So, this is already the most stylish game of all time, but I reeeeeally hope the design of dungeons is more interesting. Persona 4 is one of my favorite games of all time, but I felt it would have been a more compelling game overall with about 10 fewer hours of fighting generic enemies in generic corridor mazes.

I think I understand why they've stayed silent for so long, because now the wait is so much worse. Goddamn that looks amazing.

You can see several dungeons in the trailer and there's no doubt that they're the most fleshed dungeons to ever appear in any MegaTen game. It's hard to say how long or how much fighting they'll involve, but it seems they've finally moved on from long corridor mazes.

@zeik: It looks good, but I will never trust a videogame trailer to not cherry-pick the very most interesting 2 minutes out a of a 60 hour experience.

The last time they delayed this game they were saying Summer 2016 for Japan and later in 2016 for North America. This delay means they potentially have pushed the North American version into 2017 but based on some previous statements I recall them saying there will not be the usual 9 month English localization delay because the English localization is already in progress. Dancing All Night had a 3 month delay and that game had a decent amount of speech and text. Persona Q was 5 months. I could see Persona 5 hitting North America in December.

I'll probably pre-order the Japanese version from Amazon Japan when it is available.

@donutfever: Thanks for reminding me about that, I'm even more bummed. Though I expect it with Zelda titles given the track record, but I hold out hope for Persona still.

True, but Persona 3 and 4 didn't even have that much to show that didn't involve corridor crawling. It's a good sign.

It's still technically coming out Summer 2016. Summer ends September 20th. Way to go Atlus. Yeah I highly doubt we don't get it this year. It's eaisly the biggest release Atlus has done and almost as hyped up as the new FF game. No way they let this come out in February when it's an easy GOTY contender.

I guess they technically squeak by with a 5 day window. But usually games coming out in September are referred to as Fall games since they come out in the September, October, November Fall-rush window. As Jeff likes to point out basically anything after Madden is part of the packed Fall release schedule. This doesn't matter as much for Japan since Christmas isn't a major thing there and Thanksgiving is non-existent but I doubt when they originally announced Summer they were thinking September 15th so I still consider this a minor delay.

This is probably a dumb question but would the Japanese version have English subtitles? English menus? I'm curious just in case the English version gets delayed to next year. I haven't imported a game before but it seems to be very easy for ps4 titles and I don't mind reading subtitles.

Japanese probably won't but I'd bet an Asian version of the likes of Hong Kong will. I'll be seeing if I can land a PS3 review copy when the time comes, mind.

Dude, this game.

I. Fucking. Need this.

These gifs are super dope!

@metalsnakezero: That tea sip is the most baller shit.

I kinda like how they always block out the face of the one kid with the fox mask in all of their promotional material whether it's these screenshots or in the trailers...

How has the trailer not been posted on GB yet? What has happened to this place?

@nightriff: I know right.

I am calling you out @austin_walker!

Edit: or I would be if the forums on mobile could do so.

It's disappointingly obvious this game was originally going to be a mid-generation PS3 game. Some of this looks remarkably dated. The styalisation is pretty good (even if I dislike most of the chracter designs and the setting) and the must is excellent. Still not convinced. I love Persona 3 and 4, but this one just seems like a step backwards.

@fakevox said:

Oh? I think I missed that, would you mind elaborating?

Don't worry I got you. Yo @austin_walker, where's the Persona 5 scoop at?

Have they confirmed if there will still be a PS3 version? I really want to play this but have no plans to buy a PS4.

@tds418: OP has screenshots of the PS4 and PS3 dvd case

...What? How in the world is it a step backwards? Like, in any conceivable way? Even if it's not as cutting edge as you would have hoped, I don't know how you could possibly argue it's a step back from a PS2 game.

Did you actually play Persona 3 and 4 when they first came out though? Even way back then the actual graphics were pretty behind what was common from higher budget games. They got by 100% on style. But that's also why it holds up so well compared to many other games of the generation.

Now I face out I hold out

I reach out to the truth of my life

Seeking to seize on the whole moment, yeah

I was really lukewarm on another Persona after the last one wrapped up, but damn they got me. Super looking forward to seeing what this one has in store.

Even then I think we might still have to wait at least months. Generally HK PSN releases the Jap Version first then a few months down the line they release the Korean/Chinese version so I'm guessing the wait will be on par with the English version. At least that's from what I've seen on certain games.

