic opportunity for the guys to catch a glimpse of the girls before getting their asses handed to them?

Camping trip: GIrls in swimsuits, guys suffer the indignity of the cold, vomit-tainted river.

Pageants: Girls in swimsuits, guys forced to crossdress. Naoto books it before the swimsuit competition.

Amagi Inn: Girls in the bath, guys walk in on them accidentally, get chased out, and then try to get even by sneaking into the girls' room, only it's the wrong room (with it's own bizarre twist).

Apparently new bath house scene: Girls are bathing, but naughty bits are obscured. Guys undoubtedly get their asses kicked again.

@ervonymous said:

@OmegaChosen said:

Ohhhh yeaaaahhhh.....Niiiiiice. Day one purchase.

Hmm....I dunno. Maybe some...variety would loosen the ol' wallet, if you catch my drift?

Americans not handling sexuality? I NEVER WOULD'VE GUESSED!

The more people posts about these fucking games the more I think you're all paedophiles or something. Those are quite clearly children in skimpy outfits. That is weird on every single level.

@TeflonBilly said:

Americans not handling sexuality? I NEVER WOULD'VE GUESSED!

I'm not American.

@mutha3: I wasn't questioning whether you were right or not. Also, that stuff with Naoto is more less what happened in the in-game cutscene, it's just animated now which appears to be everyone's problem. Fun fact: spoiler tags don't work in the notification thingy (that or you've since editied them in). At least I can skip the cutscenes now :P

@Hailinel said:

Is the scene there to ogle the girls, or to put in yet another comedic opportunity for the guys to catch a glimpse of the girls before getting their asses handed to them?

Camping trip: GIrls in swimsuits, guys suffer the indignity of the cold, vomit-tainted river.

Pageants: Girls in swimsuits, guys forced to crossdress. Naoto books it before the swimsuit competition.

Amagi Inn: Girls in the bath, guys walk in on them accidentally, get chased out, and then try to get even by sneaking into the girls' room, only it's the wrong room (with it's own bizarre twist).

Apparently new bath house scene: Girls are bathing, but naughty bits are obscured. Guys undoubtedly get their asses kicked again.

I don't think that's a justification for perverted scenes in video games in every case. This, for example:

The fact that the man who inadvertently groped the main character got his ass kicked doesn't make the whole thing right at all. Some might claim that it's "comedic", but anyone could use that argument for any similar scene.

No , I have no problem except with the extreme prude attitude of americuh and Japan please never change!!!!!

Pretty sure the difference between the pageant stuff and those outfits is that in the pageant it was story related and had to do with the awkwardness of high school than anything else, and was largely played up for comedy.

This is just "yo, check out these high schoolers in sex gear"

You can just not use them, which is fine, but that doesn't mean it isn't skeezy.

I think we're overrating, or at least overstating, what constitutes perversion.

Also, I should add, I think the bathhouse scene seems more like trying to retread old ground. People enjoyed the titillation and character interactions in the Amagi Inn scene and it looks like they just tried to shoehorn in 'more'.

But absolutely, there is some awesome prudery ITT. Which is surprising for a game as kind of bawdy as Persona 4. It's not like that game is asexual. Though I do wish it dealt with the girls' sexual interests a bit more honestly, with the one exception of Rise it refinroces the Men Are Lustful, Women Are Prudes thing a bit too much.

@FluxWaveZ: That's an extreme example you pulled from a DOA game. You could do better to provide examples than scrape from the bottom of the most obvious barrel.

@ThatFrood: You call those goofy-ass outfits sex gear?

@Hailinel said:

@FluxWaveZ: That's an extreme example you pulled from a DOA game. You could do better to provide examples than scrape from the bottom of the most obvious barrel.

This is about how that scene relates to your argument and why I think it's weak. That it's for "comedy" isn't a valid argument for me. I could give more examples such as Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward, Katawa Shoujo or Ace Attorney, but it's not important.

@Hailinel: my mistake, they're just silly costumes.

