In many ways, the previous two Personagames exemplified what a good Japanese RPG should be. Even though some elements of the game play were standard, they were executed in such a way that it worked with the rest of the game, including its obviously non-standard story paths. To me, Persona 3 FES and Persona 4were infinitely better than any current generation RPG, both of the Japanese and Western variety. (All you shooter fanboys, don’t cry because I said a PS2 JRPG was better than Fallout 3, its embarrassing.)

I had always assumed that the next Persona game would be a PS3 game, it was the natural progression of things. Rumor has it, an announcement might be close. (Follow-up article here.)  Instead of talking about that in detail, let’s talk about the last two Persona games on a personal level for a moment. While I feel Persona 4 was the better of the two, Persona 3 FESwas what reignited my passion for playing and enjoying JRPGs. This generation of gaming was a bit of a disappointment, especially the PS3. I think part of the reason for that was because it came with such high expectations for niche RPG greatness, thanks to its predecessor. Since it didn’t deliver (and it really still hasn’t, but its getting better), I felt disappointed – disillusioned, even.

When Persona 3came out, I wasn’t really feeling in the mood for playing anything, but later on the FES version came out and I decided to give it a shot. That game single-handedly brought my attention back to the realm of RPGs and its only gotten stronger from there. Persona 3 FES was such a great game at the time – it did almost everything I would ever want a JRPG to do, even though it retained many traditional elements of the genre. The follow-up, Persona 4, did even more to refine that near-perfect formula. (As an aside, I get a kick out of all these critics and reviewers who usually complain that a JRPG has turn-based battles, but gave Persona 3/4rave reviews. Laff.)

Now, we have this formula that has worked very well in those two games, let’s hope Atlus can come into this generation of gaming by retaining that magic and, perhaps, making it even better, assuming these rumors are true, of course. If they are, Persona 5 will be my most anticipated game, with the exception of maybe Final Fantasy XIII. Here’s looking at you, Atlus.