I'm not wearing Hockey Pads.

Why does everything have to be dark nowadays?

Darker does not always mean better. I thought P4's initial, lighter tone allowed the player to "care" about the characters more, so that when the shit hits the fan later on, the impact is all the more meaningful.

And speaking of tones...

Meguro says something to the effect of, if there's a Persona 5, and it is radically different from Persona 3 and Persona 4, he'd also change the music.

Dubstep. Now that's a darker tone.

The Persona games have always had some dark themes within them. I've always liked that, but I also really like the highly stylized and comedic moments throughout the series as well. I think they've already achieved the appropriate balance, but I'd be interested to see where they would take it if they want to go a bit darker.

I've always preferred the darker tone in Persona 3 to Persona 4, so I would definitely prefer that the tone of Persona 5 more closely resemble 3 than 4.

@ArbitraryWater said:

The thing is, I don't feel like the doom and gloom of most of Persona 3's main story quite meshed with the whole High School Social Link Dating Sim type thing. Persona 4 isn't all sunshine and J-Pop, there is some pretty messed up stuff at the end of that game, but I think that its lighter tone is more cohesive to what the gameplay actually entails.

I actually feel like the stark contrast between the Social Link elements and the srs bznz of the story in Persona 3 is part of what makes the game so awesome. I think in Persona 3 they tried their best to play up the fact that there was some crazy crazy shit going on in a fairly normal world. The only place where this really failed was in the team-member S.links which were all pretty shallow, especially given what the protagonist and the party members were going through. They did a lot to fix that in the Female character route in Persona 3, I think.

Though the everyone's an orphan or has only one parent and a super weird upbringing aspect of all the party members goes a little overboard.

Whatever they want to do I'm cool with. I like that the Persona games can switch between both whenever they choose.

As long as it's good it doesn't matter to me. However 3 was darker and I thought it had much more emotional depth than 4.

I can't seem to separate a light-hearted air from Persona in general. I've played Persona 2 and 4 (witnessing my room mate play through Persona 3) and I have to say that Persona 4 is, in my opinion, a far superior game in terms of tone (I'm including 3 in here as well as I've seen enough to make this judgement). Because of the tone, I think Persona 4's story is told far better. It makes the characters out to be a bunch of kids trying to solve a mystery, and that's what they are. They are kids and they act like kids, and this makes the darker stuff all the more heartbreaking.

They could do so much more with human psyche as the theme, put the characters through some actual soul-searching. Maybe they won't come to terms with what they find, no matter how hard they Garudyne their inner shadows.

Anyway, who knows what crazy justification for a dungeon to roam they come up with next. I'm just hoping for a JRPG adaptation of Silent Hill at this point.

Some where in between P3 and P4 is what I would like.

I vote yes. It's nice that they gave P4 a lighter tone, but I'd like to see them go back to a darker one for 5.

I definitely want them to craft characters that are just as cool and well-developed as the ones in 4, just with a darker story wrapped around all of it.

I like P4 more than P3, but I still liked them both for different reasons in story and characters. I will say the characters in P4 felt more alive and varried in comparison to P3 and I do tend to like a somewhat more upbeat game in tone. Still a Persona game needs drama, mystery, and lives on the line to make it a true Persona game. I will say I would love more endings for P5 that consider choices at the begining, middle, and end. Maybe as many endings as Catherine where you have good, bad, and middle endings for playing selfish/dark, middle of the road, and good guy. Be cool for the good evil ending it kinda goes similar to SMT 3. In SMT 3 True Demon Ending (good badguy ending) you could become the avatar for hell and conquer heaven. Ofcorse I want social interactions like the past two and maybe some story changes that effect with higher development.

@Cathryn said:

I've always preferred the darker tone in Persona 3 to Persona 4, so I would definitely prefer that the tone of Persona 5 more closely resemble 3 than 4.

@ArbitraryWater said:

The thing is, I don't feel like the doom and gloom of most of Persona 3's main story quite meshed with the whole High School Social Link Dating Sim type thing. Persona 4 isn't all sunshine and J-Pop, there is some pretty messed up stuff at the end of that game, but I think that its lighter tone is more cohesive to what the gameplay actually entails.

