*does the "new Persona" dance*

[gogmagog]

Scans of Persona 3 from the new Famitsu. It will be released in Japan on 13 July, which means (hopefully) we'll get it by the end of the year. ROCK.

Things to note:
- Kazuma Kaneko is NOT the character designer this time around, Shigeki Soejima is. (He did the character design for Stella Deus. He also did the bust-ups - character portraits - in Persona 2, as well as I think the character design for the minor characters, like shopkeepers and such.)
- The nameless main character's Persona is Orpheus.
- The heroine is named Yukari Takeba, and her Persona is Io. She's voiced by Megumi Toyoguchi. (Thanks to bobthetrout for the correct romanization of the last names!)
- The scruffy guy with the hat is Junpei Iori (thank you furigana!), and his Persona is Hermes (they're reusing main character personae now? or does he have some affiliation with Jun? for the record, the kanji for "jun" are completely different in their names). Also, he's voiced by Kousuke Toriumi (a.k.a. Eikichi from P2), hee hee. >D
- Also, Shadows are back.
- Of course so is the Velvet Room and Igor (Belladonna and the rest of the gang seem to be MIA in the screenshots though).

AWESOMEOSITY!

Edit: Also, apparently Famitsu gave FFXII a 40/40 score. Given all the bad press it's gotten, this makes me curious. Hm.

Edit 2: Apparently the full trailer is up. And it does indeed look like it will rock. :D

Edit 3: An IGN article on Persona 3. (I know, I know, it's IGN, but it's still worth a look!)

Comments

[firestorm717.livejournal.com]

Oooh, oooh, pretty ^__^ I loved the second Persona (the first was too old school, so I never finished it ;;; also, I HATED the map system) so this is a happy surprise. It's coming out on PS2 soon?

FFXII got bad press? o_O

[yoshitsune.livejournal.com]

I have a confession to make...I never finished the first Persona either. (What can I say, first-person dungeons annoy the hell out of me.) Still, both Persona 2's rocked, and pretty much everything to come out of Atlus R&D1 since then has rocked, so Persona 3 should rock as well. :D :D :D

By the way, were you aware that their Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne has Dante from DMC in it as a recruitable character? You may already know, I was just wondering given your mad love for Dante. XD

Yeah, I've been hearing people ripping on the battle system from the FFXII demo for, like, EVER. Personally, I generally trust Squeenix to at least make their games fun to play and with high production values, so I didn't give them a whole lot of credence, but I wasn't expecting it to get a PERFECT from Famitsu. Which admittedly is just one magazine's opinion, but still...

[firestorm717.livejournal.com]

XD YES, the first person KILLED me. I literally spent an hour just wondering in circles around town. So awful. And the battle system was only so-so, I liked the Persona 2 one much better thanks to the quick, sleek format. I played the one that was translated into English...couldn't get ahold of the other one and figured I didn't know any Japanese, so it'd just be mindless dungeon crawling with pretty pictures in between. Is Persona 3 supposed to follow off that story?

Yes, I saw that! XD; I'm actually more obsessed with Vergil now...bad boys always get me...but yeah, you recruit him randomly for a mission. How'd that work out? Capcom + Atlus unite? o_O

Hm...well, admittedly, when they criticized the FFVIII battle system, I was right with them on that. Is there any example of how the battles work? I guess it all depends on personal opinion; I mean, they always have to spice up the old RPG format with something new. Famitsu's well-respected, ne?

[yoshitsune.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm assuming this is following Eternal Punishment (the English Persona 2), and I desperately hope we get some cameos of previous series characters, all graduated and hot in their new adult clothes.

Also, there is an English translation (http://yoridori.org/oracle) of Persona 2: Innocent Sin (the Japanese-only one), in case you wanted to know what happened in that game. It has bearing on Eternal Punishment (the one released in the U.S.) as well!

And I don't exactly know how the battles work in FFXII, though I keep hearing people saying the battle system is vaguely similar to FFXI Online.

