And that’s why I still haven’t bought it, and don’t really plan to. Treat me like an afterthought that’s “too expensive and time consuming,” I’ll do the same for your game
Honestly this turns me off not just P3R but Persona as a whole. That series would be absolutely perfect for me if it had female protagonist options but as it stands now its target audience is damn clear.
Atlus trying to have their cake and eat it too. You don’t get to entice an entire generation of female gamers and then proceed to spend more than a decade completely shunning them.
I really can’t articulate just how much faith I lost in ATLUS as a label with the P3R debacle.
Granted I was already pretty huffy about Persona games, for all the usual reasons (the playerbase is toxic, you can’t be a woman, you can’t be gay, but you can date your teacher and go behind the backs of every woman you know and form a harem; to barely scratch the surface of reasons). But I still **wanted** to like them, I still had faith that the right feedback carefully heeded could result in a Persona game I could love unconditionally.
P3R dropped and it’s like a spell was broken.
I no longer have this pain in my heart from *wanting* to love a series of games that hated me in return.
I love being able to just skip out on this remake because it holds zero interest for me without femc, but at the same time I hate that it doesn’t matter to them. They’ll ✨apologize✨ when asked for the 100th time in an interview, but at the end of the day they don’t care because the game was still successful.
Whatever, I just really wish someone else would make a super polished AAA turn-based RPG dungeon crawler with a Pokémon-ish battle system (gotta catch ‘em all) with life sim elements and a huge cast of characters that wasn’t consistently this awful about women.
Atlus hasn’t cared about their female audience for years now. Not just in persona, but shin megami tensei as a whole and their other new IP that is coming out and only has a male avatar.
You make games with mute protagonists that are meant to be self-inserts. What is the huge additional cost out of adding a female avatar too? Fire Emblem has been doing this for forever now.
The Caligula Effect is a jrpg that launched having only a mute male avatar, but added a female avatar when it was rereleased, then went ahead and had a female avatar again for the second game. Clearly the addition was worth it.
It doesn’t make much sense in terms of profits, either. Female avatars tend to sell more merch and be more popular than the male ones, especially when done well. (In Granblue whenever they announce character merch, the female avatar always sells out, alongside the popular male characters girls like, but the male avatar ends up being the only character that doesn’t run out of stock bc no one cares.)
And then there are other jrpg/jrpg-inspired games like Symphony of War or Sword of Convallaria that are lower budget, and it hasn’t stopped them from considering the ”huge additional cost” of having you play as a female character as an option.
“too expensive”. Within a couple weeks modders had a working femc mod, within a couple months it was in such great shape it was almost like it was official.
I’m at the point where if the game doesn’t include a FEMC option, then I don’t buy them. If it’s not a game set in a time period where it makes sense to have a male only role like Yakuza/Mafia etc then I don’t see why they can’t add FEMC’s in 2024. Also, P3R is a remake of a ‘remake’ of a ‘remake’ of a ‘remake’. Why make a fourth version of the same game that isn’t definitive. P3R doesn’t add any substance. I could play P3P for the plot, party control & as a FEMC. In this economy, I’m being wise with my money. Also, Atlus never finds adding female protagonist worth it as this isn’t the 1st time they’ve said. P4 & P5 had female protagonist concept arts that clearly didn’t find worth it. If my gender isn’t worth adding, then their games aren’t worth paying for.
I like playing male characters. I don’t like misogyny. So even though I wouldn’t have an issue playing as the protagonist, I now have an issue with the studio and won’t be buying reloaded. How unfortunate.
once you play P3P and realise how much care was put into the writing of the FemPC, actually making her a real character and not just a blank slate, it really is almost impossible to come back from. P4 is bearable, mostly, but P5? good god, what a nothing burger of a main character!
edit: this makes me even more sad about how maligned Soul Hackers 2 is. Ringo is a JOY of a main character. the writing and voice acting made me laugh multiple times.
edit 2: anybody else remember when aBusisoft said that a female player character in Assassin’s Creed would be too expensive to draw and animate? yeaaaaaaaaaaah. (that was in 2014 btw)
The idea of exploring myths, culture and folklore from all over the world is so fantastic. So is the roleplaying part of playing day by day, making choices, building relationships and the battle system. But of course things can’t be perfect and they had to choose to be the worst to a big part of the audience that, otherwise, could be huge fans. They come with apologies, but they don’t give a shit.
