Persona 5 Royal keeps homophobic scenes of the original, adds even worse ones regarding Shiho
- Thread starter Lant_War
- Start date
I still vividly remember getting to "that scene" with Ryuji and the Protagonist, and what a gut punch it was to run into them both times. Seeing all the other stuff getting in Royal has kinda killed any interest I had in re-trying this. Which sucks, cause there's so much good in this game, too. And the fact that literally every female confidant is datable, including at least 3 adults, is still infuriating to me. =/
We'll see. The negative sentiment towards Atlus is building
And while I have no doubt tons of people will buy Strikers/Royal (in this very thread even) that group of people will only shrink...
Even if you aren't personally offended by their bullshit, that kind of negativity is offputting
REMEMBER THAT THE YAKUZA TEAM REMOVED THE TRANSPHOBIC ELEMENTS FROM YAKUZA 3 DURING THE RE-RELEASE CAUSE THEY KNEW IT WAS GROSS AND OFFENSIVE
AND THEY ALSO GAVE US THIS
1.
2. It's amazing. The Yakuza game is more progressive than the one about tearing down society's rules and traditions and learning to be yourself.
ain't that the thing in the end?, that Persona sells more copies?
That Yakuza conversation is straight up SURREAL. How is it that good?
We're at the point where the only upcoming game under the MegaTen banner that isn't Persona is vaporware. What happened to everything else? Why don't they outsource a new SMT spinoff?
REMEMBER THAT THE YAKUZA TEAM REMOVED THE TRANSPHOBIC ELEMENTS FROM YAKUZA 3 DURING THE RE-RELEASE CAUSE THEY KNEW IT WAS GROSS AND OFFENSIVE
AND THEY ALSO GAVE US THIS
And this is how you address issues of minorities.
It's bizarre that Persona 5 and this game are both from the same publisher. That Sega themselves are putting out something so much more progressive in a game about being a mobster and making money off of a hostess club and that also has a man running around in nothing but his underwear giving you dating tips... while over at Atlus, we have shitting on people who are getting tread on by society already, in a game that's supposed about fighting against society's injustices.
I mean technically #FE is supposed to be SMT over Persona. :P
Really want more SMT spinoffs myself. Or if we're in Persona hell can we at least get another Devil Summoner?
Devil Summoner would allow for Persona characters, so that's an incentive. I'll take what I can get.
Like, dang, remake SMT: If...That's the prequel to this Persona universe and has a canon main female character.
REMEMBER THAT THE YAKUZA TEAM REMOVED THE TRANSPHOBIC ELEMENTS FROM YAKUZA 3 DURING THE RE-RELEASE CAUSE THEY KNEW IT WAS GROSS AND OFFENSIVE
AND THEY ALSO GAVE US THIS
Is this a new quest added in yakuza 3? that's amazing! Was waiting for all 3 to release in the collection to do them!
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If we're talking mainstream Japanese games that handle LGBTQ+ stuff better than Persona (not hard lol), for its many, MANY faults, that it has been rightly criticised for, Fire Emblem three houses handles what same sex options it has okishly.
...Like it's pretty lazy due to most of the text bring copy and pasted yet they don't just make everyone bi, the FeMC Byleth just has it better in general because the options are so unbalanced, and it's not like they really tackle LGBTQ+ stuff as a theme or anything. (And also whilst the game at first seems NB friendly by going "choose a form" instead of choose a gender, gender still clearly matters...)
But the options exist. They don't insult anyone. I feel comfortable supporting the game.
And then DQXI has Sylvando!
The industry is moving on, apparently without Atlus.
...Like it's pretty lazy due to most of the text bring copy and pasted yet they don't just make everyone bi, the FeMC Byleth just has it better in general because the options are so unbalanced, and it's not like they really tackle LGBTQ+ stuff as a theme or anything. (And also whilst the game at first seems NB friendly by going "choose a form" instead of choose a gender, gender still clearly matters...)
But the options exist. They don't insult anyone. I feel comfortable supporting the game.
And then DQXI has Sylvando!
The industry is moving on, apparently without Atlus.
