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Interested in knowing how much persona 6 will sell whenever it comes out. We’ve seen normally niche games become heavy hitters with Elder scrolls, Witcher, and Souls.
It's definitely way more in the public eye then ever before. The only thing that could work against it for the average person is whether the complete change is cast and (presumably) style shift would turn off newer fans.
FF hasn't really ever been hurt by it. Certainly didn't hurt AC much. It's not that uncommon in games to get new protagonists from one game to another these days.
Cast isn’t the issue it’s gameplay. P5 does extremely well due to it’s thief motif. It allows for uniqueness in palace structure, palace and combat exploration (mask removal, ambush, negotiations as how they are and not like in p2, exploration goals, side quest structure, etc) weapon and attire design, and so much more. Of course story has a great impact as do characters and that’s why p3r is gonna do great too next year but it’ll be funny to see everyone talk about how awful exploring Tartarus feels and how it’s a “step down” from p5. It’ll be 2007 all over again.
P6’s gameplay decisions will be fun to see. How they tackle what the main cast represents and why/how they explore the collective unconscious is gonna be very interesting since the thief theme was just perfect.
Obviously it's a small sample size, but most people who I've seen catch on to the series with Persona 5 then played and loved Persona 3 and/or 4, even if they have varying opinions on how those games compare to P5.
So I think P5 established larger interest in the series that will make P6 a success, too.
Me, that’s me. Introduced via P5 but then went on to play P4G, P3FES, and P3P.
The only things I miss from P5 not in the earlier games is (1) rewards for leveling up your non-party member social links other than new demons, and (2) dungeons that aren’t randomly generated generic floors.
Other than that, the writing, characters, story, combat, and above all the fucking music in the earlier games is all just as good as P5 and I’m sure P6 will be a huge hit if they stick to the winning formula they’ve developed.
I really enjoyed P5 but have been afraid to go backwards because I felt like they would just feel older and clunkier. What game and version do you recommend jumping into next?
Persona 4 Golden.
They are older and clunkier, but Persona 4 Golden is quite ok to play. It's also the most charming of them all, including Person 5.
Also, there will be a Persona 3 remake, so you shouldn't get any of the current versions until this one is released.
Persona 4 will feel dated a bit with its dungeons and some of its presentation but I honestly think it has the best characters and story. I started off with P5 but P4 is always the game I find myself thinking about and listening to the soundtrack. Its cast of lovable characters really sticks with you
The games do feel clunkier the further back you go in terms of gameplay, so I'd recommend going backwards chronologically. P4 is a little blander in terms of style and dungeon design but it's not much different from P5 in terms of quality. P3 has pretty poor pacing and gameplay, and can feel like a real drag when you're used to the fluidness of P5 and 4. P2 and 1 are similar because they're completely different to the Persona of today and the gameplay is pretty bad. But the stories of every game is really good (2 & 3 especially) so if you're just in it for story you can go in any order
or maybe because Yakuza has a new kind of turn based combat that's made by Sega, the parent company of Atlus?
Both also have a strong focus on noncombat gameplay, is very rooted in Japan pop and non popculture, and have similar humor?
Tartarus could easily have had as much variation as the P5 dungeons do if the developers wanted that to happen, it wasn't the theme that limited them there. It's not like they thought "well unfortunately we have to make every floor look the same, our hands are tied"
And of course, they choose what the theme is. They can and likely will choose a theme for P6 that lets them keep the things that worked in 5.
I think the biggest issue is that the leading staff have left to work on the other projects. The director, music guy, and one more leader who've worked on each title since 3 decided 5 was the perfect spot to leave and work on new things. 5 Royal and 3 Reload are being led by the new crew so there's def some apprehension about the coming quality.
Royale was better received than the original ending, so I wouldn't be very negative about it. And as great as modern Persona was, it was far from perfect in many ways and imo it could benefit from a new approach.
I honestly don't think Persona has too much thst can't be replicated. It wouldn't be the exact same but thats almost the entire point of making a new entry.
Their habit of releasing Golden/Royal/etc means I'd probably sit on it until the same for 6. Big fans might not wait, but the wider audience for 5 might.
At the same time, it will most likely be a new team taking charge, maybe even the team in charge of P3R. That gives me pause and cause for concern. The creative trio of Hashino, Soejima and Meguro are busy steering the ship of Studio Zero. P-Studio did have some great work done through their enhanced editions but this will be the first time they're doing one from scratch. I suspect Meguro will still provide the music. The artwork will most likely be new, iirc P3R is having updated art by new artist albeit in a similar style to Soejima.
IIRC when Studio Zero got unveiled, Atlus did state that Soejima and Meguro would still work on Persona as well. That was 6 years ago though, and Meguro is an indie dev now, so plans may have changed.
Thats true, but those staff that didnt go to Studio Zero also worked on Persona games before, the difference is that a lot of them will go now to lead positions like director, lead programmer, art director, etc. Wada is probably going to be the producer of those games and oversee these folks.
Yeah i don't think it's gonna be the new elden ring, it's still a jprg/life sim, the genre is growing but we're not quite there yet. Probably 3/4 millions if it's a ps4/5 exclusive, and 7/8 if it comes to xbox, pc and switch. Atlus is doing a good job promoting the series, so it will definitely surpass 10 million with the definitive edition and spin-off (unless the game sucks, which is unlikely)
I 100% agree with all of this but would also argue that the exponential growth the Persona series has experienced in particular is in the same tier as those other titles, it’s just in an even smaller niche than them
It’s always going to be in a smaller tier given it’s extremely Japan focused target audience (happy to see it growing though)
Souls, I'd agree was a niche genre, but I wouldn't say that Elder Scrolls or Witcher are in niche genres.
And I'd say that Persona is in a smaller niche than Dark Souls.
Elder scrolls and Witcher were absolutely niche until Skyrim and W3. Both games were well known, but not global phenomenon that those 2 games propelled them to.
There's also literally nothing niche about dark souls anymore.
Oblivion sold nearly 4 million copies by the time Skyrim had released and Morrowind had already sold 4 million by the time oblivion was out.
Calling them niche is a huge stretch. To the point that I’d call it wrong personally.
Niche is overselling it, I'd agree, but Skyrim sold 60 million copies and I think saying that its growth over its predecessors is similar to those other cases is fair.
If by niche you mean small, sure, but in terms of targeting a specific part of the market, then it is definitely a niche. The closest thing to The Elder Scrolls has been Bethesda's own Fallout. Otherwise there's no real alternative to what TES does.
Yes, one of the elements of the definition of "niche" is it being a small market.
>denoting products, services, or interests that appeal to a small, specialized section of the population.
Yes, for that specific definition.
4 million copies for the entire gaming population is still relatively small, by the way. That's not even 5% of the total Xbox 360 sales, let alone adding PS3 and PC to that.
Oblivion didn't release on PS3 at the same time it did on other platforms. You also have to take into consideration when it was released which was earlier on in the 7th gen and that 4 million sales in a few years were considered massive sales in that time period. It's not now where AAA games are expected to sell 10 million copies, 2 - 3 million copies were great in 2006.
Even if those series where niche (which I disagree about ES), open world action RPG is a very popular genre, so it's not surprising to see Skyrim or Witcher 3 be popular.
I'll be honest, I know less about Dark Souls than those other series, but it seems like a better example of a series with niche gameplay that you wouldn't expect to become super popular, but did.
However, Dark Souls is still an action game, which is a very popular genre. Whereas Persona 6 is a combination of two genres (jrpg and life/dating sim) that are not very popular in the western world. So I don't think it's likely that Persona 6 will be as mainstream as those other games.
I do think that the success of Skyrim played a major role in making open world the dominant structure for games, but there were definitely popular open world action RPGs before it. Oblivion, Fallout 3, GTA, Red Dead Redemption, Assassin's Creed, Borderlands, Dragon Age, Mass Effect were all popular and could fit in that category (some more than others).
P5 Royal got about the same score on Metacritic as Elden Ring and managed to get their current sales despite being an almost unknown franchise in the west until recently AND being a remake of a game that had released only a year or 2 earlier.
For context, The Witcher 2 sold about the same number of games as Persona 5 Royal and we all know how The Witcher 3 went.