When leakers said theres no traces of FeMC during the development I just knew its never going to happen. Theres so much work to be done with her that if she wasn’t planned to be added right from the start, theres zero chance of her being in a DLC. I just hope Atlus will consider making dual protagonists with minimal changes to the story for future games since they’re clearly not interested in putting in more effort to do 2 unique protagonists, though I don’t see that happening anytime soon. I love JRPGs but its really suck to see female protagonists being treated as an afterthought all the time in this genre. 🙁
Its absolutely laughable how a billion dollar company was not able to do what a couple of modders are now starting to accomplish in a matter of months. Freaking wild, I tell you.
I know it’s not the same and doesn’t change Atlus’ neglect of female protagonists, but there is a fan made mod in the works to include the FeMC into reload. Here’s an example of a showcase
P3P is one of my favourite games, surely one of my favourite jrpg ever, but this have assured that I’m not going to buy any Atlus game in the future. A customer is lost, it may be seen as petty or as nothing for these devs, but I vote with my wallet. Is not just one single game sold that they loose, but future releases too. But since Kotone is too work and resource for them, their games are too many money for me to buy.
Persona 3 was announced when I had just sold my PSP, so I was already miffed. When I heard they made a remake, I was hyped. Always liked the concept and its apparent connection to the Shin Megami Tensei series (maybe I misremember that bit) and was so incredibly disappointed they take out the one thing people were actively hyped for it… At least in my circles. I also found it very weird, one of the most expensive and time intensive design aspects would be writing the character, but that was already all there. Sure, design and integration cost too, but they already had half the work laying in front of them, so it just seemed… Lazy kind of. And well, sexist.
I’m still relatively new to the Persona games, and I was waiting for what most of people were waiting for, but learning this heartbreaking news, I’ll use that money to support companies/indie developers who don’t treat women as second class citizens.
I don’t think they are? Like I love femc and im super dissapointed she wasn’t inculded but she is more than just a pallet swap of the male protaginist, the amount of stuff they would have to do would proboly be pretty pricy sadly
I’m in the minority but I honestly dont care that much. This is a remake of a remake game and that’s why I plan to buy it only when it’s on heavy discount.
What I dont get is all the people talking about misogyny. Is this solely because p4 & p5 didn’t have female options either? I like the ability to play as a woman but I’m also not going to not buy a game if that option isn’t there.
Also people seem to forget that the p3p female path had some pretty ‘interesting choices’ as well. You could date Ken and Pharos the creepy kid also developed a crush on you. Maiko’s father seemed to be interested as well, much like your teacher who was interested in you in the male path.
You didn’t get punished for pursuing a ‘male harem’ either. Plus you could heavily pester Shinjiro into taking you up to his room kind of stepping past his first no as well as convince Theodore to take off his gloves and take it to the next level.
How do these things weigh up against the male path and it’s weird choices? I honestly just dont consider something to be a true original women story if the only thing you did is tell the same tale as thr male side, but just swapped the genders.
And that’s why I still haven’t bought it, and don’t really plan to. Treat me like an afterthought that’s “too expensive and time consuming,” I’ll do the same for your game
Honestly this turns me off not just P3R but Persona as a whole. That series would be absolutely perfect for me if it had female protagonist options but as it stands now its target audience is damn clear.
Atlus trying to have their cake and eat it too. You don’t get to entice an entire generation of female gamers and then proceed to spend more than a decade completely shunning them.
I’m a massive persona series fan, but the series absolutely has a problem with misogyny much bigger than excluding an MC.
But there is an upside to excluding FeMC, and it’s that we didn’t have to see Atlus decide if the dialog options for grooming Ken would stay in 🤢
I really can’t articulate just how much faith I lost in ATLUS as a label with the P3R debacle.
