Lots of Persona 5 News

[Wolf Kanno]

Atlus has been pretty busy the last week dropping lots of info about their next installment in the popular cult hit Persona franchise.

First up is a a new version of the familiar opening, now featuring several of the new characters and song lyrics.



Next up is the sneak peak at the anime tie in series, Persona 5 The Daybreakers which will begin airing in Japan on September 3es. The anime is not a retelling of the plot, but rather an expansion on a sub-story that takes place in the game.



Now for people more interested on the gameplay side of things, Atlus released a video showing roughly the first fifteen minutes of the game. While it is all in Japanese, it is still a given it will feature tons of SPOILERS! So watch at your own expense.



Now the cool stuff.

One fan who frequents Nico Nico has gathered and uploaded several videos showing off the gameplay into a playlist which you can watch all of it here:



Finally, Atlus revealed a new gameplay element called Mementos (not to be confused with Mentos, the Fresh Maker) which is a free roam dungeon you can apparently take on whenever you wish. It even involves Morganna transforming into a bus, making this a catbus if you will.

This dungeon seems to be connected to several side-quests and its design is similar to Tartarus from P3 or the EX Dungeons from the first two games. No word if its optional like the EX Dungeons but Atlus says the dungeon is larger than all of P4 Combined. Whatever that means...

[Midgar Mist]

Wheres a PS4/X Box One when you need one?

[Fox]

Dunno why they're bothering with all this so called "info". We're all going to buy it just to get our hands on that beautiful User Interface anyway. The rest is just unnecessary fluff.

[Wolf Kanno]

Atlus just revealed seven more Cooperation Characters, which has been confirmed to be the game's new take on the Social Link system. I'm only leaving the link because I know some people would rather be surprised going in.

[Fynn]

Have they said anything about how this will differ from Social Links?

[Wolf Kanno]

Have they said anything about how this will differ from Social Links?

Not that I'm aware of, though I've been trying to avoid too many spoilers.

[Depression Moon]

The people on the train have no faces.

[Mirage]

Wheres a PS4/X Box One when you need one?

Xbox one wouldn't help you here

[Wolf Kanno]

Some more news concerning the game.

Mementos is the name of the transforming dungeon you can partake of between missions in the Palace. The dungeon is randomly generated and serves as a reflection of the masses. As such, you'll encounter many people facing their Shadows in in this dungeon and it will change based on weather and time. This is an interesting cross between Tartarus from P3 and the TV World from P4, and also you get to travel around in a literal cat-bus, since Morgana has revealed she can turn into a vehicle.

Personas get more XP based on their coop partners. The more XP they get, the more skills they will learn, and more skills can be transferred randomely by inheritance when fused. This is mostly normal for the series, but the whole "coop partner" aspect makes me wonder if we'll see a return to Pre-P3 Persona rules and the whole cast may be able to change their personas. Another possibility is that we may get the sub-persona system from Persona Q. The other interesting piece of dialogue here is that the game seems to retain the older system of skill acquisition in fusion as opposed to the newer systems from Devil Survivor and SMTIV which allowed you to pick skills. Instead we're back to randomization, which I'm grateful for.

Guillotine (Fusions) is bringing back several elements from the early Persona games and SMTII and III. In addition to standard fusion we all know and love, there are three new aspects to consider:

Hanging - This is basically the SMT series Sacrificial Summon system. You have the ability to sacrifice a third persona in a standard two fusion summon to transfer the sacrifices XP to the new fused persona. This will make acquiring additional Personas more useful since you can sacrifice extras to build up your core team. You get more XP is the sacrifice is the same arcana as the resulting fusion.

Electric Chair - This takes some cues from the first two persona games. In the older games, Persona has level limits and when they maxed out and started to get useless, you could return them to the collective consciousness to gain items. Electric Chair is pretty much this in a nutshell, sacrificing a Persona to gain a new and powerful item.