@zeik said:

I... I don't even know either. Just nod your head and back away slowly. dixavd is clearly looking for something very specific from this that he just isn't seeing (NO clue what it may be though).

While it was true that I was being a little hyperbolic (merely for brevity since I didn't want to explain all my issues with it), I stand-by being very sceptical of this game. Also, I don't think the graphics are a step backward. And yes, I played Persona 3 near launch and saw Persona 4 at its launch too (so I know how they weren't even great looking PS2 games). Nevertheless, here are my grievances with everything I've seen of Persona 5 (including this trailer):

• First is the playable character. So you playing as, at best, an anti-hero amongst his teen gang of thieves? Okay, sounds interesting. He's also mostly mute like all the other protagonists... What? You're clearly defining character traits for him and then making him a (mostly) silent protagonist. I severely dislike games that sit on the fence on whether they want a characterised playable lead or silent protagonist, and this seems to take the worst parts of both departments. Also, I really liked how they added the female/male option in P3P - I guess we're never going to see that come back despite Pokémon figuring this out 15 years ago.
• The cast seems to be a paint-by-numbers troupe, along with their little cat mascot. Even the navigator is a petite girl again. None of them are twists on tropes or previous characters in the series. Hopefully they develop into more nuanced roles throughout the game, but we've yet to get a solid look at social links or character backgrounds
• Their home base is a bar that an unseen friend of the main character's parents just lets him live in. One of the most interesting part of Persona 3 was the tension within the Dojima household (and, to some extent, this was true for the start of Persona 3 as you got used to the dorms). There's none of that inherently at play here. It's like those scenes hanging out at the bar in Catherine but this time it occurs every day (and if it's anything like previous Persona games, they'll be only one interaction per night).
• The music (and general sound design) is fantastic and the gameplay looks crisp and pretty - but the animé segments haven't improved much since the PS2 games. They look muddy and stilted in comparison to the cartoonish stylisation of the in-game look. Maybe it's the two different uses of colour, but either way they more disjointed than ever.
• Stealth sequences - because my favourite part about previous persona games were waiting for enemies to turn around to get a pre-emptive strike!
• Dungeons now have jumps, vaults, and limited climbing. This is certainly more visually interesting than the long corridors of previous games (though, they're still there if the first two trailers are still accurate) but they're effectively run-and-press-x-affairs. This kind of improvement is something that Final Fantasy 13 did and people hated that (hopefully the dungeons aren't as linear/constrained as FF13's though)
• Finally, I'm just not a fan of the character designs (especially the focus on Japanese interpretations of French design - it just looks off to me).

Nevertheless. I'm many people will love it, and it will actually be a lot slower paced allowing for the real-world character development to not be completely over-shadowed. The in-game animation is stunning, and the music is beautiful. Maybe it is a step forward in terms of the Persona series, but the gaming industry has gone a long way in the past half a decade, and I don't think they are catching up. If they have cut out all the UI jank (previous games were stylistically impressive, but their utility was garbage) and general filler, then it should be enough for me to like a Persona game again.

A female MC option isn't so easy in a Persona game. They have to rewrite tons of dialogue, make changes to romances, and that's a whole other character to make. It's a lot different that Pokemon where they have a different sprite and pronoun change. Persona characters have always been anime tropes since P3. Dumb rich girl, tsundere, tough girl who wants to be seen more feminine, meek girl, idol, etc. They never really flipped those one their heads, but all of them have character development that makes them more than their anime tropes. I think saying the cafe scenes will have no tension or anything is a bit early. The anime scenes look way better. Yeah they don't look Ufotable or Kyoani good, but they don't look like muddy garbage which is a huge improvement. The stealth stuff seems completely different than past games so I don't see why you're complaining about it like it's one of those. The reason people hated those FFXIII dungeons is because that was the whole game and many previous games were open world games. Persona dungeons going from boring ass corridors for days to this is a direct improvement on past titles where as FFXIII was lesser than most previous titles. Most of your arguments just don't work or don't have near enough information to hold water. The anime scenes is the only one I can agree on, but they are still way better than the previous games. It just sounds like the character designs throw you off which is fine, even though I think they are eaisly some of the best in the series. A lot better than P4's for sure.

@dixavd:

Outside of your dislike for the character design I'm a little confused by your other points unless you know something I don't. We know very little about any of the characters in the game, playable or npc, we also know very little outside of this trailer about the dungeons.

