Green Mamba
Member
I flat out don't see a solo female protagonist happening. Optional or none.
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Persona Community Thread |OT5| Pull up a chair! [NO PQ OR P4U SPOILERS!]
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SloaneRisette
Member
This would be really nice.
I can see that. There isn't all that much differences between the Male and Female Commander Shepard in Mass Effect outside of the romances for example. I think the main thing everyone here hopes for is that the Persona team doesn't force things... if a male straight protag makes the most sense for the story they want to tell, then they should go for that.
Yeah, no way that happens. Wouldn't be opposed to it but there's no way a large portion of the audience wouldn't like it. And they're not trying to make a game that pushes the boundaries here.
I see no reason why it would have to dilute the game outside of taking resources away from content on a single run (which I noted, good game design means it doesn't have to)
Why? I'm seriously asking. This seems like flat out pessimism here. I'm trying to understand the logic. I'm assuming it's more than just "Because video games, bro". I mean, I'm pretty sure we all agree Atlus is better than that 9x/10, no?
Huh? Haven't they hinted at doing just that while retaining the essence of Persona? Is that not more or less what Hashino has stated?
It's not about the design in this case, it's about the resources. Limited resources = design limitations. Limited resources being distributed to a certain aspect of a game = design being limited in scope in terms of other aspects of the game.
Sort of. He also said it'll be very familiar to fans of Persona. No doubt they're going to be going after certain themes hard but I don't see that being made into a boundary pushing video game. Fully believe the core of P5 is going to be largely the same as 3 and 4, including the protag's gender.
Again, they have the finances to do Persona Q, Persona Dancing All Night, Persona Ultimax, the Persona 3 movies, and Persona 4 The Golden Animation. Is a non-half assed female route really out of their budget?
Well, I dunno. What demographic do you think they were going after with the added fan service in Golden?
¯\_(ツ
_/¯
Well, I dunno. What demographic do you think they were going after with the added fan service in Golden?
¯\_(ツ
_/¯Green Mamba
Member
I don't buy the dilution reasoning. By that you could suggest anything that takes any resources at all could dilute anything. If someone values the addition of a female route, then I wouldn't consider that dilution. If you don't, then that's your pejorative. We all have different values here.
Dating sims with female protagonists don't sell to male customers. We all like to joke about waifus, but let's be real. Atlus knows what sells.
EDIT: Levito said it better.
Because I think Atlus knows what the audience likes. So long as the majority of the Persona player base is male and they continue to emphasize personal connection to the protagonist, there won't be a solo female protagonist.
Dating sims with female protagonists don't sell to male customers. We all like to joke about waifus, but let's be real. Atlus knows what sells.
EDIT: Levito said it better.
- Different anime scenes
I'd say that's legitimate, but I see several ways around this... Be less reliant on anime cutscenes, or design the cutscenes so the character can be more easily replaced with another. Though the latter would be reliant on the animation studio.
- Different dialogue + dialogue options
Good design could easily make this simply a matter of changing between she and he for most of them.
- Different voice acting
Same as above. Since they're silent protagonists, even more money saved.
- Different models + animations
I don't think they have that low of a budget to make one character worth of animations and such to be a big deal.
- Different scenes altogether
With good design, they can vary slightly. Stuff like ending S-links with the romances could be the most extensive difference.
Yeah, they'd have to split their resources from the get go to accommodate both genders. I'd imagine there would be some overlap in that case.
Like I said, good design would simply design scenarios and such to make overlap very common with slight variations.
Extra effort put into FeMC means they'd need to split time developing two different versions of events (assuming it wasn't just a character swap) which means there's less time put into polishing the game if it were just a single character. That would bog the quality of the game down is the argument. Which is a fair one depending on how long the game has been in development and where it is currently.
Good design would be approaching the scenario with an idea that it could be either gender and not making it so that the scenario adds costs to adding another gender. Good design basically means, when I say it, design that allows for a character swap without game quality being hurt by it (which is easily possible).
Atlus doesn't have unlimited resources. Everything that goes into a game takes time and money, both of which are finite.
Which is what I said to begin with. Good design can overcome and minimize the extra costs, though. It depends if they feel its worth it to put in that extra costs and thought into the design.
Hot Coldman
Banned
Two routes would be excellent, if only because it lets you take the Social Link characters, characters who are (probably) going to be very fleshed out anyway, and compound on that character building. Or you could essentially double the game's cast.
Buuuuuuut I imagine in a planning meeting, someone will have said "this game will last 100 hours" and then everyone agrees that most people will probably end up seeing less than half the content, so they go with Broswagonist v2.0 as the only MC option.
Buuuuuuut I imagine in a planning meeting, someone will have said "this game will last 100 hours" and then everyone agrees that most people will probably end up seeing less than half the content, so they go with Broswagonist v2.0 as the only MC option.
No. Now my question: Is the female/male side of a Persona 5 without a gender option the same as the female/male side of a Persona 5 with a gender option?
This is some very flawed logic.
Games have set budgets. Atlus can afford to make these other projects with some degree of confidence that they will get a return in profit.
Can the same be said for adding an extensive female protagonist? Of course not. Could they literally afford the production cost? Probably! But it's also not a stretch to say that it is beyond Persona 5's development costs to do so.
So you're basically saying that they could compromise the game in order to shoe a female protagonist in. This would be an awful solution.
Again, they have the finances to do Persona Q, Persona Dancing All Night, Persona Ultimax, the Persona 3 movies, and Persona 4 The Golden Animation. Is a non-half assed female route really out of their budget?
Well, I dunno. What demographic do you think they were going after with the added fan service in Golden?
¯_(ツ
We can put the kibosh on the "budget" stuff. These guys aren't indies.
Fair enough. I thought we were saying on the last page half the audience was female, so the logic didn't compute for me.
I would love to play as either a male or a female, it would probably have me replay the title. But I doubt we'll see a female protagonist until Atlus rereleases Persona 5 Something Edition (and they will).
Sorry, but that's dumb design, not good design, and that seems to be mostly what you're talking about to the rebuttal of the multiple comments regarding resources. Gender is actually an important part of someone's life and it influences several important scenes in every Persona game. Making it so that both sides would essentially be the same would feel extremely artificial, fake and uninspired, which would significantly reduce the entire experience.
You can say that, and I think it's a respectable view, but the thing is: You're not the target party. For a lot of people just switching the gender or even the orientation is huge.
I know that, but that's obviously not what I'm arguing against, so I'm not sure why that's relevant.
Who knows, we haven't seen the game and only have the vaguest clues as to what it's about. A lot of RPGs like Dragon Age or Dark Souls turned out pretty baller despite having the option to completely customize your character!
I was addressing the notion that budget would be too great for the company, when they're making several off shoots that aren't exactly pennys.
Except if they're intelligent and design it well, it doesn't have to compromise anything.
I guess what I'm trying to say is this...
If they approach it in the right way, and design the game from the ground up with it in mind, they can have both genders as swaps for each another without it being half assed.
It becomes half assed when the female MC becomes an add on to their design instead of part of the master plan from the beginning. I'm not saying it would be easy or that they'd actually do a good job at it, but its perfectly possible to take that approach and succeed.
Which is where I get down to good design. Good design would mean you can overcome that without compromising any of that. I'm no game designer. I have no magic answer on how to do everything perfectly, but I do know its perfectly possible to not have to compromise it all.
I will say, without it being part of the game design as they work from the ground up, they will have basically lost their chance to do it. If whatever they have specifically in mind as they've developed the design, scenario, etc doesn't already have that in mind, then I would not want it to even be considered by them.
Well, Dragon Age (Like everything EA makes) had all the money, and Dark Souls has virtually no narrative content.
