Big News in the World of Persona

Welcome to Persona

          This has been a big week for Persona and its fans with not one or two games announced but three as well as the launching of a new Persona website! Japanese magazine Famitsu broke the story this week with their interview with Persona 3 and 4’s director Katsura Hashino. The new games are: Persona 4: The Golden, Persona 4: The Ultimate in Mayonaka Arena, and the now 100% confirmed Persona 5. Hit the jump for a ridiculous amount of news and information and pictures!

UPDATE 1 (9/9/11): The debut trailer for Persona 4: The Ultimate in Mayonaka Arena has released! Find it after the jump near the bottom of the page.

          First, let’s talk about the rerelease of Persona 4 (a.k.a. one of the greatest games ever – which you didn’t buy along with Okami and Lunar 2), Persona 4: The Golden for the Playstation Vita. Hashino says that originally there were no plans to do a portable version of Persona 4 as they made it with the intent of it being complete on the first go around, but after the success of the Persona 3 Portable (P3P) on the PSP they changed their minds. Part of that change came from the fact that 30% of the people who bought P3P were new to the series. The team chose PSV because unlike P3P they wanted as little compromises as possible. In fact, P4: The Golden, Hashino, promises will have tons of extra content for fans and new comers to get excited for! Including, but not limited to:

• New events.
• New animations.
• A new opening.
• Previously inaccessible places to visit.
• A new character named Marie who is voiced by Kana Hanazawa. Marie is mysterious.
• 1.5 times the amount of voice-overs.
• 3G/Wi-Fi support.
• If you’re about to die in a dungeon, you can send an SOS to other players. Possibley linked with the 3G/Wi-Fi support.
• New Personas.
• New character outfits.
• And last, an unknown highly requested element.

Marie. Rated: Mysterious.

          Next, is Persona 4: The Ultimate in Mayonaka Arena, a Persona based fighting game. I’m seriously. I didn’t make this up… Anyway, it’s going to be a fighting game made by the wonderful designers at ARC System Works. The same people who bought us the great BlazBlue and Guilty Gear games. The story is going to be handled by the Persona team and Hashino says that this will not be a spin off side story but an actual direct sequel to Persona 4. The story takes place two months after the events of Persona 4 and will have the characters fighting in a tournament of sorts called the P-1 Grand Prix. The game will feature characters from both P4 and P3 and each character will have a unique story. The confirmed characters so far are: Main/Izanagi, Chie/Tomoe, Yosuke/Jiraiya, and Aigis/Athena. 

          I’m not going to lie – this is weird and cool at the same time and I’m not sure how to take this, so I’ll just wait for more information to come out. The animation looks great and the gameplay is being put together by a great game company and the Persona team definitely knows how to tell a great story… so I guess we’ll see. The features include the following:

• Arcade Mode: battle against CPU and follow the story.
• Story Mode: a deeper version of Arcade Mode’s story, exclusive to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox. 360 versions of the game.
• Score Attack Mode: battle against CPU for the highest score.
• VS. Mode: player versus CPU or player versus player.
• Online Battle: battle against players online ‘throughout the world.

          This ^ copied straight from Gematsu.com formerly Scrawl.com

Debut Trailer

         The last game is Persona 5! Which there really isn’t a ton of information on, only that they will use an internal game engine for it instead of a third party one like they used for Catherine. Hashino will direct, while long time Megami Tensei composer Shoji Meguro will return once as main composer (Woohoo!! I love that guy!), and Shigenori Soejima will be the character designer. According to Hashino, Persona 5’s theme is pretty much set and the team is now working on the game at full speed, but cautions that Persona 5 is still a long ways off.

          Okay, gang, round up! The last piece of news is that Atlus has made a new website dedicated to all things Persona: Persona Portal.  It contains all the latest videos and headlines about Persona! In Japanese!! So, go check it out! Also, there are links to the official websites of Persona 4: The Ultimate in Mayanoka Arena and Persona 4: The Golden on there. So, like, you should totally hit it up at: Persona Portal.

          P.S.: I love Persona, especially Persona 4. By the way, Persona 2: Innocent Sin is releasing on PSP on September 20, 2011. Have you reserved your copy? I have. Free mini soundtrack with purchase.

          P.P.S.: I swear Atlus isn't paying me.