Shin Megami Tensei: Persona Series - My every day life
1,491 replies, posted
What is Persona? It's a long running flagship series from Atlus featuring demons in high schools and all sorts of zany events (you can even fight Hitler in one of the games). Here's the rundown on the major games of the series. All feature relatively similar gameplay, although 1 and 2's gameplay is more similar to each others', just as 3 and 4's are. Essentially, you summon a Persona and cast magic attacks, guard, or use a weapon to attack. Persona 1 is the only game in the series to feature firearms for all playable characters, although various others have used them dependent on who they are.
[IMG]http://puu.sh/1DAJP[/IMG]
[U][B]Persona[/B][/U]
Released in 1996 under the title [I]Megami Ibunroku: Persona, [/I]centers around a protagonist (seen as the male in the center of the image above) and several of his classmates at St. Hermelin High School. A rumor is going around the school about a game called "Persona", which is played much like the ritual game "Bloody Mary". While playing, the students lose consciousness and meet Philemon, who gives them the ability to summon reflections of their personalities, which are known as Personas. A short time later, the protagonist and several of his friends go to visit a classmate of theirs who is ill and bed-ridden. During their visit, they discover that the town is changing and demons are roaming the streets. It's up to you to uncover the truth behind how this happened, and try to reach the true ending.
[IMG]http://puu.sh/1DARs[/IMG]
[B][U]Persona 2: Innocent Sin
[/U][/B]Similar to the first game, Innocent Sin follows the story of a group of high school students (as well as some older characters, including one from Persona 1) as they discover their ability to summon Personas and figure out just what has gone wrong with their surroundings. Centering on the protagonist, Tatsuya Suou, the player sets out to investigate a recent rumor regarding a being only known as "Joker". Supposedly, if you call your own cell phone number and make a wish for your desires and ideals, then they shall come true, for better or worse. The mystery that follows is odd, but quite interesting if you have the time for it.
[IMG]http://puu.sh/1DARu[/IMG]
[B][U]Persona 2: Eternal Punishment[/U][/B]
A direct sequel to Innocent Sin that takes place on an alternate timeline of sorts. Only Tatsuya recalls the events of Innocent Sin, although now you play as Maya Amano, a party character from the previous game. More Persona 1 characters return, and thus far this is the only Persona game to feature a majority of adult playable characters. This time around, "Joker" is now a serial murder under the name JOKER, who contacts his next victims over the internet. Philemon is drastically weakened from previous games, and so it's up to your party to figure out how to stop the murders, and find out the result of Tatsuya's apprehensiveness.
[IMG]http://puu.sh/1DB3M[/IMG]
[B][U]Persona 3
[/U][/B]You take the roll of a transfer student who moved into a new town to study abroad. When you arrive at the train station right around midnight, things seem a bit peculiar. As you depart you notice blood spilled all over, and coffins littering the streets. As it happens, all electric machines have stopped working as well. You arrive at your dorm and after signing some kind of contract you decide to get some rest, and when you next wake up to everything around you [I]seems[/I] to be normal again. You go to school like nothings happened and it's a average day, till midnight strikes again. Things return to being... strange and your dorm comes under attack. A few people staying at the dorm warn you that you have to get out and after a retreat to the roof, and that's when you're attacked. An object that seems to be a gun slides to your hero's feet, and he puts it to his head and fires, awakening a power deep inside him--yet another 'Persona'. From that point on he joins a team of classmates organized under the front of a school club to bring a end to this phenomenon, the Dark Hour.
As you might imagine, shooting yourself in the head to summon a demon is a bit creative, but the idea of it is relatively consistent with the other games in the series. Your persona is a representation of who you really are, a being that only comes out when you're as tense as possible, and as such the guns are used to push people to a point as to bring out their true selves. The gunshot you see in the game merely symbolizes that awakening.
[B]Gameplay[/B]
Now this is going to be a love it or hate it thing and if you don't like it, totally understandable, just don't threadshit please.
