Hello, everyone! How has your week been? Welcome to the Hobby Haven!
Well, it's E3 week, so video game news abounds everywhere! The big buzz this year is focusing on Microsoft's new "Project Scorpio," a new console which isn't *quite* part of a next console generation, but will be like an upgrade of their current XBox One. It isn't coming out until late next year, but they're apparently making announcements now to give developers some time to make games for it. Sony is doing something similar with their "Playstation 4 Neo" which is like a PS4.5. They're holding off on discussing it until next year, but the big deal with that is that it will be optimized for 4K TVs and such. (Microsoft is also making an XBox One slim version, and are offering drastic discounts on their "original" XBox One consoles, so there's that going on, too.)
Quite a bit of new games announced: Tekken 7, a new Forza, a new God of War, Resident Evil 7, so on and so forth. Nothing new announced that personally interests me, although one of my friends will be getting RE7; I might end up watching her play through that.
Atlus did show some more gameplay footage of Persona 5, so I am really excited for that! They showed off more activities that you can do (going to an old-fashioned bathhouse, eating out at restaurants, working at part-time jobs, etc.), some of the things you can do in school (questions during class, walking around and visiting different classrooms and areas; you can even buy lunch which might give you a temporary stat boost or heal HP?), plus some of the vendors that you will be visiting. There was a fair chunk devoted to showing off combat, which had me very excited. It looks like a version of the classic Megami Tensei "negotiation" mechanic will come back, where you can get enemies with low HP to give you money/items, or become your Persona. The "One More" mechanic of Persona 3 and 4, where you get extra turns in combat when you exploit an enemy's weakness, also makes a comeback. There's also confirmation that the Social Links mechanic will return, albeit in a retooled format called "Cooperation." No info on what the changes will be. Finally, Atlus confirmed what I had already assumed: the game will be English-voiced only. All of the past Megami Tensei games released in NA have not featured dual-audio, and I didn't expect them to buck the trend here. (From what I understand, getting the voice actors' agencies to agree to license out worldwide distribution rights is incredibly difficult and expensive.) The PR manager for Atlus USA said they'll look into doing a JP language track as DLC, but I doubt it will happen.
Whew...that's a lot! Miss Scarlett, signing out!
