@blacklagoon: Well I think that kinda reaffirms my point. Uncredited non-union actors are not as common as they once were and Atlus USA seems to be moving more and more toward using only non-union actors. (At least that's my perception. I don't know every actor's union status.) It's possible a big game like Persona 5 would be different, but it's also possible they would have no plans to use union actors in the first place.
@mub: Yes, it's a pandering fanservice game, but that does not preclude it from having "heart". There are countless pandering fanservice games out there that are garbage, that don't get what made the original game special and it ends up feeling hollow and soulless. Whether or not the purpose of this game is to be a cashgrab, it's obvious that the people who actually worked on the game care about it and get it. Maybe the game came about as a soulless cash grab, but somewhere along the line there were people involved that gave the game heart.
Compare this game to Persona Q, the other blatantly fanservice game that came out not long ago. Whereas that is clearly the better game, it felt like it stumbled with the fanservice end, often making the characters feel off and not quite how you remembered them. (More often than not reducing them to one note caricatures.) Teddie for example was one of my favorite characters in P4, but he was kinda just obnoxious in Q. But the Teddie in Dancing All Night is totally the Teddie I remembered and loved.
@mub: If this really was nothing more than a cynical cash grab there's much less they could have done with this thing. It didn't need all the fanservice (which extends beyond Persona entirely). It didn't need all those song remixes. It didn't need an entire canon story mode that somehow fits into the ongoing plot. (Good or bad, that's impressive.) Obviously the game is capitalizing and marketing on Persona 4's popularity (because no shit) but you can tell the developers had "heart" when they made it. Maybe it wasn't a deep passionate indie project, but I certainly don't see it as nothing more than a cynical cash grab either.
Although to be honest, who the fuck cares? Why do people care so much about how much a game is designed to make money? Unless you're a stockholder in the company that end of the business is irrelevant. A video game's one and only purpose for a consumer is to provide entertainment and joy. If a game can provide that it is as deserving of existing as any other game on the market.
This is a game based around Persona 4's fantastic music where Chie dances in a Bruce Lee tracksuit while SMT enemy icons dance at the top and then it ends with Izanagi-no-Okami wailing on a sick double ended guitar. You'd have to be impossibly cynical not to find any joy in that.
@zeik: True! I'm just annoyed at Atlus's continued gall for old school references while they pool these huge resources into spinoffs and crossovers instead of a modern SMT game to succeed Nocturne (I loved SMT4 but c'mon now).
We've joked about the Persona bandwagon for nearly half a decade now, I know it's a tired conversation but I just can't help it when I see those cute little icons jumping for joy like they're saying in their tiny voices, "hey we haven't forgotten!".
That said I'll be on the lookout for weird easter eggs in P5 and SMTxFE.
Well it's not that surprising. SMT isn't their flagship series anymore, it's Persona. That's where all the money and the majority of their fanbase is these days, so that's where their resources are going to go. To be honest, we should probably be happy that SMT4 was as old-school as it was, they totally could have decided they were done with that style of game.
That being said, I am holding out hope that after P5 they'll be able to use those monster assets and core game engine to justify making an actual SMT style game on a console. If not SMT5 then a cool spin-off like DDS. (ie, something radically different than Persona.) People complained regularly about all the reused assets in the PS2 games (myself included) but if that's what it takes to get more console MegaTen games this gen I am 100% in support.
The little SMT2 icons are cute, if not a little odd. I don't think the target demographic for this game would have any appreciation for it.
As a fan of rhythm games I'm eating this shit up though, so I guess I'm a sucker too.
It's not like it's a key story or gameplay element, there's no reason it needs to be appreciated by the entire audience, it's just a nice little bonus for those of us who get it. It's like when they put Alice from SMT1 as a summon in P3.
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