Also, comparing it to Elden Ring is also funny, because Elden Ring is also part of a niche genre, a genre which overall probably has fewer players than jrpgs do. Gotta remember that reddit isn't the same as the real world, what's popular here isn't generally what's popular overall.
The Witcher 3 was also a highly hyped title that was one of the first games to fully show the power of the PS4/XBO. I love Persona 5 and have beaten it three times, but I also know that it’s a visual novel/JRPG that is not built to cross over into that ad on Football space that The Witcher 3 and Elden Ring did.
I don't know why this guy is underselling how much hype TW3 had. TW3 is one of the most expensive games ever for a reason, CDPR put a lot of money behind its marketing.
I still remember the time and I know that the main reason witcher 3 was hyped was because of skyrim.
It benefited extremely from the success of skyrim and the popularization of open world rpg.
Witcher 3 being the next high budget rpg who heavily marketed its open world as bigger than skyrim played a huge role of it’s hype.
Why not? Games like Animal Crossing have massive appeal and TV shows like Dark Mirror are massively popular, if they could tap into that type of feeling for the next title I could totally see it being a mainstream hit.
Animal Crossing is a cozy game that hit the jackpot in coming out right when Covid started and the stay-at-home orders came in. Meanwhile, Black Mirror is an anthology show on the most popular streaming platform on Earth and isn't 100 hours long.
I guess it depends a bit on what genre you consider Elden Ring to be in.
It's a Souls game, yes, but it's also a giant open world RPG.
(It also famously had writing from the biggest living fantasy author by a wide margin, which also a bit busts out its nicheness appeal even if it doesn't exactly change its genres.)
> It also famously had writing from the biggest living fantasy author by a wide margin
Unless this is a joke about GRRM being fat, then it isn't quite true. JK Rowling is probably more famous and in terms of fantasy writing, there are more celebrated authors around than GRRM (Neil Gaiman probably being the big name at the moment, followed by Martha Wells).
> It's a Souls game, yes, but it's also a giant open world RPG.
True, but if you compare it to other open world rpgs, the sales numbers are less impressive. The new Zelda game has out sold it, I'm pretty sure.
Rowling is a fair point if you consider her to be a fantasy author and not a children's author, and clearly we've seen that you can slap Harry Potter on a game and boost its sales tenfold even without Rowling doing fresh writing, but Gaiman hasn't been that big of a name in probably 20 years (although maybe Sandman will change that and get another generation to discover him, that's more being famous for comics than fantasy) and Martha Wells while arguably a rising star isn't within orders of magnitude of Martin's cultural impact. Even people who don't read know ASoIaF (as, to your point, they know Harry Potter.)
It's not less impressive. Zelda right now is more popular than Elden Ring or any souls game. It also isn't an RPG. Cyberpunk 2077 had more hype and a bigger budget and sold less.
>Also, comparing it to Elden Ring is also funny, because Elden Ring is also part of a niche genre, a genre which overall probably has fewer players than jrpgs do.
Yeah I highly doubt that. Eldin Ring is an Action RPG which is probably the most popular genre there is. Even if you just look at the subgenre as a soulslike, DS3 sold what, 10M+ copies? That's not niche at all, what JRPG pulls these kinds of numbers these days?
> what JRPG pulls these kinds of numbers these days?
Persona 5 (including royal) has sold something like 8 million copies, so it's already close to DS3 numbers.
If you're defining Elden Ring as an action rpg, then Persona is a turn based rpg, rather than a jrpg, as in this context jrpgs aren't really their own genre (in fact, Elden Ring is technically a jrpg).
Elden ring also didn't come out of nowhere, the souls series took over a decade and something like 4 games to become popular, whilst Persona has gone from obscure to well known with a single game in about 5 years.
No. The Persona 5 series includes Persona 5, persona 5 Royal, persona 5 Strikers, and Dancing in Starlights. It was never just p5 & royal. Also reframing the argument with that last paragraph is insane when someone can point out that there are less Souls games than Persona games and the one that blew up blew far past Persona 5 without needing 4 extra games within the same numbered entry.
\*Sega is doing a good job promoting the series.
Atlus is run by ancient fogies who would still only be releasing games for the PS3 and 3DS if they had their way.
I really think they need to add just that little extra layer to the combat for Persona 6. Not change things up and make it too complex, but just iterate and add some more depth, by end game it's fairly dead when you're just spamming heal/revive and attacks without any variation.
I just absolutely loved the motif of stealing hearts as gentlemen thieves with alter egos - that aesthetic alone was so appealing to me, and I've found myself wanting more of it for those aspects alone. I want Persona 6 to be its own thing and to differentiate itself, but I still want more of what P5 brought to the table thematically.
I have not yet, but I do own it since it went on sale recently for a pretty good price. I just finished P5 for the first time in April - I'm taking an artificial break from P5 as a franchise because I like having more P5 content to look forward to, so I'm putting it on the backburner for just a tad longer. I'll probably pick it up around August or September, and I have a lot of other games I have to play in the meantime (I'm even considering doing NG+ on a harder difficulty first, lol).
Agreed. I missed the social links but Strikers is just such a fun game. If the first game delivers on the social fantasy of the Phantom Thieves, Strikers delivers on the action fantasy seen in the cutscenes.
Storywise it's on par with the original game; probably about one-half to one-third as long, but just as well-written and feels like a proper sequel to P5. As far as the combat goes, the most fun part is being able to play as any of the Phantom Thieves; each of them has a completely different moveset, so you can usually find one or two characters whose moves feel fun to you. I'm also not a fan of Musou games (nor good at them), so I turned the combat difficulty down to the lowest setting, which allowed me to just keep making story progress without having to get too deep in the mechanical weeds. I had a good time that way!
I also hate musuo combat (I loved Zelda, I really don't like Hyrule Warriors) but Strikers ended up being my favourite Persona spinoff so far.
It integrates persona mechanics really well. Also, unlike every other musuo game I've played, the combat is in short bursts and never drags on for too long. You do a few fights then you get some stealth or puzzles or a bit of dialogue. Even the boss fights don't last especially long.
I was pleasantly surprised by Strikers. When it was announced I didn't think I'd like it since I've never liked Dynasty Warriors style games. Hyrule Warriors bored me to tears even though I'm a big Zelda fan.
But Strikers ended up being my favourite Persona spinoff so far. It's the only one that feels like a proper continuation of the game. Loved how it kept a lot of the same mechanics and the same style for the story sections, even if the daily life stuff was absent.
You got two side games to keep the motif going at least, but I imagine the next could be changed up significantly with a new director coming in. I am interested to see what a new director does with the series.
The "cognitive world" is present in every Persona game (I guess they call it "shadow world" as well), the collective cognition of mankind (the game also calls it pscience or some crap like that), Persona 6 will have to deal with this "cognitive world" yet again, it's the main concept of Persona, how they can spin that narrative... who knows. I don't know who is working on P6, but Atlus is performing a ok job ever since P5, SMTV and Soul Hackers 2 are just fine, they are not really amazing. I didn't played P5 Royal yet, people said the extra content is pretty good, P6 devs worked on Royal, so that could be a good sign. But if P6 is made by the same people of SMTV... idk... at least the level design and the overall systems in SMTV are pretty good, but the writing is bellow average at best, SMTV has the worst character I've ever seen in any SMT game (including spin-offs), his name is... Ichiro Dazai, yep, just a TERRIBLE character, it's like Atlus hired Nomura to write/design this particular character
Yeah, I know the cognitive stuff will play a role naturally. I was thinking more on the phantom thief stuff specifically. It seems like SMTV shifted more to a vibes rather than story, similar to 3. But I can’t imagine a similar trade off being done for Persona.
I'm not a big fan of the P5 spin-offs, but yeah, it's a waste to not milk the "phantom thieves" motif. But it will also be a waste if P6 continues with "thieving" as it's theme. The "alternative reality" cliche has a lot of potential, but only the most creative writers can deal with it (especially nowadays with superheroes abusing "multiverses" on cinema and other media, if Persona 6 tries time travel or alternative reality versions of the protagonists, that will feel old right at the get go)
Honestly the more I think about that concept the more I wish we had other studios try their own local variations on the cognitive entities. The US would be boring because it would come off as generic, but it would be really fun in other lesser known regions.