There's two segments to the game, Day-time activity and Night-time. during the day it's your job to go to school and hang out with dudes, go out to eat with friends, go to parties and the beach, whatever the hell you want to do, all in the name of forming social links and developing their characters' stories. Social links are events you form with important NPC's that while getting stronger allow you to create better personas. You go through all 7 days of the week being a average student working to balance studies and hanging out with people you like are clubs. It's been compared to dating sim like games and honestly it kind of is as you can even choose a girl (or party member) to kinda go after if you want. At the end of the day though you have 3 options. Sleep (improve your battle condition) Study (Raise knowledge) or FIGHT DEMONS.
At night you can go back to the school, that during the Dark Hour transforms into a rather...unholy tower, and try to ascend it in a randomly generated dungeon type fashion. Depending on how your social links are going your personas will be stronger, have more attacks, and can even be fused together to create stronger beings (Main character only). While crawling around you'll find stairs (Ascend a floor) access points (return to the base of the tower) treasure, and of course enemies, which can be attacked in various ways, Initiating a fight is easy and just takes a second, and it works like this: if caught off guard (doing nothing, and a enemy runs up and smacks you) you'll be thrown into battle with enemies getting a extra turn, if you attack a enemy aware of you it plays out normally, and if you attack a enemy from behind on the field map you'll get a whole extra turn before the enemies have a chance to move. Combat is handled in a rather simple way of selecting the main characters actions and taking turns fighting, though your teammates are handled by a pretty good AI (which is kind of a first). It isn't until P3P that you could fully control teammates during battles. During combat you can analyze enemies, use weaknesses to your advantage and blow away enemies with team attacks. It can be somewhat complex for a simple combat system.
[B]Versions[/B]
Vanilla: Standard game that shipped and nowadays super hard to find.
Persona 3 FES: It's 10 dollars on PSN, so you may as well go get it if you have a PS3! This version adds more social events, a handful of new Persona's and skills and a entirely new epilogue chapter called "The Answer" staring one of your teammates detailing what happens after the end of the original storyline.
Persona 3 Portable: This can be considered a huge downgrade or upgrade by many, it adds a whole laundry list of things while stripping a lot away at the same time. No longer will you be running around a hubworld so to speak and everything is menu intensive, there's almost no action with character models during daytime segments and FES's "The Answer" epilogue was cut entirely. Added though are rescue missions where people can get trapped in the tower and you can save them for rewards, new social links entirely, cameo's from persona 4, a new boss rush type deal where you can challenge super charged versions of all the bosses, and the option to see the story through a female perspective (which has it's own social events and story changes that can even effect characters that die in the original plotline). Most of all it adds the option to fully control your entire team if you don't trust the AI for whatever reason.
[B]Persona 4[/B]
[IMG]http://puu.sh/1DBiw[/IMG]
[B][U]Persona 4
[/U][/B]Again you take up the role of a transfer student, sent to Inaba to live with your uncle (a detective with the local police) and his daughter. Quickly you discover that your uncle is quite busy, as a recent string of murders have been plaguing the small town, with bodies being found strung up television and telephone poles with no apparent cause of death or explanation. On your first day at school, you find that there's a rumor going around that if you look into a TV at midnight you're destined to see your soulmate, although it turns out whoever you see in the TV ends up dead after the next fog lifts. After seeing this 'Midnight Channel' yourself you feel compelled to touch the screen of your TV only to nearly get sucked inside it. Your classmates don't buy the story and decide to tease you about it, until you go to the store that afternoon and you and two of your friends end up falling inside the big television set there. Once there the group teams up and decides to find out the mystery behind this world and what connection it has to the recent outbreak of murders.
Yes, the plot is insanely strange, more so then you're probably used to from a Japanese game. However, it's more a vehicle for what the story is and has to say than anything.
[B]Gameplay[/B]
Honestly I could type up a huge wall of text but won't. It's mostly the same from Persona 3, with Day and Night segments, and Social Link building. Just imagine them taking what worked and 3 and making it a lot better, and cutting out most of the unneeded features from 3. The combat in the game however now has the option to have you in control of all the characters (which they would later implement for Persona 3 Portable) instead of just the player character so there is that. You crush Arcana cards now rather than shooting yourself in the head though, so I guess the whole "Suicide summoning" thing wasn't too well accepted.