I don't really think its that bizarre actually, because sega seems to just leave that to the digression of whoever is making what game. " We don't care, where's the money " . Even if it would be to thier benifit to give a franchise more direction to be less gross
You keep hammering this away this but I don't see it. To me, a mainline Persona/SMT game would have to bomb extraordinarily hard for Atlus to actually listen to feedback and change course accordingly. Until then, Atlus will keep marching to the beat of their own drum while paying no attention at all to all the complains.
Like I previously stated, Sega won't do anything unless there's a chance of the issue affecting the bottom line.
also... this thread title talks about shiho but there's only a picture in the OP... what was added exactly?
Shadow Kamoshida summons a bunnysuit clad Shiho to aid him in battle with his Golden Spike attack and you given the option to either keep attacking him or target Shiho. Cognitive Shiho is weak to all the elements including physical attacks.
Even in kids stuff like sonic that honestly should be manged more, they are just like..." eh".
Reminds me what I read about how they downloaded roms for the Sonic Gems Collection because they lost the source code of most MD-era games.
And then we have the whole mess involving Archie Comics and Ken Penders.
My point wasn't about Atlus listening to Western feedback (because lol) but rather, their stubborn refusal to change will further alienate more players in the West. Back during P5's release, a lot more people were willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. Now? Even Atlus stans are tearing them apart, which is unusual in a gaming forum. It tells me that there's less of an interest in Persona in general but also, people aren't willing to fall on their swords for Atlus anymore.
Aside from the usual reactionary Atlus fanboys of course, lol
Honestly, I've only seen that kind of reaction on this forum. Others do not care at all or dismiss it as nothing but SJW nonsense because of course they would.
Those are good examples, they kinda don't care until its way too late. Colonial Marines and The gearbox stuff is another example, or to get back to sonic, sonic boom.
Though, I was more referencing when the sonic franchise is handles specifically by sonic team all the women characters and how they loose their agency and kinda suck and have rules built into the universe to stifle them. And when they are handled by literally anyone else the girl characters are fine and really good and are important. And it seems like there's a general uptick in girl focused action series or series that are usually bot focused becoming more unisex in children focused media in genral and as a company seeking to make money they should take notice of that.. but ...no.They have done nothing, except give them less money to make video games.
Sega confuses me
While its certainly alienating me, I don't think its gonna take full effect untill there is a larger more noticble dip in quality correlated to its practices in this regard, primary writing. Now I will say it took that hit in persona 5 ( because the story actually isn't that great and I like... a lot of the characters less than 4 to be quite honest ) but maybe everyone doesn't agree or there are other things to obsfuscate these flaws. ( also you know maybe it says things about the fanbase itself )
Now in the future if the series continues to deteriorate in quality and its very clear the issue stems from a male centric " waifu " focus that's when people will go " Hey man remember when persona was good " and then retroactively go through think about how its bad.
Now I wish they would think about that... now. But unfortunately that isn't how the world works
Honestly I don't see that happening unless they make a Persona/SMT game that is bad in general. Sadly most people just don't care about issues like this as long as the overall game is good.
Which particular Yakuza game is this in? Yakuza 3's remaster? I've still barely touched Zero, but on principal alone I want to support this one.REMEMBER THAT THE YAKUZA TEAM REMOVED THE TRANSPHOBIC ELEMENTS FROM YAKUZA 3 DURING THE RE-RELEASE CAUSE THEY KNEW IT WAS GROSS AND OFFENSIVE
AND THEY ALSO GAVE US THIS
See this stuff is cute. It's playfully teasing at the sort of situation the characters are in, and no one is going "N-NO WAY DUDES I LIKE DUDETTES" like they're scared of the possibility.
Now there is a thin line between this and queerbaiting (I haven't played FFXV, but this scene imo is not that), but tbh even if it did cross that line it's infinitely preferable to what Persona is doing.
This is an adorable gay joke, and it made me snicker. I never played this game, so thank you for showing it to me.
This is true, and being an LGBT+ advocate in a country that is so incredibly conservative and where the culture is so used to describing what is normal and socially acceptable must be incredibly difficult.