[firestorm717.livejournal.com]

Oooh thank you for the link ^^. I had the Japanese version...dunno where I put it now...but tried playing some and got utterly confused. Yeah, I really wanted to play it since I saw some repeated characters from Eternal Punishment in it.

XD I want to see what happened to Baofu. Also, the cute uber-gay-looking police officer I forget the name of.

>_> So does that mean it's more action RPG?

[moonsheen.livejournal.com]

As I, well, basically keep saying to anyone who will listen: I have high hopes for FFXII. I think it might be because I just finished Vagrant Story and the fact that it's by most of the same guys gets me really really psyched.

[yoshitsune.livejournal.com]

See, sadly I never got into Vagrant Story. I tried, I really did! Two playthroughs which stalled 11 or so hours in. And what little I saw of the story and characters (because sadly, there's not a whole lot of either during that period - it really is primarily a dungeon crawler at least for the first 11 hours) I liked.

I mostly just hated the fact that even with weapons with nearly-full affinity against the boss I was fighting, it still ended up being a battle of attrition where I'd have to take down 300-some HP at 3 HP a swing. D:

But I am more excited that they're also a lot of the same people who worked on FFT/Tactics Ogre also, both of which I loved. :D

[moonsheen.livejournal.com]

...aah, yes. That. That almost, I will admit, made me throw my controller at the screen and say SCREW IT I'M JUST READING THE SCRIPT. That and also the fact sometimes you could lose your best weapons if you were too experimental in the workshops. And if you didn't budget your vera/mana items if you met a boss that's only real vulnerability were the chains you were basically screwed--

--yeah, I can see how that can put someone off.

I want to play Tactics Ogre. I swear I have reasons for this other than the shots I have seen of a (presumably male) knight in a BIG FRILLY DRESS armor in one of the games in that franchise.

[yoshitsune.livejournal.com]

Tactics Ogre is a lot of fun! I like them because a) the strategy gameplay is better than Final Fantasy Tactics, and b) the stories branch. This is not a huge deal in the GBA TO, where all it means is that you get characters A and B from the Red Side instead of C and D from the Blue Side, but in the original TO (which is available in English for PSX or untranslated as an SNES ROM and is a lot more fun, IMO, but costs an arm and a leg to obtain legally) it made a huge difference; there were three different paths, with easily half a dozen (at LEAST) characters unique to each, and the ones you do get in all paths are generally under quite different circumstances.

Also, it has political manipulation and backstabbing that makes just about every other SRPG look like a middle-school class-president race.

...yes, I'm a huge TO fanboy, how could you tell? XD

[chefkatsuya.livejournal.com]

YEEEEE! New Persona! What a wonderful surprise. My friend has started calling the main guy "Slouchy McEmo" and I think it fits.

[yoshitsune.livejournal.com]

It does! His character design totally makes Tatsuya Suou look cheerful and well-adjusted. XD

[shinkun.livejournal.com]

FF12 got a lot of bad press because its bounced around through so many development teams. I expect it to be awesome.

PS the story of Persona 3 sounds stupid. emoemoemoemo

[ahebert.livejournal.com]

Square needs to acknowledge that Final Fantasy is on it's last legs. It's pushing 25 years. I think it's time to let it die peacefully.

[shinkun.livejournal.com]

I disagree. FF12 looks as if it will help inject new life into the series. For instance, Ashe, the heroine, is not a wuss and so far seems like she's kind of a bitch.

[yoshitsune.livejournal.com]

You mean you don't like the "dating-sim-from-hell" story? Or Slouchy McEmo? D:

And I'm looking forward to FFXII too, if only for the fact that as moonsheen mentioned, a lot of the major new staff has worked on some great games. :D

[ahebert.livejournal.com]

Square must have bribed Famitsu.

[yoshitsune.livejournal.com]

Or maybe they just made a good game? It has been known to happen. XD

[ahebert.livejournal.com]

Yosi! You shouldn't speak such heresy. The lords at Atlus might notice.

[yoshitsune.livejournal.com]

Atlus has no problem if I cheat for a little while with Squeenix or Konami! They know that no matter how much they mistreat me, I always come back for some sweet sweet Megaten lovin'. D: