#hey atlus why haven't we gotten an arena/ultimax/pq1/pq2 anime yet?

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

To be fair tho, any kind of line up woulda likely been mucked up by covid happening right in the middle of stuff, and some projects would likely be delayed farther than others; I'm still annoyed with hope atlus has been handling things, but figured to bring up the elephant in the room

Fair, but....the game came out in 2016. The muck up would've 1) not been till 2020, 2) parts of the muck up would've been overseas people rather than just JPN (aka what happened to Strikers). Regardless, it's 4 years before shit goes sideways and they didn't plan that well.

And....I ended up ranting (my frustrations with Atlus not you). Ok so like I agree with you, the C word that shall not be named did screw a lot of things up, but remember this was going on years before that. And if things got mucked up cause of C? That's fine, it's not Atlus' fault. But they failed to plan before that was a thing so I'mma say a few words about it:

We got P5 (2016), then we had to wait two whole freaking years for an anime (2018) and for....a crossover cash grab spinoff of another (2) game(s depending on if you got the triple pack or not) that current gen/new fans aren't able to play, along with the fact they forget the events by the end (ignoring the lack of any gd plot). Then it's followed by (later 2018)......ANOTHER crossover two the same two games new people probably don't know, with them forgetting the events at the end, on top of it ONLY being on a dying console. We're doing....fantastic so far, great job Altus. Was that shitty cash grab worth it? >.>

So we wasted two whole years post P5, and the first games outta the gate are........a waste. I'mma be honest, they are a waste. They're aren't unnecessary, I mean Atlus wasted them. Wasted their opportunity, their potential, timing. All wasted. It shows in the sales of these two(/three/four....depending on if you count P4D and if you group P3D with P5D) poor games.

Then 3 years after P5's release....we get a fucking remake. An....."enhanced re-release"....................are you shitting me? Three years. A rerelease. On the same....console. The SAME console. *inhales* Why? WHY???? No. Why? Why NOW Atlus? Tell me why, NOW.

"Oh Silly calm down-" No, no I'm very annoyed with Atlus I will not. Tell me Atlus, what was the point? What. Was. The. Point?

*rubs temples* No cause you see. Let's look at the P4 spinoffs. I know they aren't perfect! I'm not trying to say they are! But they have something that Post P5 releases are lacking. Spoiler: It's a brain and planning. But let's break that down! (gonna have a rough timeline, gonna try to be accurate in my short time)

P4 (July 2008) came out, Atlus wasn't in the best financial situation. P4 sold pretty well.

P1 PSP (April 2009), new port, Atlus still not in the best situation. (I think this sold decently)

P3P (Nov 2009), new port, still not in the best financial situation, P3P sold pretty well.

P2IS PSP (April 2010), still not in the best financial situation

P4 anime begins (Oct 2010), Atlus is bought by Index, anime starts it's run.

P4 Arena arcade ver (March 1, 2012), is doing well, coinciding with the anime as hype builds. It's helping to hype up the anime and P4G.

P4 anime ends (March 30, 2012), anime ends it's run, it's a big success. Between this and Index they are doing better. The anime helped hype up P4G and Arena.

P3 FES on US PSN for PS3 (April 2012)

P2 EP PSP (May 2012), new port, released only in Japan, not doing great (but we dunno how well the PS1 psn port did). Focus on new P4 remake and first sequel spinoff.

P4G (June 2012), new port, hype is building like crazy, sometime after this all Persona PSP games (plus PS1 P2 Ep for outside US) were release on vita as well.

P4 Arena console ver (July 2012), hype is building even more. New P4G girl isn't in game, fans are confused but between that and the initial Personas we kinda get what's going on (things clear up by Ultimax tho).

P stuido is formed (Oct 2012)

Ultimax arcade ver and First P3 movie air (Nov 2013): builds mystery left by Arena. Same month PQ1 and P5 (coming winter 2014! jksldfsaklaj *wheeze*) are announced. PQ1 announcement shows Marie and things start to make more sense (or less sense).

P4 PS2 ver on US PSN for PS4 (April 2014)

PQ1 and Second P3 movie air (June 2014), new game, sells really well.

P4G anime begins (July 2014), it was hyping people prior to the run. Around this time Marie has her own Ultimax commercial (so at least by this time we know she is gonna show up in Ultimax, maybe prior to this time we knew I didn't dig THAT deep, but we know the whole Arena thing she was just..."absent" and that mystery is figured out).

