PERSONA

Pesona 3

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3, released in Japan as Persona 3 (ペルソナ3, Perusona 3), is the the fourth video game in the Shin Megami Tensei: Persona series of console role-playing games developed by Atlus. The game is also part of the larger Megami Tensei series of video games. Persona 3 was originally published in 2006 on the PlayStation 2 by Atlus in Japan; the North American release of the game was delayed due to issues with the publication of the official art book. An add-on disc entitled Persona 3 FES, containing a "director's cut" of the original game, as well as a new epilogue, was released alongside Persona 3 in Japan in 2007, and in 2008 in other territories. A PlayStation Portable version of Persona 3, titled Persona 3 Portable was released in Japan on November 1, 2009. The remake adds the ability to play as a female protagonist, new story elements and music, and a new interface designed for the PSP.

In Persona 3, the player takes the role of a male high-school student who joins the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad (SEES), a group of students investigating the "Dark Hour," a time period between one day and the next that few people are aware of. During the Dark Hour, the player enters Tartarus, a large tower containing Shadows, creatures that feed on the minds of humans. To fight the Shadows, each member of SEES is able to summon a Persona, a manifestation of a person's inner self. The game's most iconic feature is the method by which the members of SEES release their Personas: by firing a gun-like object called an Evoker at their head. In addition to the standard elements of role-playing games, Persona 3 includes elements of simulation games, as the game's protagonist progresses day by day through a school year, making friends and forming relationships that improve the strength of his Personas in battle. The North American release of Persona 3 includes the aforementioned art book, along with a selection of music from the official soundtrack.

There are official soundtracks for Persona 3, Persona 3 FES, and Persona 3 Portable, as well as an arrangement album containing music from multiple games in the Persona series. Persona 3 has seen a manga adaption, multiple radio dramas, an anime sequel entitled Persona: Trinity Soul, and its own line of character action figures. Critical reception of Persona 3 was mainly positive; reviewers enjoyed the game's social elements, while some found its combat and environments repetitive. Persona 3 FES was said to give narrative closure to the original game, although it was criticized for not featuring the simulation aspect of Persona 3. The sequel to Persona 3, Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4, was released in 2008.

Plot

The story of Persona 3 takes place in a modern Japanese city, built and funded by the Kirijo Corporation. Experiments carried out ten years ago created the "Dark Hour," a period of time that exists between one day and the next. During this time, most people are transmogrified into coffins and are not aware of the Dark Hour; however, there is a select group of people who are. The Dark Hour bends reality; Gekkoukan High School, where most of the characters attend school during the day, becomes a huge labyrinthine tower called Tartarus, and beasts known as Shadows roam the area, preying on the minds of those still conscious. The Shadows leave their victims in near-catatonic states outside of the Dark Hour. To investigate and learn about the Dark Hour, Shadows, and Tartarus, the "Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad," or SEES, was created. SEES is a group of high-schoolers capable of summoning beings known as Personas to combat Shadows. The Persona 3 instruction manual describes Personas as being "a second soul that dwells deep within a person's heart. It is an entirely different personality that emerges when a person is confronted with something from outside his world." Persona-users summon their Persona by firing a gun-like object called an Evoker at their head.

Characters

The main character of Persona 3 is a silent protagonist, named by the player at the start of the game. He is a teenage boy, orphaned as a child, returning to the city he grew up in ten years prior to attend Gekkoukan High School. After learning of his ability to summon a Persona, he joins SEES, which is composed of students at his school: Yukari Takeba, a popular, cheerful girl; Akihiko Sanada, a calm and collected senior who leads the school's boxing team; and Mitsuru Kirijo, the Student Council President and daughter of the head of the Kirijo Group, who provides backup during battle. As the game progresses, SEES gains several new members: Junpei Iori, a class clown and the Protagonist's best friend; Fuuka Yamagishi, a shy girl who replaces Mitsuru as a support character; Aigis, a female android designed by the Kirijo Group to fight Shadows; Ken Amada, a middle schooler whose mother was killed by a Persona-user; Shinjiro Aragaki, a former member of SEES who quit due to past events; and Koromaru, a dog capable of summoning a Persona.

