Analyzing Persona 5 Concepts from ATLUSxP5

[Mumei]

distorted toilet

hokkaido as a fictional setting, is it more rural or urban then?

makes sense Nessa with the whole circus/carnival as its known some of them tend to manipulate the factors of winning [as in a rigged game]

But with a funfair, I can't really think of something psychological about it besides fear factor on certain attractions. Control of fear maybe?

[Salbert]

What's the point of analyzing a bunch of fanfiction?

That being said, I really like the look and feel that this guy has developed for his fantasy P5. I kinda wish ATLUS would go back to that darker aesthetic. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the light and bright look of Persona 4; I think it worked well for that game. I just feel Persona 1 and 2 had a very unique feel to them that pretty much no other RPG has.

[Mumei]

Just for the enjoyment of speculating. I really like their vision of how they want P5 to be, and apparently other people over on the internet are starting to form the same speculations.

It's fun for the time being, while we wait for the real Persona 5 haha. I've been busy as of late, but hopefully I'll get back to working on this thread

[EroIzaak234]

Originally Posted by Yukichin

It's fanmade.

Is it a fanmade game, though? Or just music?

Thanks for pointing me that out, and yeah the music is pretty awesome.

Much better than the one with the furry personas and the green-colored theme.

[Raed]

I do like the mirror concept but it seemed to derived from Persona 4 for some reason....
I am kean to know how one would "Summon" a persona in P5.

[Hemera]

Originally Posted by Raed

I do like the mirror concept but it seemed to derived from Persona 4 for some reason....
I am kean to know how one would "Summon" a persona in P5.

Smashing a mirror? XD

Also, in regards to the mirror world, there was this friend of mine who told me this urban legend from Portugal of mirror demons. She said that if you face your back to a mirror at midnight and turn right back around you'll see your inner demon(or something like that) and it will rip your face off or take your soul. (maybe that's how shadows manifest in the game?)

For weeks after she told me that I was deftly afraid of turning my backs to mirrors. D:

And in regards to the social links, I have a suggestion:

Magician- A common negative trait of this card is abuse of power and manipulation.Perfect for P5's theme.

Man, I love fan speculation!

[Dmorktry]

I want to say it's safe to assume that the whole "Shadow World" aspect is gonna be mostly unique, not like looking at something at midnight (Too much like 4). Tartarus and the Midnight Channel were both pretty different, I think we can assume that the shadow world in P5 will follow that trend.

[Mumei]

It's quite complicated to fully explain, but hopefully it becomes more clear. This would be similar to Persona 4's Midnight Channel where settings in the shadow world are distortions of actual places in the real world.

For example, the school in the real world looks perfectly fine, but the distorted version on the other side is a complete dark bastardization and twisted paradox of the real world. Somewhat like Magatsu Inaba in Persona 4.



However, when P4's Midnight Channel was specifically tied to a person's true self, P5 is a mass collection of negative human behavior.

i.e - Yin and Yang


In this case, the dark suppressed negative emotions and feelings associated with human beings on 'the other side' (shadow mirror world) are being leaked over to the real world




This Puppet Master does its business from the safety of the other side, and deploys 'shadows' (not the ones we've encountered in P3/P4, but invisible shadows of negative emotions/etc. Why not 'shadow puppets'?) to possess humans in the real world by traveling through mirror gates.

I'm honestly starting to believe Nyarlathotep is the puppet master since they've mentioned him/her a few times already in their music videos. I could be wrong though, but its the only guess I can come up with now.



Perhaps only those gifted with the power of summoning their Persona are able to make the distinction of mirrors (ex. mirrors on bathroom walls, mirrors in stores) that are being used as gates to travel between dimensions.

So for every dungeon currently so far (mall, school, funfair), the possibilities of mirrors on location is absolute.


The distorted funfair actually had the use of mirrors quite perfectly, since carnivals feature mirror houses on occasion. I'm guessing that's the place where the P5 party will be moving in and out of the shadow world/other side and back to the real world.