And in regards to character troupes, are you saying her being a petite girl is a troupe? Because Fuuka and Rise are very characters, and this one looks again to have a different character to the previous 2. Also to my knowledge, every smt game has had the same style of protagonist, silent except when prompted with little touches of a personality thrown in occasionally. Although I don't speak or read any Japanese so maybe it's out there and I don't know it, but I have looked pretty hard. And I also think that animation looks totally fine, it's not the best out there for sure buts it still good. Same with the graphics. Killer style tho.

Anyway, I love everything that's happening in this trailer, tho it does makes me angry that I can't be playing this already, but I understand why, just hoping for a release this year.

@dixavd: I'm not going to comment on the character stuff, as that is purely subjective and rather premature, other than reafirming the point that introducing a female lead is not remotely the same thing in Persona as Pokemon. They had to make a whole extra game just to accomodate the introduction of a female lead for P3. It was not something simply introduced on a whim or copy-pasted over the existing game.

However I am going to strongly disagree that the industry has advanced past this game in the last decade. If anything this is exactly the type of game I've been waiting a decade to play because no one else was willing to make it. This game is looking to be everything I've been wanting from a JRPG in so long. I've played plenty of RPGs in the last decade, and a number of them were pretty good, but very few felt like notable steps forward for the genre, and even less were the steps I was looking to see.

Fuck that looks dope

For all interested, here's a translated version of the trailer (I'm gonna attribute it to Ryan Shrinefox on youtube)

time does fly, it did feel like yesterday it was that teaser trailer.

@rodin: @jesushammer: @rodin: Firstly, thanks for all responding inquisitively and not accusatory. These forums can be exceptionally positive about Persona (and some times angry to people who criticise it), but I'm impressed how the responses have just wanted me to explain better. I'll respond to you guys as a group, so sorry if there are parts each of you don't want to read (it's just easier than repeating some things).

While I agree that expecting multiple playable characters might be a bit much in terms of the changes it requires to dialogue and social link systems. That said, that isn't an excuse as to why the protagonist has to, by default, be male. We've had four male main characters in a row for all Persona games, with the only exception being the P3P add-on. The fact they did it for that re-release shows they aren't against it from the outset, so I don't see why they can't just make a game with a female character as the primary focus. I'm getting quite sick of the aloof silent boy who blushes in the inevitable beach scene every single game. This is why I'd prefer it if they actually delivered on their implied characterisation of him. This just seems like same-old-same-old.

@rodin Specifically though (I know I said I wouldn't, but you wanted a clarification on the navigator thing): The navigator character is traditionally a background support character who does not fight. Essentially, both of them (as well as Teddy, before he acquires a persona) aren't strong enough to fight (they even show this in their persona's stats) so you protect them while they lend you info on who you are up against. There's nothing inherently wrong with this, but both of those characters who fulfil the role (less so with Teddy, though while he has the role he's purely comedy relief) are essentially the personification of this weakness. I think it would be much more interesting if they twisted it into a stronger character who can hold their own in a fight, but choose to provide support for the team from afar (and if anything goes wrong, they can defend themselves and go in to help the party). The role can be one held by a courageous and confident character rather than the uncertain, anxious ones of both Fuuka and Rise. Alternatively, why not do the thing people have been saying for the whole series, and just have them be rotating based on the party members you haven't chosen to bring into the dungeon with you. I.e. you can set a sub-team leader and they become the navigator and link to the outside world while you are inside. Both of these are much more interesting than just another 'girl who can't adequately defend herself, so let's stick her on advisory duty instead'.

Ultimately, both of these are minor issues that doing with the status-quo could still deliver on in unusual and interesting ways. That doesn't change the fact that they've gone for the simpler and less-interesting option.

I don't think the game looks bad in any way. I just don't like the direction they are taking it, and I don't think they have learned from the miss-steps of Final Fantasy or Zelda, or the success of Xenoblade and Dark Souls. Maybe living in their own bubble will result in something fresh, unique and memorable. Or maybe it will be remembered as another too-secluded Japanese developer unable to capitalise on what currently makes their franchise so popular while moving towards something to interest a wider audience. I'm just not yet past the point of just accepting what they are showing, as it all looks a bit too much like a series of linear dungeons, designed similarly to a simplified uncharted (with shoot-outs replaced by JRPG battles) interspersed with school-work (that no one - apart from Art-boy - really cares about since the theme of the whole game is about placating boredom). I am intrigued, and I want to like it. I'm not impressed yet.