Ultimax console ver (Aug 2014)

P4G Anime ends (Sept 2014)

Third P3 movie air (April 2015)

P4D (June 2015)

Fourth/Final P3 movie air (Jan 2016)

P5 (Sept 2016)

Ok we got a rough timeline, these are all JPN original dates mind you (in the US Ultimax came out before PQ1 iirc but we are going off of the original releases). Obvie excluding the PSN ports, I dunno if/what dates the JPN ones for PSN were (if that was even the case). We are also ignoring the other Megaten games, I know Atlus was working on other stuff at the time, but there was a mini Persona team prior to P studio (they worked on other stuff at times but still), if anything it's more amazing hey could do a lot of stuff and better than after P studio was formed (at least.....*glares* Post P5).

So as you can see, after P4's release, Atlus focused on porting the older games. Which was a good move, P4 on PS2 did do pretty well so might as well introduce fans to the older games, no? And putting it on the PSP was a good move imo. PS1 games are backwards compatible on PS2 games, PSP was popular in Japan (so was the Vita if what I remember reading was correct, Japan....only...remember.... orz)....might as well spread to a larger audience no?

Soon after we have it’s first sequel game along with an anime. Both paired well, as they hyped each other up. With the anime having the most influence, as it caused P4MC’s name to be referred to as Yu (iirc, less so his personality in this since iirc the name they decided to go with came after writing). But it turned out that the previous port games would have an extra benefit. 1) It got fans refamiliarize with P3 chars for you know...the crossover game. 2) It reintroduced old P1/2 concepts (the one that always stands out to me are fake Shadow selves). Another great thing about the anime and Arena, is that it helped anime fans easily transition to the gaming side with Arena (so it easily served as a sequel to game only fans AND anime only fans).

Then we have the P3 movies, and now Atlus decides to take more of what they learned with Yu, and plan accordingly. They decided to try to adopt some more of the anime (well...movie) adaptation of P3 into PQ1 (specifically movie 2, esp since it was released close to PQ1). The movies made it easier for the anime only fans to get into PQ1 as well! 

So far everything is synergizing well! We have refreshers, we have anime and game fandoms crossing over and overlapping, we have games that’s easy to follow from either the games or the animes!

Oh and this isn’t even talking about how the games lead into each other and synergize!

First, P4G introduces Marie, while she is missing from Arena (development timing reasons), but hey she’s a new girl that appears in other games! For once..... *Silly said both sad and bitterly*..... *sobs* But then we get to the games. While it’s cool for DramaCD fans to notice Labby and Kikuno, what’s really cool is the continuity with the later games. Arena gives us a few mysteries. Who is the eerie voice? Who is the malevolent entity? Who is Labby’s mom? And maybe even “why do the P3/4 kids trust each other/get along so easily” (tbh I never question it but hey it makes sense to question it so 8U). These questions are answered with two later games, one of which we didn’t know was a sequel: PQ1 and Ultimax. PQ1 and Ultimax have a lot of call back/forward (depends on which order you played them in) references, and they for the most part answer everything. Who is Labby’s “mom?” It’s Rei most likely. Both died from an incurable (at the time) disease, the timing and the similarities are too hard to ignore. That, and along with “why do the P3/4 kids get along so easily” is because they already did interact before, which makes them striving so hard to save Labby make it so much more interesting. They saved the mom, and now it’s time to save the daughter...in a sense. Then we get to Ultimax, and the two new mysteries are new....original chars BUT! Narratively they are pretty interesting. 

Eerie voice, aka Sho, serves as a shadow archetype to Labby, Yu, and Adachi. Both him and Labby are mirrored color wise, and both have a similar background of rage and fighting (and issues with bonds, Sho wanting to reject while Labby.....it’s complicated). Adachi and him have a similarity of rejecting people. And with Yu it’s a reflection of what Yu could’ve been without a friend. 

Kagu takes some good notes outta Nyarly’s handbook. Yes it sucks it wasn’t Nyaly, but hey at least he’s not a freaking mess like Yaldy (who tries to copy both Nyarly and Izanami’s plans when....they contradict but now’s not the time). And hey, if you played the P2 ports (either on the PSP or Vita) you’d see the parallels! And that is really cool and it def gets people speculating! He does do a good job, I think most people are just salty on the fact it wasn’t Nyarly, which is fair, but hey he was a destructive boi.