I actually feel like the stark contrast between the Social Link elements and the srs bznz of the story in Persona 3 is part of what makes the game so awesome. I think in Persona 3 they tried their best to play up the fact that there was some crazy crazy shit going on in a fairly normal world. The only place where this really failed was in the team-member S.links which were all pretty shallow, especially given what the protagonist and the party members were going through. They did a lot to fix that in the Female character route in Persona 3, I think.

Though the everyone's an orphan or has only one parent and a super weird upbringing aspect of all the party members goes a little overboard.

During my playthrough of P3 Portable (around my 3rd time going through the story) it really hit me that the huge, overarching theme of the game is death. I guess that is obvious, but I realized that all the characters had been touched by death already at some point in their life or in the in the course of the game: losing a loved one, killing someone or wanting to kill themselves. Maybe it's because after previous playthroughs I knew the characters so well, but I really felt for these guys. For the first time, the fact that they were high schoolers dealing with so much, having worked so so hard to get through their trial by fire in the tower...just to face death again....it was heartbreaking. That is the only game where i can say I really felt sad about the world ending. It felt real and it felt sad because I had a sense of how hard I/they had worked to stop it. I think the "ordinariness" of the world actually enhanced the feeling that this awful stuff is happening and nobody knows...I dunno, those characters felt more "real" to me than the ones in P4.

I loved P4, but I did not connect to the characters nearly as much, even though they all had their own color-coded outfits and dungeons with their inner fears. I only connected with Nanako and Dojima and that was because they were the most "realistic" people in the game, with the most realistic problems. Everyone else was like a cartoon character. The world didn't have a sense of menace or creepiness. I never felt the world was in jeopardy. I really loved P4 but as far as emotional connection and atmosphere, it didn't do it for me. However, I am glad it was made that way. It was refreshing. I loved the colors and the different feel. I think alternating lighter/darker tones in this series could work well.

I could go either direction. Whatever they think would make the best story is alright with me.

If you don't think killing a kid is dark than your wrong.

@Phatmac said:

If you don't think killing a kid is dark than your wrong.

is it darker than killing the main character and another party member?

darker than killing off the entire world with the exception of one city?

@Animasta: Killing the MC and a party member has been done before. Also the whole world in peril has been done several times. Killing a kid in a game is a rare thing. Even one that you've developed a relationship for most of the game.

@Phatmac said:

If you don't think killing a kid is dark than your wrong.

• World impending doom being a danger from the start.
• Kid wanting to kill another party member.
• Kid wanting to kill himself.
• Teenager dying after you get to know him closely. (Sun Social Link, specifically)
• Close party member dying.
• Main character dying.
• Party member's girlfriend, his reason for fighting, dying.
• Main character sacrificing himself.
• A team of people who are, essentially, trying to constantly kill themselves.

I mean, it's fine if one says that a dark tone isn't an issue for the progression of the series, but I don't think someone could argue that Persona 4 is "darker" than Persona 3.

@FluxWaveZ: Never said that Persona 4 is more darker than 3. Just saying that P4 can be dark when it wants to. P3's dark theme isn't as memorable to me as what P4 pulled off.

I think P4 hit a brilliant balance between enjoyable, fresh and likeable characters and the grim undertone to that runs alongside that. This was an intentional part of the game, the dungeons all arise from what people hide from their outward lives, showing that everyone has demons that in the sunny jovial life we don't see. This gave all the characters a 3 dimensional quality, it wasn't all melodrama which can get a bit dirgy

I'd say somewhere in between. I think my problem with 3 was that, when everything is dark and brooding and at times almost borderline emo, it makes the happy moments seem pointless and makes the darker more serious moments less impactful because everything is already super grim so what's something slightly more grim than everything else. Not that Persona 4 was too bright and bubbly or anything, I really liked the tone of Persona 4, but I don't want Persona 5 to be Persona 4, so, I'd go for a middle ground or something maybe.

Persona series ? Probably keep it bright and stylistic, but keep the twists in the story, similar to Persona 3 and 4.

Main Megaten series ? Keep it dark and twisted.

More evokers!

In some ways, certainly. I don't mean chuck it all off a cliff and forgo the charm and fun and humour the series often shows, but to continue handling more mature, personal or serious issues would be great. But my true desire is to see P5 set somewhere like a university with a slightly older cast of characters so that'd come naturally if my dreams came true.

