I do understand where you're coming from, and it is a valid opinion. It's like trying to convince somebody who doesn't like chocolate of why they SHOULD like it - it's simply a matter of taste. I'm not trying to change your mind, I'm just giving reasons as to why a long running fan like myself would still enjoy the series, despite the changes Persona 3 presented. Personally, I almost always try to applaud when a long-running media source tries to change things up, even if it falls short in some way. At the very least, it gives the impression that the source still has a lot of ideas they want to explore, and that they aren't content simply to find a successful formula and stick to it for the rest of the series. I mean, I've been a fan of Powerman 5000 since I was a kid, and I've stuck with them despite all the twists and turns in their career. I've had a lot of people tell me things like "'Transform' doesn't sound at all like the old si-fi stuff" or "'Destroy What You Enjoy' doesn't even sound like PM5K anymore", but I've still enjoyed every album they've put out. As long as the new stuff is good, it doesn't have to be compared to the 'classic' material.

Here we go... The Gemini fellow who's been doing the Persona 2 Innocent Sin translation seems to be finished. He posted a release date of October 15. On a side note, Policenauts' font hacking is looking good as well.

Sure thing: http://tsumi.wordpress.com/

Hopefully the awesome of Persona 2 will balance out Persona 4's gayness.

Ode to the only Persona's that matter. Be your True Mind, Innocent Sin, & Eternal Punishment. (Ibunroku, Tsumi, Batsu *Pronounced as Botz*) Hopefully the awesome of Persona 2 will balance out Persona 4's gayness. I played P2 EP and it was actually pretty damn good. I heard that P2 IS has better gameplay, It's actually EP that has the better gameplay. IS just has the better contact system, and plot. (Most of EP's plot revolves around the last three hours of IS.) EP has extra characters, branchable story paths, extra dungeons, a better menu system (Innocent Sin's menu system is clunky & takes a while to load sometimes.), etc. My subjective opinion: EP has better music, and characters. Most people claim that IS has better music & characters, but I guess it's because they prefer listening to teenager bullshit, and teenage melo drama. I prefer EP, because it used a more mature R&B style for it's soundtrack, and the characters of EP were portrayed as realistic adults. (Check out the Shadow Hearts series to see a game comprised of adults who act like bratty kids.) It's my opinion that most people who claim that Innocent Sin is better have never actually played it. (There are legions of Persona retards who swear to god how fucking good Innocent Sin is. I'm just saying that most people would have been even more disappointed had we gotten Innocent Sin instead of Eternal Punishment.) Hopefully the awesome of Persona 2 will balance out Persona 4's gayness. You know what really annoys me? How everybody is on Persona's nuts now. Where the hell was everybody when Persona 2 Eternal Punishment was out? I saw this one blog that made fun of Japan,because Warriors Orochi 2 sold more than Persona 4. http://www.gamespite.net/verbalspew/archives/archive_2008-m09.php#e798 And while you're pondering that, I'll also leave you to ponder what the hell is wrong with the picture on the right. Maybe it'll clue us in to the reason for the slow motion demise of the Japanese games industry as we know it. I'm like what the fuck is so wrong about that? Warriors Orochi 2 is a good game that doesn't pretend to be anything it's not. WO2 knows it's a repetitive hack n slash, and is damn fucking proud of it. I'm sorry that WO2 isn't an evolution/new experience in gaming like Persona 4. Even though P4 is not. (Isn't P4 just P3 with more refined gameplay? How the hell is that any different from WO2? Which is also just WO with more refined gameplay.) As for Persona 4, if any of these mothafuckas had paid attention to Persona. They would know that Persona games usually make the top 3 in Japan in the first place. Yet Persona games always play second fiddle to the big leagues. (Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Sangoku Musou *Dynasty Warriors*). Innocent Sin & Eternal Punishment both lost out to FF 9, & DQ 7. That picture above is merely an interpretation of what Japan's Persona sales have always looked like. Warriors Orochi is part of the Dynasty Warriors franchise. So obviously it's going to sell more than Persona, because the Warriors franchise is part of the big leagues in Japan. Besides there's a reason why Persona 4, and Persona 3 for that matter are not as popular as the original three Persona games before it. I explained it many times so screw it. I'm of the opinion that most Persona fans are dick riders who only pretend to be fans of the series. I've noticed this behaviour since Persona 2 Eternal Punishment. The fans I'm referring to see nothing wrong with Persona 3. (Like Shidoshi from Play.) IMO, tards like that have no fucking idea was going on in the Persona games in the first place. Kroni's sig kinda spells out a semi plot summary of the overarching plot from the original Persona Psone games. "The human race will dissapear. Other races will appear and disappear in turn. The sky will become icy and void, pierced by the feeble light of half-dead stars. Which will also disappear. Everything will disappear. And what human beings do is just as free of sense as the free motion of elementary particles." H.P. Lovecraft Persona 3 tried to recreate this, but it then turned Persona into a typical animu when the plot became some regurgitated bullshit about saving the world through the power of friendship. (Social links.) The original Persona games were much more pessimistic, and dare I say interesting. There aren't too many games out there where the main character (Maya Amano) gets murdered during the ending. The Persona series finally ended when Maya & crew convinced Nyarlathotep to leave everybody alone. That was a beautiful way to end the series. Instead of taking an active part to make humanity destroy itself. Nyarlathotep now sits back and watches as humanity fucks itself up when left to their own devices. It sucks ass now that Atlus has completely shat on the original series by turning Persona into a game with an identity crisis. What was once a game imbued with Japanese culture is now some fucked up Otaku bullshit that perpetuates that Animu fantasy land complete with horrid jpop music. Persona always did have Jpop music (Hitomi, who was popular at the time), but it was utilized in full effect to create a constantly remixed motif that unified the Innocent Sin cast together. (The Jpop songs were really just a remix of Maya Amano's theme. Which in turn Maya's theme is actually a remix of the St. Hermelin theme from the original Persona) Even the Elisha Laverne R&B theme is really just a remix of Maya Amano's theme. Now in days the use of J-pop just looks like a gimmick, because most of the jpop artists they use for P3 & P4 aren't even popular in the first place. It also doesn't help that most Persona fans think Persona is the most original game in the world. When it's really just hybridization of game components from much better games. I saw a post by Sayckeone that goes into detail about what Persona 3 & Persona 4 really are, but I don't feel like looking for it. All I know is that he was right on the money when he said that Persona 3 picks & chooses devices from other games but doesn't do it nearly as well as them. Hell, Persona 3 is just a poor Persona game in general. Calling Persona 3 an actual Persona is a lot like calling Megaman Battle Network a true Megaman game. At least Battle Netework actually is commonly accepted as a side story. Whereas Persona newbies & some of the original fans believe that Persona 3 & Persona 4 are a continuation of the series. (Regardless of how un Persona the current Persona's are.) As I said many times. I wouldn't mind P3 & P4 had they been labeled as another series separate from the main Persona canon. Call it "Persona: I'm not afraid of death anymore I got my FWENDS" or some shit. Just make sure to let everybody know that the current Personas aren't related to the original games. (Same goes with the Kuzunoha games, and the original Devil Summoners.) My biggest fear is that I'll never see another JRPG that's as fucking insane in the membrane as the original Persona games were ever again. ____________ I could go on a long diatribe about how the new Devil Summoner games aren't Devil Summoner's at all, and that it's actually the Etrian Odyssey games who are the true successors of the Devil Summoner franchise. I'll save that for later.

Yeah I wasn't really looking forward to buy persona 3&4. I'm now playing a rom first persona, I want to buy it but it costs 200 fuckin dollars or some shit, so I'll wait for christmas, lol. Is there any translation for SMT if?

I think not. Anyway heres the site of the guys who translated SMT 1&2, and "If.." is not even on the project list http://agtp.romhack.net/

The first time I've crossed Shin Megami Tensei was around 2000~2003. I was growing sick of the light, bland, fantasy JRPG that was already all the rage in the western market. So, I actually just googled the words dark rpg cyberpunk, etc. and came across this Megami Tensei series which was based on a series of novels by Aya Nishitani. At the time, it appears that this series was kind of an underground cult among the JRPG gamer "community". So, after browsing http://shindds.free.fr/aya_nishitani.html , I was immediatly hooked. I've looked for what was available at the time and found out about the first two SMT games released on the Super Famicom, which were fan translated, luckily. So these were the first ones I've ever played. I've also tried the Mega CD and PC Engine versions of SMT, but just for the hell of it. Since they were never translated, it was to check out the differences, which weren't many. Just an added intro (possibly the ending is different too, I'm not sure), which is different in either version. The Persona spinoff series, I've never played a single one of them yet. I'm actually holding off until IS is translated so I start from there. The Persona series has become mainstream and a cashcow. I understand that Atlus just took the opportunity to milk as much money as they can, and the only way to do it is to please as many people as possible. By doing this, of course, the property becomes bland and less personal. But the money is flowing, so there's nothing we can do. But still, Atlus keeps behaving stupidly. What I think Atlus should think of is to pursue the SMT series along with the other shitty spinoffs. If Atlus can't mantain itself on the basis of the core SMT series, I'm all for the spinoff shit. As long as they use their profit margin to develop the next true SMT. This way, they cater to both pieces of the user cake. I go as far as to say that it's not even financially smart to not do so. Capcom does this once in a while. Capcom keeps regurgitating sequels to keep their income, while once in a while they take a risk or two with new IP's (for ex: the Capcom 5 - even RE4 was for all intents and purposes, a huge departure fom the rest of the series). edit: http://ddstranslation.blogspot.com/2006/08/introduction_16.html (interesting blog. Contains chapter translations for the first novel)

