Shin Murder Tensei: Persona V

[Jiro]

Do you think they should step away from the highschool dating sim format? I mean, it has had some decent success, but maybe there is room for innovation. Maybe it could be college?

[Skyblade]

I think that shift is coming. They've done too much with Persona 4 Arena advancing the characters and keeping them tied to the main story. I think the Shadow Operatives and the Investigation Team are both going to be a major part of the story. I'd love to see both groups part of the available team pool (and I would love to see multiple Wild Card wielders implemented). The major characters in the story are now beyond that point, so I don't think they can lock it down to just more highschool as easily.

[Mercen-X]

I played one on DS. I returned it to GameStop the next day. The game play irritated me so much I couldn't get through the story.

[Fynn]

I played one on DS. I returned it to GameStop the next day. The game play irritated me so much I couldn't get through the story.

Shin Megami Tensei, not Persona. Completely different thing.

Anyway, I think they've already confirmed this is still gonna take place in high school and use Social Links. Though judging by the teasers, the tone will be much darker. Also, probably a new cast of characters. Hell, I'll just leave the link to the MegaTen wiki article about it, okay? http://megamitensei.wikia.com/wiki/Persona_5

[Wolf Kanno]

The High School setting is a tradition dating back to the series spiritual origin Shin Megami Tensie If and I doubt they would move away from it. Hell they sidestepped making Strange Journey SMT4 only because it didn't take place in Tokyo which every main line SMT game has done before. This staff is a stickler for tradition and I doubt they will change it for anyone.

Technically the high school setting works too easily for the setup and lots of things can be done with it still. College in Japan, from what I've heard, is not like it is in other countries and is much more relaxed and subdued. Not the type of place good for social links and side activities like high school is (which is closer to colleges outside of Japan). There are reasons why anime doesn't dwell on college settings.

Besides Persona 2 showed its possible to still use a high school setting with an older cast as well. I still feel that Persona 5 will be a fresh start, with a new cast and the P4 Arena story arc may simply spin-off into its own series. This is probably a better deal for Atlus anyway because if P5 is a direct continuation from previous Persona games, it will continuity lock the series from new fans. Don't want to pull a Kingdom Hearts and force fans to buy a bunch of games (gotta make sure their the right continuity as well) just to understand the story to its full capacity. It would be more profitable to keep Persona 5 and the main line series into fresh starts and just create a parallel series that absorbs the new casts from new mainline entries and incorporates them into a larger epic.

[Skyblade]

The High School setting is a tradition dating back to the series spiritual origin Shin Megami Tensie If and I doubt they would move away from it. Hell they sidestepped making Strange Journey SMT4 only because it didn't take place in Tokyo which every main line SMT game has done before. This staff is a stickler for tradition and I doubt they will change it for anyone.

Technically the high school setting works too easily for the setup and lots of things can be done with it still. College in Japan, from what I've heard, is not like it is in other countries and is much more relaxed and subdued. Not the type of place good for social links and side activities like high school is (which is closer to colleges outside of Japan). There are reasons why anime doesn't dwell on college settings.

Good points, and I think I agree with those.

Besides Persona 2 showed its possible to still use a high school setting with an older cast as well. I still feel that Persona 5 will be a fresh start, with a new cast and the P4 Arena story arc may simply spin-off into its own series. This is probably a better deal for Atlus anyway because if P5 is a direct continuation from previous Persona games, it will continuity lock the series from new fans. Don't want to pull a Kingdom Hearts and force fans to buy a bunch of games (gotta make sure their the right continuity as well) just to understand the story to its full capacity. It would be more profitable to keep Persona 5 and the main line series into fresh starts and just create a parallel series that absorbs the new casts from new mainline entries and incorporates them into a larger epic.

At the same time, you don't want to pull a Mario and have a story that doesn't appeal to anyone because it never changes or progresses.

ATLUS builds niche games, and it builds them for their fans. They've never been particularly worried about accessibility. And, as Square noted in their recent release from their president, making games that appeal to everyone resulted in watered down titles that don't sell well to anyone. The fans want the experience, and the new players have hundreds of other games to choose from.

If anything, I think the recent releases of the older games are precisely to allow the series to hold a stronger continuity. Persona, Persona 2 Innocent Sin, Persona 3 Portable, and Persona 4 Golden are all available on the PSP/Vita. No one complains about needing to play four Metal Gear Solid games to enjoy the new one. Why would people complain about it happening to Persona? You can only waffle around with a plot so long before your fans give up because it never advances. Unless you're a comic book writer, in which case that's all you'll ever do, and people will still read your schlock.

The big problems with Kingdom Hearts was that you not only need a dozen games, you need a dozen consoles, as it released games for both the PSP and the DS, in addition to the PlayStation and cell phones.

[Wolf Kanno]

Actually people do bitch about playing previous MGS games to understand the story and unlike Persona, you can potentially experience the whole franchise in the course of a weekend if you know exactly how to maximize your playtime completion. Whereas it would take a couple of weeks to blast through the entire Persona franchise. So I still feel that playing through five 40+ hour games with multiple endings and the fighting game would still be more time consuming for new players than you would think. The real issue is that if Atlus tries to continue the continuity of previous games in the series in the mainline entries, it will eventually get too cumbersome for new players. It might be manageable now but what if they throw a curve ball and make all four main stories connected? and then we add three more stories down the pipeline, you now have to play through eight different games to figure out what the hell is going on.

