Please understand: when I call something ‘hot garbage,’ I mean it in the best possible way. It’s different from calling something a ‘garbage fire;’ ‘hot garbage’ is a melty, gooey nonsense that stinks of fast food, and your conscious mind knows you should reject it as being bad for you, but the rest of you just wants it.
So when I say Atlus’s Persona 5 is looking like some gloriously hot garbage, please take that to mean I want it in my mouth right now. Or, well, on my PlayStation 3, as the case may be. Honestly this analogy is running away from me.
So: what have we learned from the new trailer, shown above?
- Three new party members, who I’m going to call Lady Thief, Biker Girl and The Redhead until I know better. Biker Girl and The Redhead both feature prominently in the new trailer, and we get a short intro for the Lady Thief (“bishoujo kaito,” literally “pretty girl phantom thief”).
- While Lady Thief and Biker Girl appear to join you in combat, The Redhead serves as a support unit, in the same vein as Fuuka and Risa from the past games. We also get some I’m-sure-completely-motivated-by-the-narrative ass shots of her, but she’s most likely around 15 so just chill, guys.
- If you’re keeping score, this brings the total number of guys on the cast to three, and the number of gals to five (yes, the cat is a girl). It’s believed there is one more male character yet to be announced.
- You wander around Tokyo’s famous ‘nerd capital’ Akihabara district, or at least something which is meant to resemble it.
- As in Persona 4, your protagonist can take part-time jobs between school and shadow-battlin’.
- New bosses, including a salaryman who turns into the Brundlefly.
- Another look at the stealth action previously teased, with what I believe is a new look at stealth takedowns.
- Joint attacks and special moves during combat, in much the same style as the previous games’.
- A bit more of what I assume is Persona 5‘s main dungeon hub, which is modeled after a portrait gallery. Individual dungeons seem to be accessed through paintings, Mario 64 style.
- A (Japanese) release date: September 15th, 2016.
We may learn more about the eventual North American release this June at E3!
EDIT (11:29AM): Whoops, forgot this! Here’s a clean shot of the official (again, Japanese) cover art, via Famitsu.
(h/t my entire Twitter feed.)
