I've written a rather long article, but after rereading it, I felt it was too long, so I've cut it down to just the conclusion and a quote. What you think of Atlus, Megami Tensei and its offshoot, Persona, is up to each individual.
Conclusion (summary)
Persona 3 is the savior of Atlus (brand). Without Persona 3, Atlus would be dead.
If we hadn't changed the course with Persona 3 and continued with the default Megami Tensei series, everything would have disappeared.
What Persona 3 did, it attracted a new audience. I don't know if this was the intention, but the way it was done was similar to that of Shonen Jump.
Because we died once with Persona 3, we are now Atlus.
*
https://www.4gamer.net/games/367/G036702/20170810127/
"A look back at the journey to Persona 3 by Katsura Hashino."
Katsura Hashino - "To sum up, Shin Megami Tensei III-NOCTURNE didn't give us a satisfactory result. To make the game more accessible to as many people as possible, we've added new elements, such as the ability to train devil, and created press-turn battles that take advantage of attribute compatibility.
It made the game itself not so bad.
It was so good that all the staff said, "This is really interesting, even though it's our own work", and they went crazy debugging it. And we were able to finish the master on schedule, which gave us a sense of satisfaction that we had done a good job.
But we didn't get the result. After that, "DIGITAL DEVIL SAGA Avatar Tuner" was in the same vein.
From that point on, I started thinking like a producer: "Of course it's important to make a good game, but we need to make it known to as many people as possible. What approach should we take to achieve this?”.
It was at this time that I was asked if I would like to be a producer for "P3".
One day, I was called in by the executive at the time and he told me that if things continued as they were, it would be difficult for Atlus to continue making games.
This was a time not only when I was struggling personally, but also when the company itself was struggling to expand its user base.
In the midst of this conversation, the chairman suddenly asked me, "Mr. Hashino, by the way, how old are you now?"
I was a little over 30 at the time, and I said, "About 30".
Then he said, "You know, Che Guevara succeeded in the Cuban Revolution when he was about 30 years old, just like you. ......" He suddenly changed the subject to Guevara. He went on to speak something like "one revolutionary can change a company".
So I had no choice but to say, "Well, why don't I try it?"
*
There are other interesting stories(God's curse and exorcism etc.), but I don't want to get caught up in the politics between old Megami Tensei fans and Persona fans, so I might write them on request.
I'm not going to write a review of the game itself.
Oh, but I would like to see a remake.
Conclusion (summary)
Persona 3 is the savior of Atlus (brand). Without Persona 3, Atlus would be dead.
If we hadn't changed the course with Persona 3 and continued with the default Megami Tensei series, everything would have disappeared.
What Persona 3 did, it attracted a new audience. I don't know if this was the intention, but the way it was done was similar to that of Shonen Jump.
Because we died once with Persona 3, we are now Atlus.
*
https://www.4gamer.net/games/367/G036702/20170810127/
"A look back at the journey to Persona 3 by Katsura Hashino."
Katsura Hashino - "To sum up, Shin Megami Tensei III-NOCTURNE didn't give us a satisfactory result. To make the game more accessible to as many people as possible, we've added new elements, such as the ability to train devil, and created press-turn battles that take advantage of attribute compatibility.
It made the game itself not so bad.
It was so good that all the staff said, "This is really interesting, even though it's our own work", and they went crazy debugging it. And we were able to finish the master on schedule, which gave us a sense of satisfaction that we had done a good job.
But we didn't get the result. After that, "DIGITAL DEVIL SAGA Avatar Tuner" was in the same vein.
From that point on, I started thinking like a producer: "Of course it's important to make a good game, but we need to make it known to as many people as possible. What approach should we take to achieve this?”.
It was at this time that I was asked if I would like to be a producer for "P3".
One day, I was called in by the executive at the time and he told me that if things continued as they were, it would be difficult for Atlus to continue making games.
This was a time not only when I was struggling personally, but also when the company itself was struggling to expand its user base.
In the midst of this conversation, the chairman suddenly asked me, "Mr. Hashino, by the way, how old are you now?"
I was a little over 30 at the time, and I said, "About 30".
Then he said, "You know, Che Guevara succeeded in the Cuban Revolution when he was about 30 years old, just like you. ......" He suddenly changed the subject to Guevara. He went on to speak something like "one revolutionary can change a company".
So I had no choice but to say, "Well, why don't I try it?"
*
There are other interesting stories(God's curse and exorcism etc.), but I don't want to get caught up in the politics between old Megami Tensei fans and Persona fans, so I might write them on request.
I'm not going to write a review of the game itself.
Oh, but I would like to see a remake.
20 Comments
dwardmanさん
Good question!