Solitary Sending - This one is completely new but very interesting. Solitary Sending requires leaving a Persona in the Velvet Room to gain additional training. What makes this different from say the Day Care mechanic from the Pokemon games is that training here is all about removing a Persona's elemental weakness. The issue here is that you're sacrificing time to do this. So in theory of how it works, you could send a Jack Frost away for thirty in-game days to remove his weakness to fire, but obviously, you run the risk of him being too weak by the time he's returned. Raising your Coop levels will shorten the amount of time needed to get results.

[Vyk]

Didn't realize they had taken so many cues from the old games. I'd be more interested if they had tried to design a new thing with those ideals in mind, which sounds like something you'd want as well. But re-introducing them in a familiar P3/P4 atmosphere like they are doing will help to not alienate their current fans and ween those fans back into the old ways. So perhaps Persona 6 will go even farther down that path. Or this will be a decisive game and the fandom will decide that the P3/P4 style is all that matters. I'm sure they'll always find interesting ways to spin so that it doesn't stagnate too much. They're surely not making a stagnant looking game here

[Wolf Kanno]

I'm kind of happy they are bringing back some elements from the older games. I missed demon negotiations and the old fusion systems were actually really cleverly done in the older SMT titles. Persona 1 and 2 may have some problems but they also had some really clever ideas as well. The funny thing is that P3/P4 are the titles that borrowed more from older SMT games whereas their predecessors had more original and interesting game mechanics; so for me, it's really cool to see them hearkening back to their roots.

Hell my main happy point was that they didn't retain the "choose your new mons skill after fusion" rule that was in SMTIV and the Devil Survivor games. It sounds good on paper but it seriously wrecked the game balance and trivialized many of the monsters by end game.

At this point in time, P5 feels like the love child between P2 and P3 and the child grew up watching too much Lupin III, which sounds absolutely fantastic to me, but whether the fanbase will accept it is still up in the air.

[Wolf Kanno]

Figured I would update this. Atlus just announced the first wave of DLC for P5 now that it has been released in Japan.

The DLC includes:

Six different Costume Packs, letting you dress the characters in their casual clothes and the school uniforms from previous Persona/SMT Tiles

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Casual Clothes

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Shin Megami Tensei If... For those wondering, Morgana is dressed as Hee-ho-kun, a Jack Frost that can be encounter in SMT If... who dresses like a Japanese student from the pre-war era Japan. He makes a cameo in Persona 1 during the Snow Queen quest.

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Megami Ibunroku Persona (Persona 1) Again, for reference sake, Morganna's outfit is Trish the Fairy, a character encountered in dungeons who would restore the party for obscene amounts of money.

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Persona 2:Innocent Sin & Eternal Punishment Last time I promise, Morgana is again dressed as Trish, but based off her new design from P2.

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Persona 3 (Morgana = Aigis)

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Persona 4 (Morgana = Teddie)
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Six additional Personas from Persona 3 and 4, including new Thief Variants of all of them making it twelve Personas over all.

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Orpheus and Orpheus Thief God (Persona 3)

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Thanatos and Thanatos Thief God (Persona 3)

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Izanagi and Izanagi Thief God (Persona 4)

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Magatsu-Izanagi and Thief God Magatsu-Izanagi (Persona 4)

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Kaguya and Kaguya Thief God (Persona 4: Golden)
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A new Decal for the Phantom Thieves Cat Bus
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There are also five Avatar/Wallpaper sets showcasing four of the characters and one for Igor and the twin Velvet Room girls.

[Skyblade]

I approve of that DLC.

EDIT: Something that Wolf missed. THE COSTUME DLC PACKS APPARENTLY COME WITH THE BATTLE THEMES FROM THE PAST GAMES!

[Wolf Kanno]

BABY BABY BABY~!

[Formalhaut]

I approve of that DLC.

EDIT: Something that Wolf missed. THE COSTUME DLC PACKS APPARENTLY COME WITH THE BATTLE THEMES FROM THE PAST GAMES!

Oh wow, seriously? That's amazing.

I do like the standard battle theme in Persona 5 (I've spent some time listening to the tracks), but the choice and variation is good.