As for summoning Persona, it should probably stick with the crushing of the card. Would be interesting if P5 applied different ways to summon them based on who the character is

ex. a guitarist strumming their guitar to summon their persona, a gun user using a mock-evoker similar to P3, or a person putting their hand on their forehead to concentrate summoning their persona

[Hemera]

What about potential bosses? In P3 they were the fragments of Nyx. In P4 they were the shadows of the people who were throw into the tv. Could they be powerful shadow that manifest specific negative human emotions? Maybe representing the seven deadly sins. Like the distorted school we could have Sloth and Envy(Or Greed?) for the distorted mall. For the Funfair, I'm not quite sure.

[Mumei]

Potential bosses...

I do hope that we have more Persona users who are bosses instead of just shadow monsters. In the funfair dungeon, I think the main boss is that magician girl in one of those reincarnation tracks.

Maybe they are acting out against their will, being mind controlled by the puppet master. Or, she could literally be a puppet herself and not a human. I might be the only person that notices this, but the magician girl and those puppet doll twins both have grey eyes...


magician girl
www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqNTs9IB4p0

puppet doll twins
www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1JlZBeE9B8


I would like to guess each main boss is a form of a puppet (ex. marionette, bunraku puppet, stick puppet, hand puppet, ventriloquist puppet, shadow puppet...) just to keep the theme being implied by AtlusxP5


hmm...7 deadly sins might actually work now that I think about it. However it will probably be not consistent if based on order


Again, the 7.D.S is the opposite of virtues (yin and yang) (ex. Greed / Charity )



Distorted Mall - Greed/Gluttony (kleptomania, shopping impulse control)

Distorted School - Acedia/Sloth (Ignorance, apathy) or Wrath (opposite is patience)

Distorted Funfair - Acedia (Apathy, refusal to enjoy the world)


It probably will not be based on the 7.D.S, but loosely based. I'm more on the line of it being freely based and not in order by negative psychological disorders associated with human beings.


I wonder what the next dungeon will be by the way...

[MamushiLT]

Linking to what Hemera said. What if the bosses are the social links characters personas that have yet to manifest, being forcibly pulled out through certain mirrors (School for Teacher etc.) putting them in a type of apathy syndrome until the main character defeats them. Just a thought. As for the next dungeon it could be a casino if a character has a gambling addiction.

[Sleepless Neko]

Originally Posted by Yukichin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udh2Z...3&feature=plcp

The description on the video reads:

Shin Megami Tensei Persona 5
Fan Soul-Selection's Check BOSS BGM

[Original Artist]
Jin x Sunstone Kagerou Days

I could be wrong on "Sunstone Kagerou Days"--it's in katakana, which suggests foreign words, but "fan soul-selection" and "original artist" suggest that the music is not official.

Oddly enough, they link to the Japanese ATLUS site and YouTube channel, though.

Also, someone in the other thread about this says they're remixes of JPop and Vocaloid songs.

EDIT: Not to mention that the background in this video uses Nana from NANA to be Marie.

This is the original Jin's Kagerou Days: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONyfbDPc7y0 It's not even a remix, it's just the instrumental version.

[Mumei]

I think the instrumental track was edited / looped to make it sound like a genuine boss music track. I like it, reminds me a lot of Persona 2 for some reason...

Not sure where the direction is going with AtlusxP5 new uploads. Seems like filler tracks for now. Somebody said that the next dungeon theme tracks would be set in a casino, so that's good to get me hyped and ready to work on this speculation thread a lot more.

By the way, a cool nostalgia nod to the Jack Brothers from their new track

www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFcSIANsrY4

[MoogleGunner]

So, I've been pretty interested in this as well, and there's something pretty interesting that seems to have been missed in analyzing their ideas (Maybe a future fangame? Who knows.) - It's "Shin Megami Tensei Persona 5" as opposed to the traditional Japanese titles - Megami Ibunroku. Obviously, the idea is that it's a different game than what we've seen so far - and part of the traditional SMT verse (again? if... was part of the persona-verse)

[Hemera]

A casino dungeon would be awesome (maybe you can get double the amount of money you usually get after fighting enemies...).

