With these four games having been announced in November for a Japanese release, Atlus has today finally - and officially - announced that the handful of new Persona games are coming to North America. It is a happy day for Persona fans like me. This announcement was bound to happen eventually, but, still, it's beary exciting nonetheless. The next two years we'll be seeing two Persona games each, with one of them being the highly anticipated Persona 5.
To kick things off, Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth will arrive exclusively on the 3DS this Fall. Persona Q incorporates characters from both Persona 3 and Persona 4, along with some new faces, in an Etrian Odyssey style dungeon crawler. If the cuteness of the game's chibi art style hasn't melted your heart, then you're probably a terrible monster.
Also releasing in the Fall of 2014 is Persona 4 Arena Ultimax. This sequel to the Persona fighting game, Arena, comes with new characters: Junpei Lori and Yukari Takeba, both from Persona 3, as well as the red-haired Sho Minazuki. Sho is a new character to the series and his intentions are mysterious; is he a good or bad guy?
Ultimax will be releasing on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 and is said to reveal the “explosive conclusion to Persona 4's aftermath”!
Persona 4: Dancing All Night, a rhythm-based game for the PlayStation Vita, developed by the folks behind Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA will be releasing sometime next year. This is perhaps the strangest Persona game to be announced, but I can't wait to try it out. Just check this synopsis, “The summer following the events in Persona 4 sees Rise return to Inaba after spending the summer back in her old life as an idol. After hearing rumors about the Midnight Stage, she checks a certain website at midnight and sees a mysterious movie clip and, you guessed it, winds up on the "other side." Worse yet, she finds out her junior idol peers from the group Kanamin Kitchen are missing as well. She has no choice but to send an SOS to the Investigation Team to help rescue the missing idols.
Normal battle tactics don't work against the Shadows on the Midnight Stage, but dancing does! Rise, the Protagonist, and the rest of the Investigation Team will have to dance their way to victory. “
How is that not the best thing you've ever hear? It's so silly, but I need it! Persona 4: Dancing All Night will have 30 “pulse-thumping” music tracks to dance to and is exclusive to the Vita.
Last, but clearly not least, is Persona 5; the mainline followup to Persona 4 will be releasing in North America sometime in 2015. There's very little info on the PlayStation 3 exclusive. All I can really give you guys is what game director Katsura Hashino stated in the Persona magazine feature about the game's reveal. Via fan translation, he said that the game will be about freedom, removing one's self from the shackles of society and its pressures, and the inability to move forward with one's own life.
We've got two years of Persona goodness coming. I can't wait.
