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New Persona series ports announced

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Disposable Media is updated by enthusiastic fans of games, music, film and TV, but we’re doing this out of passion. We don’t have exclusive press access to the people who bring this entertainment to your screens and speakers, but that doesn’t stop us from asking questions that we’ve never really had answers for. For instance: what, exactly, goes on with Atlus, P-Studio and their decisions to publish their games on selected platforms? We don’t know of any exclusivity agreements with platform holders that would otherwise force such decisions, so it may be a simple matter of development costs. However, we do know that they’ve been happy to develop new versions of Catherine and Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, not to mention the Steam version of Persona 4 Golden, so they have already demonstrated that they’re willing to release some classic games on different formats. And now this – new Persona series ports for Windows and Xbox announced during the Xbox and Bethesda Games Showcase 2022.

New Persona series ports – Signs of Love towards fans

New Persona series ports

My history with Persona began with me picking up P3 for PS2 as an impulse purchase and then following the series from there. New releases in the series were already influencing my decisions to buy new generations of hardware – Persona 4 Golden effectively sold a Vita to me – and so I’ll admit that I enjoy the series enough to buy consoles for new entries. However, the new Persona series ports indicate an exciting future for the series; potentially introducing entire new audiences to the games, and – with the Windows ports – giving the games a home on a platform that isn’t dependent on generational cycles and new-gen remakes. What we know so far is that Persona 3 Portable, Persona 4 Golden and Persona 5 Royal will release on Xbox One, Xbox Series and Windows PC, with Persona 5 Royal being the first of these releases on October 21st of this year. (It wasn’t until four months after publishing this article that we would find out release dates for Persona 3 Portable and Persona 4 Golden – they are due to be available on January 19th 2023.)

With Royal and Golden essentially being deluxe editions of the original P5 and P4, this will open up the best versions of these games to new players. Opinion is divided on Persona 3 Portable, as it lacks some of the content from PS2’s “FES” release, but a new female protagonist and direct commands in battles (as opposed to AI tactics selected in the original) make it a great edition of the game. We reported on the Steam release of Persona 4 Golden when that originally came out, and if it’s any indication of the quality we can expect from the new Persona series ports I’d be pretty happy (provided my PC specification can handle the new ports.)

New Persona series ports – a Last Surprise

New Persona series ports

Furthermore: as we were drafting this article, we also received word that Atlus has confirmed PS5 releases of the three games, and so even if you had been following the RPGs on older PlayStation platforms, it hopefully won’t be long before you can enjoy Persona 3 Portable or Persona 4 Golden on the big screen. And the news didn’t stop there – on June 28th, an announcement during Nintendo Direct confirmed that the games would also come to the Nintendo Switch.

Of course, this leaves the future of the series open to question. Atlus have a couple more Persona-related announcements due this year, and (from comments regarding a new recruitment drive) they’ve already expressed an intent to deliver a sixth game in the future. With these new Persona series ports announced, it invites speculation over where the next game will go. I feel like most people are expecting the Atlus announcements to culminate in a Persona 6 reveal, but that remains to be seen. In the meantime, people can look forward to Persona 5 Royal in October 21st, with the releases of the other games to be confirmed at a later date.

Study Time

New Persona series ports

If you’d like to read some impressions of the three games, I covered the original Persona 5 and the Royal update, I published news on the Steam release of Persona 4 Golden and I celebrated the original Persona  3 turning 10 in Japan. Whether I pick up Royal again could depend on the PC requirements, but I’m sure there will be more Persona-related events to cover later this year. As always, let us know what you think of the new Persona series ports in the comments below.

Death boxed up: an appreciation of Persona’s Reaper

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The first instinct is to run. Playing a modern Persona game and encountering one of its most intimidating opponents is rarely something a player plans for. Then again, would Persona’s Reaper be feared as much if he always stayed in the same place? An optional boss that looms large and hits hard is bad at the best of times, but with most games you at least know when you’ll bump into them.

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Of the games in the series that I’ve actually played, I’ve encountered Persona’s Reaper in P3 – where he will roam around a floor if you’ve waited too long before advancing (or if you’ve been unlucky with post-battle bonuses in Shuffle Time) – and I later came across him again in P4 – where players who have completed the game at least once gain the option to trigger the Reaper battle after opening certain chests. Both of these actions are very unusual for a typical Persona enemy, and the text heralding the arrival of Persona’s Reaper always surprises a player and – unless they’re deliberately trying to trigger the battle – instils a certain amount of fear. And this is what makes Persona’s Reaper such an interesting character to cover this Halloween. Not only is his name comparable to the Grim Reapers seen in typical horror fiction, but as one of the strongest enemies in the game, those chance encounters keep you on edge when the eerie SFX are heard over the dungeon music – an early warning that you could bump into him soon.

Persona’s Reaper – far from easy

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The only time I’ve survived a battle with Persona’s Reaper was in P4 Golden, where he boasts some of the most powerful single-hit and party-wide physical and elemental attacks in the game, can disable the elemental resistances of your allies, buff his elemental attacks and more besides. Even with a full party you’ll be juggling buffs, healing, reviving and trying to actually dealing damage, and since enemies can also exploit elemental weaknesses for extra turns, it’s far from easy. And how fitting is it that such a scarily powerful opponent is styled as the harbinger of death? Even your navigator will announce his arrival with “Be careful – I sense Death!”, and if you’ve encountered him before then you’ll know that the warning shouldn’t be taken lightly.

Persona’s Reaper – an exercise in fear

Persona's Reaper

There’s a point to this retrospective rambling, however. Videogames can so often fall into the trap of taking a spooky character and filling them with fairly unthreatening, ordinary behaviour – and when you start to see this, the spooky stylings feel like little more than a skin. The Persona games I’ve played weren’t really themed around “horror” as such, but Persona’s Reaper succeeds in being a genuine threat that a player will fear. You don’t hear the navigator’s warnings and continue trying to trigger spawns to get more battles and gain experience; you hear the warnings and look for the fastest way out. In P4’s case, the locked warning chest is a genuine “nope” moment in a game more concerned with dungeon crawls than sudden all-encompassing fear.

Persona’s Reaper – the unexpected encounter

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It’s likely that Persona’s Reaper is so effective because it’s so unexpected. If you fill a game with zombies and mutants and ghosts and wolves, it’s harder to maintain the element of surprise because the game is so keen to have more and more horrors bursting out of dark corners. Obviously survival horror games have to keep the tension high, but in a light-hearted high-school JRPG you can make Reaper encounters rarer. And when you finally face this enemy with your most powerful attacks and scrape through to victory, you can at last walk through the dungeons with confidence.

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