Granted I was already pretty huffy about Persona games, for all the usual reasons (the playerbase is toxic, you can’t be a woman, you can’t be gay, but you can date your teacher and go behind the backs of every woman you know and form a harem; to barely scratch the surface of reasons). But I still **wanted** to like them, I still had faith that the right feedback carefully heeded could result in a Persona game I could love unconditionally.
P3R dropped and it’s like a spell was broken.
I no longer have this pain in my heart from *wanting* to love a series of games that hated me in return.
I still have my PSP so I’ll date Akihiko on there. 🥲
It’s why I don’t play Japanese games much. If you feel like you don’t need to have female protagonists, I feel like I don’t need to play your games.
That’s fine. As long as he knows he’s alienating potential players. I certainly will not be buying it.
I love being able to just skip out on this remake because it holds zero interest for me without femc, but at the same time I hate that it doesn’t matter to them. They’ll ✨apologize✨ when asked for the 100th time in an interview, but at the end of the day they don’t care because the game was still successful.
Whatever, I just really wish someone else would make a super polished AAA turn-based RPG dungeon crawler with a Pokémon-ish battle system (gotta catch ‘em all) with life sim elements and a huge cast of characters that wasn’t consistently this awful about women.
They’re just always gonna be like this.
They should make a persona catering towards women as the main audience to make up for it!
Atlus hasn’t cared about their female audience for years now. Not just in persona, but shin megami tensei as a whole and their other new IP that is coming out and only has a male avatar.
You make games with mute protagonists that are meant to be self-inserts. What is the huge additional cost out of adding a female avatar too? Fire Emblem has been doing this for forever now.
The Caligula Effect is a jrpg that launched having only a mute male avatar, but added a female avatar when it was rereleased, then went ahead and had a female avatar again for the second game. Clearly the addition was worth it.
It doesn’t make much sense in terms of profits, either. Female avatars tend to sell more merch and be more popular than the male ones, especially when done well. (In Granblue whenever they announce character merch, the female avatar always sells out, alongside the popular male characters girls like, but the male avatar ends up being the only character that doesn’t run out of stock bc no one cares.)
And then there are other jrpg/jrpg-inspired games like Symphony of War or Sword of Convallaria that are lower budget, and it hasn’t stopped them from considering the ”huge additional cost” of having you play as a female character as an option.
There is no reasonable excuse for this.
“too expensive”. Within a couple weeks modders had a working femc mod, within a couple months it was in such great shape it was almost like it was official.
I’m at the point where if the game doesn’t include a FEMC option, then I don’t buy them. If it’s not a game set in a time period where it makes sense to have a male only role like Yakuza/Mafia etc then I don’t see why they can’t add FEMC’s in 2024. Also, P3R is a remake of a ‘remake’ of a ‘remake’ of a ‘remake’. Why make a fourth version of the same game that isn’t definitive. P3R doesn’t add any substance. I could play P3P for the plot, party control & as a FEMC. In this economy, I’m being wise with my money. Also, Atlus never finds adding female protagonist worth it as this isn’t the 1st time they’ve said. P4 & P5 had female protagonist concept arts that clearly didn’t find worth it. If my gender isn’t worth adding, then their games aren’t worth paying for.
Persona could be such a good franchise under game directors/producers that aren’t sexist or queerphobic.
I like playing male characters. I don’t like misogyny. So even though I wouldn’t have an issue playing as the protagonist, I now have an issue with the studio and won’t be buying reloaded. How unfortunate.
I honestly thought she was going to be in the “complete” release like how they released golden for 4 and royal for 5.