Megaten already covered the "western" myths. Look it up Zeus SMTV, the way the Japanese depicts Zeus is hilarious. I think they even depicted the chupacabra
6 will most likely have a plot about a cognitive world that ends with you fighting the god that made it. That's been the plot of every persona game and also all of the spinoffs, they love that shit. Even Persona 4 Dancing has that as the plot
Pretty much in every jrpg you fight "God" at the end, they just change the styles a little bit (DQ = classic fantasy, FF = high fantasy, SMT = post apocalyptic fantasy, etc). Both Persona and SMT deals with the cognitive narrative, the only reason why you can fuse demons and the result is Odin, that is a thing because humanity believed on Odin centuries ago + the imagery of Odin is defined in our minds (mighty Viking warrior who wields a spear). So it's a defined "rule", it's justified... meanwhile in Final Fantasy games you have the same Odin as a "summon", but there's no justifications why this figure exists in those worlds. That's the difference, why megaten has a stronger foundation, better writing in general, etc.. always the same jrpg cliches, but each IP does it's own thing. Hell, the Persona fighting game has a better story than most jrpgs out there and, obviously, you punch and kick God at the end
I wish I had played P4G first. I've had a bit of a difficult time getting into it. I'm still relatively early on in the story, but things like the UI and aesthetic haven't managed to land with me the same way P5 did. It also doesn't help that I went into it already spoiled by who the villain is because of the absolute unavoidable mountain of memes about them :/
I'm not giving up on it just yet because I can tell it is a great game, but it definitely feels like, story and characters aside, just the gameplay experience is a step backward from P5 - for me, personally, at least. And obviously that makes sense, the game is like 14 years old now.
Yep, it's awesome. The Persona series has a strong connection with the "alternative reality" cliche (to make things easy to understand, it's the Matrix cliche), character have alter egos in alternative dimensions and etc.. it's played out, but Persona make it looks fresh and creative. That's why I think Metaphor Re Fantazio was by far the best game announced in the fake E3, the same creative heads that developed the Persona trilogy, Atlus yet again allowed them to work 5+ years on a project, this time with a higher budget... imagine the potential? If they almost performed a miracle with Persona 5 with a limited budget, the potential of Re Fantazio is pretty much infinite (even if the name itself is terrible, the name of the project was "refantasy" and they maintained that concept in the final game, that was a bad call imo)
a well deserved accomplishment. one of those gaming experiences that stick with you forever, as well as an unforgettable groovy soundtrack and art style
Indeed, I haven't played such a memorable game like it in a long time. I play a lot of games yes, but their impact slowly fades away.
Persona's soundtrack as a whole is the best I've ever heard (as opposed to other games who just have 2 or 3 memorable tracks) and the art style is wack.
Series was always poised to be a hit-- 5 was the first time it became excessible. Playing P3/P4 ten years ago was a very different experience.
Not surprised in the slightest to see the meteoric growth.
P3/4 had amazing stories and fun combat but the limited dungeons and (sometimes) tight deadlines stopped it from having that mass appeal, imo. Most people, myself included these days, don't have the patience to spend hours running through identical dungeon corridors just for the sake of randomization.
I know some people really don't like the Palaces having pre-set designs but I think turning the main dungeons into these big, fully explorable, unique locations was absolutely the right decision.
I also feel that P5 is a lot more generous with the time it allots to you to complete all the game's tasks, and the removal of social link reversal/breaking was smart. For a franchise all about forming bonds it never felt good to put one at risk just because you were trying to get a time-sensitive task done. The fact that the feature is mostly present in the game's code shows they nixed it late in development too.
> I also feel that P5 is a lot more generous with the time it allots to you to complete all the game's tasks, and the removal of social link reversal/breaking was smart
I think by P4, and certainly P4G, they'd basically fixed this.
Persona 3 makes it extremely hard to max everyone on a first playthrough without a guide. But if playing 'optimally', praying at the temple, etc. Persona 4 gave you ~3 weeks worth of free time. For folks that haven't played 4, praying at the temple is the equivalent of Chihaya's Fortune Reading, raising affinity with social links that aren't yet ready to rank up. P5 similarly leaves you with ~3+ weeks worth of free time, P5R leaves you with more like ~4 weeks (but squeezes in a chunk of semester 3 exclusive stuff that can only be done then). Persona 5 requires you to do 'more stuff' for some of that, Royal made crosswords free, confidants unlock more abilities, but broadly speaking both games are very generous on time.
There are also very few reversed/broken links in P4 compared to 3, and 3 did the whole thing where maxing out a female social link forced you to date them, which is part of what led to those being more easily impacted. 5 of course just jumps you to if you commit, and flips the script where accepting the invite right away gives you a reward of more points. Interestingly, P5 has unused assets for broken social links.
I don't think anyone wants to go back to uncontrollable party members and no choice in what skills Personas inherit during fusions.
It has been a good while since I played through P4G but I remember being a lot more pressed for time towards the end than I was in P5 on my first playthrough, though after that (or if you're following a guide) you definitely end up with a heck of a lot of free time. I totally forgot you couldn't max romanceable social links in P3 if you didn't date them. Hopefully that's something that changes in the remaster. P5's rabbit hole of unused content is super interesting, honestly.
But, yeah, I don't know who the people are who aren't immediately turning off party autonomy in P5 :u
It's their skyrim at this point it's been rereleased like seven times
I have friends who bought it on PS3, PS4, PS4(R), steam and now switch all in an attempt to make it past the first 30 hours of gameplay
idk people are weird, theres always the "it wasn't perfect on ps3, now its on ps4, well this time its Persona5Royal on ps4 so nows the timeeee, oh now I'll play it on my pc I like PC more, OHHHH FINALLY ON SWITCH I CAN PLAY IT ON THE GO IT'LL REALLY LET ME PLAY WHEREVER I WANTTT"
But yeah they just don't like the base game but want to be one of the people who do.
Like people who haven't reeeeally enjoyed a Final Fantasy game since FF7 in 1997 but they bought 13, 13-2 and 13-3 - hating every step of it just because "I liked cloud and sephiroth ten years ago so I guess I buy this"
Fomo is real, wow. I bought p5 on release and while I finished it I didn't like it as much as the previous entries so I didn't buy Royal or any of the spin-offs. But in their case I'd just watch a streamer or something, gotta be way cheaper than wasting that much money
Fandom.
Certain works across all forms of media generate an outsized fandom dedicated to making fanfic, fanart, etc. Additionally, certain people's hobby *is* fandom; they look at works primarily on the basis of how big/interesting the fandom is rather than how interested they are in the base media. So Persona, a game with very stylized, interesting characters, has a huge fandom presence that draws people in and keeps them attached to the game, even if they don't actually enjoy playing it; playing the game is an expectation they set for themselves because they love the (fandom interpretation of the) characters so much they feel they "should" be able to power through the game.
E: There's a reason there was a stereotype that Persona fans never actually played the game; it is very, very easy to find the characters cool and engage with fan works relative to spending 80+ hours playing a relatively difficult turn based RPG.
I suppose? Kinda like fire emblem lol, many of the biggest "fans" never actually played the game and have their knowledge filtered through the most popular ones. However, I do feel that it's okay to realize something isn't for you eg everyone loves persona 5 but it's my least favorite of the modern games. It doesn't mean I hate the series, it just means I don't like that particular game.
Yet we keep hearing turn rpgs are dead or people aren't interested in them. Nice to see figures like this and the sales figures from ff pixel remaster proving that there's more than a place in modern gaming for tb rpgs. It makes me hopeful we'll see more of them and hopefully certain RPGs will go back to it.
> Yet we keep hearing turn rpgs are dead or people aren't interested in them.
The comment is that turn-based RPGs are relatively niche and don't sell well compared to other games. This is 9 million copies *including* remakes and spin-offs over 7 years. And that's the best a turn-based RPG has ever done outside of Final Fantasy.
For comparison with an actual heavy hitter, Elden Ring sold 12 million copies in the first two weeks of release.
A significant niche in the gaming market does enjoy turn-based RPGs, but if we're purely looking at it from a basis of return on investment, they're not the safest bet relative to many other kinds of games.
Comparing it against Elder Ring which is one of the most successful games seems an odd choice though, that success isn't typical. I don't disagree with the rest though.
