Riff Table Arcade Persona 5 discussion title card

Nice drawing of the main character.

I actually well both Tommy and I listened to this episode. Since we both weren't on the PS3 we listened through there. Pretty convenient. XD

You all have some interesting views. I find myself agreeing with Jeff the most about the game taking place at a high school setting. I mean everyone else made points about the demographics, but at the same time...I'm sure given the span of how long this franchise been going not most of the fans I'm sure are still in high school even in Japan. I think it goes a little deeper than that. It seems that Japan itself seem to be really into youth. Even most anime nowadays are having more younger looking characters and even more series taking place in high school setting in some form even magical schools almost feel the same. XD

There are even many seinen series that have really young characters, school settings, and whatnot. So I don't think it's just the demographics of teens. But that is another conversation for another day. I just know the past months or so I ran into documentaries and stuff dealing with Japan and it looks like more specifically in the anime/manga/video game community over there that there is this major theme dealing with youth. It's interesting and some of it can be a little creepy depending.

Back to Persona 5 though. I was hoping too that it would take place somewhere besides a high school. They did it with Catherine (I'm a huge fan of that game by the way) so it would have been nice. Or at least maybe have more variety of characters in age. I actually respect 'Tales of' series that even though you do have main characters in their teens that other people in you party range from all kinds of ages. It just would have been a nice change. I think they could have made something interesting considering Persona series well SMT games in general are really whimsical and such. So I don't think having older characters in a more adult setting should be a limitation.

Haha But for the most part I'm really looking forward to this game. Being a huge fan of Catherine I personally love the art direction. XD I don't feel the main character look like Harry Potter. >.>; I would think his hair would look more brunette if that was the case and his glasses being rounder than what I remember seeing. I find him cute, but then again I'm not a heterosexual male. XD

Now the other two does seem a little less inspiring to me especially the female. I'm often seeing pigtails and blondes all over the place. Though I have nothing against those two things. Pigtails are cute. And nothing wrong with blondes. It just would have been nice to have way more diverse looks. I love the Danganronpa games for that where they have more diverse looks of characters. Would be nice if Persona had that but who knows we haven't seen everyone yet.

Hopefully there will be more characters. XD I would think with all these spinoffs and such they would need more if they are continuing their spin off series or make new ones.

The menus looks so fun and colorful. Looking forward to that. Yeah looking forward to menus. XD

Gameplay...I'm not too sure how I feel about it. I'll have to see more, but if they do turn based I hope it'll be more like Persona 3 Portable and Persona 4 Golden (not too sure if original Persona 4 you were able to) where you can control all the characters. Speaking of Persona 3 Portable...

I kind of wish there was an option to play as a female character. XD I actually like that you could play as a female character in a Persona game. XDDDD I don't really have a problem playing as a male, but it just would be nice to have that option, but it isn't a deal-breaker for me. XD

Um...I feel confident about the music since it's done by the same composer. I love Jazz and Funk so it's awesome hearing something similar to those. :3

When I heard of the Lupin 3rd influence or inspiration rather it made me even happier. XD I love the Lupin series and looking forward to the new Blue Jacket series that is coming out this year so yeah! XD Plus for me. I just wonder how they would tie up the themes though in a Persona series being a thief and all or having thief themes and whatnot. Tommy brought up a cute thing since they have cat mascot that their cat burglars and he said that just seeing the trailer before hearing the other information on it. XD

I thought the social links thing was interesting because you get to learn more about your teammates. I do wonder what the cooperation thing would mean though. It would be nice it is a much more improved system of the social links. I hope they don't take the social links out completely.

As for darker themes...goodness I always felt the Persona series was pretty dark maybe not as dark at the other SMT games, but I wonder how much darker they could go. I felt even Persona 4 was dark despite it much brighter colors and moments. The whole theme with the inner darkness and whatnot was pretty dark to me. Not many people would want to admit the darkness they harbor within and for the character to have to reveal that to their close ones and others is pretty crazy thing. But I do wonder what they meant by the themes in Persona 5. We'll just have to see. It does look like it'll still have some sort of quirkiness though.

I guess that is all my thoughts on that. XD Very interesting discussion and sorry for the length of this comment. XDDD I guess I got typing-happy. XD