Such an easy way to get people to double dip on the same game.
once you play P3P and realise how much care was put into the writing of the FemPC, actually making her a real character and not just a blank slate, it really is almost impossible to come back from. P4 is bearable, mostly, but P5? good god, what a nothing burger of a main character!
edit: this makes me even more sad about how maligned Soul Hackers 2 is. Ringo is a JOY of a main character. the writing and voice acting made me laugh multiple times.
edit 2: anybody else remember when aBusisoft said that a female player character in Assassin’s Creed would be too expensive to draw and animate? yeaaaaaaaaaaah. (that was in 2014 btw)
The idea of exploring myths, culture and folklore from all over the world is so fantastic. So is the roleplaying part of playing day by day, making choices, building relationships and the battle system. But of course things can’t be perfect and they had to choose to be the worst to a big part of the audience that, otherwise, could be huge fans. They come with apologies, but they don’t give a shit.
https://preview.redd.it/gup7rq95tnid1.jpeg?width=1602&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fbd20a454719820a4f8f1a9485392be5044fa409
When leakers said theres no traces of FeMC during the development I just knew its never going to happen. Theres so much work to be done with her that if she wasn’t planned to be added right from the start, theres zero chance of her being in a DLC. I just hope Atlus will consider making dual protagonists with minimal changes to the story for future games since they’re clearly not interested in putting in more effort to do 2 unique protagonists, though I don’t see that happening anytime soon. I love JRPGs but its really suck to see female protagonists being treated as an afterthought all the time in this genre. 🙁
Buy software from diverse teams with diverse leadership.
Bro developers can and will only ever build bro software.
Its absolutely laughable how a billion dollar company was not able to do what a couple of modders are now starting to accomplish in a matter of months. Freaking wild, I tell you.
I know it’s not the same and doesn’t change Atlus’ neglect of female protagonists, but there is a fan made mod in the works to include the FeMC into reload. Here’s an example of a showcase
https://youtu.be/fApdZ9H0ZZ0?si=EOjvGVf5NJ66uftm
Actually what this proves is that if a bunch of fans can add FeMC themselves, then Atlus COULD do it, they just won’t.
I don’t like blanket statements, but it’s almost impossible to find media that is anime/anime adjacent that doesn’t carry some deep-seeded misogyny.
P3P is one of my favourite games, surely one of my favourite jrpg ever, but this have assured that I’m not going to buy any Atlus game in the future. A customer is lost, it may be seen as petty or as nothing for these devs, but I vote with my wallet. Is not just one single game sold that they loose, but future releases too. But since Kotone is too work and resource for them, their games are too many money for me to buy.
Persona 3 was announced when I had just sold my PSP, so I was already miffed. When I heard they made a remake, I was hyped. Always liked the concept and its apparent connection to the Shin Megami Tensei series (maybe I misremember that bit) and was so incredibly disappointed they take out the one thing people were actively hyped for it… At least in my circles. I also found it very weird, one of the most expensive and time intensive design aspects would be writing the character, but that was already all there. Sure, design and integration cost too, but they already had half the work laying in front of them, so it just seemed… Lazy kind of. And well, sexist.
What if they pull a Pokémon and make an updated rerelease with the FeMC exclusively?
I’m still relatively new to the Persona games, and I was waiting for what most of people were waiting for, but learning this heartbreaking news, I’ll use that money to support companies/indie developers who don’t treat women as second class citizens.
Imagine the development team of this game 😩 ☢️
They ported P3P to Steam and it’s like a third of the cost so I’m not sure why Reload exists anyway
Persona is a weird game.
I don’t think they are? Like I love femc and im super dissapointed she wasn’t inculded but she is more than just a pallet swap of the male protaginist, the amount of stuff they would have to do would proboly be pretty pricy sadly
I’m in the minority but I honestly dont care that much. This is a remake of a remake game and that’s why I plan to buy it only when it’s on heavy discount.
What I dont get is all the people talking about misogyny. Is this solely because p4 & p5 didn’t have female options either? I like the ability to play as a woman but I’m also not going to not buy a game if that option isn’t there.
Also people seem to forget that the p3p female path had some pretty ‘interesting choices’ as well. You could date Ken and Pharos the creepy kid also developed a crush on you. Maiko’s father seemed to be interested as well, much like your teacher who was interested in you in the male path.
You didn’t get punished for pursuing a ‘male harem’ either. Plus you could heavily pester Shinjiro into taking you up to his room kind of stepping past his first no as well as convince Theodore to take off his gloves and take it to the next level.
How do these things weigh up against the male path and it’s weird choices? I honestly just dont consider something to be a true original women story if the only thing you did is tell the same tale as thr male side, but just swapped the genders.