@FluxWaveZ said:

@Hailinel said:

@FluxWaveZ: That's an extreme example you pulled from a DOA game. You could do better to provide examples than scrape from the bottom of the most obvious barrel.

This is about how that scene relates to your argument and why I think it's weak. That it's for "comedy" isn't a valid argument for me. I could give more examples such as Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward, Katawa Shoujo or Ace Attorney, but it's not important.

Except, yes, those P4 scenes were written as light comedy. And American movies have contained far more direct sexual references. As far as I'm aware, none of the characters in Golden engage in sexual relations with a pie or relate tales of masturbatory escapades at that occurred at band camp.

@FluxWaveZ said:

@Hailinel said:

@FluxWaveZ: That's an extreme example you pulled from a DOA game. You could do better to provide examples than scrape from the bottom of the most obvious barrel.

This is about how that scene relates to your argument and why I think it's weak. That it's for "comedy" isn't a valid argument for me. I could give more examples such as Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward, Katawa Shoujo or Ace Attorney, but it's not important.

You can't reason with Hailinel. He's Japan number one defender when it comes sexism and pointless cutscenes and costumes to masturbate to.(Watch out if you're a western developer, though.)

@FluxWaveZ: Doing something for "comedy" isn't valid for you? Do you even lift? It's a perfectly good reason to have a scene where teenage boys act like teenage boys by trying to peep on teenage girls. You can argue that it's in poor taste to have lingering shots on these near naked girls if that happens, but to question a scene's very existence when it has more than enough entertainment value within the context of the story is stupid. I completely agree with you about the alternate outfits not needing to exist, but to decry the existence of this seemingly innocuous scene is silly.

@Hailinel said:

Except, yes, those P4 scenes were written as light comedy. And American movies have contained far more direct sexual references. As far as I'm aware, none of the characters in Golden engage in sexual relations with a pie or relate tales of masturbatory escapades at that occurred at band camp.

And again, many would argue that that DoA4 scene I posted was written for the purpose of comedy, just like one of the top comments in that Youtube page. Still not valid.

Furthermore, the fact that other media does it worse doesn't matter. There are thousands of hentai visual novel games out there. The mere fact that they exist doesn't suddenly make the questionable sexual scenes in other games okay.

@TeflonBilly: But that's what I'm arguing: that it's in poor taste. I can't give my impressions on the scene as a whole because I haven't experienced it myself so all I'm saying is that the lingering shots you mention are not necessary and that I disagree with their existence.

@FluxWaveZ said:

@Hailinel said:

@FluxWaveZ: That's an extreme example you pulled from a DOA game. You could do better to provide examples than scrape from the bottom of the most obvious barrel.

This is about how that scene relates to your argument and why I think it's weak. That it's for "comedy" isn't a valid argument for me. I could give more examples such as Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward, Katawa Shoujo or Ace Attorney, but it's not important.

Except, yes, those P4 scenes were written as light comedy. And American movies have contained far more direct sexual references. As far as I'm aware, none of the characters in Golden engage in sexual relations with a pie or relate tales of masturbatory escapades at that occurred at band camp.

@Hailinel: my mistake, they're just silly costumes.

Light comedy or not, I still think it's fucking creepy to include naked 15-year old girls in your game. Maybe I'm just old or insecure, but I wouldn't feel comfortable playing such a game in front of my friends or girlfriend.

@FluxWaveZ said:

@Hailinel said:

Except, yes, those P4 scenes were written as light comedy. And American movies have contained far more direct sexual references. As far as I'm aware, none of the characters in Golden engage in sexual relations with a pie or relate tales of masturbatory escapades at that occurred at band camp.

And again, many would argue that that DoA4 scene I posted was written for the purpose of comedy, just like one of the top comments in that Youtube page. Still not valid.