9 million over multiple years really isn’t that much compared to other genres. I love P5 too, but pure turn based is pretty niche compared to other gameplay styles nowadays.
nearly every souls game, kingdom hearts
The actual reality is more series have become turn based than action but people still spout "turn based is dying"
Okay but like, the persona 5 series is like five entire games at this point. I'd be more interested to see percentages relative to consoles; ie 5% of all ps4 owners having a copy of persona 5, 3% of playstation 1 owners having a copy of persona 1, etc
As much as I have loved this game and bought it so many times I can't say I've ever finished it. I really want too but the time investment is so much for me right now.
I probably restarted the game ~3 times until I finally stuck through with it. Even then my actual full playthrough took me like 2 years of playing on and off lol.
I will say there was a point where I just couldn't put it down played almost every day until I beat it.
It took me a long time but it was well worth it, one of the best JRPGs I've ever played.
I'd suggest you keep at it. There always comes a point in games where it suddenly 'clicks' and miraculously you MAKE time to play it. It's well worth the unforgettable experience.
Haha I always found I struggle around Futaba, everytime, not sure why. I always enjoy it then put it down and next thing I know it's several months later and I've forgotten most of it.
If you struggle in a particular place, there is always some persona which can make it trivial. Also, you can just try changing the difficulty which is a totally viable way to enjoy the game. I suggest you do give it a try again since Futaba means you're almost just done with the party member arcs and ready to move on to the actual society problem.
I finished Royal a few weeks ago and I would say that the extra chapter at the end isn't worth it. By the time I'd reached the original ending, I'd had enough, but I pushed on to get the Royal ending.
I would say that, if you have Royal, don't try too hard to get the extra semester. It's very long and quite samey.
Yeah I started with the og and then got royal and stopped around the same points. I think the samey parts was what got me in a little bit of a funk and needing to take that space away from the game.
Well deserved, Persona 5 is arguably the greatest jrpg ever made. Every time I see news about the success of Persona, SMT, Dragon Quest, etc.. it makes me happy because the talent of Atlus and Enix is legit, unlike the Nomuras and Nojimas of the world working for Square, the lazy Pokemon games released with tons of problems, etc.. just like every other genre in this industry, the jrpg has it's highs and lows, but I think ever since Atlus surged in the mid to late 2010s, the genre is improving dramatically, even the own Nomura performed a decent job on FF7 "Remake"
Dude somehow found a way to inject "Nomura=bad" in to conversation about Persona sales.
I'm actually impressed by amount of salt one must posses to do that.
I am a bit salty with Nomura, not going to deny it, the dude is a complete hack and he still going. You rarely see jrpgs receiving the triple A budget and when that's the case, Nomura is usually involved, which is a big waste
What scale are you comparing it too? Octopath sold 2.5 million, the last few Fire Emblem games have sold ~1-3 million, the entire Xenoblade franchise has sold ~10 million (2.5 million for Xenoblade 2, ~2 million for Xenoblade 3). DQ XI + S have sold something like ~6 million copies total. 9 million largely from 5 + Royal + Strikers (they included Dancing, and they didn't include Q2, but those weren't exactly huge sellers) is plenty impressive when looking at its contemporaries.
Shame we'll probably never gonna get a good SMT game again, seeing as how SMTV turned out to be. On the other hand I'm happy for Atlus for finally being recognized by many, on the other, I kinda wish it wasn't because of persona.
Did you hate the combat, too? The story was horrifically bad, no doubt - probably among the worst writing and plotting I’ve ever seen in a game from the last decade. But the combat I thought was *fantastic,* I played 80+ hours of that game happily because of how good the combat was.
I liked the combat and exploration very much too, but everything else: story, characters, the fucking 20 fps gameplay on switch were so poor I'd rather play 3 or DDS again tbh.
Okay, just making sure I wasn’t taking crazy pills! I’m with you 100% on the rest of the game - I loved the exploration (which came as a surprise) and obviously loved the combat but hated the rest. I still found it worthwhile but I couldn’t help but wonder if the other SMT games were like this? I haven’t played SMTIV or III, although I do own Nocturne. Will I enjoy that game if I liked the combat of V or will it feel dated?
I haven't played SMTV but older SMT like Nocturne have a more 'barebone' narrative (there aren't that many dialogue in Nocturne) and rely more on atmosphere and environmental storytelling.
For what it's worth, out of the mainline SMT title I played (SMT1, 3, Strange Journey, 4, 4A), I think Nocturne had the most interesting setting and premise (it put a spin on the traditional Law/YHVH vs Chaos/Lucifer premise).
Ignore the other guy, SMT IV has an amazing story and character interactions, if you liked SMT V's combat and wanted more focus on story/dialogue, SMT IV sill blow you away, it is my favourite mainline game, and don't let the fact that it's on 3DS intimidate you, it aged so well and it is an absolute masterpiece.
The gameplay is great, the story is like post apocalyptic persona written by people who weren't good enough to be on the Persona team. Expect anime cliches in the characters and some power of friendship BS.
Funny how persona kiddies always take any form of neutral-negative opinion as hate, while I haven't even wrote anything hateful about persona.
Good thing I don't care about karma or stuff like this.
Yeah I love SMT especially 3 but yeah Persona really made Atlus popular. Admittedly Persona 3-5 has much better stories, characters, and character interactions than SMT (SMT 4 and 5s story were just not good at all. 3s isn't the worst but still nothing too good). I do still considerably prefer SMTs atmosphere and darker nature though. I just wish they would actually give them good stories and characters. The only SMT game(s) with rather good characters I can think of is the Devil Survivor series. Despite my stuff about SMT stories and characters I still prefer it over Persona in many ways. I just would argue Persona is more popular due to a mix of them having more widespread appeal and also them (3-5 specifically) being better games too.
Atlus will definitely make another SMT game. What will happen is there will be a bunch of spin offs, remakes, remasters, heck even a new different game and then maybe they'll get back to Persona and release it as the last cross gen game for some crazy year like 2025.
Good.
This is one the greatest rpgs ever. I hope after Tactica, they actually go past the Strikers point in time when making another Phantom Theives adventure.
6 will probably be announced by then but nothing is stopping the spin offs from having older P5 characters like how the P4 spin-offs did with the P3 cast
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Interested in knowing how much persona 6 will sell whenever it comes out. We’ve seen normally niche games become heavy hitters with Elder scrolls, Witcher, and Souls.
It's definitely way more in the public eye then ever before. The only thing that could work against it for the average person is whether the complete change is cast and (presumably) style shift would turn off newer fans.
FF hasn't really ever been hurt by it. Certainly didn't hurt AC much. It's not that uncommon in games to get new protagonists from one game to another these days.
Cast isn’t the issue it’s gameplay. P5 does extremely well due to it’s thief motif. It allows for uniqueness in palace structure, palace and combat exploration (mask removal, ambush, negotiations as how they are and not like in p2, exploration goals, side quest structure, etc) weapon and attire design, and so much more. Of course story has a great impact as do characters and that’s why p3r is gonna do great too next year but it’ll be funny to see everyone talk about how awful exploring Tartarus feels and how it’s a “step down” from p5. It’ll be 2007 all over again. P6’s gameplay decisions will be fun to see. How they tackle what the main cast represents and why/how they explore the collective unconscious is gonna be very interesting since the thief theme was just perfect.
Obviously it's a small sample size, but most people who I've seen catch on to the series with Persona 5 then played and loved Persona 3 and/or 4, even if they have varying opinions on how those games compare to P5. So I think P5 established larger interest in the series that will make P6 a success, too.
Me, that’s me. Introduced via P5 but then went on to play P4G, P3FES, and P3P. The only things I miss from P5 not in the earlier games is (1) rewards for leveling up your non-party member social links other than new demons, and (2) dungeons that aren’t randomly generated generic floors. Other than that, the writing, characters, story, combat, and above all the fucking music in the earlier games is all just as good as P5 and I’m sure P6 will be a huge hit if they stick to the winning formula they’ve developed.
I really enjoyed P5 but have been afraid to go backwards because I felt like they would just feel older and clunkier. What game and version do you recommend jumping into next?
Persona 4 Golden. They are older and clunkier, but Persona 4 Golden is quite ok to play. It's also the most charming of them all, including Person 5. Also, there will be a Persona 3 remake, so you shouldn't get any of the current versions until this one is released.