Maybe the old RE gameplay could have stayed if RE0 never existed, or at least keep the old gameplay with RE4 combat.

Looking at VGChartz, indeed the sales in Japan for the first Persona Title was huge (unsurpassed, even by any other Persona), but there's no info there on sales in the US. Taking only the sales info from Japan alone (I don't know how reliable this site is, in any case it has incomplete info. I can only work with the numbers they've got on Japan), I see that sales declined drastically since Persona 2 (included), and picked up again slowly since Persona 3. Persona 4 revealed a pickup in sales. This can be interpreted in a lot of ways. In terms of sales, it's not the first title that gauges the audience acceptance. The first only proves the effectiveness of the marketing machine. It's the second. The 2nd is the one that confirms the reason for the first's success. (for example, Matrix 2 performed pretty well, before people realized it was a piece of shit and thus Matrix 3' box office suffered as a result) So, considering that Persona 4 performed better than 3, this means that Persona 4 confirmed that 3 was a step in the right direction.

What were the sales figures for P4? Kaxan said it's not doing good. P3 itself didn't even manage to surpass the sales figures for P2 EP, & P2 IS in Japan. Although I do acknowledge that P3 sold a lot more in the West. Believe me, Persona games are always popular in Japan. (I was actually living in Japan when they first came out. I know what I saw. I even have some of the campaigns recorded on tape.) Innocent Sin & Eternal Punishment both made the no. 1 spot in Square's digicube charts when they first debuted. Both Persona 2 games stayed on Squaresoft's top 10 throughout the summer of 2000 until they were bumped off by FF IX. (No it has nothing to do with Square owning the chart. That's just how popular FF is.) Looking at VGChartz, indeed the sales in Japan for the first Persona Title was huge (unsurpassed, even by any other Persona), but there's no info there on sales in the US. Like I said. It even sold more than SMT III Nocturne. Which is one of the reasons Cozy Okada resigned. His style of Megaten was no longer selling anymore. Even the combined sales figures of the P2 games sold more than SMT Nocturne. The original Persona & Soul Hackers are basically the peak (In both sales & game design) of Megaten's side story "SMT IF" games. The series finally ended with the two Persona 2 games. Eternal Punishment happens to be the last Megaten that most of the original megaten staff have ever worked on. (Atlus staff actually started leaving after Soul Hackers, it was P2 EP where the majority of the crew left.) Most of the Persona musicians left atlus after P2 EP. Which is why P2 EP was the last great eclectic (GHM style) ost imo. Even the founder, the creator of Persona. Satomi Tadashi left Atlus after P2 EP. Not tell me this. How many Persona fans actually know that? This is what makes me different from other Persona fans. I know a lot of the background politics that goes on behind the series. there's no info there on sales in the US. Persona & Persona 2 EP both flopped big time in the U.S. Persona was universally panned. Whereas P2 EP is highly regarded as a good game that didn't sale. Due to it's difficulty level, and hard to comprehend references to modern day Japanese sub culture. In terms of sales, it's not the first title that gauges the audience acceptance. The first only proves the effectiveness of the marketing machine. It's the second. The 2nd is the one that confirms the reason for the first's success. (for example, Matrix 2 performed pretty well, before people realized it was a piece of shit and thus Matrix 3' box office suffered as a result) While I understand your comparison with the Matrix. I'm going to have to politely disagree with you, because it shows that you've have never played the Persona games before. (Which is ok, you even said as such.) The reason for the decline in sales is because the Persona 2 games weren't anything like the original Persona. forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=951" target="_blank">http://killer7.6.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=951 You can even ask Isoulle who loved the original Persona, but hated both P2 games. Yet he still acknowledges that the P2 games were better than P3. Persona 2 still maintains the same foreboding aura & feel of the original Persona which is why you don't see many people complaining about P2 like they do with P3. I used to dis P2 all the time, until the PS2 megatens (sans nocturne) came out. The original Persona was more like a horror movie. (It's basically a spin off of SMT IF.) The original Persona has the most complex battle system out of the entire Megaten franchise. You can quote me on that, because it's true. It had the most complex contact system, the most complex formation grid, a slightly downgraded gun system, and the most complex