Persona series

I think your character would better work as a new face trying to make it in the biz and rapidly discovering its seedy side, but that would definitely make a good party member.

edited 13th Apr '17 6:04:49 PM by HamburgerTime

Ya have to properly mix in social life with an interesting theme, plot & characters.

It be difficult but very rewarding if pulled off well.

.

Other potential party members for the entertainment industry one:

• A promising young starlet who was suddenly and inexplicably blacklisted by the industry - she later finds out this was due to her refusing to sleep with a bigwig.
• A male African-American actor who is growing increasingly frustrated with his inability to get roles other than "Uncle Tomfoolery" and "miserable inner-city dweller."
• A middle-aged and middle-fame actor who fell from grace after doing a genuinely bad thing, but who has sincerely repented and resents the fact that people like the Gibson and Allen expies, who have done way worse, still get work.

edited 13th Apr '17 6:10:46 PM by HamburgerTime

Aren't the party members all supposed to be hip young teens?

That be limiting yourself.

We can pretty much go all out in this scenarios so why stifle creativity?

Besides its always nice when a group has a variety of viewpoints.

This is sounding like a more cynical Tokyo Mirage Sessions (not that that's bad).

I've had a few ideas for American centered, Persona-esque - I've come up with some characters for an urban fantasy story that I think would fit quite well.

To be honest, though...high school feels like kind of a boring setting. I am somewhat interested in the Japanese high school setting, as it's a different culture and I like learning about how they do things differently there, but even that I can get tired of.

Honestly, I think I might prefer college as a setting - more freedom, plus everyone sort of has their own specialty. And everyone's overage, too, so you don't have to worry about romance stuff getting too skeevy by American standards.

Wasn't one of the complaints from that game being that it has a too idealistic representation of the entertainment industry?

Yeah I think cynical would work better.

edited 13th Apr '17 6:17:03 PM by slimcoder

I believe so.

Considering that Dancing All Night ripped that same industry a new one.

I'm still playing TMS myself, but I do think it's a pretty good game.

There's already even a Persona game with a mostly adult cast, so it's not like it's a required part of the formula.

I think part of the value of the high school setting is that it's a compulsory event rather than a semi-voluntary one like work- Certain jobs draw different personality types and all that, whereas you get a mix of personality types in school settings that would probably not end up in the same place otherwise.

But it's far from the only way to get a bunch of disparate personalities all under one roof and keep them there. Shin Megami Tensei's normally pretty good about varying up its framing devices and settings, so I would like to see Persona branch out again and try a new wrapping.

You don't need everyone to meet at school/work. Even in Persona 5 most of your party members or social links aren't met through school.

edited 13th Apr '17 6:59:32 PM by Clarste

Yes and no, many many interactions in P5 wouldn't happen without school.

It would be really unbelievable for people to actually be able to get together to RPG battle on a regular basis.

Try to find people who have the time to pull off what is done in persona games when they are working 12 hour shifts 6-7 days a week on unpaid overtime or worse.

This is a series where several magical young people and their transforming cat/ninja dog/robot/mascot character go on wacky hijinks that sometimes involve a 25th hour in the day or other forms of time and space bending.

And even leaving all that behind: superheroes. Clark Kent holds down a 9 to 5. The Hulk's cousin is a lawyer. Plenty of successful real world adults have families and manage to still set aside hours a day for whatever else they could need outside their careers and their loved ones.

It's really not that farfetched.

edited 13th Apr '17 7:29:48 PM by Hashil

Yet the series prides itself on being relatively normal on The Masquerade side of life.

And a reporter is one of the few jobs which has that kind of free time and still get the job done.

edited 13th Apr '17 7:36:18 PM by Memers

Even that half has a bunch of embellishment and general silliness that doesn't make sense in real life, like any kind of fiction.

Embellishments maybe but every thing is pretty grounded outside the masquerade.

Highschool idols and models? Oh they exist in Japan, its worse than you think too, Swimsuit models can be like any age under like 25. There is even an Under-15 category for them, I am serious.

You are living a life for a year and everyone else is living theirs, social links aint happening to a salaryman working 80 hour work weeks.

edited 13th Apr '17 8:08:19 PM by Memers

Well we have toddler beauty pageants here in the U.S.

Yeah the entire world is just one big shit hole ain't it.

There are tons of weird-ass shit all around.

edited 13th Apr '17 8:04:04 PM by slimcoder

How about this, all the party members and Social Links/Confidants know one another through (an) Internet forum(s), the CU spot's the Internet, and the villain is the personification of GIFT.

That would be pretty much Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth. Which is basically cyber based version of Raidou 2 + Nocturne with a bit of Persona thrown in.

I am serious, that game is an SMT game in everything but name and demons used.

edited 13th Apr '17 8:34:35 PM by Memers

There are working people in Japan that aren't just salarymen and office ladies, by the way. You hear about those the most because of course you would: it makes for easy horror stories and ties into the "all japanese media has to be about high school students to 'make sense'" rhetoric.

Persona 2: EP is about as grounded as the other games in the series and stars a journalist, lingerie saleswoman, a cop, and an information broker. They're a little more glamorous than average jobs, but I don't see anything wrong with that.

Sure P2:EP is a Detective, Reporter, con artist, The Ouji, and a model but it also takes place over a comparatively short period of time and well no one does their job really or lives their life before the plot started in the generic dungeon, shops, cutscene JRPG fashion. That game has more in common with generic JRP Gs than anything else.

The big thing with Persona 3, 4, 5 and The Legend Of Heroes Trails Of Cold Steel and other calendar based dating sim mechanic games is you are living their entire daily life for a year.

Since the MC has to be a plain yada self insert that would include basically a shitty job with a shitty boss and no time to make friends aside from required drinking with co-workers etc etc etc. It wouldnt get off the ground as a plot.

At most it would be Miss Kobayashis Dragon Maid which wouldnt work for a game.

edited 13th Apr '17 10:42:11 PM by Memers

I wasn't trying to argue that high school was the only method available, just that I get why it keeps coming up. I seem to have accidentally started a bit of a spat and I'm sorry.

I really don't mean any disrespect when I see this, but it seems you see Japan and all the people who live there only in anime archetypes, and the world is a whole lot more multifaceted than that. You can pretty easily make a day job interesting, even a crappy one. Heck, in Maya, Baofu and Katsuya's case, their jobs can even directly tie into the story. You'd have more material to work with relating to the jobs themselves than simply a random trivia question and an exam here and there. Maya can go report on something unusual, interview somebody that the party needs to learn more about, decide on exactly how a particular article needs to get written ala Persona 4's translation part-time job, etc. And that's just her. A journalist would probably be ideal since they do have the freedom to move about and engage in whatever they need to whenever they need to, but that's hardly the only job someone could have to make the whole system work.

edited 13th Apr '17 11:28:28 PM by Hashil