So how is it not valid, again? As ridiculous as that DOA4 scene is, it can be a good chuckle, just like I got laughs out of the various P4 scenes I previously referenced. That the girls in whatever states of dress they're in isn't any more or less important than the rest of the scene as a whole. Because if all you're doing is taking screencaps of the girls without the context of the guys, or without examples of the guys' costumes, then you're not offering a fair comparison. It took someone else to post pictures of Kanji in that speedo, for example. And you're focusing more on those silly scanty outfits than you are on the various other costumes that aren't in that vein.

As utterly obsessed with everything Persona-related as you are, I'm surprised it took you this long to find out about this stuff.

@Hailinel: I don't even know what you're trying to argue anymore. What does what the guys are wearing have to do with lingering shots on nude teenage girls? I can guarantee you that there are no lingering shots on the guys bathing, if that's what you're getting at. And, again, I don't even know what you're taking about when you're referring to the outfits that are not scantily clad, especially since I posted one of them in the OP, so I'll just ignore that.

@Hailinel said:

As utterly obsessed with everything Persona-related as you are, I'm surprised it took you this long to find out about this stuff.

What does that have to do with anything? I've already explained in this thread that I've been avoiding all specific P4G information, so that's why I posted "it has recently come to my attention" in the OP.

It's kind of weird how this website created by the man who said "anime is for jerks," is almost dominated by anime avatars and a mutual interest in the anime franchise Persona. I'm not hating, I think it's an interesting observation and I should be commended for sharing it! Just look at all these anime avatars, it's wild.

On topic, those pictures are disgusting :(

@FluxWaveZ said:

@Hailinel: I don't even know what you're trying to argue anymore. What does what the guys are wearing have to do with lingering shots on nude teenage girls? I can guarantee you that there are no lingering shots on the guys bathing, if that's what you're getting at. And, again, I don't even know what you're taking about when you're referring to the outfits that are not scantily clad, especially since I posted one of them in the OP, so I'll just ignore that.

@Hailinel said:

As utterly obsessed with everything Persona-related as you are, I'm surprised it took you this long to find out about this stuff.

What does that have to do with anything? I've already explained in this thread that I've been avoiding all specific P4G information, so that's why I posted "it has recently come to my attention" in the OP.

I'm talking about two specific things:

The reaction to the costumes.

The reaction to the cutscene.

The costumes are purely optional. They never have to be equipped; they are a purely cosmetic addition to the game and if you'd prefer to have Naoto running around dressed like Sherlock, there's nothing in the game stopping you once you get that option. The fact that there are more fanservice-y costumes in the game that show off more skin (and look completely ridiculous to boot) does not somehow suddenly drag the game through the mud. Nor does the addition of a cutscene that puts the girls and guys in a situation very similar to ones that they had experienced before. My point is you made this thread with a baiting title highlighting elements that can either be completely ignored or aren't exactly new. Hell, that bath house scene isn't that much different from the Amagi Inn scene of the anime adaptation, judging from those screen shots.

In short, you're overreacting.

I don't like this stuff either. I get that it's pretty much entirely optional, but it appeals to only the worst kinds of people.

What the point of this thread? It seems to be one part calling it gross and perverted, another part defending and saying it's not perverted, and a last part just laughing at the inanity of it all. Nothing of value has been accomplished and no opinions have moved at all across the spectrum.

It's like we're all in a webbing of some sort, one that spans the globe, where all we can do is yell at each other to no avail or purpose. It's like we're all...interconnected by a net that gives us the ability to go on an electronic forum and bitch about one thing or another. It's weird.

@OmegaChosen said:

It's like we're all in a webbing of some sort, one that spans the globe, where all we can do is yell at each other to no avail or purpose. It's like we're all...interconnected by a net that gives us the ability to go on an electronic forum and bitch about one thing or another. It's weird.

There are only a few people in here being inflammatory and flinging personal insults. Most people are discussing this in a cordial manner and expressing themselves without resorting to mocking sarcasm. And sharing opinions is the point of a forum.

Man those armors look terrible but the tuxedos are alright.