Having the bosses being social links under control of the Puppet Master is interesting and would make the Links more main plot relevant.

Now, what about the awakening of personae? It most likely will be a different method considering how different they were for each persona game(persona ritual in p1 and p2, evoker in p3 and fighting your shadow in p4). Maybe those with potential will be awakened by the Puppet Master itself? Though I would like the return of the persona ritual. Now wait, not the silly dance but maybe going back to that mirror demon urban legend I posted earlier. Maybe doing a similar ritual can awaken the character's persona?

[Mumei]

As for the awakening of the personae, this music track gives us a glimpse of how characters (might be the MC in this one) will evoke them.

Awakening
www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPJEMwcWozc


Thankfully, its in English. The setting sounds like a school shooting or maybe during a bank robbery. I'm going to stick to a bank robbery based on the audio and situation.

[Hemera]

Man, love that track.

As for who could be the true Puppet Master...you know this whole business of mirrors showing the negative side of humans reminds me of this fairy tale by Hans Christian Anderson called the Snow Queen. In it a demon king make this mirror that magnifies the faults and of who ever looks into it. Perhaps the true Puppet Master is some sorta of powerful demon who created The Other Side as a way to mock human desire and weakness?

[Mumei]

I didn't realize how similar the story of The Snow Queen is here. Thanks for pointing that out Hemera.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Snow_Queen

[copied from the wiki article]

An evil "troll," "actually the devil himself", makes a magic mirror that has the power to distort the appearance of things reflected in it. It fails to reflect all the good and beautiful aspects of people and things while it magnifies all the bad and ugly aspects so that they look even worse than they really are.

The devil teaches a "devil school," and the devil and his pupils delight in taking the mirror throughout the world to distort everyone and everything. They enjoy how the mirror makes the loveliest landscapes look like "boiled spinach."

They then want to carry the mirror into heaven with the idea of making fools of the angels and God, but the higher they lift it, the more the mirror grins and shakes with delight.

It shakes so much that it slips from their grasp and falls back to earth where it shatters into billions of pieces — some no larger than a grain of sand. These splinters are blown around and get into people's hearts and eyes, making their hearts frozen like blocks of ice and their eyes like the troll-mirror itself, only seeing the bad and ugly in people and things.


This is starting to sound very interesting, I really wonder if they took inspiration from this. Especially the fact with distortion dungeons taking place in a mall, school and funfair.



The song ɹoɹɹıɯ, mirror 「 The Other Side 」

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEgdMkPTXM0

This song plays out normally, then midway through the song it reverses and is all eerily distorted...



Distorted School dungeon bgm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycs3f3YAxAY


The lyrics make sense too, concerning a dungeon area taking place in a school and the overall theme of control and the mirror opposite of reality [ yin and yang - black/white ] in P5 that AtlusxP5 was suggesting.

The lyrics are:


We don't need no education
We don't need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave those kids alone
Hey! Teachers! Leave those kids alone!
All in all it's just another brick in the wall.
All in all you're just another brick in the wall.




This leaves the theory of a scenario where this Puppet Master is causing a disturbance in educational school(s) mind controlling students/teachers rendering them apathetic to learn or attend school.

This would be similar to the Apathy Syndrome found in Persona 3. Since the presence of mirror lingers there, perhaps this 'magic mirror' referenced from Snow Queen is the same exact thing, except there are multiple mirrors and not just one.

The Puppet Master employs shadows to seep out of the magic mirror existing on 'the other side' and into reality, which overwhelms the area around it with negative emotions/behaviour and mind controlling humanity to its desire ( so effectively, the Puppet Master's use of shadows are more like 'puppet strings' )






By the way, Nyarlathotep is also a servant to 'Azathoth', a deity in Cthulhu mythology

As Igor is a servant (used to be I mean) to Philemon.