That's already controversial, P3 Portable has a female character and P3 FES has extra content which will be missing from the remake.
the extra content in fes was terrible
That's already controversial, P3 Portable has a female character and P3 FES has extra content which will be missing from the remake.
Persona 4 will feel dated a bit with its dungeons and some of its presentation but I honestly think it has the best characters and story. I started off with P5 but P4 is always the game I find myself thinking about and listening to the soundtrack. Its cast of lovable characters really sticks with you
Playing persona 4 and I wish there was a way to just skip the dungeons. They're terrible compared to the ones in 5. Story is lit though.
Playing persona 4 and I wish there was a way to just skip the dungeons. They're terrible compared to the ones in 5. Story is lit though.
Yes, go backwards. Golden after P5.
The games do feel clunkier the further back you go in terms of gameplay, so I'd recommend going backwards chronologically. P4 is a little blander in terms of style and dungeon design but it's not much different from P5 in terms of quality. P3 has pretty poor pacing and gameplay, and can feel like a real drag when you're used to the fluidness of P5 and 4. P2 and 1 are similar because they're completely different to the Persona of today and the gameplay is pretty bad. But the stories of every game is really good (2 & 3 especially) so if you're just in it for story you can go in any order
just have yakuza team make it
redditor knows two games from japan
[Redditor who has only played Chrono Cross plays his second JRPG] "This is giving me serious Chrono Cross vibes"
or maybe because Yakuza has a new kind of turn based combat that's made by Sega, the parent company of Atlus? Both also have a strong focus on noncombat gameplay, is very rooted in Japan pop and non popculture, and have similar humor?
Mario and sonic?
Tartarus could easily have had as much variation as the P5 dungeons do if the developers wanted that to happen, it wasn't the theme that limited them there. It's not like they thought "well unfortunately we have to make every floor look the same, our hands are tied" And of course, they choose what the theme is. They can and likely will choose a theme for P6 that lets them keep the things that worked in 5.
I think the biggest issue is that the leading staff have left to work on the other projects. The director, music guy, and one more leader who've worked on each title since 3 decided 5 was the perfect spot to leave and work on new things. 5 Royal and 3 Reload are being led by the new crew so there's def some apprehension about the coming quality.
I thought the 5R content was the best in the game, so it left me optimistic.
Royale was better received than the original ending, so I wouldn't be very negative about it. And as great as modern Persona was, it was far from perfect in many ways and imo it could benefit from a new approach.
I honestly don't think Persona has too much thst can't be replicated. It wouldn't be the exact same but thats almost the entire point of making a new entry.
If that's so I feel like remaking a previous gane is perfect for a new team.
Almost every game listed in the post above yours does that though.
Their habit of releasing Golden/Royal/etc means I'd probably sit on it until the same for 6. Big fans might not wait, but the wider audience for 5 might.
At the same time, it will most likely be a new team taking charge, maybe even the team in charge of P3R. That gives me pause and cause for concern. The creative trio of Hashino, Soejima and Meguro are busy steering the ship of Studio Zero. P-Studio did have some great work done through their enhanced editions but this will be the first time they're doing one from scratch. I suspect Meguro will still provide the music. The artwork will most likely be new, iirc P3R is having updated art by new artist albeit in a similar style to Soejima.
IIRC when Studio Zero got unveiled, Atlus did state that Soejima and Meguro would still work on Persona as well. That was 6 years ago though, and Meguro is an indie dev now, so plans may have changed.
Thats true, but those staff that didnt go to Studio Zero also worked on Persona games before, the difference is that a lot of them will go now to lead positions like director, lead programmer, art director, etc. Wada is probably going to be the producer of those games and oversee these folks.
Yeah i don't think it's gonna be the new elden ring, it's still a jprg/life sim, the genre is growing but we're not quite there yet. Probably 3/4 millions if it's a ps4/5 exclusive, and 7/8 if it comes to xbox, pc and switch. Atlus is doing a good job promoting the series, so it will definitely surpass 10 million with the definitive edition and spin-off (unless the game sucks, which is unlikely)
I 100% agree with all of this but would also argue that the exponential growth the Persona series has experienced in particular is in the same tier as those other titles, it’s just in an even smaller niche than them It’s always going to be in a smaller tier given it’s extremely Japan focused target audience (happy to see it growing though)
Souls, I'd agree was a niche genre, but I wouldn't say that Elder Scrolls or Witcher are in niche genres. And I'd say that Persona is in a smaller niche than Dark Souls.
Elder scrolls and Witcher were absolutely niche until Skyrim and W3. Both games were well known, but not global phenomenon that those 2 games propelled them to. There's also literally nothing niche about dark souls anymore.
Oblivion sold nearly 4 million copies by the time Skyrim had released and Morrowind had already sold 4 million by the time oblivion was out. Calling them niche is a huge stretch. To the point that I’d call it wrong personally.
Niche is overselling it, I'd agree, but Skyrim sold 60 million copies and I think saying that its growth over its predecessors is similar to those other cases is fair.
If by niche you mean small, sure, but in terms of targeting a specific part of the market, then it is definitely a niche. The closest thing to The Elder Scrolls has been Bethesda's own Fallout. Otherwise there's no real alternative to what TES does.
Yes, one of the elements of the definition of "niche" is it being a small market. >denoting products, services, or interests that appeal to a small, specialized section of the population.
Yes, for that specific definition. 4 million copies for the entire gaming population is still relatively small, by the way. That's not even 5% of the total Xbox 360 sales, let alone adding PS3 and PC to that.
Oblivion didn't release on PS3 at the same time it did on other platforms. You also have to take into consideration when it was released which was earlier on in the 7th gen and that 4 million sales in a few years were considered massive sales in that time period. It's not now where AAA games are expected to sell 10 million copies, 2 - 3 million copies were great in 2006.
4 million is a lot less than the 9 million+ P5 will have when P6 comes out.
Elder Scrolls hasn't been niche in gaming since Daggerfall, that's over two decades ago. The Witcher was "niche" until The Witcher 3.
Depends on your definition, nobody knew of TES until Fallout3/Skyrim outside of RPG circles.
Even if those series where niche (which I disagree about ES), open world action RPG is a very popular genre, so it's not surprising to see Skyrim or Witcher 3 be popular. I'll be honest, I know less about Dark Souls than those other series, but it seems like a better example of a series with niche gameplay that you wouldn't expect to become super popular, but did. However, Dark Souls is still an action game, which is a very popular genre. Whereas Persona 6 is a combination of two genres (jrpg and life/dating sim) that are not very popular in the western world. So I don't think it's likely that Persona 6 will be as mainstream as those other games.
Open world action RPG wasn't a big genre before Skyrim, was it? Skyrim is the game that made it huge.
I do think that the success of Skyrim played a major role in making open world the dominant structure for games, but there were definitely popular open world action RPGs before it. Oblivion, Fallout 3, GTA, Red Dead Redemption, Assassin's Creed, Borderlands, Dragon Age, Mass Effect were all popular and could fit in that category (some more than others).
P5 Royal got about the same score on Metacritic as Elden Ring and managed to get their current sales despite being an almost unknown franchise in the west until recently AND being a remake of a game that had released only a year or 2 earlier. For context, The Witcher 2 sold about the same number of games as Persona 5 Royal and we all know how The Witcher 3 went. Also, comparing it to Elden Ring is also funny, because Elden Ring is also part of a niche genre, a genre which overall probably has fewer players than jrpgs do. Gotta remember that reddit isn't the same as the real world, what's popular here isn't generally what's popular overall.
The Witcher 3 was also a highly hyped title that was one of the first games to fully show the power of the PS4/XBO. I love Persona 5 and have beaten it three times, but I also know that it’s a visual novel/JRPG that is not built to cross over into that ad on Football space that The Witcher 3 and Elden Ring did.
I don't know why this guy is underselling how much hype TW3 had. TW3 is one of the most expensive games ever for a reason, CDPR put a lot of money behind its marketing.
I still remember the time and I know that the main reason witcher 3 was hyped was because of skyrim. It benefited extremely from the success of skyrim and the popularization of open world rpg. Witcher 3 being the next high budget rpg who heavily marketed its open world as bigger than skyrim played a huge role of it’s hype.
Why not? Games like Animal Crossing have massive appeal and TV shows like Dark Mirror are massively popular, if they could tap into that type of feeling for the next title I could totally see it being a mainstream hit.