Also, if you understand Japanese, here's an interview also released with this trailer, about the gameplay of Persona 5:

God, I can feel the hype coursing through my veins

Was kinda unexcited by the previous trailers but finally hearing the cats voice and finding out its Ikue Ōtani (Pikachu, Tony Tony Chopper, Konhamaru) has me totally hyped now!

You are literally describing Mitsuru.

the english subtitles version of the trailer somehow makes this even better

when you realize capitalism is a oppressive system built on the exploitation of the working class

I agree with most of your points, but this part isn't really true.

I,II, III, IV, V, VI, Vi, Viii, IX, X all were basically wide corridors, sometime very wide corridors, for the first ~3/4 of the game. It's just that often part of that corridor included an overworld section where you could muck around a bit, maybe do a sidequest or so. You could go forward, you sometimes could go backwards but until you got an airship there only ever was one way to leave an area usually, even on the overworld.

FFXii (not counting MMO entries) is about the only one you could say actually had an open world of sorts.

I think Xiii's "problem" is that they made the corridor far too obvious, far too narrow and never let you take a break from the plot to do sidequests etc. It felt a lot more constricting than the previous games because of the lack of variety (it was go-go-go all the way until Pulse) and being able to see the ends of the world so to speak to your left and right, but in practice it really wasn't that different.

Just import pre-ordered the crazy deluxe set with the 5 disc CD collection and artbook ><;

I couldn't resist!

I know X is very confined, but I don't remember most of those being what you described. I guess VI is, but it just never feels like that. The others it's been way too long for me to remember. They weren't true modern open worlds, but they definitely felt bigger than XIII. Either way I don't think the comparison works because Persona 5 clearly has a bigger world to explore outside of the dungeons.

Speaking from memory, VII, VIII and IX all opened with you in a city that you got to explore at your own leisure, and all had early dungeons that involved you doing more than just running in a straight line (whether it be puzzles, verticality or just general map variety). They also let you out into the overworld pretty early, and I feel like the most they ever gave you was a dot on the map to point you in the right direction. Otherwise you got to explore wherever you could get to, and they often had optional areas (and sometimes party members, in the case of VII and IX) early on to incentivize exploration.

You have be super reductive to call that stuff corridors, and ignore heaps of intentional design decisions that made those areas feel engaging and infinitely more explorable/open-ended. While you can look at the first area in FFXIII and say "Yeah, that's literally just a straight line". Those areas weren't engaging because there was nothing to engage with.

(and yeah, sorry for getting so off-topic in here)

I usually don't go for the collector's editions of games, but for Persona 5 I will be making an exception (assuming there is such an edition for the US release).

I'm still optimistic about a 2016 Western release!

Official english site has 2016!

http://atlus.com/persona5/home.html

Well I was hoping to import the japanese version to test out Amazon Japan's new international shipping service but unfortunately it is one of those titles that has not been sanctioned for International Shipping. So I preordered the regular version on Play Asia. I would have prefered Amazon because the price, shipping pricing and custom fees are way better but ah well. If Amazon opens up ordering or if the North American release date is sooner than I'm predicting I'll cancel my order.

Time to put my slim japanese translation skills to the test again. At least the Google Translate app makes it way easier to track down Kanji.

Maybe this is old news, but I'm really excited to see why old personas are enemies now, maybe there's going to be some kind of capturing mechanic or something now!

Guess I'll be avoiding any Persona-related stuff between the Japanese and US release.

Actually, it seems to be going back to the series' roots in 1 and 2, where you fought demons rather than shadows, but you could talk with them and get items, money, and cards to later summon those same demons as personae. While I don't think it's going to be exactly the same system, I'm curious to see how this will tie into the story since 3 and 4 mostly had just shadows. Maybe it's time to see Nyarlathotep again?

@mgalchemist said:

Oh man, I was trying not to get excited about this game until we were closer to release but I guess that's out the window now....

Playing both Persona 2 games in wait for this game (I'd heard that it looked P5 seemed to be taking cues from older games, so I figured I should see for myself) really only made the wait worse. Here's hoping that the release date in other regions isn't far off from Japan's!