Because I think you're making an extreme claim in saying "extremely artificial, fake and uninspired, which would significantly reduce the entire experience". That might be how you fell, but for a subset of people it would be polar the opposite. It's not relevant to your debate with Theo, but I think the point is relevant just generally speaking.
Honestly, most of the cost of adding more genders in Dragon Age is the voice acting of the main character for both genders.
SloaneRisette
Member
So what you're saying is we have EA buy the Persona series
That's true, but Persona 5 presumably won't be a game like Dark Souls where the player character's gender won't be addressed, so handling the issue in that way would feel objectively superficial. It goes to Anita Sarkeesian's point of a female character that is basically genderless or a male in women's clothing, and even some female players wouldn't be content with that.
Source?
The protagonist in Dragon Age Origins wasn't voiced.
Exclusive to Origin?
No it really isn't.
Things like lip syncing all the dialogue will have added a ton money to it, I would imagine.
There is so much work that goes into doing anything in a game. You should listen to IdleThumbs, because they talk about it often. Nothing is simple and everything costs money.
You think it went into writing a script that accommodates both genders? LOL.
I think it went into every aspect of development, LOL.
This is actually an interesting point.
I wouldn't be surprised if Persona 5's protagonist was voiced.
All those grunts cost $$$$$$$$$$$
SloaneRisette
Member
It went into making really mature romance paths and sex scenes
Ones that are too mature for the silly Persona series
Green Mamba
Member
They'll probably have a voice to say things like "Persona!" and "Jack Frost!" and such and such.
I'm half expecting full voice acting, to be honest.
SloaneRisette
Member
I don't know if I'd like that to be honest
I think you think you have more insight than you actually do, honestly. Writing an accommodative script doesn't affect the budget at all. You're changing your writing. That's it. The worst they'd have to do in addition to that (which again, costs nothing) is have Soejima design a female form for the MC. Please don't tell me that would break the bank.
You're welcome to send this in to the experts at Idle Thumbs and report back.
Nah. Not anymore than the call-outs for combat like what we have now. But who knows!
Well Aigis was voiced in The Answer, obviously, and that was fine. Narukami and Makoto have been voiced in all recent media. Vincent was obviously fully voiced...
I don't think it's a stretch at all. Personally, I'd like it if they were voiced. They write great characters and I'd sooner play as a character than an implication of one.
The irony is killing me.
The fact is that we're both probably talking with more authority than we have any right to, but your lack of self awareness is, as you say, LOL.
More experience based on what actually changes on playthroughs between the two genders. That and hearing from developers talk about how expensive voice acting is for stuff like a main character with so many lines on the Bioware forums.
Also didn't have that EA money backing it until the late side of development, lol.
Everything costs money, but not all things cost nearly the same amount. I'll just agree to disagree on this point, since I don't think either of us could put up remotely conclusive arguments on the topic.
That's not experience that is relevant to the claim you're making. Experience that would be relevant to that claim would be actual development experience.
BLACK AMERICAN PSYCHO
Junior Member
doubt it, especially if they make the protagonist less of a blank state(even in comparison to the previous protags, who all had unique personalities).
None of that stuff alone breaks the bank but it's cumulative. Any change or extra work requires more money. It's not out of the realm of possibility that Atlus doesn't have the funds to continually scrap things and change them.
Did you read my second sentence? Its a combination of experiences that lead me to that conclusion.
Yes. Now how does that relate to the overall development overhead of designing and implementing a second gender?
Guys, can we have a discussion without resorting to passive aggression and personal attacks?
That's kind of besides the point, RPGs have have mute protagonists forever and it has worked fine. (better for it in a lot of instances too)
That's kind of besides the point, RPGs have have mute protagonists forever and it has worked fine. (better for it in a lot of instances too)
Because it was in direct relation to that exact topic...
You seem deadset on just ignoring or dismissing everything that isn't agreeing with you here, so I'm going to agree to disagree.
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