But then these lead into P4D. Ultimax’s......foil. While Ultimax (and Arena) were all about fighting, P4D lacks fighting. Ultimax you were banned until you fought, P4D you are banned from fighting. Sho/Ultimax/Kagu is about rejecting bonds and want for solitude, P4D(/Yuko/Mikura) is craving a want for bonds even if it means forcing them. 

And....what does this all mean? It means Post P4 era releases had layers. They synergized, there was a reason to the madness. Either to get fans to crossover, to familiarize fans with the older entries because they were going to use something from it, and it utilized some spinoff/remake only characters for future spinoff releases (Labby/Theo/Marie....and later Hamu and Sho! with Motoko and her whole shtick being a reference). Nothing was wasted. Nothing felt like a waste. There was meaning.

What has P5 brought me? Nothing. 

Big mystery? The only thing is Jose and that’s just left to the way side.

Spinoff/port chars? Don’t make me laugh. Doubt we’ll see more of Hikari (I’d be happy if we did tho!). Sumi/Jose/Maruki and even Goro are nowhere to be found outside of PQ2 and P5/R. Lord help me if Ichinose and Sophia don’t return. 

Strong theme or connections? SNNNNNRRRK DLKJFSAKL;F *WHEEZE* FLKDJAFSFS AHAHAHAHAHAHA FKLDJSAL; *WHEEZE* HAHAHA HA....haha...haaaaaaaa.... Good one. Ok ok tbf, P5(/3)D, PQ2, and Royal all had one thing in common. The word “dream” came up one way or another. I don’t remember P5S saying that word tho. But each dream was different. P3/5D was a dream. PQ2 it was seen as a dream by Hamu (and Hikari?), I know Hamu was sleeping and “woke up” at the end of PQ2. Royal? uhhhh that whole “I stole their dream” blah, it was a connection I made prior to Royal coming out cause of that trailer (so my brain goes to that rather than if/where it appears elsewhere in the game). P5R and P5S (and anime?) do have the same gem things but.....whoop dee do? They don’t do anything with it. 

Structure? See above, making us wait for the first actual sequel, and has us deal with 2 crossover spinoffs that didn’t have proper ports of older games, and then we have to have an unnecessary enhanced rerelease. 

Post P5 games have nothing that made the P4 era work. And it really required a bare min of effort.

They release P5? Well guess what was around then. Devs ported their PS1/2 classics to PS4 under a digital only thing. They could’ve easily just ported P3/4 PS2 vers on there. Maybe even P1/2 PS1! Just do that and then the Dancing spinoffs (and maybe PQ2). “But what about the other consoles?” What about them? At this point P5 is only on PS3 and PS4. PS3 is easily covered, PS4 is where it needs covering. Worry about the other console/PC ports later. “Well what about remakes/remasters” Who says you can’t do both? Some fans want both, some fans will buy both even if they don’t want both (they’ll buy the old cause that’s all there is, but then will want the new one). FF7 did both, released the PS1 ver on PSN and then did a remake. That’s fine! I bought both! And I’m def not shy to rebuying Persona games multiple times! Regardless they needed to do this, not only would it cover PS4, but it also cover PS5 owners too (not that they’d know that but.... 8U)

It probs would’ve def helped P3/5D sales! ....I mean what really could’ve helped them is by being good games that deserved that price tag, but I have to work with what I got. 

I just....I dunno. The P4 era was a lot of fun, partially because we had a lot to speculate on! Not just in the game we were getting but how they could connect! And that includes the lead up to P5! It was so much fun speculating on the spinoffs and P5! 

But.......I think the only one that did that was PQ2 and Royal.....and that was mostly cause of Hamu (it’s the eye shape and eye lashes, that’s why Sumi reminds me of Hamu so much lskdjf;a). Sadly, speculation be damned, we get nothing in terms of a long and fleshy mystery like Arena gave us. We just have “who is Jose working for” and that’s it. Which is fine I like that  mystery but....WE HAVE NOTHING! They’ve given us nothing related to that. *sobs* 

My best theory atm is Labby and Sho are gonna play a role in some upcoming game. And the next game announced is grey/silver looking so it’s either P1 or P6 or a new spinoff/other game. Calling what Atlus has given me “crumbs” is far too generous of a word. ;w; 

(don’t get me wrong I do want ports, ports to all the systems! but Atlus needed to think a bit better. Port to PS4 first then worry about the other stuff later! I know I’m PS trophy biased, but I’d say the same thing about Xbox/PC/Nintendo.....tho sadly I know their hands are probs tied for PQ stuff orz)

God I tried typing this fast. I’mma head off to bed, yeah let’s just end it here. orz