Ryan Carlson
Ryan is a passionate gamer who is conflicted about whether he should become the Ubermensch or a Ghost In the Machine. Maybe his answer will be found in the Golden Mean.
The new Persona 5 video game trailer was published on Youtube three days ago and since then it has accumulated almost 2 million views. It is the long-awaited new installment in the Persona video game franchise from Atlus, a Japanese video game company based out of Tokyo, Japan. Here’s the trailer:
Persona
If you are unfamiliar with the video game franchise Persona, it is basically a Japanese role-playing game franchise. It can’t be compared to other Japanese role-playing games or to Western style role-playing games in the United States because Persona can be thought of as an anime cliche. There are many cliche Japanese animes that are centered around average Japanese high school students who somehow gain supernatural powers.
The three popular animes that have this high school student cliche is Bleach, Code Geass, and Death Note. In all three of these animes an ordinary high school student gains some supernatural power that changes his life and makes him into a powerful protagonist who seeks to change the world. The Persona franchise incorporates this anime cliche into the video games themselves by making you an ordinary high school student who discovers their supernatural power.
Summon Your Inner Personality (Persona)
Here are the main characters in Persona 4. You can see their inner personality or persona that they can summon behind them.
In each Persona game you start out as a high school student who goes to class, socializes with students on top of a school roof, and even goes to gym. The game seems very innocent at first but it turns dark fast. Each game turns into you battling different enemies who are called Shadows with swords and your inner persona.
Each new game in the Persona franchise involves a new theme. From looking at the trailer of Persona 5, it looks like it will have the theme of crime. The main protagonist leads a double life from a regular high school student to one who steals and commits heists. There are also different stealth elements in the game with characters who can take cover.
Japanese RPGs vs Western RPGs
Japanese role-playing games give me hope that the role-playing video game genre isn’t dead. For the past several years Western role-playing games have been terrible on a consistent basis. I have played Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas, the Mass Effect Trilogy, the Dragon Age Trilogy, The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, the Fable Trilogy, and The Witcher 2. Out of all of those, I only found The Witcher 2 and Dragon Age Origins to be great games.
Compare this to the Japanese role-playing game franchises of Dark Souls, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and Persona. These four Japanese role-playing game franchises have released stellar games on a consistent basis with quality that cannot be matched by Western role-playing games. There is only one classic Western role-playing game and that is Star Wars: The Knights of the Old Republic.
If you are new to the franchise keep a look out for Persona 5 which will come out in 2015. Persona fans around the world are very hyped about this new release because it has been several years since Persona 4 came out in 2008.
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