[B]Versions[/B]
Standard: The PS2 classic
Golden: A re-release for the PS Vita featuring more personas, quests, new characters and a handful of other things.
[IMG]http://puu.sh/1DBt5[/IMG]
[U][B]Persona 4: The Ultimate in Midnight Arena[/B][/U]
A spinoff game of sorts developed by the guys behind Blazblue and Guilty gear, the story takes place two months after the 4th game, where great "heroes" are called to do battle by an entity that looks just like a friend of yours. It's a odd choice but it aims to blend the gameplay elements with lightning fast fighting game gameplay. It features all of Persona 4 cast as well as a number of special guests from 3 (Akhiko, Mitsuru, Aigis, and Elizabeth) and an original character made just for this game.
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/FfiU4.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://oi41.tinypic.com/9zww81.jpg[/IMG][IMG]http://oi41.tinypic.com/9zww81.jpg[/IMG][IMG]http://oi41.tinypic.com/9zww81.jpg[/IMG][B]Don't care for anime based games? Cool. Thread probably isn't for you. Please don't threadshit.[/B][IMG]http://oi41.tinypic.com/9zww81.jpg[/IMG][IMG]http://oi41.tinypic.com/9zww81.jpg[/IMG][IMG]http://oi41.tinypic.com/9zww81.jpg[/IMG]
(Please excuse any spelling/grammar errors)
-snip-
[img]http://i.imgur.com/BhqWC.jpg[/img]
[img]http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0zq2kYZsS1rqzqc4o1_500.jpg[/img]
Persona 4 the animation in a nutshell.
Is Persona 4 really great? The only ones I've tried are Devil Summoner, IMAGINE, and Persona 3 Portable. I didn't know they removed so much from the portable version, I'll have to buy it on PSN.
Also I thought the Evoker concept was neat, shame that it wasn't well received.
My favourite turn-based RPGs.
[QUOTE=Keelwar;35485912]Is Persona 4 really great? The only ones I've tried are Devil Summoner, IMAGINE, and Persona 3 Portable. I didn't know they removed so much from the portable version, I'll have to buy it on PSN.
Also I thought the Evoker concept was neat, shame that it wasn't well received.[/QUOTE]
It's considered by a lot of people to be far better then 3, it's plot is a bit more out there (somehow) but it's really really worth a look
Yeah, the plot for Persona 4 is whacked out of its mind. It is like "Okay, you know how ridiculous some of the plot in the previous game was? Lets make it 100x that."
And it was glorious.
[QUOTE=Zeos;35486203]Yeah, the plot for Persona 4 is whacked out of its mind. It is like "Okay, you know how ridiculous some of the plot in the previous game was? Lets make it 100x that."
And it was glorious.[/QUOTE]Seems the persona team agrees, I see hints of P4 in a ton of their stuff, Teddy even showed up in Catherine :v:
P3 is a little uninteresting to me, but Giant Bomb has made me interested in P4. P3's being added to PSN next week, now I must wait for P4 to be added.
I had a friend introduce me to persona 4 a while ago and I got fucking hooked, I just bought Persona 3 portable on the playstation network to play on my vita.
[QUOTE=Zeos;35486203]Yeah, the plot for Persona 4 is whacked out of its mind. It is like "Okay, you know how ridiculous some of the plot in the previous game was? Lets make it 100x that."
And it was glorious.[/QUOTE]
Persona 4's plot can get pretty whacked but it's surprising how they manage to wrap all the plot hooks up.
Fuck!
After posting news that Persona 3: FES was being released in Sensation Headlines, I was working on an Atlus/Persona megathread for like an hour a half. Feel free to use my banner if you like.
[img]http://i.imgur.com/DpR17.png[/img]
Anyway, if it wasn't evident enough, I love the series. I probably have over 200 hours in Persona 3 Portable, and I'm probably going to pick up FES on PSN on Tuesday when they release it. I'm debating over preordering Persona 4 Arena or not: Not a huge fan of fighting games but I want to give Atlus more of my money.