The real smart thing that Atlus has done is that even though there are tons of side games and spin-offs for the franchises, most of them remain non-canon so they don't dilute the main story. It's not like Guilty Gear or Xenosaga where good chunks of the plot are in Japanese only Drama CDs or cell phone games that will never leave Japan.

In my mind, it would be a bad business choice. Better to keep the main series accessible to new fans and just continue the story of previous entries as its own series. You now get two franchises instead of one, one that hooks the new kids and the other that keeps them staying. To me that is just a better business model.

[Skyblade]

Actually people do bitch about playing previous MGS games to understand the story and unlike Persona, you can potentially experience the whole franchise in the course of a weekend if you know exactly how to maximize your playtime completion. Whereas it would take a couple of weeks to blast through the entire Persona franchise. So I still feel that playing through five 40+ hour games with multiple endings and the fighting game would still be more time consuming for new players than you would think. The real issue is that if Atlus tries to continue the continuity of previous games in the series in the mainline entries, it will eventually get too cumbersome for new players. It might be manageable now but what if they throw a curve ball and make all four main stories connected? and then we add three more stories down the pipeline, you now have to play through eight different games to figure out what the hell is going on.

The real smart thing that Atlus has done is that even though there are tons of side games and spin-offs for the franchises, most of them remain non-canon so they don't dilute the main story. It's not like Guilty Gear or Xenosaga where good chunks of the plot are in Japanese only Drama CDs or cell phone games that will never leave Japan.

In my mind, it would be a bad business choice. Better to keep the main series accessible to new fans and just continue the story of previous entries as its own series. You now get two franchises instead of one, one that hooks the new kids and the other that keeps them staying. To me that is just a better business model.

Not if you shift the second series into an entirely different genre. I don't think fighters we hold the majority of the fan base indefinitely. Especially since, story-wise, it's tiny compared to most of the full Persona games, even if it's very heavy on story for a fighter. People are going to wonder why the main plot gets stuffed into this expensive, minuscule format while the main series games will become more and more irrelevant. They'll want more Persona games, not more fighters.

I think Persona Q is a good example of what you meant. A separate game built entirely for fans, on a smaller scale and a smaller system, with the main series retaining its accessibility. But I also think that the main series is going to progress in the main games. I think that the references to previous titles and recurring characters will get larger and more prominent. Even if knowledge of the series lore isn't required to understand and enjoy the main plot of Persona 5, it will be required to see how the story affects the overall plot of the series, and probably to understand the optional dungeons and bosses.

[Wolf Kanno]

Not if you shift the second series into an entirely different genre. I don't think fighters we hold the majority of the fan base indefinitely. Especially since, story-wise, it's tiny compared to most of the full Persona games, even if it's very heavy on story for a fighter. People are going to wonder why the main plot gets stuffed into this expensive, minuscule format while the main series games will become more and more irrelevant. They'll want more Persona games, not more fighters.

That kind of depends, while I never believed the story would stick to the fighting genre, it has branched the series into new genres and the P4 Arena games are actually quite exceptional games. It would really come down to how important this story will be to the series as a whole.

I think Persona Q is a good example of what you meant. A separate game built entirely for fans, on a smaller scale and a smaller system, with the main series retaining its accessibility. But I also think that the main series is going to progress in the main games. I think that the references to previous titles and recurring characters will get larger and more prominent. Even if knowledge of the series lore isn't required to understand and enjoy the main plot of Persona 5, it will be required to see how the story affects the overall plot of the series, and probably to understand the optional dungeons and bosses.

I see the new series bleeding into the older games, but I don't see it being too heavily emphasized. For instance, I don't think we'll see another crossover like we did with Persona 1's cast being a part of P2's story. I can see Margaret or Theo showing up but their roles in the series permits this. I don't imagine we'll see any of the S.E.E.S. or Investigation Team members show up as anything more than a shout out to the older games, simply because their presence would detract from the new cast. This happens in lots of sequels that try to move away from the older casts, if an older cast member shows up, they have a tendency to overshadow the new cast members and fans will be expecting the whole plot to be a continuation of something previous instead of its own thing.

Basically, I imagine the P5 cast will find a new way the Shadows have entered the world, they will face a new god trying to interpret mankind's self destructive will and enact the apocalypse. Yet I feel it will all have its own spin and we probably won't see a real connection to Tartarus or the TV World until the series cast gets absorbed into the P4 Arena plot. Hell we still don't really know how the TV World and Tartarus are connected unless the game goes real old school and reveals the Malevolent Entity is Nyalarthotep, of which point the connection becomes much more obvious. Still, I don't think we'll meet the mystery man from the Kirijo group or the Malevolent Entity in P5. If they are in it, we probably wouldn't know until the next chapter of the P4 Arena plot gets revealed for whatever genre the writers want to do it on.

[Mercen-X]

I played one on DS. I returned it to GameStop the next day. The game play irritated me so much I couldn't get through the story.

Shin Megami Tensei, not Persona. Completely different thing.

Don't try to annoy and confuse me.

[Scotty_ffgamer]

I pretty much agree with everything Wolf Kanno said. While I want some loose ends which have been introduced in P4 Golden/Arena to be answered, I'd want it to be settled in it's own spin off game. I would rather it be in more of an RPG than a fighting game like Arena, but whatever.

P5 should be it's own thing with only more subtle callbacks to the other games that are there to be appreciated by those who have played the previous games. Should P5 end up being a direct sequel to the Persona 4 Arena stuff, I wouldn't complain too much, but I'd rather see a new cast with a new setting and story.

[Mirage]

High school students is getting old. College offers a similar format but with a bit older characters. Remember that the fans of Persona are also getting older.