I don't think anybody is trying to undermine or undersell the endeavours of these advocates and the oppression that LGBT+ people in Japan are suffering. However, it's also a fact that almost all LGBT+ representation in Japanese media tends to be very conservatively minded, where LGBT+ people are freaks or heavily sexualized (often both).
Less interest? Persona 5 is the best selling Atlus game by a landslide... it's hit almost 3 million copies. Joker just got into Smash. There isn't going to be any sort of grand backlash against Persona anytime soon.
According to Wikipedia, the sales for both are roughly the same.
And I doubt there's a massive number of people buying Persona for its gay panic jokes.
You can't look at Persona 5's sales as an indicator of interest when tons of people were patiently waiting to buy it. On Neogaf, there were like 10 Persona OTs. On ResetEra, we're still on the first after two and a half years. The Persona fandom has dropped significantly on tumblr and twitter, with it pretty much being split between people who despise P5 and people who unconditionally. The near-universal adoration for Persona is gone, back when we literally had Mass Effect writers directly praising Persona 4's writing.
Or even just this thread. Tons of games are "problematic" but they still have their defenders right? Here, everyone is more or less on the same page.
People are getting fed up with Atlus and the honeymoon period is over.I mean I could be wrong, but i'm pretty sure P5R won't sell that well, and critics will be more critical of the bullshit compared to before (like P5 has a 93% on metacritic lmao, the honeymoon period was real)
man, remember that scene in FFXV where some guys talk about how cute one of the party members is without being super fucked up?
A game about literal royalty is more progressive that a game about shaking up the establishment
A game about literal royalty is more progressive that a game about shaking up the establishment
I can't see the reaction to Joker getting into Smash back in December as indication of anything else but there is still a lot of love for the Persona games. The tide doesn't turn that fast. You're focusing on the negativity (you can't use Tumblr as a metric when half the userbase dumped it after the porn ban) and if P5R doesn't sell well it will be moreso because it's a mediocre rerelease than people's feelings about Persona. Just look at the reactions to the full Strikers reveal about a few weeks ago, people were head over heels for it.
I think you overestimate how much gamers care about this kind of stuff. You're projecting your own dissatisfaction with Persona. A few people on an internet forum don't really indicate much. If the homophobia/transphobia was more central to the storyline, like Catherine, then maybe, but a couple of scenes in a 100 hour JRPG are not going to be enough to do it.
Persona 5 sold ~3x as much as P4, so that isn't just the Persona fanbase. The series is getting more popular, not less.
I mean no disrespect by this, but it seems like we are living in two different realities cause the way I see it, Persona is literally the most popular it has ever been. Like, the series is so popular right now that the Japanese reveal trailer for Persona 5 Scramble, a Musou spin-off, has close to 1mil views between Atlus JP and Gamespot uploads and that's in less than 2 weeks. For instance another popular spin-off Musou game like Pirate Warriors 4 has less than half of that view count for its reveal trailer on YT (less than 500k) after 3 months.
I wouldn't mind Atlus getting a wake up call, not only because of their awful LGBT representation, but because I think the quality of their games are dropping a bit as well, but Persona is crazy popular right now so I honestly just don't see your point.
I mean if we're talking persona popularity, the thing that's actually going to catch up with Atlus is their questionable business practices. P5D had less content than P4D, P5R is a rerelease of a JRPG that already came out on PS4 a little over two years ago in the west, Catherine Full Body had 9 dlc voice actresses for a character (?!?).
I'd love to say that neglecting their LGBTQ+ fans, a core part of their original fanbase (which they have been nurturing, intentionally or otherwise), will result in sizable backlash. But charging so much for so little is what's going to get to them first imo.
I'd love to say that neglecting their LGBTQ+ fans, a core part of their original fanbase (which they have been nurturing, intentionally or otherwise), will result in sizable backlash. But charging so much for so little is what's going to get to them first imo.
I don't think that'll do much damage to Atlus either tbh.
For better or worse, Atlus fans are pretty loyal so they'll buy whatever Atlus sells them (however shitty the DLC practices) as long as the games have a certain amount of quality. I realize that P5D and PQ2 didn't do too hot, but one is in an extremely niche genre and the other was released on a dead platform.