As far as I can tell, it's neither good nor bad. But I don't think there's a lot of the aggravation and bickering that you see in reviews on this site of the Persona and Megami Tensei series. It's also true that the Megami tensei/Persona brand has survived thanks to the new fans it has gained since Persona 3. Besides, the many old Megami Tensei fans understand and agree with what Katsura Hashino says above. There are some extremists and fundamentalists, though. lol
I didn't mention it in my review, but if you look at the ups and downs of Atlus(The president and chairman of the parent company were arrested and the company itself went bankrupt), I can assure you that Persona 3 is not an exaggeration to call it a saviour.
Good question!
As far as I can tell, it's neither good nor bad. But I don't think there's a lot of the aggravation and bickering that you see in reviews on this site of the Persona and Megami Tensei series. It's also true that the Megami tensei/Persona brand has survived thanks to the new fans it has gained since Persona 3. Besides, the many old Megami Tensei fans understand and agree with what Katsura Hashino says above. There are some extremists and fundamentalists, though. lol
I didn't mention it in my review, but if you look at the ups and downs of Atlus(The president and chairman of the parent company were arrested and the company itself went bankrupt), I can assure you that Persona 3 is not an exaggeration to call it a saviour.
Woah, what was he arrested for?
https://www.backloggd.com/games/persona-4-dancing-all-night/
He was imprisoned in a cage of labor to support for the management of Atlas.
The term of imprisonment was until the launch of P5.
I looked at the scene and wept.
He was imprisoned in a cage of labor to support for the management of Atlas.
The term of imprisonment was until the launch of P5.
I looked at the scene and wept.
it's interesting reading that jpn fans of both series are neutral (lol) towards each other given the comical amount of disdain western smt and persona fans have for each other. it has always registered as insecurity to me. ive had a lot of conversations with a friend who's really knowledgeable about megami tensei and what frequently comes up is that these games are not only very often about the same things but that they also tend to suffer from the exact same problems. + western fans have turned hashino into a bit of a boogeyman which has always been strange to me when so many issues seem to go beyond his involvement, you'd be surprised how many people who get really heated about this don't even know he directed nocturne lol
Oh, you mean the arrest of the parent company? I made an embarrassing mistake.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IXIT_Corporation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IXIT_Corporation
kingbanchoさん
I've been reading the reviews here and I've always felt uncomfortable. That feeling of uncomfortable was cleared up by the SMT5 fiasco. All Japanese SMT/Persona fans, including myself, are bewildered by the conflict between fans of the two series in the western. lol
I feel that the essence of both series is the same. ”It's Atlas as usual.”
I'm not a passionate Persona fan, including Atlus, but I think Katsura Hashino is doing a really good job.
”don't even know he directed nocturne”
...Oh, god. Unbelievable.
I've been reading the reviews here and I've always felt uncomfortable. That feeling of uncomfortable was cleared up by the SMT5 fiasco. All Japanese SMT/Persona fans, including myself, are bewildered by the conflict between fans of the two series in the western. lol
I feel that the essence of both series is the same. ”It's Atlas as usual.”
I'm not a passionate Persona fan, including Atlus, but I think Katsura Hashino is doing a really good job.
”don't even know he directed nocturne”
...Oh, god. Unbelievable.
Which one is CHAOS and which one is LAW? lol
In general fandom and console wars are almost exclusively an American thing
I think the two definitely have more overlap than fans will admit, but I also think one reason for the disparity is that because Smt 3 was the first game in the series to release in America, the majority of players see the main series as something strange or outdated. This is heightened by the fact that I think console players in America did not have much exposure to first person dungeon crawlers or games of that nature, so many players don't have the experience or play language to understand what the game is trying to do or how to enjoy it, even when later entries use mechanics or designs influenced by that style of play. The people that like that kind of game are people who seek learning to read that friction and game style, which becomes an emotional minority when dismissed by the majority. I feel the same way about final fantasy 2, which is unfairly misunderstood for the same reason of not being touched by American playes until after FF7.
@JaxMagnetic
へーそうなんだ。
@dwardman-san
The rift between fans of the two series is greater in the USA than in Japan. This fact is really interesting.
”first person dungeon crawlers”
Wizardry. Even though it was the Americans who brought this monumental work into the world.
The threshold for difficulty and inconvenience on the part of the player, and the range of ways to play the game, may also have narrowed. I can't speak for others in this respect. lol (My game play is basically like chess or shogi, where you try to find the best move... may limit the enjoyment of the game... I have such a problem.)
By the way, Shigesato Itoi of the MOTHER series made an interesting analogy.
If there was no water in a high-rise hotel in the city, there would be a great deal of complaining, but not in a mountain lodge.
Rather, they laugh and say, "Who's going to fetch water from the river?"