[img]http://i.imgur.com/py5gF.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i.imgur.com/zSZsr.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i.imgur.com/FfiU4.jpg[/img]
I'm hoping that Atlus announces that they're going to localize Persona 4 The Golden for Vita soon.
EDIT:
As to which is better, I'd probably go with number 4, because I personally enjoyed the characters a whole lot more. I also liked the story of 4 better and felt it was more involving. That beings said...I never actually...you know...completed the fourth game.
Finished 3 a few months back, The Answer is just boring though.
I really want P4, but I'm flat broke, so :(
Persona 4 Golden edition is the only reason I want a PS Vita.
persona 3 and 4 are great.
aigis best
One thing I didn't like about Persona 3 was near the end [sp] It sorta forces you into a romantic relationship with Aigis. Even though in The Answer, Yukari is sort of canonically in love with the protagonist, and is enormously pissed at her for receiving the power.[/sp]
[QUOTE=Pinut;35489248]
aigis best[/QUOTE]
Mitsuru/Chie respectively in each game.
Fun fact: the headphones the protagonist from Persona 3 has are real and made by audio-technica: [url]http://www.audio-technica.com/cms/headphones/ab4bd41dcb0af4fd/index.html[/url]
I haven't played any games in the SMT series, but I did watch Giant Bomb's endurance run of Persona 4. It's hilarious, and a good way to waste a few (dozen) hours.
Man the Persona series is great, good to see a Megathread on it now. Can't wait to try out P4G when it comes out.
I'm on the last boss of P3P, doing the Chick side of the story.
Flirting to hell with [REDACTED] is all I'm doing before I face the final boss, I need me a good ending!
It would be cool as hell if they did P3P and P3 FES in one new updated package for the PS3.
Alright, im gonna try out persona 4. How much different is persona 3 fes than the portable version? Would it be worth switching over to?
Having never played FES, what appeals to me over the PSP version is that you can move around on the overmap, (unlike the PSP version, where you have sort of an iso-metric view and just move a cursor around to talk to people and move to different rooms), the animated cut scenes, and of course the extra campaign. I think that's worth investing ten dollars for the PSN release.
However, from my knowledge, the console version has crap combat because you can't directly control all your teammates like in Persona 4/Persona 3 Portable I.E The AI controls what attacks/spells they use. The console version also lacks a few features that were added in the Portable addition like the rescue missions ability cards, new social links, etc.
Pretty much the portable version is probably the better "game", just with with less production value then the original PS2 version due to the PSP's limits.
[QUOTE=Inspector Jones;35488179]0stuff-[/QUOTE]
If it makes you feel any better that thread was the main reason I ended up making this thread :v:
[editline]9th April 2012[/editline]
[QUOTE=Zeos;35489322]One thing I didn't like about Persona 3 was near the end [sp] It sorta forces you into a romantic relationship with Aigis. Even though in The Answer, Yukari is sort of canonically in love with the protagonist, and is enormously pissed at her for receiving the power.[/sp][/QUOTE]
They fixed that in P3P
Still waiting for that Persona 5 annunciation.
God I love these games
[QUOTE=Muntu;35493416]Still waiting for that Persona 5 annunciation.
God I love these games[/QUOTE]
Won't be for awhile most likely, we're still waitin' for Persona 4 to be given a western date.
[QUOTE=Sift;35495231]Won't be for awhile most likely, we're still waitin' for Persona 4 to be given a western date.[/QUOTE]
What, the fighting game? I thought it was being developed by a completely different team.
Could be my imagination.
[QUOTE=Muntu;35495403]What, the fighting game? I thought it was being developed by a completely different team.
Could be my imagination.[/QUOTE]
Nono, they're making a Vita version of Persona 4 and adding a bunch of new content to it titled "Persona 4: The Golden"
The fighting game is titled Ultimate :v
My favourite part of Persona 4 was the boss fight with the sluty whore pole dancer who attacked you by orgasming by rubbing herself on the pole towards you.
[QUOTE=Thom12255;35495949]My favourite part of Persona 4 was the boss fight with the sluty whore pole dancer who attacked you by orgasming by rubbing herself on the pole towards you.[/QUOTE]
Brb purchasing Persona 4.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.