Come P5R's western release, I think people will be surprised by how much that game will sell (and how good it'll review) despite the shitty DLC practices and disgustingly offensive contents. Like I said before, I think the only way Atlus faces any real backlash is if they screw up big time (quality or content wise) with either SMT or Persona in a mainline entry.
The quest was in the original PS3 version but was one of the ~20 quests cut from the localized version. From the research I've done it sounds like the newly translated text lines up pretty much 1:1 with what the original Japanese text said.
wait... so there was both the transphobic character running after you AND this really good one in the original on ps3? Guess they didn't have any bad intent or opinion on trans people even back then it seems, they were just misguided in thinking it was funny
And they freaking cut the good one from the english release? Lmao... glad this changed
Yeah, it seems like it was misguided rather than actual harmful intent, and more importantly unlike Atlus they actually learned that over time instead of sticking with the same harmful attitude. Also worth noting that the t word used in the PS3 localized Y4 was a bad choice on the loc team and the Japanese word used in that instance is much more neutral.
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The Yakuza team can be a little tone-deaf.
In Yakuza 0 there's a sidequest where you deliver some pizza to a woman and it ends up involving a pimp. It's played as a funny kit, but I found it a little problematic (especially the ending).
I think there is some merit to the point of rising dissenting opinions, because there was a time where I remember how frustrating it was just trying to discuss anything remotely critical of the series - it was almost always met with immediate pushback. There was such an extreme cult following over the series like it was offbars to talk ill of it.
But since the release of P5 and with its influx of new fans, there has been a noticeable increase in critical discussion even on places like Reddit. This isn't to say there isn't a sizable amount dismissal going on still, but rather to highlight just how bad things were prior to the release of Persona 5.
But since the release of P5 and with its influx of new fans, there has been a noticeable increase in critical discussion even on places like Reddit. This isn't to say there isn't a sizable amount dismissal going on still, but rather to highlight just how bad things were prior to the release of Persona 5.
There are certainly problematic elements in this series as I'm discovering. I'm playing Kiwari 1 as my first Yakuza game and there is a scene where I'm in a hostess club (already problematic in itself). You find out the hostess is a lesbian who says she's loves working there because she's surrounded by other beautiful women. So far, no huge issue.
The woman at one point says "does it make you jealous to know I get to stare at all these beautiful women when they are changing?"
To be fair, at this point Kiryu says "Don't you feel it's inappropriate to take advantage of your situation to leer at the other girls?" And her response was "It's fine since we're all girls anyways." And he lets it go unchallenged from there.
Now a couple things to note, there is obviously more to this side quest so maybe it gets properly addressed at some point, but the way that particular one goes and where it ends definitely left me a little disheartened.
I guess it's not all bad, as I said Kiryu did push back a little, and he didn't act like her being a lesbian was some sort of fetish to exploit (though the player is given an option to ask if she could ever see a man in her life, I didn't click it so no idea how the conversation would turn there).
That said main quest women in general are treated as more story props with zero agency, at least so far. Side quest women are treated a little better though there have been a number of "help I'm being chased by bad men, beat them up!" trope.
Still a long way to go on the Japanese (and everyone else honestly) developer front.
Two things to keep in mind here are A) Kiwami is a remake of Yakuza 1 which is from 2005 and the story is kept like 90% unchanged (even the cutscenes are 1:1 to the original release) so you are gonna see some old tropes/stereotypes because the story is actually old and B) Yakuza is like a lite Japan simulator and hostess clubs do actually exist in Japan so that's just part of Japans culture. And it might be confusing at first, but you don't go to a hostess (or hosts) club to have sex or engage in any sexual acts. You go there to order some food and drinks and talk with women (or men).
Yeah, the hostess club itself wasn't the main complaint, the main complaint was the "if it's between girls, it's okay" trope. It's the one in anime where is okay for women to touch or comment on each other inappropriately mainly as a form of titillation to the audience.
In this specific example it's played as okay that this woman (Rina) is okay to stare at other women as they undress for her own gratification because she's a woman and they are women and this it's okay. She also says "you'd understand if you were gay, you'd be able to leer at naked men all you want."