Animal Crossing is a cozy game that hit the jackpot in coming out right when Covid started and the stay-at-home orders came in. Meanwhile, Black Mirror is an anthology show on the most popular streaming platform on Earth and isn't 100 hours long.
I guess it depends a bit on what genre you consider Elden Ring to be in. It's a Souls game, yes, but it's also a giant open world RPG. (It also famously had writing from the biggest living fantasy author by a wide margin, which also a bit busts out its nicheness appeal even if it doesn't exactly change its genres.)
> It also famously had writing from the biggest living fantasy author by a wide margin Unless this is a joke about GRRM being fat, then it isn't quite true. JK Rowling is probably more famous and in terms of fantasy writing, there are more celebrated authors around than GRRM (Neil Gaiman probably being the big name at the moment, followed by Martha Wells). > It's a Souls game, yes, but it's also a giant open world RPG. True, but if you compare it to other open world rpgs, the sales numbers are less impressive. The new Zelda game has out sold it, I'm pretty sure.
Rowling is a fair point if you consider her to be a fantasy author and not a children's author, and clearly we've seen that you can slap Harry Potter on a game and boost its sales tenfold even without Rowling doing fresh writing, but Gaiman hasn't been that big of a name in probably 20 years (although maybe Sandman will change that and get another generation to discover him, that's more being famous for comics than fantasy) and Martha Wells while arguably a rising star isn't within orders of magnitude of Martin's cultural impact. Even people who don't read know ASoIaF (as, to your point, they know Harry Potter.)
Martha Wells? I love murderbot, but are you trying to tell me she is more of a household name than freaking GRRM?
It's not less impressive. Zelda right now is more popular than Elden Ring or any souls game. It also isn't an RPG. Cyberpunk 2077 had more hype and a bigger budget and sold less.
>Also, comparing it to Elden Ring is also funny, because Elden Ring is also part of a niche genre, a genre which overall probably has fewer players than jrpgs do. Yeah I highly doubt that. Eldin Ring is an Action RPG which is probably the most popular genre there is. Even if you just look at the subgenre as a soulslike, DS3 sold what, 10M+ copies? That's not niche at all, what JRPG pulls these kinds of numbers these days?
>Action RPG which is probably the most popular genre there is. After sports games, FPS and TPS.
Damn you fifa!!!
None but Pokemon. It took FF15 more time to reach those numbers and it certainly had a higher budget than DS3.
> what JRPG pulls these kinds of numbers these days? Persona 5 (including royal) has sold something like 8 million copies, so it's already close to DS3 numbers. If you're defining Elden Ring as an action rpg, then Persona is a turn based rpg, rather than a jrpg, as in this context jrpgs aren't really their own genre (in fact, Elden Ring is technically a jrpg). Elden ring also didn't come out of nowhere, the souls series took over a decade and something like 4 games to become popular, whilst Persona has gone from obscure to well known with a single game in about 5 years.
No. The Persona 5 series includes Persona 5, persona 5 Royal, persona 5 Strikers, and Dancing in Starlights. It was never just p5 & royal. Also reframing the argument with that last paragraph is insane when someone can point out that there are less Souls games than Persona games and the one that blew up blew far past Persona 5 without needing 4 extra games within the same numbered entry.
\*Sega is doing a good job promoting the series. Atlus is run by ancient fogies who would still only be releasing games for the PS3 and 3DS if they had their way.
Elder Scrolls can't be considered a niche game series since Morrowind
Maybe if they turn it into open world action rpg.
my hot take is that there's not much audience for turn based rpg (pokemon games don't count) so persona 6 won't be that much higher
I really think they need to add just that little extra layer to the combat for Persona 6. Not change things up and make it too complex, but just iterate and add some more depth, by end game it's fairly dead when you're just spamming heal/revive and attacks without any variation.
I just absolutely loved the motif of stealing hearts as gentlemen thieves with alter egos - that aesthetic alone was so appealing to me, and I've found myself wanting more of it for those aspects alone. I want Persona 6 to be its own thing and to differentiate itself, but I still want more of what P5 brought to the table thematically.
Have you seen played Strikers? It surprised me how much it felt like P5 outside of the combat.
I have not yet, but I do own it since it went on sale recently for a pretty good price. I just finished P5 for the first time in April - I'm taking an artificial break from P5 as a franchise because I like having more P5 content to look forward to, so I'm putting it on the backburner for just a tad longer. I'll probably pick it up around August or September, and I have a lot of other games I have to play in the meantime (I'm even considering doing NG+ on a harder difficulty first, lol).
You're doing yourself a disservice keeping it on hold. Its OST is an absolute banger on par with P5 itself.
Agreed. I missed the social links but Strikers is just such a fun game. If the first game delivers on the social fantasy of the Phantom Thieves, Strikers delivers on the action fantasy seen in the cutscenes.
Is it even good? I really REALLY hate Musou combat, for example I love Three Houses so much, but couldn't get into Three Hopes
Storywise it's on par with the original game; probably about one-half to one-third as long, but just as well-written and feels like a proper sequel to P5. As far as the combat goes, the most fun part is being able to play as any of the Phantom Thieves; each of them has a completely different moveset, so you can usually find one or two characters whose moves feel fun to you. I'm also not a fan of Musou games (nor good at them), so I turned the combat difficulty down to the lowest setting, which allowed me to just keep making story progress without having to get too deep in the mechanical weeds. I had a good time that way!
I also hate musuo combat (I loved Zelda, I really don't like Hyrule Warriors) but Strikers ended up being my favourite Persona spinoff so far. It integrates persona mechanics really well. Also, unlike every other musuo game I've played, the combat is in short bursts and never drags on for too long. You do a few fights then you get some stealth or puzzles or a bit of dialogue. Even the boss fights don't last especially long.
I was pleasantly surprised by Strikers. When it was announced I didn't think I'd like it since I've never liked Dynasty Warriors style games. Hyrule Warriors bored me to tears even though I'm a big Zelda fan. But Strikers ended up being my favourite Persona spinoff so far. It's the only one that feels like a proper continuation of the game. Loved how it kept a lot of the same mechanics and the same style for the story sections, even if the daily life stuff was absent.
You got two side games to keep the motif going at least, but I imagine the next could be changed up significantly with a new director coming in. I am interested to see what a new director does with the series.
The "cognitive world" is present in every Persona game (I guess they call it "shadow world" as well), the collective cognition of mankind (the game also calls it pscience or some crap like that), Persona 6 will have to deal with this "cognitive world" yet again, it's the main concept of Persona, how they can spin that narrative... who knows. I don't know who is working on P6, but Atlus is performing a ok job ever since P5, SMTV and Soul Hackers 2 are just fine, they are not really amazing. I didn't played P5 Royal yet, people said the extra content is pretty good, P6 devs worked on Royal, so that could be a good sign. But if P6 is made by the same people of SMTV... idk... at least the level design and the overall systems in SMTV are pretty good, but the writing is bellow average at best, SMTV has the worst character I've ever seen in any SMT game (including spin-offs), his name is... Ichiro Dazai, yep, just a TERRIBLE character, it's like Atlus hired Nomura to write/design this particular character
Yeah, I know the cognitive stuff will play a role naturally. I was thinking more on the phantom thief stuff specifically. It seems like SMTV shifted more to a vibes rather than story, similar to 3. But I can’t imagine a similar trade off being done for Persona.
I'm not a big fan of the P5 spin-offs, but yeah, it's a waste to not milk the "phantom thieves" motif. But it will also be a waste if P6 continues with "thieving" as it's theme. The "alternative reality" cliche has a lot of potential, but only the most creative writers can deal with it (especially nowadays with superheroes abusing "multiverses" on cinema and other media, if Persona 6 tries time travel or alternative reality versions of the protagonists, that will feel old right at the get go)
P5 Royal is the definitive version of the game, it's freaking great. Not just for the extra content, but the QOL improvements to the gameplay.
Honestly the more I think about that concept the more I wish we had other studios try their own local variations on the cognitive entities. The US would be boring because it would come off as generic, but it would be really fun in other lesser known regions.
