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Persona 1 roundtable interview translated. Features: Okada, Kaneko and Tadashi.

F

FluxWaveZ

Member
NeoGAF user Pepsiman took it upon himself (with the help of crowdfunding) to translate an interview that first appeared in the Persona World book, which came with the Megami Ibunronku Persona Digital Collection (or Revelations: Persona Digital Collection), released in 1998 as a Windows 95 CD-ROM.
Persona-Digital-Collection.jpg
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The interview features three important Atlus employees at the time talking about the first Persona game: Cozy Okada (Shin Megami Tensei creator and director of Persona 1), Satomi Tadashi (scenario writer) and Kazuma Kaneko (art director). I thought I'd share it here because it has a lot of interesting information about the very first Persona game that I think fans of the series might like to read.

Here are Pepsiman's scanlations from his site, The Atlus Atlas (which should be alright to post, since they're from a 17-year-old book).

Disclaimer: There are a few spoilers in the interview:
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Make sure to visit Pepsiman's site for translator notes and additional information about the interview he worked on scanlating.

Just a few noteworthy passages:
What made you decide to make a game about school kids?

Okada: Put simply, given the popularity of the PlayStation with more casual game players, too, we wanted to make a game that they could ease themselves into as well.
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How much time would you say it took you all to finalize the scenario after everything was said and done?

Satomi: About a year. We went through 20 drafts.

Okada: Didn't it take even more than that?

Kaneko: I really loved that first one you came up with, the one about the field trip. That was an awesome idea!

Satomi: In that version, you would have had a party of 10-ish people and you'd get caught up in some sort of freak accident there and have to fight students from the other schools that were there, more or less.

Kaneko: It was great because school field trips are always these laid back affairs, but that was just the opposite.
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To start wrapping things up, if you guys were to make a second Persona game, what would you all want it to be about?

Kaneko: Personally, I think there's a lot we could do. Like if we had a game that was about office workers, then the president could be a Persona user who's started to sexually harass people in the company. And then the younger employees would whip out their own Personas to take him on. Or we could make it a game about a rookie baseball team. That could work, too.
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M

mdubs

Banned
Very cool!

Interesting how different the team was back then going from Okada, Tadashi and Kaneko to Hashino and Soejima between EP and P3
 
J

Jisgsaw

Member
To start wrapping things up, if you guys were to make a second Persona game, what would you all want it to be about?

Kaneko: Personally, I think there's a lot we could do. Like if we had a game that was about office workers, then the president could be a Persona user who's started to sexually harass people in the company. And then the younger employees would whip out their own Personas to take him on. Or we could make it a game about a rookie baseball team. That could work, too.
Click to expand...

I really love Kaneko.
 
B

BeatResetsTheWorld

Banned
To start wrapping things up, if you guys were to make a second Persona game, what would you all want it to be about?

Kaneko: Personally, I think there's a lot we could do. Like if we had a game that was about office workers, then the president could be a Persona user who's started to sexually harass people in the company. And then the younger employees would whip out their own Personas to take him on. Or we could make it a game about a rookie baseball team. That could work, too.
Click to expand...

It's kind of sad the series basically stayed revolving around students of some sort...I would've really liked to see it in another setting, but I guess there are other SMT spinoffs for that...
 
M

massoluk

Banned
FluxWaveZ said:
The interview features three important Atlus employees at the time talking about the first Persona game: Cozy Okada (Shin Megami Tensei creator and director of Persona 1), Satomi Tadashi (scenario writer) and Kazuma Kaneko (art director). I thought I'd share it here because it has a lot of interesting information about the very first Persona game that I think fans of the series might like to read
Click to expand...

Uh.. so what's this dude doing right now. People of his pedigree shouldn't just disappear from the spotlight.
 
F

FluxWaveZ

Member
BeatResetsTheWorld said:
It's kind of sad the series basically stayed revolving around students of some sort...I would've really liked to see it in another setting, but I guess there are other SMT spinoffs for that...
Click to expand...

In the context of the interview, he's mainly joking about all of that. The other two are joking around with him, like suggesting a racing game where the Personas are car engines.

Eternal Punishment was a good Persona game with an adult cast.
 
S

Sophia

Member
Friendly reminder that if these three had gotten a bit more drunk, Persona Karting would have been a reality. >.>;

Jonnax said:
Are those guys still at Atlas? They seem really cool.
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Tadashi is freelance now. Okada left after SMT3 and made his own company, then that company closed and he's disappeared from the spotlight. No idea what Kaneko is doing, but he shows up and suggests idea for SMT from time to time.
 
