To end the 30+ hour live stream of Persona content on the 4th of February 2015; Atlus presented onto its devout watchers the first look at Persona 5 and there is so much shown! I’ve already watched the trailer a dozen times and I’m still trying to pick out what’s going on! It’s full of details just waiting to be unearthed.
A few months back Atlus showed a teaser of the presumed main character of the next entry to the franchise; a seemingly mild-mannered school boy riding in on a train. Now we finally get a good look at his true nature, the slick, Lupin-esque mysterious masked protagonist named; “The Phantom” which was revealed on an earlier part of the live stream.
As the credit rolls familiar names from earlier entries in the have returned, with director Katsura Hashino back on the helm, character designer Shigenori Soejima and composer Shouji Meguro. All 3 being the heads responsible for Persona 3 and 4.
During the credit sequence, it’s clear Igor and the Velvet room are back; but alongside him are two new assistants, very obviously much younger than their predecessors in earlier games.
After this sequence the theme of ‘restriction’ that Atlus had before mentioned comes back in symbolism by a shadowy figure of a bird flying out of the city with either chains or rope holding onto it, preventing it from escaping from the city.
And just as quickly, the screen changes to show real game play footage; showing a scene where the protagonist is back in normal school uniform on a train briefly, then walking through a station that is absolutely bustling with activity and people. This is already such a change from the earlier games, where the world now feels so full of people, an active and chaotic world of people rushing in and out doing their day-to-day lives along the protagonist.
Soon after, we get to see the ‘team’ that the protagonist will work with: Two classmates, a blonde girl and a yellow-haired boy and a cat that seemingly has two forms, a domestic cat and a more cartoony mascot cat as shown in two immediate scenes. These will probably not be the only ones the players will have access to and could potentially have a 5th member (and possibly more), the theory stems from the initial Persona 5 reveal image showing an image of 5 chairs shackled to a weighted balls; they could represent protagonist and his team members.
We then get a look at the menu screen; and its dynamic animation. We also get to see some more hidden information such as the incorporation of both a melee and ranged weapon taken from the Shin Megami series. The protagonist also looks like his main weapon will be knives and pistols, and as alluded to later in a battle scene, the other party members will have unique weapon combinations.
Soon after, we then get a look at the second part to the Persona game; the dungeon crawling. Right off the bat, the controlled character is doing actions the previous games never did, the movement was fluid, dodging and jumping around, traversing non labyrinthine terrain and doing quick stealthy movements around corners to sneak up on enemies. There seems to be a lack of a map however, which may just not be apparent in the footage, or may need to be opened up in a menu of sorts which changes things from the previous games.
In real battle, movements seem to be well polished, character designs look fantastic, the backgrounds are beautifully done and the all out attack looks so much more satisfying than a puff a smoke that blankets the enemy in the older games.
The last scene shows a much more ominous side to the protagonist that really shows a sort of ‘release’ to the ‘chains’ that again show up in the last scene, and judging by the shape of the blue flames, when his hand gets enveloped, a single frame of blue fire forms the shape of a claw. Which may clue in on how the persona system works in this game.
I’m pretty excited for this game, the changes from Persona 4 are looking impressive and I can’t wait to see more! The game is slated to be out sometime in 2015 for the Playstation 3 and Playstation 4. If you guys saw something cool let us know in the comments!