FF is...
There may be no series with a bigger gap between the title and the generation than FF. I think that DQ, of course, SMT, Persona, etc. have their own kind of model or norm for their titles. But perhaps no other series has broken models and norms as much as FF. I think it's really difficult to bridge the generation gap in FF.
SMT and Persona are much simpler.
Why they are fighting, the mystery only deepens!
へーそうなんだ。
@dwardman-san
The rift between fans of the two series is greater in the USA than in Japan. This fact is really interesting.
”first person dungeon crawlers”
Wizardry. Even though it was the Americans who brought this monumental work into the world.
The threshold for difficulty and inconvenience on the part of the player, and the range of ways to play the game, may also have narrowed. I can't speak for others in this respect. lol (My game play is basically like chess or shogi, where you try to find the best move... may limit the enjoyment of the game... I have such a problem.)
By the way, Shigesato Itoi of the MOTHER series made an interesting analogy.
If there was no water in a high-rise hotel in the city, there would be a great deal of complaining, but not in a mountain lodge.
Rather, they laugh and say, "Who's going to fetch water from the river?"
FF is...
There may be no series with a bigger gap between the title and the generation than FF. I think that DQ, of course, SMT, Persona, etc. have their own kind of model or norm for their titles. But perhaps no other series has broken models and norms as much as FF. I think it's really difficult to bridge the generation gap in FF.
SMT and Persona are much simpler.
Why they are fighting, the mystery only deepens!
Yes I think expectations and even a communal awareness of a series or how a certain type of game should play and what it's trying to do, how to best talk to that game and to read what is says back, determines a lot of the relationship of a game with a region or playerbase. Although I think it's getting much better now with more exposure to game types with indie games and the proliferation of development tools.
In America, there was no generation that played FF2, and no generation that played SaGa past SaGa 3 just to give one example, so it's almost like a generation hole rather than a gap since there's a missing group. Only now is that audience coming together recently.
Wizardry and its genre was pioneered in America, but those games were played by PC hobbyists and a specific audience. When consoles pushed the medium to a new mainstream, it was through other means and schools of design, very much opposed to the deliberate, meticulous style of wizardry. As a result, game audiences in America have always been heavily factionalized between different cultures of play.
I'm no expert though. This is just my hobbyist speculation
In America, there was no generation that played FF2, and no generation that played SaGa past SaGa 3 just to give one example, so it's almost like a generation hole rather than a gap since there's a missing group. Only now is that audience coming together recently.
Wizardry and its genre was pioneered in America, but those games were played by PC hobbyists and a specific audience. When consoles pushed the medium to a new mainstream, it was through other means and schools of design, very much opposed to the deliberate, meticulous style of wizardry. As a result, game audiences in America have always been heavily factionalized between different cultures of play.
I'm no expert though. This is just my hobbyist speculation
The impression I've often gotten from reading Western MegaTen fans complaining about Persona is insecurity about playing a game so focused on Japanese high school life and a (misplaced, I think) view that the mainline MegaTen games are especially mature and deep because of their darker, more muted presentation. It has much more to do with aesthetics than the game design or the actual content of the stories. You see the same thing with a lot of anime fans in English-speaking circles.
Personally, I find that Hashino seems to know what he's doing and the rest of Atlus's games never have so much thought put into their design, whether it's SMT or Persona. But people are more attached to brands than the actual people behind them.
Personally, I find that Hashino seems to know what he's doing and the rest of Atlus's games never have so much thought put into their design, whether it's SMT or Persona. But people are more attached to brands than the actual people behind them.
As someone who prefers SMT over Persona, it's kind of just the matter of me liking dungeoncrawlers more than hybrid visual novels. I like Persona 3 the best of the Hashino games but I find most of the games pretty bloated and poorly paced. I'd rather a game with a shit story but only about 3-4 hours of cutscene vs a game with a mediocre story with 30-40. Of course that's up to subjectiveness but that's how I always percieved it.
Though yeah there's tons of fans on both sides that are antagonistic towards the other and insecure about their tastes. If someone prefers Persona because they want a more narrative driven game, that's totally fine and no one should try to bait them or be dicks about it.
Though yeah there's tons of fans on both sides that are antagonistic towards the other and insecure about their tastes. If someone prefers Persona because they want a more narrative driven game, that's totally fine and no one should try to bait them or be dicks about it.
@dwardmanさん
"generation hole"!? ...That may well be true.
I think the Wizardry story is also a pretty compelling reasoning.
It was very informative. Thank you!
@NoaRozさん
Sometimes people say that games are works of art.
I could understand if the majority of games in the world were like ICO, but after all, games are meant to be played.
If it's meant to be funny, I understand. But sometimes people say it seriously and it scares me.