Azathoth can be considered the true 'crawling chaos' over Nyarlathotep as his form usually depicts this tentacled monstrosity.

Azathoth monster form





Nyarlathotep crawling chaos form



Nyarlathotep description in DSO

http://megamitensei.wikia.com/wiki/Nyarlathotep

"A god of the Cthulhu mythos. He came to Earth in ancient times from outer space and is known as the Crawling Chaos.

He acts as a proxy to his masters such as Azathoth, who have no intelligence to make their desires manifest in our world.

Because he can assume various forms, he is known as a faceless god. He is particularly known as the Haunter of the Dark, and he seems to have other guises on Earth as well."
—Devil Survivor Overclocked Compendium





What if Azathoth is the puppet master and Nyarlathotep is using the MC to overthrow and eliminate Azathoth from his position so Nyarlathotep can gain absolute power after being banished in Persona 2?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azathoth

"Azathoth is a deity in the Cthulhu Mythos and Dream Cycle stories of H. P. Lovecraft and other authors. Its epithets include Nuclear Chaos, the Daemon Sultan and the Blind Idiot God."

"The last major reference in Lovecraft's fiction to Azathoth was in 1935's "The Haunter of the Dark", which tells of "the ancient legends of Ultimate Chaos, at whose center sprawls the blind idiot god Azathoth, Lord of All Things, encircled by his flopping horde of mindless and amorphous dancers, and lulled by the thin monotonous piping of a demonic flute held in nameless paws."


I wonder...

[Momo Noguiko]

Did someone notice this? If Marie is from P5, why she is in P4 Golden?

[Evilkinggumby]

Originally Posted by Momo Noguiko

Did someone notice this? If Marie is from P5, why she is in P4 Golden?

You do realize this is a p5 fan project and nothing official, right? They can add whomever they like, it's their fantasy

[Momo Noguiko]

Really? Awww, it's so well made that I thought it was true xD

Still, good job! But I do hope that some topics are true for P5 *u*

[MamushiLT]

Sidetracking to the dungeons again. What if they are based on the fears of the characters. Dungeon 1 is a Mall so the fear would be Agoraphobia (Public Places/Crowds), Dungeon 2 is a School so that would be Paedophobia (Children) and Dungeon 3 is a Funfair which may mean someone has Coulrophobia (Clowns). I'm just trying to come up with ideas as to the reason for these particular Dungeons.

I'm also intigued by what Mumei said about Azathoth and Nyarlathotep but I'm struggling to find Philemon's place in this matter, is he acting as the moderator and making sure that the MC isn't overstepping any boundries, or is he perhaps trying to make the MC defeat both Azathoth and Nyarlathotep to keep things balanced? Still it's interesting stuff.

[Hemera]

ATLUSxP5 Posted a new video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtUpWuDF4NM

ah, I thought it'd be the Arcade next. But I feel like I've heard of this track from another video of their's.

[Mumei]

Right, it was originally titled 'electric boogaloo', but the new dungeon version here seems to be extended or remixed.

old version of 'electric boogaloo' which is now the distorted arcade

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brmg3KOR8kc


I wasn't really expecting the arcade to be the next dungeon area since it might seem to obvious with the recent 4 arcade theme tracks :\

Let me guess...gaming addiction is the theme of this dungeon? Having a distorted version of an arcade can be interesting though, similar to Mitsuo's game dungeon in Persona 4



I wonder if there is going to be special treatment with this dungeon since the funfair dungeon had a haunted house and circus thing going on. Say like the team are literally inside the arcade machine games and have to fight arcade game inspired monsters/bosses.



And MamushiLT, not sure if Philemon is going to be directly referenced in their videos, but he has appeared many times in the form of the blue butterfly on their pictures.