B

buddha0991

Member
"Kaneko: Personally, I think there's a lot we could do. Like if we had a game that was about office workers, then the president could be a Persona user who's started to sexually harass people in the company. And then the younger employees would whip out their own Personas to take him on. Or we could make it a game about a rookie baseball team. That could work, too."

Kaneko in the P1 era thinks differently than the Kaneko of the P2 era. P2 Kaneko has stated there will always be 3 constants in persona, and one of them was like high school students, or students in general. I forgot the other two.

Jonnax said:
Are those guys still at Atlas? They seem really cool.
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Only Kaneko is. Okada quit after the initial Nocturne release and I forgot when Satomi Tadashi quit. Satomi Tadashi seems to be on relatively good terms with Atlus though, he returned to work on the new content for the PSP versions of Persona 2. Okada has never been involved in another Megaten game since then however.
 
K

komorebi

Member
I've always wondered what happened to Kazuma Kaneko. I really miss the old darker vibe this company had going on before Persona 3. They're a very different company nowadays (not necessarily worse, just a different vibe and tone). I was importing Megaten games, artbooks and guidebooks in the 90s and could barely read a lick of Japanese. I also had Kaneko's Digital Devil Apocalypse artbook at one point, it was effing glorious.
 
B

buddha0991

Member
gimel said:
I've always wondered what happened to Kazuma Kaneko. I really miss the old darker vibe this company had going on before Persona 3. They're a very different company nowadays (not necessarily worse, just a different vibe and tone). I was importing Megaten games, artbooks and guidebooks in the 90s and could barely read a lick of Japanese. I also had Kaneko's Digital Devil Apocalypse artbook at one point, it was effing glorious.
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He is still around but for now hes not the main artist due to him being the demon designer. He was the scenario planner of SMTIV. Maybe for SMTV he will return and make a ton of new demons or such.
 
K

koutoru

Member
buddha0991 said:
He is still around but for now hes not the main artist due to him being the demon designer. He was the scenario planner of SMTIV. Maybe for SMTV he will return and make a ton of new demons or such.
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He might even make a return for Persona 5 since they're using demon designs for that game instead of shadows.

Even for SMTIV, most of the demons are recycles of Kaneko's older designs.
 
K

komorebi

Member
buddha0991 said:
He is still around but for now hes not the main artist due to him being the demon designer. He was the scenario planner of SMTIV. Maybe for SMTV he will return and make a ton of new demons or such.
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Thanks, yeah I couldn't remember how deeply he was involved in SMT4. His demon designs were always his best creations, I'd love to see his art style more heavily in SMT5... leave the Persona series to Soejima (who is also awesome, I just think two contrasting art styles might be better suited to these series).
 
U

Ultimate_Trainer

Member
Can't seem to find the live action commercials for the first Persona, but the ones in Innocent Sin was pretty good with the nonCG Apollo. Would have loved to see what they could have done with a CG one tho.

edit: Looking at the Devil Summoner one it really does really anticlimactic, so I'm glad they stuck with suits.
 
C

Cranzor

Junior Member
Is the tone of the newer games worse or just different? I haven't played any of them yet, but the older ones definitely do seem darker. It's interesting to see some in this thread lament how the games used to be since the newer games are so lauded and the older ones are hardly talked about.
 
F

FluxWaveZ

Member
Cranzor said:
Is the tone of the newer games worse or just different? I haven't played any of them yet, but the older ones definitely do seem darker. It's interesting to see some in this thread lament how the games used to be since the newer games are so lauded and the older ones are hardly talked about.
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Different, not worse. I'd argue that Persona 1 is really the one game in the series that is most unlike the other Persona games, atmospherically. Persona 2 is more lighthearted and over the top in a lot of ways.

Actually, all of the Persona games are rather unique from each other, tonally.
 
F

Fusebox

Banned
Can't wait to play P1, I'm playing them in the reverse.

Finished P4G, almost finished P3P and then onto P2 (maybe with PQ at the same time).

One day, P1, one day!
 
S

Shikamaru Ninja

任天堂 の 忍者
Persona: Revelations. Innocent Sin, and Eternal Punishment is when I really adored the franchise. There was this fusion of a high school drama and twilight zone that just got it right. When the franchise were re-directed during the PSP remakes, it just became a Saturday morning chibi high school thing that I just didn't like.

Persona 4 Golden is a painful experience. I'm like three hours in, and it's just a nightmare to play through. The actual combat system is fun, but that story-dialogue-pacing is inconceivable to me. I don't get how NeoGaf likes this. Maybe after 20 hours I will finally like it?
 