Story

Persona 3 begins with the Protagonist transferring to Gekkoukan High School, and moving into a dorm in the city. After learning of his ability to summon a Persona, he is asked to join SEES, and is eventually elected its leader in combat. The group gains more members over time, all students attending Gekkoukan: Junpei, who had only recently discovered his ability to summon a Persona; Akihiko, whose arm injury prevented him from fighting; and Fuuka, who replaces Mitsuru as the team's support member. After awakening to his Persona ability, the Protagonist is transported to the Velvet Room, which its proprietor, Igor, says is a realm between "dream and reality". Igor explains to him that his Persona ability is special: he is the only member of SEES capable of wielding multiple Personas in battle. In-game, the Velvet Room is where the player may fuse two or more Personas to create a new one. Igor also encourages the Protagonist to meet people and form bonds with them, known as Social Links. According to Igor, the power of his Social Links will determine his potential in combat.

On nights when the moon is full, the city is attacked by a Shadow more powerful than the ones found in Tartarus. After several of these incidents, Mitsuru is forced to reveal to the team the origin of Tartarus and the Dark Hour. Ten years earlier, the Kirijo Group, a research company founded by Mitsuru's grandfather, began amassing and containing Shadows. They studied and performed experiments on them, in order to possibly harness their power. However, the experiments went awry, allowing the Shadows to escape and assemble into twelve larger creatures. Each is affiliated with one of the twelve Major Arcana. SEES's leader, Shuji Ikutsuki, informs them that, if they were to defeat all twelve of the greater Shadows, Tartarus and the Dark Hour would disappear forever.

As the year continues, the group adds two more Persona-users to their team: Ken and Koromaru. While vacationing in Yakushima, Junpei, Akihiko, and the Protagonist encounter Aigis, who had recently escaped the laboratory where she was kept, despite having been deactivated for years. For reasons she cannot explain, she has a need to be near the Protagonist, even breaking into his dorm room at night to monitor him. Aigis is also enlisted in SEES. After defeating the twelfth and final Shadow, SEES learns that they had been mislead by Shuji Ikutsuki. By destroying the greater Shadows, they have freed parts of a being known as Nyx, which will bring about the end of the world if it is fully restored. Nyx, or the "maternal being," is the creator of Shadows; she is drawn to Earth by The Appriser, or "Death", a Shadow of the Death arcanum. SEES encounters The Appriser disguised as Ryoji Mochizuki, a recent transfer student to Gekkoukan High School.

The Shadow experiments performed ten years earlier created the Death Shadow, albeit in an incomplete state. Aigis, unable to defeat the Shadow, sealed it inside the Protagonist, who was still a child at the time. By defeating the twelve greater Shadows, the Death Shadow was recreated. Its purpose is to usher Nyx into the world, who will bring about the extinction of the human race. Ryoji insists that Nyx cannot be defeated; however, he offers SEES an alternative. If they were to kill him, their memories of the Dark Hour and Tartarus would vanish, allowing them to continue life unaware of their impending death. Aigis, who now realizes why she wanted to protect the Protagonist, begins to believe that she is useless. She urges SEES to kill Ryoji, as they cannot defeat Nyx. Through encouragement from her friends, however, she gains the resolve to join with SEES as they attempt to fight Nyx.

On December 31, New Year's Eve, the player must decide whether to kill Ryoji. If he is spared, then the game continues, and on January 31, SEES ascends to the roof of Tartarus to face Ryoji, who has transformed into the Nyx Avatar. While they are able to defeat him, Nyx continues to descend to Earth. As this is happening, the Protagonist is summoned to the Velvet Room, where Igor reminds him that the power of his Social Links would determine his potential. The Protagonist hears the voices of his friends encouraging him. The strength of his Social Links grants him the power of the "Universe," allowing him to seal away Nyx from humanity. The world returns to normal, though the memories of the past year are lost to the members of SEES. However, Aigis and the Protagonist do remember. On Graduation Day, the two go to the roof of the school, where the members of SEES had promised to meet should they stop Nyx and live to see their graduation. It is here that Aigis thanks the Protagonist for giving her a purpose in life: protecting him.


