Hold on to your fanboy hats, the long-awaited Persona 5 teaser has been revealed. Persona series is a Japanese Role-Playing Game (JRPG) with a growing cult following. While the name isn’t as synonymous to Final Fantasy (yet), you can bet that it’s well on its way. Persona has been gaining solid ground ever since Persona 3 (P3) was introduced. Persona 3 introduced a story of shadows, Persona-users, and a world that was unknowingly about to end. It was a great game that was topped off with Persona 3 FES which provided a resolution beyond P3’s ending. The biggest surprise was the coming of Persona 4. The game drew in an amazing following for the game – even more than P3 did. At first, it looked like it was a stand-alone game as it seemed to have its own story and its own take on what Shadows were. It DID feature some nods to the P3 game but it wasn’t until Persona 4 Arena that the connection between P3 and P4 was made VERY clear. Ever since then, Persona 5 has been very much anticipated and, hallelujah! Our waiting has been rewarded with a sneak peek care of this trailer:
You could imagine our excitement when P5 was announced because the events that happen in P4 Arena (and probably P4 Utlimax – it’s the fighting game’s sequel) all lead up to the events at P5. There’s so many questions as well! Who is this new character? How will the shadows be presented here? How does this connect to P3 and P4? Does it even connect AT ALL? Will the heroes (and maybe villains) from P3 and P4 make an appearance? The trailer looks awesome and I have high hopes as to where it’s all going.
Persona 3 – Ultimax – Persona 4
To the uninitiated, the Persona series is an off-shoot of ATLUS’ Shin Megami Tensei JRPG series which focuses on demon summoners — think of it as Pokemon for the more mature market as the themes usually involve demons, mythology, death and humanity’s attempts at surviving apocalyptic events. While the settings of Megami Tensei (or MegaTen) are usually bleak end-of-the-world scenarios, Persona is comparably quite light-hearted in nature than its mother series while still featuring that overall feel of a grand epic adventure with dire consequences to the world should you fail.
In Persona 3, to summon your Persona (or Alter-Ego) you shoot yourself in the head with these weapons called Evoker.
The series is colorful and light but it deals with very mature issues and overtones so this definitely ain’t a game for kids. Persona tackles death (either physical or metaphysical) and a whole lot of psychology. In fact, the Persona series uses a lot of Jungian archetypes and usually deals with the character’s acceptance or rejection of ones ego as the game progresses (this is more pronounced in Persona 4). The story can be taken at face value or can be dissected in various depths. Couple that with mythologies of various demons and creatures across all cultures (Western and Eastern alike) and you have a pool of rich content for the audience to draw from.
Persona 5 is slated for a 2015 release for both PS3 and PS4.
This is definitely one of the games I’m holding my breath for. You can bet that we’ll be keeping close tabs on any further developments with P5! 😀