Persona 3 - Pictures & Movies

[Robert_Boyd]

Almost 5 years after the last game came out in the US, Atlus has announced a new game in the Persona:Be Your True Mind series.  For those unfamiliar with the series, it's a very trippy RPG series set in modern day Japan involving individuals with the ability to summon alter-ego mythological deities - kind of a fusion between cyberpunk & fantasy.  The series is well known for having interesting mature storylines and having complex gameplay with battlefield negotiations and deep magic systems.

The game is scheduled to come out in Japan on July 13th of this year for the PS2.  No US date has been announced yet, but I imagine that Atlus will release it in the US in time for Christmas of this year.

Images speak louder than words so here are some big scans for the game: http://www.jeux-france.com/news14853_persona-3-premieres-images.html

And here's a whopping big high-quality 17 and a half minute trailer for the game.  I highly recommend checking it out.  It goes back and forth between anime scenes and actual gameplay footage and is most intriguing.  The first couple minutes are very trippy.  Looks like this could be the most controversial game in the series yet (just look at how they summon their alter-egos).
CLICK HERE

The link for the movie isn't displaying correctly so you'll have to manually fix it - remove the space at the end between up and 17440.zip & it ought to work.

~fixed link~Spriggan

[JP Dogberry]

Is this a person, a bot, or a marketing drone (somewhere between the two)?

Anyway, sounds cool, except CP and Fantasy don't mix.

[Fellfrosch]

I think cyberpunk and fantasy mix pretty well, though admittedly you and I have different definitions of what cyberpunk is.

[JP Dogberry]

Once you add in fantasy, you lose the believable near future grit, and the attitude of cyberpunk. You're left with an empty shell, peices of vaguely cyberpunk things that lack any sort of spirit.

[Entsuropi]

Cyberpunk is about atmosphere. The #$%#@! trappings are what people think it is, but it isn't - it's about the loss of humanity and shirt in the face of corporate power and the sheer non-humanness of replacing your person body and mind for machine parts to get more effective and effecient abilities.

That can be translated into anything - many systems have the same sort of feeling for fantasyt magic, for examle.

[Robert_Boyd]

Thanks for fixing the link!

And no, I'm not a bot (ex-BYU student, in the new writing group that just got started, big fan of Brandon's); I'm just a big fan of all things Megami Tensei and Persona is a spin-off of that series (I wrote a walkthrough for another spin-off that never reached the States called Soul Hackers).  Why would a bot advertise a game that hasn't even been announced for the US yet and won't be out in Japan for several months anyway?

I consider Persona fantasy because it involves magic & mythological beings (taken from all sorts of different mythologies; they really do their homework for this series) and the characters frequently travel between the real world and a twisted dreamlike version of that world.  

I consider it cyberpunk for a number of reasons - you've got evil corporations, the villain of the first game is a businessman, and the games deals with all sorts of weird psychological matters involving personality (it is called Persona after all).  I don't know whether or not the internet and computers will be a big part of the story (they were important in Persona 2, but not so much in Persona 1).

Admittedly, it's a very different brand of cyberpunk which not everyone would consider cyber-punk.  It falls under cyberpunk in my mind though partially because some of the other games related to it are very definitely cyberpunk.  Maybe, it's not gritty enough to be classified as cyberpunk.  I'm not sure what genre describes it better though.  Dark fantasy would work I guess, but when I hear dark fantasy I think vampires & Stephen King.  It definitely has a horrific element to it (the students summon their alter-ego by shooting themselves in the head; one scene showed the protagonist confronted with dozens of upright coffins in the middle of a dark street at night, another scene shows the main characters running across a school hall with blood stains on the floor).

Okay, I've got it.  The best genre to stick this game under is anime.  You've got all the elements - high school students in Japan fighting demons with swords, guns, and magic.  Think one of the more serious series like Serial Expirements: Lain or Trigun (when it's not being goofy).

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

I'm going to have to once more vote against JP's pedantic and narrow definition of a genre. This time on the grounds that no cyberpunk (even true cyberpunk works accepted by JP) has ever seemed believeable to me.

To say a genre can't be crossed with a genre is to deliberately define the genres to exclude others. In only very rare cases can two genres be entirely separable.

[Fellfrosch]

Hear hear.

[Robert_Boyd]

Here's a good fan page for the earlier Persona games.
http://hg101.classicgaming.gamespy.com/megaten/megaten4.htm

For those who don't think cyberpunk and fantasy mix, you can check out the preceeding page on that site - the bottom section dedicated to Soul Hackers.
http://hg101.classicgaming.gamespy.com/megaten/megaten3.htm

Copied from that site's description of the plot:

"Taking place in the near future, you hack your way into a virtual reality world called Paradigm X. While it seems like your normal MMORPG, things get a bid wonky when you get creepy messages from an unknown source, threatening to steal your soul. Before you're sucked dry, you're saved by a fellow named Redman, who takes the form of various animals. For some reason, you have the souls of several other people trapped inside them. As you progress through the game, you're sent on several Native American-like vision quests, where you live the final moments of these trapped souls, most of whom were demon hunters before they were killed. Using the information you learn in taking on the roles of these people, you investigate the mysteries in the real world, and learn more about shady Algon Software Corporation, who created Paradigm X. It's sorta like that episode of the Simpsons where Homer eats the really spicy chili, except with the usual SMT theme of demonic programmers."

"One of the central bits of technology at the heart of Soul Hackers is the GUMP. Having nothing to do with Tom Hanks, GUMP stands for "Gun COMPuter ", and allows for both demon summoning and old fashioned shooting.

While your primary party is sparse, your investigation is aided by the Spookies, a group of hackers who are also none too pleased about the outbreak of demons on your fair island. Certain characters, from the first Devil Summoner, like Victor and his creepy maid, make a return as well."

Oh and your best friend, a girl named Hitomi, gets possessed by a relatively benevolent demon named Nemissa about 30 minutes into the game.  Her personality shifts back and forth between Hitomi & Nemissa and it's quite amusing to watch.

[JP Dogberry]

Actually, for once I like Entropy's definition. Punk IS more about the attitude than the trappings. The suggestion about magic with the same feeling I've never seen - but I'd really like to see it.

[Robert_Boyd]

Here's the text I saw in the opening trailer for Persona 3.

Memento Mori: Memento mori is a Latin phrase that may be freely translated as "Remember that you are mortal, Remember you will die."

Cogito, ergo summ
C'est une certitude immediate qui comprend ces deux terme

pense, donc je suis

La mort est personnifiee
OMME FIGURE ANTHROPOMORPHE
ou personnage fictif
des le debut de l'humanite

Remember that you are mortal

Shadow (spelled backwards)

Remember you will  Remember your death
member you Rem u will die ber your death

(A few screens with a whole ton of text on them)

Memento mori

Oh and the butterfly image is from the philosopher that said "Am I a man dreaming that I'm a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming that I'm a man."  I know this because it quoted him in the first Persona game.

Anyway, anyone here into psychology and latin that can explain some of these phrases for us?

[JP Dogberry]

Cogito, ergo summ  = I think therefore I am

C'est une certitude immediate qui comprend ces deux terme  seems to mean something like "It is certain you will immediately come to terms with this" I'm guessing

La mort est personnifiee
OMME FIGURE ANTHROPOMORPHE
ou personnage fictif
des le debut de l'humanite

First line seems to say "The personification of Death" so the Grim Reaper. The last line I"m guessing is something like "the Grim Reaper has begun to be human"

I'm just guessing but it's sound cool.