Persona 4

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4, known in Japan as Persona 4 (ペルソナ4, Perusona 4), is a console role-playing game developed and published by Atlus for Sony's PlayStation 2, and chronologically the fifth installment in the Shin Megami Tensei: Persona series. Persona 4 was released in Japan in July 2008, North America in December 2008, and Europe in March 2009. It features a weather forecast system with events happening on foggy days to replace the moon phase system implemented in the previous games.

Instead of the city locales of previous games in the series, Persona 4 takes place in a fictional Japanese countryside and is indirectly related to Persona 3. The player-named main protagonist is a high-school student who moved into the countryside from the city for a year. During his year-long stay, he becomes involved in investigating mysterious murders while harnessing the power of summoning Persona.

The North American package of the game was released with a CD with selected music from the game, and, unlike with Persona 3, the European package also contained a soundtrack CD. The music was composed by Shōji Meguro, with vocals by Shihoco Hirata who sang the theme song "Pursuing My True Self". The game was positively received by both critics and audiences.

Plot

Setting

Persona 4 takes place in the near-future, fictional, rural Japanese town of Inaba, which lies among floodplains and has its own high school and shopping districts. Unexplained murders have taken place in the small town, where bodies are found dangling among television antennas and their cause of death unknown. At the same time, rumor has begun to spread that watching a switched-off television set on rainy midnights will reveal a person's soulmate. Following the rumor, a group of high-school students discovered a fog-shrouded world accessed through television sets infested with monsters called Shadows. They also discovered each of their Other self, symbolizing their suppressed personalities. Confronting their Other selves awakened their ability to summon beings known as Personas. Using Personas, the students formed the Investigation Team to investigate the connection between the TV world and the murders, and possibly capture the culprit.

The design of Inaba is based on a town on the outskirts of Mount Fuji.Its rural design was a source of conflict between Persona 4's developers, as "each staff member had their own image of a rural town", according to director Katsura Hashino. The entire staff went "location hunting" to determine Inaba's design. Inaba does not represent a "a country town that has tourist attractions", but rather a non-notable, "'nowhere' place". Hashino described the town as being "for better or for worse…a run-of-the-mill town". Unlike other role-playing games, which may have large worlds for the player to explore, Persona 4 mostly takes place in Inaba. This reduced development costs, and enabled Atlus "to expand other portions of the game" in return. A central setting also allows players to "sympathize with the daily life that passes in the game." To prevent the setting from becoming stale, the development team established a set number of in-game events to be created to "keep the game exciting."

Characters

Characters of Persona 4

The Protagonist is a high school student who has recently moved from a large city to the town of Inaba, where he is to live and attend school for a year. While in Inaba, he stays with his relatives: his uncle Ryotaro Dojima, a police detective who is often on duty throughout the day, and Dojima's six-year old daughter Nanako who has managed to take care of the household chores for her father. At school, he quickly becomes friends with Yosuke Hanamura, the somewhat-clumsy son of the manager of the local megastore Junes, Chie Satonaka, an energetic girl with a strong interest in martial arts, and Yukiko Amagi, a calm and refined girl who helps out at her family's inn. The four of them discover a world inside televisions, where they meet a creature that lives there: a small bear with a costume-like appearance named Teddie. As they perform their investigation, the group gains more members, including Kanji Tatsumi, a male delinquent who is confused about his sexual and social identity, Rise Kujikawa, a former teen idol that moved to Inaba and is a new transfer student, and Naoto Shirogane, a young female detective investigating the case with the local police but who is forced to take on a male identity to associate with them.

