I would look at more than the first 2 screenies if Dtoids gallery viewer didn't suck so hard.

Is a "view next" button so much to ask?!?!?

I'm with you. No matter what I'll be buying this game, and probably be playing it non stop. I mean I played P3 like it was my job. But I've also been worried that this was going to another dungeon crawler/dating sim game. Even though the SL were about more than just dating. Hopefully they keep it fresh but even if it follows the same format as P3 I'm sure it will still be good.

@ Colette
Awesome! I dunno about anyone else, but unending frustration there.

On topic, P3 was easily one of my top 5 PS2 games - I'll buy P4 sight unseen.

this is the second game as of late that has been referred to as .5 of the last one - Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 is 1.5 ... now Persona 4 is somehow Persona 3.5 ...

i sort of share the sentiment... P4 does look and sound an awful lot like P3... but isn't that what a sequel is SUPPOSED to be? maybe we're referring to the latest sequels as .5 of the last ones because we've got sequelitis?

P3 was my favorite game of 2007. i'll be picking P4 up as soon as it arrives on our shores.

You used to make me LOL so much Colette. What happened? Your writing is still amazingly brilliant, but you don't seem to go for the laughs enough anymore.

Maybe it's just me and I've just so happened to miss the funny stuff. Then again maybe your genius lay in the fact that you don't try to be funny, you just are....sometimes.

Happy Easter and thanks for the screens!

Oh come on! I just won Persona 3 LE from Ebay, i have to go to America-Land to pick up a US PS2, by the time i get round to that, FES would be out, and then Persona 4!

Whaaa!

Hopefully, FES will sell lots and encourage Atlus to bring this hotness over lightning-fast!

@Kamikaze - dude....if that was true, I could die happy TODAY :)

Also, for those who want more information, I did some snooping and found some interesting stuff:

A follow-up to the trailer explaining some things

Second follow-up, explaining the TV theme. Has to do with an old urban legend.

Some info on a few party members. Colette, I mean Satonaka, is very popular. She also kills monsters by kicking.

I'm sooo excited for this. Though I'm even more excited for FES because I'm restraining myself from playing more P3 because I'm just gonna have to start over when it hits. Ooooh, but the cravings are painful.

@ EternalDeathSlayer;

Maybe there is too much good stuff that Colette is commenting about, and just not enough rubbish to take the piss out of.

Yes, this does look hot, but nothing I haven't seen from the videos.

I still haven't gotten around to playing the other three.

It looks kind of too similar to 3... i mean, they could have used the same engine and made the game different... don't get me wrong it still looks cool but i'm not sure i'm going to drop another 115hrs playing the same thing.

It looks like P3, walks like P3, sounds like P3, acts like P3. But if they insist it's not P3, then P3.5 it is.

I'm just saying...to use Phoenix's example:

It looks like Nocturne, sounds like Nocturne, acts like Nocturne. But they insist it's DDS, so it's Nocturne 1.5.

Atlus is pretty famous for making games that look thematically similar but aren't even close to being the same in any tangible way. I just don't want people to start passing up on P4 because "they've already played it when it was called P3". Like Shinu is suggesting in his post.

@Gen Eric Gui

None of the Persona games are connected to each other at all.

Um, no. As I recall, the main villain from Persona 1 had a non-insignificant role in Eternal Punishment. Not to mention the fact that a couple of the playable characters from Persona 1 returned as playable characters in EP, along with quite a few playable and NPC characters from the first game showing up in non-playable roles in EP. One doesn't really have to have played the first game to get what was going on, though, given that they gave you the basic gist of what you need to know for the second game (actually third, since the bastards never released Innocent Sin over here, but that's more like part 1 and part 2 of the second game in the series and we only got part 2 of that).

Granted, what I've played of P3 so far has shown that events and characters from the previous games are only mentioned in briefest passing on the television news if you bother to look at it ("Pain pain go away"), and are unimportant to the plot of the game, but they are still mentioned at least. Then again, I only got about half-way through P3 (and won't be attempting a replay at least until FES is released), so I have no idea if they make any sort of greater impact later on. And, obviously, there's no way to know at this point what sort of significance, if any, the previous games will have on P4.

Not to mention the fact that Igor and the Velvet Room have been in all Persona games so far, and I don't doubt for a minute that they'll show up in P4 in some capacity, but then that's kind of like expecting to see a chocobo somewhere in a Final Fantasy game. Still, I just wanted to point out that saying that "none of the games are connected to each other at all" is plain wrong.

"@Cheeburga: Most likely not. None of the Persona games are connected to each other at all."

Except for Persona 2: Innocent Sin and Persona 2: Eternal Punishment, that is.

I never played the first Persona because it was too backwards ass even for me, but I don't recall ever reading anything that playable characters from the first game showed up in the second.

Well now you can read up on all of it.

See also Mary, Brad, Chris, Yuki (who, in addition to be a NPC in EP, was also a playable character in IS), Mrs. Smith, Harding, Tad, Tammy, Chunky, etc.

Spoiler warning, of course.

But yeah, the connections of the first two (three) games to Persona 3 are merely throw away references, but my main point was and is still that saying that there are no connections at all, or at most only superficial connections, between any of the games in the series is wrong. Given that you admittedly haven't played the first game, however, I can sort of understand why you may think this is the case.

Ultimately though, to answer Cheeburga's original question, like you said, no you really don't have to have played the previous games to get the newer ones. It's still much cooler seeing Nate and Guido and the rest show up in Eternal Punishment if you've played Revelations than not though, at least it was for me anyway.

0bshaky,
yes

Gen Eric Gui,
he is in the anime series too


I'm going to buy persona 4 regardless because I enjoyed persona 3 :)

If this is a .5 entry, then would be it be a prequel or spiritual sequel. Seems like the in-game could be showing its age. Although when I watched some videos of 3's gameplay in motion, it looked crisp.

Another thing I enjoy about Persona, is the delivery. You never know how things may unfold. Only if you've made a good / bad decision, the interaction with friends or enemies change.

Then again it hasn't had too many female leads, so it may be a different viewpoint. A year later? hmm wonder.

I think I need to direct people to Burnout, Ratchet & Clank, and GTA as evidence. You can use the same engine or tweak it a bit and make multiple games that are good stand-alones and don't get stale.

I get a bit annoyed hearing the 'it looks the same' comments. Seems to happen more with RPGs than any other genre to, and I blame Squeenix for this. Not every good RPG series has to follow the 'Final Fantasy Formula' and be completely different every single time (for the most part).

The game is an indirect sequel, so it makes sense for the game to look similar. It's in the same timeline in Japan except two years later and in a different, rural area. Aside from that the story, characters, persona, and setting are different. They even tweaked the battle system and S.Link system even though they didn't have to. They did a lot to the game in two years, and I'm not about to complain.

Looking good, but I still need to play Persona 3.