battle tactics. The original Persona was just a huge dungeon crawler that could be compared to SMt Nocturne. Which isn't too surpising,because the original Persona was basically just SMT IF with an all new cast, story, and far more refined gameplay. (SMT IF sucks.) As was said before the Persona 2 games were more in the vein of Gothic shojo. So in other words the P2 games would naturally appeal to a more narrow audience. Since it was the female audience that Atlus were specifically targeting with the two P2 games. So much so that Atlus even went ahead and simplified the gameplay. They got rid of the gun system, got rid of the formation system, and toned down the contact system. The only appeal of P2 to me is the story, the music, & the characters. The actual gameplay of P2 is shit. Nowhere near as good as the original Persona. So, considering that Persona 4 performed better than 3, this means that Persona 4 confirmed that 3 was a step in the right direction. The only step P3 took is that it now appeals to a wider otaku audience. This audience also includes the overseas audience which are also comprised of people who only know about Japan through anime. I mean seriously, you honestly need to play the P3 & P4 games before you start claiming that it's a step in the right direction. Does it appeal to more people? Yes it does. If only because it plays & looks like a Nippon Ichi game. You're making way too many assumptions for a series of games you haven't played yet. Riddle me this would you consider a "Street Fighter" game that plays & looks like "God of War" to be a true sequel? I can guarantee that Capcom would attain more new "fans/cash flow" Had a new SF game been made into a more cinematic, realistic looking, but simplified/easier gaming experience such as the likes of God of War. Or at least it would... If SF didn't have such a hardcore fanbase around the world. Since SF is world renowned a theoretical "God of War" SF would never fly, because most fans prefer the SF games to stay cartoony/animeish. The reason why Persona received little backlash for its make over is because most current Persona fans started with P3. (P3 has sold less in Japan when compared to the two Persona 2 games.) All I'm saying is people only think Persona got popular all of a sudden, because most of these new fans never payed attention to the series until P3. Persona games are always popular. My sister actually owns a "Seven Sisters" Japanese school girl backpack that she bought in Japan back when Persona 2 first came out. I see blogs like Siliconera trying to exaggerate how big Persona has gotten by showing off all the cospa merchandise that Atlus has made out of P3 & P4. What cracks me up is that P2 IS, & P2 EP also had a lot of cospa merch back when they came out. How come nobody outside of Japan gave a fuck back then? EDITING post: I'm trying to scan some old P2 IS/P2 EP merch, and I'm still looking for my sister's "Seven Sister's High" bag.

I'm going to quote both myself and you. So, considering that Persona 4 performed better than 3, this means that Persona 4 confirmed that 3 was a step in the right direction. I mean seriously, you honestly need to play the P3 & P4 games before you start claiming that it's a step in the right direction. Does it appeal to more people? Yes it does. If only because it plays & looks like a Nippon Ichi game. You're making way too many assumptions for a series of games you haven't played yet. I'm talking purely from a marketing/sales standpoint. Which means, I'm reading numbers. Now, as an audience or a fan, I believe when you say it's not a step in the right direction. Hell, you only confirmed what was apparent to me from the outside. Riddle me this would you consider a "Street Fighter" game that plays & looks like "God of War" to be a true sequel? I can guarantee that Capcom would attain more new "fans/cash flow" Had a new SF game been made into a more cinematic, realistic looking, but simplified/easier gaming experience such as the likes of God of War Of course it wouldn't be a true sequel as far as I'm concerned. But you actually came to the encounter of my own point about sales. In conclusion, I was only talking about money, I never gave my personal opinion on the games in the post above. While I understand your comparison with the Matrix. I'm going to have to politely disagree with you, because it shows that you've have never played the Persona games before. (Which is ok, you even said as such.) The reason for the decline in sales is because the Persona 2 games weren't anything like the original Persona. That's the same with The Matrix, for the lack of a better example. The second was nothing like the first. I don't know how you took this comparison, but just to make things clear, I'm not implying any similarity between The Matrix and the Persona games in terms of content. I didn't think it looked like I was doing anything of the sort either; I'm just pointing this out just in case.