What's this talk of a new animated bathhouse scene? I'm playing the North American version that comes out later this month and did not encounter that while playing. Well, they do walk out in their towels and that's animated, but it doesn't go beyond that...unless we're strictly talking about the separate TV option on the main menu, which supposedly contains cutscenes, a quiz show, and other stuff. Haven't even checked that out yet. Perhaps the whole scene is in there. Seems pretty easy to ignore though, same goes for the costumes. (Even though I admit that stuff is pretty weird and doesn't seem necessary)

Mitsuru...*gulp*

That is all.

What's this talk of a new animated bathhouse scene? I'm playing the North American version that comes out later this month and did not encounter that while playing.

It's because desperate losers are gagging for it

This was in FES and P3P aswell. If you think the equipment is creepy don't use it. As for the new animated scenes it's Japan what do you expect.

Totally okay with everything until it hit Naoto. That's just so far from anything her character would do that there's far more wrong with it than just her age.

It's probably a pretty sad reflection on the state of this industry that a lot of people can see a 15 year old in a thong and say "Yeah, that's fine."

@Milkman said:

It's probably a pretty sad reflection on the state of this industry that a lot of people can see a 15 year old in a thong and say "Yeah, that's fine."

16 according to the SMT wiki but I guess that doesn't make it better.

EDIT: In fact, Kanji's the youngest member of the group at 15, if you disqualify several month old Teddie on account of being a demonic manifestation of a person's suppressed desires and motives, so ervonymous should be having FBI breaking down his door for that Kanji pic he put up. Tough luck buddy.

The costumes themselves are ugly and also they're just that: Costumes. Optional, extra content. Regardless of the original team's vision and whether or not they signed on this addition, this is in no way an issue.

Also remember that this is a Japanese developed game. Not being racist, but they're cultural sensibilities are very different. Trust me, I was born and live in Asia. I'd know :/

@psylah said:

@FluxWaveZ said:

Japan

That's a bullshit answer. You can't just right something off by saying oh well, it's from such and such place. It's fucking stupid.

Anyone else tired of the adjective "gross"? I know Jeff Gerstmann says it way too often…

@Catarrhal said:

Anyone else tired of the adjective "gross"? I know Jeff Gerstmann says it way too often…

...What in the world?

Now I've heard everything.

@FluxWaveZ said:

@TeflonBilly: But that's what I'm arguing: that it's in poor taste. I can't give my impressions on the scene as a whole because I haven't experienced it myself so all I'm saying is that the lingering shots you mention are not necessary and that I disagree with their existence.

The lingering shots I mentioned was speculation. Just like your hyperbolic outrage over them are based on conjecture. Your phrasing of the original post is what is really gross as well as misleading and belongs on sites like Kotaku or tabloids like The Sun who are trolling for attention and not in intelligent discussion.

I.. don't think I would mind the new additions.

@TeflonBilly said:

The lingering shots I mentioned was speculation. Just like your hyperbolic outrage over them are based on conjecture. Your phrasing of the original post is what is really gross as well as misleading and belongs on sites like Kotaku or tabloids like The Sun who are trolling for attention and not in intelligent discussion.

O...kay.

Before the 19th-20th century, 16 was around the age most women had their first children. If people are talking like the fact that these 16 year old highschool girls are being sexualized is some kind of sick gross thing, you should do your history homework. It's extremely natural for young adult men to be attracted to women of that age, as it's been one of the driving forces of human reproduction for the past like ten-thousand years. That's not the part about this that feels off.
 
The part that wrong is that the original Persona 4 was not like this and straddled the line of sexual tension at best in its sub-HD polygonal graphics.

@FluxWaveZ said:

O...kay.

That's pretty much been my reaction to this whole thread. Which I was reading all day at work 'case dude, work was MAD BORING.

Too many pages to go through, but: The bathhouse scene is a bit excessive, however keep in mind that it nor the costumes are not unprecedented in Persona. P3 had a shower scene with about the same content, as well as the same type of inappropriate costume changes being shown here.