Five things we just learned about Persona 5

Want emancipation?

Today, Atlus gave us our first look at Persona 5 in motion, and hot damn does it look amazing. We’ve been watching and rewatching the debut gameplay trailer all day. It’s like a train wreck. You can’t look away. Except unlike a train wreck it’s glorious and beautiful and I love it.

Anyway, we’ve noticed some things about the new game and have decided to share our thoughts.

A fully realized world awaits

Well, maybe. Persona 5 sure looks a lot more vibrant than past games, at any rate. We get to see our hero commute in a crowded train and walk through a subway (Shibuya Station, Tokyo!). Perhaps travelling via menus is a thing of the past. The settings and characters are more dynamic, as shown by the classroom scene, bustling environments, and the gang kicking back at the bar.

One of the characters is a cat

Atlus has a penchant for talking black cats, including chatty felines in a number of Shin Megami Tensei games. Persona 5 figures to continue the trend with a kitty named Morgana.

We have a pair of blonde bandits on the team, Ryuuji Sakamoto and Ann Takamaki. Yes, they’re thieves! Speaking with Weekly Famitsu, Persona team lead Katsura Hashino said the studio drew inspiration from manga series Lupin III, which follows the exploits of a master thief.

Hashino hopes players will empathize with characters who are a bit rougher around the edges.

Begone Shadows, welcome back demons!

The dungeons look incredibly different, but it’s the enemies within that really caught my eye. Gone are the amorphous Shadows of Persona games past, those look like demons! Knightly demons!

Stealth

A stealth mechanic in my Persona? Okay, sure. Getting the jump on opponents could turn the tide of battle in previous games, but sneaking up on unsuspecting foes is a whole new ball game. Subtle additions like this have the potential to shake things up dramatically.

You transform into your Persona?

Personas are like Pokémon. You know, if Pokémon were totally badass manifestations of your personality. The point is, Personas are fancy critters you can summon to fight for you.

Or at least they were. At the very end of the video, our hero appears to transform into something. Are we morphing into our Personas now? Or is that a Shadow Self? We can’t wait to find out!