Despite living in the countryside, Persona 4's characters were designed to look and sound "normal" and like "modern high-schoolers", according to lead editor Nich Maragos. Initially, he wrote the game's cast as being "more rural than was really called for." "The characters aren't really hicks…They just happen to live in a place that's not a major metropolitan area." While interviewing members of Persona 4's development team, 1UP.com editor Andrew Fitch noted that the characters from the city—Yosuke and the Protagonist—have "more stylish" hair than the other characters. Art director Shigenori Soejima used hair styles to differentiate between characters from the city versus the country. "With Yosuke in particular, I gave him accessories, such as headphones and a bicycle, to make it more obvious that he was from the city."

Story

Persona 4 opens with the Protagonist arriving in Inaba to live with the Dojimas for one year, as his parents are working overseas. Within days of his arrival, a journalist is found dead, her body hanging among a television antenna; Saki Konishi, who made the discovery, is later found dead under similar circumstances. After the protagonist and his friends travel to the TV world, they discover Teddie, who helps them travel freely between the TV world and real world. They awaken to their Persona abilities, and, realizing that the murders stem from Shadow attacks in the TV world, are able to rescue several people.

Yosuke Hanamura, Chie Satonaka, Yukiko Amagi, Kanji Tatsumi, Rise Kujikawa and Teddie accept their Shadow selves and join the group as Persona-users. Mitsuo Kubo, another high school student who goes missing following the death of a Yasogami teacher, claims credit for the murders when he is rescued; it is eventually learned that he only killed the teacher and played no part in the other murders. Naoto Shirogane, a nationally-renowned teenage detective investigating the case, is also rescued and joins the party, who learn that "he" is actually a female who assumed a male identity to gain recognition.

Events come to a head when the Protagonist is mistakenly accused by Ryotaro Dojima of having a role in the murders. Nanako Dojima is kidnapped while the Protagonist is being interrogated. Ryotaro engages in a pursuit with the culprit, resulting in them crashing into each other; the culprit escapes with Nanako through a television set in his truck, and Ryotaro entrusts her rescue to the party. The group tracks them down within the TV world; the culprit, Taro Namatame, attacks them, but is defeated and both he and Nanako are taken to the Inaba hospital. When Nanako appears to die, the group confronts Namatame; the player as the Protagonist must help the others realise that Namatame is not the killer by pointing out the lack of a proper motive, and subsequently work to determine that Ryotaro's assistant, Tohru Adachi, is the true killer. Failure to do so ends the game with the party being unable to solve the case and the recurring fog permanently setting in, the latter of which will eventually result in humanity's demise.

Having identified the culprit as Adachi, the party locates him within the TV world. Adachi explains his motives and ideals to the group; his claims are dismissed by the party. After fighting Adachi, he is possessed by Ameno-Sagiri, the God of Fog, who reveals that the fog is lethal to people and will eventually wipe out humanity. Upon his defeat, he agrees to lift the fog, congratulating the party on their resolve. Defeated, Adachi agrees to assume responsibility for his actions and turns himself in.

The game moves forward to the day before the Protagonist is to return home; if the player assumes the story is concluded, then the game ends with the party sending the Protagonist off as he departs Inaba. In fact there is still one unresolved plot element, the origin of the Midnight Channel, and if the player realizes this and enters the party's meeting place while ignoring the game's attempts to steer them away, the Protagonist meets with the party and together they resolve to put an end to the case.

The Protagonist encounters the petrol station attendant, who reveals himself to be Izanami, a goddess and the mastermind behind the game's events, who plans to eliminate humans by merging the TV world with the human world, which is the cause of the recurring fog. The party tracks Izanami down within the TV world and battle her, but is at first unable to win; a defeated Protagonist is given strength by the bonds he has forged with those around him, and with this power awakens a new Persona, which he uses to defeat Izanami. With the source of the fog defeated, the TV world, actually the world formed from people's thoughts and desires, is restored to its original form. The game then ends with the party sending the Protagonist off the following day, and a post-credits scene depicts the group resolving to remain friends forever as the Protagonist examines a photo of the party.