F

FluxWaveZ

Member
Weiss said:
That's surprising. Was SMT that much more popular back in the day?
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Not really. Persona is the best selling, Atlus developed, single release in Japan. Number 2 is Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner and number 3 is Persona 4 (with Persona 4 Golden following it).

Shin Megami Tensei IV, for example, is the best selling SMT game of all, in Japan.
 
W

Weiss

Banned
FluxWaveZ said:
Not really. Persona is the best selling, Atlus developed, single release in Japan. Number 2 is Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner and number 3 is Persona 4 (with Persona 4 Golden following it).

Shin Megami Tensei IV, for example, is the best selling SMT game of all, in Japan.
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Oh wow that's really depressing. I don't think SMT4 even made 1 million worldwide.
 
F

FluxWaveZ

Member
Weiss said:
Oh wow that's really depressing. I don't think SMT4 even made 1 million worldwide.
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Which Atlus developed games do? That's not depressing at all; it's a very positive sign for the series and shows that there is still a lot of interest in SMT. SMT IV sold 255k in Japan, and that's in line with the good, consistent sales higher selling Atlus games have had. None of these games are consistent million sellers, and that's not what Atlus needs to be successful. That's not how they operate. Persona 4 Golden is their only game, I believe, which has approached 1 million worldwide, and Persona 5 is the other that will most likely achieve that in a relatively short time.
 
W

Weiss

Banned
FluxWaveZ said:
Which Atlus developed games do? That's not depressing at all; it's a very positive sign for the series and shows that there is still a lot of interest in SMT. SMT IV sold 255k in Japan, and that's in line with the good, consistent sales higher selling Atlus games have had. None of these games are consistent million sellers, and that's not what Atlus needs to be successful. That's not how they operate. Persona 4 Golden is their only game, I believe, which has approached 1 million worldwide, and Persona 5 is the other that will most likely achieve that in a relatively short time.
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It's just lame to think that after nearly 30 years of making some of the deepest, most rewarding RPGs out there, the series has never gotten the wider recognition it deserves.
 
F

FluxWaveZ

Member
Weiss said:
It's just lame to think that after nearly 30 years of making some of the deepest, most rewarding RPGs out there, the series has never gotten the wider recognition it deserves.
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I guess, but compared to what? Tales, Final Fantasy or Pokemon? SMT still has the ability to top the charts, and that's great. It seems like Atlus is becoming a bigger name, nowadays, so perhaps overall series recognition will increase alongside Persona 5.
 
I

InsaneElite

Member
F

FluxWaveZ

Member
InsaneElite said:
Have we ever gotten any sales data on the first two mainline games?
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The only Famitsu numbers (for Japan, obviously) I could find:

31/05/01 [PS1] Shin Megami Tensei (Atlus) - 42.470 / 85.991
20/03/02 [PS1] Shin Megami Tensei II (Atlus) - 18.823 / 36.341
28/03/03 [GBA] Shin Megami Tensei (Atlus) - 6.107 / 6.107
26/11/04 [GBA] Shin Megami Tensei [Best Price] (Atlus) - 832 / 832
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Doesn't have their original SNES releases.
 
S

Setsu00

Member
FluxWaveZ said:
Suggested above, it's possible he might actually be involved with Persona 5 because of the new Persona/enemy models. At least, he's likely involved with whatever Team Maniax is currently working on.
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I'm pretty sure that Atlus would have announced it if Kaneko was indeed working on Persona 5.
 
F

FluxWaveZ

Member
Setsu00 said:
I'm pretty sure that Atlus would have announced it if Kaneko was indeed working on Persona 5.
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Would they? That's apparently not how they advertised his involvement in SMT IV. Concerning staff, the only ones we know of involved with P5 are the current, big three.

Not to mention his apparent involvement in the Soul Hackers re-release. With Hashino saying stuff like:
Lots of Personas are being rendered in high-definition for the first time, making it a grueling production process on that end.
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In regards to Persona 5, I wouldn't be surprised if Kaneko was helping to accurately reproduce the new models for his original designs.
 
K

koutoru

Member
Setsu00 said:
I'm pretty sure that Atlus would have announced it if Kaneko was indeed working on Persona 5.
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I don't know about that, especially with how Atlus is more likely to advertise staff involved with the current games (ex: Soejima, Meguro, and Hashino) instead of staff tied to the more classic SMT games like Kaneko.

Also, Kaneko has been taking a backseat role in terms of publicity and it's really unlikely at this point that Atlus would make it a big deal anyway since he was only involved with the older Persona games (which Atlus avoids talking about anyway).
 
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