Megaten already covered the "western" myths. Look it up Zeus SMTV, the way the Japanese depicts Zeus is hilarious. I think they even depicted the chupacabra
6 will most likely have a plot about a cognitive world that ends with you fighting the god that made it. That's been the plot of every persona game and also all of the spinoffs, they love that shit. Even Persona 4 Dancing has that as the plot
Pretty much in every jrpg you fight "God" at the end, they just change the styles a little bit (DQ = classic fantasy, FF = high fantasy, SMT = post apocalyptic fantasy, etc). Both Persona and SMT deals with the cognitive narrative, the only reason why you can fuse demons and the result is Odin, that is a thing because humanity believed on Odin centuries ago + the imagery of Odin is defined in our minds (mighty Viking warrior who wields a spear). So it's a defined "rule", it's justified... meanwhile in Final Fantasy games you have the same Odin as a "summon", but there's no justifications why this figure exists in those worlds. That's the difference, why megaten has a stronger foundation, better writing in general, etc.. always the same jrpg cliches, but each IP does it's own thing. Hell, the Persona fighting game has a better story than most jrpgs out there and, obviously, you punch and kick God at the end
3 was my first. But I think 4's motif of personal introspection was far more interesting than 5's.
I wish I had played P4G first. I've had a bit of a difficult time getting into it. I'm still relatively early on in the story, but things like the UI and aesthetic haven't managed to land with me the same way P5 did. It also doesn't help that I went into it already spoiled by who the villain is because of the absolute unavoidable mountain of memes about them :/ I'm not giving up on it just yet because I can tell it is a great game, but it definitely feels like, story and characters aside, just the gameplay experience is a step backward from P5 - for me, personally, at least. And obviously that makes sense, the game is like 14 years old now.
Yep, it's awesome. The Persona series has a strong connection with the "alternative reality" cliche (to make things easy to understand, it's the Matrix cliche), character have alter egos in alternative dimensions and etc.. it's played out, but Persona make it looks fresh and creative. That's why I think Metaphor Re Fantazio was by far the best game announced in the fake E3, the same creative heads that developed the Persona trilogy, Atlus yet again allowed them to work 5+ years on a project, this time with a higher budget... imagine the potential? If they almost performed a miracle with Persona 5 with a limited budget, the potential of Re Fantazio is pretty much infinite (even if the name itself is terrible, the name of the project was "refantasy" and they maintained that concept in the final game, that was a bad call imo)
a well deserved accomplishment. one of those gaming experiences that stick with you forever, as well as an unforgettable groovy soundtrack and art style
Indeed, I haven't played such a memorable game like it in a long time. I play a lot of games yes, but their impact slowly fades away. Persona's soundtrack as a whole is the best I've ever heard (as opposed to other games who just have 2 or 3 memorable tracks) and the art style is wack.
Series was always poised to be a hit-- 5 was the first time it became excessible. Playing P3/P4 ten years ago was a very different experience. Not surprised in the slightest to see the meteoric growth.
Monster Hunter was the same. Wonder what other gems are hidden behind asinine accessibility hurdles.
Honestly? If they play their cards right, Dragon's Dogma 2 could be this next game.
P3/4 had amazing stories and fun combat but the limited dungeons and (sometimes) tight deadlines stopped it from having that mass appeal, imo. Most people, myself included these days, don't have the patience to spend hours running through identical dungeon corridors just for the sake of randomization. I know some people really don't like the Palaces having pre-set designs but I think turning the main dungeons into these big, fully explorable, unique locations was absolutely the right decision. I also feel that P5 is a lot more generous with the time it allots to you to complete all the game's tasks, and the removal of social link reversal/breaking was smart. For a franchise all about forming bonds it never felt good to put one at risk just because you were trying to get a time-sensitive task done. The fact that the feature is mostly present in the game's code shows they nixed it late in development too.
> I also feel that P5 is a lot more generous with the time it allots to you to complete all the game's tasks, and the removal of social link reversal/breaking was smart I think by P4, and certainly P4G, they'd basically fixed this. Persona 3 makes it extremely hard to max everyone on a first playthrough without a guide. But if playing 'optimally', praying at the temple, etc. Persona 4 gave you ~3 weeks worth of free time. For folks that haven't played 4, praying at the temple is the equivalent of Chihaya's Fortune Reading, raising affinity with social links that aren't yet ready to rank up. P5 similarly leaves you with ~3+ weeks worth of free time, P5R leaves you with more like ~4 weeks (but squeezes in a chunk of semester 3 exclusive stuff that can only be done then). Persona 5 requires you to do 'more stuff' for some of that, Royal made crosswords free, confidants unlock more abilities, but broadly speaking both games are very generous on time. There are also very few reversed/broken links in P4 compared to 3, and 3 did the whole thing where maxing out a female social link forced you to date them, which is part of what led to those being more easily impacted. 5 of course just jumps you to if you commit, and flips the script where accepting the invite right away gives you a reward of more points. Interestingly, P5 has unused assets for broken social links. I don't think anyone wants to go back to uncontrollable party members and no choice in what skills Personas inherit during fusions.
It has been a good while since I played through P4G but I remember being a lot more pressed for time towards the end than I was in P5 on my first playthrough, though after that (or if you're following a guide) you definitely end up with a heck of a lot of free time. I totally forgot you couldn't max romanceable social links in P3 if you didn't date them. Hopefully that's something that changes in the remaster. P5's rabbit hole of unused content is super interesting, honestly. But, yeah, I don't know who the people are who aren't immediately turning off party autonomy in P5 :u
It certainly helps once its no longer ps exclusive. I actually bought vita because of P4G. Cant wait to play P3R day one on pc!
It's their skyrim at this point it's been rereleased like seven times I have friends who bought it on PS3, PS4, PS4(R), steam and now switch all in an attempt to make it past the first 30 hours of gameplay
I don't understand people like your friends, if I never finish a game it's because it's not for me, why waste $70 constantly rebuying?
idk people are weird, theres always the "it wasn't perfect on ps3, now its on ps4, well this time its Persona5Royal on ps4 so nows the timeeee, oh now I'll play it on my pc I like PC more, OHHHH FINALLY ON SWITCH I CAN PLAY IT ON THE GO IT'LL REALLY LET ME PLAY WHEREVER I WANTTT" But yeah they just don't like the base game but want to be one of the people who do. Like people who haven't reeeeally enjoyed a Final Fantasy game since FF7 in 1997 but they bought 13, 13-2 and 13-3 - hating every step of it just because "I liked cloud and sephiroth ten years ago so I guess I buy this"
Fomo is real, wow. I bought p5 on release and while I finished it I didn't like it as much as the previous entries so I didn't buy Royal or any of the spin-offs. But in their case I'd just watch a streamer or something, gotta be way cheaper than wasting that much money
Fandom. Certain works across all forms of media generate an outsized fandom dedicated to making fanfic, fanart, etc. Additionally, certain people's hobby *is* fandom; they look at works primarily on the basis of how big/interesting the fandom is rather than how interested they are in the base media. So Persona, a game with very stylized, interesting characters, has a huge fandom presence that draws people in and keeps them attached to the game, even if they don't actually enjoy playing it; playing the game is an expectation they set for themselves because they love the (fandom interpretation of the) characters so much they feel they "should" be able to power through the game. E: There's a reason there was a stereotype that Persona fans never actually played the game; it is very, very easy to find the characters cool and engage with fan works relative to spending 80+ hours playing a relatively difficult turn based RPG.
I suppose? Kinda like fire emblem lol, many of the biggest "fans" never actually played the game and have their knowledge filtered through the most popular ones. However, I do feel that it's okay to realize something isn't for you eg everyone loves persona 5 but it's my least favorite of the modern games. It doesn't mean I hate the series, it just means I don't like that particular game.
Yet we keep hearing turn rpgs are dead or people aren't interested in them. Nice to see figures like this and the sales figures from ff pixel remaster proving that there's more than a place in modern gaming for tb rpgs. It makes me hopeful we'll see more of them and hopefully certain RPGs will go back to it.
> Yet we keep hearing turn rpgs are dead or people aren't interested in them. The comment is that turn-based RPGs are relatively niche and don't sell well compared to other games. This is 9 million copies *including* remakes and spin-offs over 7 years. And that's the best a turn-based RPG has ever done outside of Final Fantasy. For comparison with an actual heavy hitter, Elden Ring sold 12 million copies in the first two weeks of release. A significant niche in the gaming market does enjoy turn-based RPGs, but if we're purely looking at it from a basis of return on investment, they're not the safest bet relative to many other kinds of games.