I liked the tone of 3 more than 4 but just slightly ( I love both games) I thought everything about 3 clicked , the music (God the music! , even in conversations the music had that moody mysterious sound , the ominous theme that plays in the lobby of Tartarus still is really creepy) the enviroments you fight while not as memorable as the dungeons in P4 in my mind made me feel like going into that tower was really dangerous as well as going outsite at night oppose to the P4 kids hanging arround the weird bathouse or the strip club , I don't know the overall tone was consistent in its delivery (not that P4 wasn't) it was really cheery and funny for a while and then the game drops you into this really dark situation (facing the shadows and all that) while 3 had those moments too it never let you forget that there's this impending doom comming it felt more gradual.

Also the sytle reminds of TWEWY it has that same Tokio street/hip-hop vibe that I really like , but I don't really care what tone or setting is gonna have as long as the story, the gameplay and the music be good .

No. The light tone is what made P4 better than P3. P3 was a teenager obsessed with death, carving wicked designs on his binders. P4 was a young adult thinking about life and how they're going to live it.

Also that the kids just made guesses at why things are they are. They didn't have a bunch of bullshit magical technology and crazy mystical horseshit. It felt like the strange vagaries of the real world rather than the magitech nonsense of anime.

The rest of the shin megami tensei series seem pretty apocalyptic. I would like for Persona to continue the tone of 4 and be generally light-hearted.

I preferred the overall theme of Persona 4, even if it was a bit more lighthearted than most games in the SMT universe. I think it was still able to focus on some decently dark and mature themes. It wasn't to the extent of Persona 3 for example, but more than enough for me and probably made more effective because the rest of the game was more lighthearted.

@Animasta: Killing the MC and a party member has been done before. Also the whole world in peril has been done several times. Killing a kid in a game is a rare thing. Even one that you've developed a relationship for most of the game.

@Catolf said:

@Phatmac said:

@Animasta: Killing the MC and a party member has been done before. Also the whole world in peril has been done several times. Killing a kid in a game is a rare thing. Even one that you've developed a relationship for most of the game.

I didn't find it moving, why? because they didn't let her stay dead, they did a cop out at end and revived her. thus, not moving, and everyone can say "Well if you don't get the true ending she stays dead!" so what? you still get a cop out of the true end. You wanna move me? Keep the child dead.

yep.

Would be nice. Especially if it took on the tone of Shin Megami Tensei I or II. Or maybe III - Nocturne. If it's just as colorful as 4, that'd be okay. I'm just more a fan of the main SMT series. I know they still have it in 'em too, based on Strange Journey.

Not at all. The reason P3 and P4 stand out is how lighthearted the games are.

@Catolf: Nanako died in my version. I threw the bastard in. So yeah for my playthrough it happened that way.

"Darker" tone might not be the best thing, but I'm all for an older protagonist and a more mature tone. University-age characters would be intresting. At least I could social link with party members in a bar instead of fucking Junes.

If P5 follows-up on P4A's story developments, then I doubt there's any choice but to go a little darker.

It's all in the execution, really. P2 was truly mature and if peppered with P4's charm, it's the best possible example of how I'd like P5 to feel, regardless of how old the characters are. I would vastly prefer another run in that style over P3's occasional descent into frustrating emo wankery.

I'm with others here - I'd like an older MC (maybe with a choice between male and female, though I'd stick with male) and more adult themes.

Whether that lists darker (ala Catherine) or is more like P4 I don't know - I don't particularly mind as long as the storytelling and character development stays strong.

I just don't want to be role playing hitting on some 16 year old again. I mean, the girls from P4 are cool - but I'm long past the jailbait stage of my life.

I'd actually like a juxtaposition between the overall themes of P3 and P4. As their worlds are colliding after the events from P4:A, it'd be interesting if the story's tone was dictated by how the protagonist swayed between both groups in each of the previous games. For example, if you side more with Shadow Operatives, you get a more dour story; whereas, you get a more cheerful story if you hang out with the Investigation Team more.

I much rather prefer the P4 tone. Dark where it had to be, but lighthearted most of the times.

It made me care a lot more about those college students than if they were angsty anime characters.

Liked P4's tone and feel better, but the persona games shouldn't get stale. Going into each I didn't really know what to expect and that's what I want.

The real question is whether they keep doing j-pop, or return to the j-rap from Persona 3.

Huh. I hadn't played either when this thread was created. I've played both now, and even though I love both games to death, I'm firmly in the camp that Persona 3 is a better game. A big piece of that is the tone- I just like P3's style and music drastically more.