Persona team announce Catherine, PS360.

[mudah.swf]

The team at Atlus behind the Persona games get the chance to slop out something that's not Megaten related at last, an adult-orientated action-adventure for PS360. Since you see the word "adult" in there, this game seems to have plenty of sexual content and probably violence as well. Key members of the Persona team are behind this, with Shoji Meguro behind the soundtrack, Shigenori Soejima designing characters and Katsura Hashino as the director and producer. Soejima claims that you will be seeing "some shockingly adult scenes in the game. When you play these scenes, they'll be even more stimulating, although in a difference sense".

If you played Persona 3 Portable, you've probably already seen the main character, since he appeared in the bar with an extensive amount of dialogue that a non-plot related NPC probably wouldn't have. His name is Vincent, and Catherine starts with him meeting the mysterious title character, then having nightmares, which are the action sections. if you bothered talking to him in P3P he'll refer to nightmares, and a rumour about dying if you "reach the bottom" before waking up. Famitsu mentions that the game, or at least the nightmares, are set around a massive staircase, and Vincent has to reach the top, or die in his dreams.

Also in Famitsu Meguro made a comment about the next RPG from Atlus, saying "Regarding the RPG, Hashino and I are..."

Source: Andriasang.

Scans: 1 (slightly NSFW) 2 3 4 5

[Jagos]

...

So Japan is raising the bar, eh?

[Drownball-Champ]

Sounds interesting. Can't wait to see how this comes out.

[bluestarultor]

Originally Posted by Drownball-Champ

Sounds interesting. Can't wait to see IF this comes out.

I have a feeling it might get slapped with an AO rating Stateside if it's really as shocking and adult as they say. Even if it doesn't, they're going to have to carefully examine the market. P3 was a pretty big risk with all the allegories of suicide involved. P4 played it maybe a little bit too safe after that, which bothered me in how they made an effort to even distance the theme from tarot when all the systems had actually been based on tarot.

I mean, if they'd tossed it entirely, a pleb like me might have been able to say "I guess it was just for P3" or "I guess they're done with that theme now," but it was more like "Why are they trying to hide this? Are they really that afraid right now?"

This could be an experiment to see if they can toss tarot entirely, but I doubt it. After how successful P3 and P4 were, there's no reason to do that. Actually, it's more likely they're testing the boundaries with this to better figure out how much they can get away with.

[mudah.swf]

If you look at the advert you'll see that there's a C rating in Japan, which denotes that the game should be played by people aged 15 and up. That may change in the future though. Also, I think this remaining scan leaves no questions of there being at least some sex in this game.

[EVILNess]

Why does every semi-sexual thing that come out of Japan have a woman with some kind of goop stretching from her mouth?

[bluestarultor]

Originally Posted by EVILNess

Why does every semi-sexual thing that come out of Japan have a woman with some kind of goop stretching from her mouth?

Well, it's not EVERY semi-sexual thing for one, and the reason is that this particular one is a bit old to be covered in vanilla ice cream she dripped on herself from the cone she was eating.

[Donomni]

At least it's not tentacles, although I'm pretty certain even they know that's pushing it.

[rawredy]

The game actually seems kind of interesting and I'd love to see how it turns out. Not particularly interested in the sexual themes, though, unless that ties into the story somehow.

[mudah.swf]

Whole bunch of direct images here.