PV? More Like PunV! … なんちゃって！ Shō Minazuchi P4A USH PV!

PUNS, MOTHERFUCKER, PUNS! Translation courtesy of ANN:

Shō: Your peaceful days are over because of the red fog? I haven’t the foggiest! Well of “corpse” I want to turn everyone into corpses! Just kidding! Hey. Come on. Laugh.
Shō: Oh, do I need a self-introduction? My name is “Sho Minazuki.” I’m the mastermind behind this incident. Welcome, everyone… To my world.
Shō: Well, you’ve been identified as welcome to this unidentified showtime! Just kidding!
Shō: I told you, right? I’m going to break everything. Things like bonds? Don’t make me laugh! I can smash those things with a single button!
Shō: Shut up shut up shut up! I’m going to break everything inside of you!
Narrator: The flawless dual sword-user! The law-breaking pun machine! Sho Minazuki!
Shō: What’s this about the power of bonds!? It’s just an excuse for weak guys to gather all together, right!?
Shō: All of you can just disappear! I want to be alone forever!
Shō: No matter how hard you guys fight back, you can’t win!

You have a very normal anime bad guy quality in the “friends are bullshit” thing, Shō. That’s a little disappointing because I’d heard that this character was supposed to have some DIO in him. I didn’t see it in the PV, either in how he acts or the way he fights, so maybe it just didn’t come across.

Still, puns. I may have a kindred spirit in this guy.

Being a Giant Axe Wielding Robot Makes School Elections Lopsided. P4A USH Labrys PV!

Translation courtesy of ANN:

Labrys: If we don’t win the P-1 Climax in one hour, the world will be destroyed…
Labrys: Is Mitsuru safe?
Labrys: Just what do you want to do…?
Labrys: That means it was all planned from the beginning.
Labrys: I remember now. The reason I’m able to fight right here, right now is because of everyone in my heart!
Labrys: I’ll protect this world that I met everyone in!
Narrator: The Chain Knuckle of chaos within public morals. Student council president of Hachi High School: Labrys!
Labrys: This reading… It’s the same as me!
Labrys: Just what are you? I’m going to have you tell me, right now!
Labrys: I’m going to protect everyone.
Labrys: I’m sick of having people getting hurt!
Shadow Labrys: Revenge… There’s nothing else besides that, right?

With Labrys, I specifically wonder about her Shadow because her shadow was already a character. Storywise, like with all the other characters, it won’t be the shadow character herself because that would make having persona confusing. I wonder if they’ll throw in a callback or two, though.

P4A2 launches in Japan on August 28th, so in the States sometime maybe around the holidays?

Junpei Iori does not age. He merely gets a different hat. Persona 4 Arena 2!

Fucking finally, ATLUS. I’ve been waiting on Junpei Iori, Ace Detective since the first time I played P4A. If he gets special dialogue with Naoto because of that one off gag, I might never be able to have other fights. Not that I was going to play other characters now anyway. Yukari is here too, and she’s either wearing a cravat, or her jacket swings weird during a special. Good for her.

So, a P4A sequel. It’s more of an expansion, but this is a wholly new game. I guess you could call it Super P4A. It introduces new characters Junpei Iori and Yukari Takeba from P3. They come back with new clothes, though Junpei is using a new bat instead of a sword in his gameplay shot. You can see if you look at the pictures of the character select screen that these images are from an arcade cabinet. There’s a special Akihabara preview run from the 16th, which it is in Japan now, to the 18th.

It’s not just new characters. Apparently, gameplay tweaks are being made. There are some differences in the way the characters generally play, which can have huge echo effects in a fighting game, but you remember the rumor where they were going to have character be able to pick their persona before fights? Well, that didn’t get added in, but now you can pick to play either Normal Character or Shadow Character, like this Shadow Yukari. Shadow characters will have the majority of differences with developers saying that playing as Normal Character will more represent the original P4A. The specifics of it mention something called “Shadow Rampage” where… did you ever play Challenge Mode and get to Yu? Remember how he was crazy fast and could therefore do combos that were usually impossible? Yeah, that but limited by SP.

This Akihabara run is a test version. That means we’re not at the end of production, so there’s plenty more opportunity for surprises. If they manage to work in Koromaru, this has the potential to be the greatest game because it will have Bear vs. Ninja Dog. They’ve only announced the other two, so probably not, but it lives on in my heart.

(Images from Famitsu, as you can see from the watermark. See a few more pictures over at their article.)