I'm actually very curious as to how Philemon and Nyarlathotep will be portrayed for P5 if ATLUSxP5 will even get to it at all. We know for sure that Nyarlathotep is now under a guise of a woman in their videos now.

Both Nyarlathotep and Philemon haven't even made an physical appearance in the Persona series since Persona 2.

While Nyarlathotep has made a direct appearance in the ATLUSxP5 videos with the 'awakening' and 'nyarlathotep' song tracks, Philemon on the other hand still has not made a appearance.

[remstigma]

Anyone thinking this could be a marketing ploy by the real Atlus JP? I know it's a stretch, but putting out a bunch of fanmade music, only to later find out it's not fanmade, might be an interesting advertising idea...

[Kylaila]

Originally Posted by remstigma

Anyone thinking this could be a marketing ploy by the real Atlus JP? I know it's a stretch, but putting out a bunch of fanmade music, only to later find out it's not fanmade, might be an interesting advertising idea...

Yeah, I also thought that. However, it would probably - if at all - be only a part of the music. Still, no way to know at this point. We'll just wait and see

[Mumei]

I doubt it, since I'm sure Atlus and Shoji Meguro wouldn't be using copyrighted music from other artists, despite there being a few original tracks here and there (unless it was licensed beforehand)

However, what if it was some sort of experiment to see if the type of music/theme/etc. being presented would garner interest for fans?

[Yukichin]

Originally Posted by remstigma

Anyone thinking this could be a marketing ploy by the real Atlus JP? I know it's a stretch, but putting out a bunch of fanmade music, only to later find out it's not fanmade, might be an interesting advertising idea...

It is fanmade. It remixes a bunch of already-made songs.

[ShinnFlowen]

I think this thread/fan project could have some realistic aspects because of all the backtracking and analyzing of past themes used in Persona 3/4. The huge amount of lore and history validates the idea of the possible use of mirrors, but at the same time how many other lore is out there that fits Persona?

If you guys read articles about Mass Effect 3 you'd know that someone actually predicted the ending of it 2 years ago.... using Mass Effect 1 information so nothing surprises me anymore what fans can do.

[Mumei]

This is why I chose to speculate on this, and given all the contributions from other people here on themes and references -- it is starting to eerily tie-in together and make a lot more sense...

Just an update finally for this thread, I've added speculative info on the supporting characters on page one, so check it out



Looks like the Distorted Arcade dungeon is being wrapped up, and another old uploaded song is the boss theme for this dungeon.

CONTROL FREAK BOSS BGM
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijvjHM8GTfU




Originally it was called 'puppet master' but now it is called 'control freak', which is more appropriate I think considering the lyrics. I wonder what the original puppet master song will be replaced with.



Speaking of songs, I just noticed something pretty cool with one of the old fan tracks. Remember the battle theme used by ATLUSxP5 for Persona 5?


FIGHT THEME -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQm0ROuOSSw




Coincidentally, the lyrics also references the theme analyzed here about mirrors which I just found out today. I've tried copying down the lyrics by ear, but I couldn't make out the rest of it. Hope somebody else here can try it out.

I'll leave the undecipherable lyrics blanked out for all of you to try to figure out.





Lyrics:


Are you cautious here? Now every single battle gets old on my count; cobbled like I've want to

Outside is partial as _________, does she wonder any ________?

A __________ our thoughts are in a monster

____________; gonna overload!

Shoot the people or the monster?

Don't ________, ________________ too much!


*2nd verse*

Yes!

Catch _______, am I ready? can you fight?

_________ start seein’ me; standing so cool

Yo _____________, love thing; ______, scattering too much on the ceiling!

Mirror, mirror, my heart goes to the last one; _________________________

Nice fight, _______________, _________________, _________________?


(DON’T LET GO!)

(DON’T LET GO!)

(DON’T LET GO!)

(DON’T LET GO!)

*repeat lyrics*