Sometimes I want to shout out, "Games are not museum pieces!”.
As I said in my review above, if Atlus had continued the artistic(lol) and hardcore line with SMT, SMT5 would never have been released by now. SMT SJ(deep)/4(F) too.
@RedTheFunnyLad
建設的な批判だったら良いんだけど、アメリカでのSMTとペルソナの両ファンの争いって宗教戦争みたいな不毛さを感じるんだよね。はっきり言って双方共に頭が悪いなと思うわ。
SMTファンには「君らの大好きなSMTの新作開発費はどこから出てると思ってるの？文句あるならSMTの新作が出るたびに一人100本買うか、アトラスの株主になれや！」と問い質して説教してやりたいし。
ペルソナファンには「例のIGNのレビュアーの馬鹿が典型だけども、お前らはもう少し過去作や周辺情報を吟味してモノを書けや」と100時間ぐらい正座させたい。
何かの間違いで騒ぎが大きくなったら、外国語翻訳やそもそも外国に対する販売をしない事になるかもよ？
私がもしもアトラスやSEGAの重役だったら、その「選択肢」は考えるなぁ。
"generation hole"!? ...That may well be true.
I think the Wizardry story is also a pretty compelling reasoning.
It was very informative. Thank you!
@NoaRozさん
Sometimes people say that games are works of art.
I could understand if the majority of games in the world were like ICO, but after all, games are meant to be played.
If it's meant to be funny, I understand. But sometimes people say it seriously and it scares me.
Sometimes I want to shout out, "Games are not museum pieces!”.
As I said in my review above, if Atlus had continued the artistic(lol) and hardcore line with SMT, SMT5 would never have been released by now. SMT SJ(deep)/4(F) too.
@RedTheFunnyLad
建設的な批判だったら良いんだけど、アメリカでのSMTとペルソナの両ファンの争いって宗教戦争みたいな不毛さを感じるんだよね。はっきり言って双方共に頭が悪いなと思うわ。
SMTファンには「君らの大好きなSMTの新作開発費はどこから出てると思ってるの？文句あるならSMTの新作が出るたびに一人100本買うか、アトラスの株主になれや！」と問い質して説教してやりたいし。
ペルソナファンには「例のIGNのレビュアーの馬鹿が典型だけども、お前らはもう少し過去作や周辺情報を吟味してモノを書けや」と100時間ぐらい正座させたい。
何かの間違いで騒ぎが大きくなったら、外国語翻訳やそもそも外国に対する販売をしない事になるかもよ？
私がもしもアトラスやSEGAの重役だったら、その「選択肢」は考えるなぁ。
If I may be so bold to hijack the discussion on a semi-related note, do gamers in Japan also differentiate western RPGs from japanese (or, in that case, national?) RPGs? It's common here in the west to treat both as almost completely different (even if intimately related) genres, as if the lineage of games influenced by Wizardry in the east had developed into a unique and independent style of games.
@lpslucaspsさん
A seemingly simple but very difficult question. lol
I can't say for sure, but I don't think there's a strict distinction. I think Japanese game makers were a bit confused when Greg Zeschuk used the term "JRPG" in a negative connotation back in 2009. Because they didn't have a clear definition of RPG(The most confusing was probably Image Epoch, which went bankrupt in 2015). I'm sorry to answer vaguely, but I don't think that Japanese gamers consider a strict definition of game genres, not just RPGs.If there's a distinction in the games industry, it's between japan and foreign production. (But even that is becoming vague in these times. I don't even know if it's good or bad.)
If you think about it, there has been such a divergence since the days when TRPGs were popular, but it's a long story so I won't go into it. (And I'm not an expert in TRPGs.)
A seemingly simple but very difficult question. lol
I can't say for sure, but I don't think there's a strict distinction. I think Japanese game makers were a bit confused when Greg Zeschuk used the term "JRPG" in a negative connotation back in 2009. Because they didn't have a clear definition of RPG(The most confusing was probably Image Epoch, which went bankrupt in 2015). I'm sorry to answer vaguely, but I don't think that Japanese gamers consider a strict definition of game genres, not just RPGs.If there's a distinction in the games industry, it's between japan and foreign production. (But even that is becoming vague in these times. I don't even know if it's good or bad.)
If you think about it, there has been such a divergence since the days when TRPGs were popular, but it's a long story so I won't go into it. (And I'm not an expert in TRPGs.)
@LSW
That was actually very enlightening. Thank you very much!
That was actually very enlightening. Thank you very much!
A Persona 3 remake would be super disappointing because that effort would because that effort would be faaar better spent on the original Persona games or SMTI and II. But we all know where the money is.
dwardman
2 years ago