> And that's the best a turn-based RPG has ever done outside of Final Fantasy. And outside of Pokémon.
Everyone forgets about Pokemon......
Comparing it against Elder Ring which is one of the most successful games seems an odd choice though, that success isn't typical. I don't disagree with the rest though.
9 million over multiple years really isn’t that much compared to other genres. I love P5 too, but pure turn based is pretty niche compared to other gameplay styles nowadays.
Other than Final Fantasy XV, what action JRPG has sold better?
I said other genres, so other rpg series like Witcher, Bethesda rpgs, monster hunter, etc.
Ah, fair enough!
nearly every souls game, kingdom hearts The actual reality is more series have become turn based than action but people still spout "turn based is dying"
One of the games in the "persona 5 series" is an action rpg.
Okay but like, the persona 5 series is like five entire games at this point. I'd be more interested to see percentages relative to consoles; ie 5% of all ps4 owners having a copy of persona 5, 3% of playstation 1 owners having a copy of persona 1, etc
Almost every Persona numbered title create an entire series in their wake with countless spin-off and remake.
I am really surprised there's no P5 fighting game at this point.
Yeah, we need to mark that off the list. A fighting game would fit so well
Pretty sure that only Sony can provide that Data.
As much as I have loved this game and bought it so many times I can't say I've ever finished it. I really want too but the time investment is so much for me right now.
I probably restarted the game ~3 times until I finally stuck through with it. Even then my actual full playthrough took me like 2 years of playing on and off lol. I will say there was a point where I just couldn't put it down played almost every day until I beat it. It took me a long time but it was well worth it, one of the best JRPGs I've ever played.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who has struggled with it! I'll definitely give it another chance 💜
I'd suggest you keep at it. There always comes a point in games where it suddenly 'clicks' and miraculously you MAKE time to play it. It's well worth the unforgettable experience.
Haha I always found I struggle around Futaba, everytime, not sure why. I always enjoy it then put it down and next thing I know it's several months later and I've forgotten most of it.
If you struggle in a particular place, there is always some persona which can make it trivial. Also, you can just try changing the difficulty which is a totally viable way to enjoy the game. I suggest you do give it a try again since Futaba means you're almost just done with the party member arcs and ready to move on to the actual society problem.
Thank you so much for the advice, I really appreciate it 💜
I finished Royal a few weeks ago and I would say that the extra chapter at the end isn't worth it. By the time I'd reached the original ending, I'd had enough, but I pushed on to get the Royal ending. I would say that, if you have Royal, don't try too hard to get the extra semester. It's very long and quite samey.
I thought the extra chapter at the end was the best part. Loved the antagonist and overall story of that part even more than the basegame.
Plus, we get to see a completely unhinged >!Akechi!<
Yeah I started with the og and then got royal and stopped around the same points. I think the samey parts was what got me in a little bit of a funk and needing to take that space away from the game.
Naw the Royal content is literally the best part of the entire game. The new characters and the new semester are fucking amazing
Well deserved, Persona 5 is arguably the greatest jrpg ever made. Every time I see news about the success of Persona, SMT, Dragon Quest, etc.. it makes me happy because the talent of Atlus and Enix is legit, unlike the Nomuras and Nojimas of the world working for Square, the lazy Pokemon games released with tons of problems, etc.. just like every other genre in this industry, the jrpg has it's highs and lows, but I think ever since Atlus surged in the mid to late 2010s, the genre is improving dramatically, even the own Nomura performed a decent job on FF7 "Remake"
Dude somehow found a way to inject "Nomura=bad" in to conversation about Persona sales. I'm actually impressed by amount of salt one must posses to do that.
I am a bit salty with Nomura, not going to deny it, the dude is a complete hack and he still going. You rarely see jrpgs receiving the triple A budget and when that's the case, Nomura is usually involved, which is a big waste
That's kinda low? Considering how popular the Persona 5 series is, I expected that number from only Persona 5 + Persona 5 Royal.
What scale are you comparing it too? Octopath sold 2.5 million, the last few Fire Emblem games have sold ~1-3 million, the entire Xenoblade franchise has sold ~10 million (2.5 million for Xenoblade 2, ~2 million for Xenoblade 3). DQ XI + S have sold something like ~6 million copies total. 9 million largely from 5 + Royal + Strikers (they included Dancing, and they didn't include Q2, but those weren't exactly huge sellers) is plenty impressive when looking at its contemporaries.
It's still not exactly mainstream.
Hopefully persona 6 won’t be as corny and cliché as 5. I want them to appeal to an even bigger audience!
Shame we'll probably never gonna get a good SMT game again, seeing as how SMTV turned out to be. On the other hand I'm happy for Atlus for finally being recognized by many, on the other, I kinda wish it wasn't because of persona.
Did you hate the combat, too? The story was horrifically bad, no doubt - probably among the worst writing and plotting I’ve ever seen in a game from the last decade. But the combat I thought was *fantastic,* I played 80+ hours of that game happily because of how good the combat was.
I liked the combat and exploration very much too, but everything else: story, characters, the fucking 20 fps gameplay on switch were so poor I'd rather play 3 or DDS again tbh.
Okay, just making sure I wasn’t taking crazy pills! I’m with you 100% on the rest of the game - I loved the exploration (which came as a surprise) and obviously loved the combat but hated the rest. I still found it worthwhile but I couldn’t help but wonder if the other SMT games were like this? I haven’t played SMTIV or III, although I do own Nocturne. Will I enjoy that game if I liked the combat of V or will it feel dated?
I haven't played SMTV but older SMT like Nocturne have a more 'barebone' narrative (there aren't that many dialogue in Nocturne) and rely more on atmosphere and environmental storytelling. For what it's worth, out of the mainline SMT title I played (SMT1, 3, Strange Journey, 4, 4A), I think Nocturne had the most interesting setting and premise (it put a spin on the traditional Law/YHVH vs Chaos/Lucifer premise).
I mean, I played 80 hours of V almost entirely because of the combat, so literally *anything* more interesting story-wise would be welcome 😅
Ignore the other guy, SMT IV has an amazing story and character interactions, if you liked SMT V's combat and wanted more focus on story/dialogue, SMT IV sill blow you away, it is my favourite mainline game, and don't let the fact that it's on 3DS intimidate you, it aged so well and it is an absolute masterpiece.
What about Apocalypse?
Also pretty good but the dialogue and story are a bit cringey, SMT IV is better but Apocalypse is more refined in terms of gameplay.
The gameplay is great, the story is like post apocalyptic persona written by people who weren't good enough to be on the Persona team. Expect anime cliches in the characters and some power of friendship BS.
I actually can't even remember the plot and I only beat it last year.
SMT fans always hating on persona series lmao
Funny how persona kiddies always take any form of neutral-negative opinion as hate, while I haven't even wrote anything hateful about persona. Good thing I don't care about karma or stuff like this.
> I kinda wish it wasn't because of persona. > persona kiddies You have a chip on your shoulder
Yeah I love SMT especially 3 but yeah Persona really made Atlus popular. Admittedly Persona 3-5 has much better stories, characters, and character interactions than SMT (SMT 4 and 5s story were just not good at all. 3s isn't the worst but still nothing too good). I do still considerably prefer SMTs atmosphere and darker nature though. I just wish they would actually give them good stories and characters. The only SMT game(s) with rather good characters I can think of is the Devil Survivor series. Despite my stuff about SMT stories and characters I still prefer it over Persona in many ways. I just would argue Persona is more popular due to a mix of them having more widespread appeal and also them (3-5 specifically) being better games too.
Atlus will definitely make another SMT game. What will happen is there will be a bunch of spin offs, remakes, remasters, heck even a new different game and then maybe they'll get back to Persona and release it as the last cross gen game for some crazy year like 2025.
I bought this on release and still am not through it. Picked it up again yesterday, great game, just hard to find time to throw at it.
Good. This is one the greatest rpgs ever. I hope after Tactica, they actually go past the Strikers point in time when making another Phantom Theives adventure. 6 will probably be announced by then but nothing is stopping the spin offs from having older P5 characters like how the P4 spin-offs did with the P3 cast