Let’s Examine Persona – Part 2

The second half of my “Let’s Examine Persona” series is ready! You can watch it below!

Yesterday, I said that I’d make a blog post about Osana today. However, I feel like there’s something more important that I need to discuss. I’ll talk about Osana tomorrow. Here’s what I want to talk about today…

Unfortunately, my first “Let’s Examine Persona” video wasn’t received as well as I hoped it would be. A lot of people commented that it seemed like the entire focus of the video was about stealing from Persona.

In most cases, Persona 5 simply:

1. Provided me with good reference footage of something I was already planning.
2. Reminded me of things that I had already considered in the past.
3. Gave me an excuse to talk about something that I’d always wanted to talk about, but never had a reason to mention in any of my previous videos.

Just take a look at the things that were mentioned in the Part 2 video…

• Low-Detail Students – I pitched this idea last year.
• Morning Conversations – Gave me an excuse to talk about one of Yandere Sim’s potential game design flaws, and one potential solution.
• 2D Backgrounds – A clever way to have story cut-scenes without modelling environments. (Persona wasn’t the first to do this, either.)
• Headphones – Seeing students wearing headphones in Persona gave me inspiration for students that couldn’t be distracted by noises. This is not an actual game mechanic in Persona, but is a game mechanic in another stealth game.
• Book Bags – Something I’ve considered for over a year, but never had a reason to mention.
• School Store – Something I’ve considered for over a year, but never had a reason to mention.
• Culture Festival – Something I’ve considered for over three years, but never had a reason to mention.
• Student Stalkers – Something I’ve discussed with fans for years, but never mentioned in a video.
• Streets and Stores – I pitched this idea months ago.
• Umbrella Technology – Obviously, this bit was a joke.

In other words, this was a “Persona-themed” video where I discussed a bunch of concepts that Persona reminded me of, or provided reference footage of things I wanted to do in the future. This wasn’t a video about stealing features that Persona invented.

Now, let’s examine the previous video:

• Chatter Effects – The idea was pitched by Furipasart last year. It was a good idea, but I forgot about it until I saw something similar in Persona 5.
• Student Reactions – An original concept from Persona 5 that might benefit Yandere Simulator.
• Memorial Services – An aspect of real life that would be an appropriate addition to Yandere Simulator.
• Better Transition Screen – “My screen is boring, Persona 5’s screen is exciting, I should also try to be more exciting” is not an idea I should have to defend.
  
• School Props – “My corridors are empty, Persona 5’s corridors are not empty, I should try to decorate my corridors” is not an idea I should have to defend.
• Third Eye – “Yandere Vision lacks polish, Persona 5’s equivalent has a lot of polish, I should also try to have a lot of polish” is not an idea I should have to defend.
• Uniform Variety – Something I’ve wanted for over three years, but never had a reason to mention.
• Opening Animation – Something I’ve discussed with fans for years, but never mentioned in a video.
• Student Comments – An original concept from Persona 5 that might benefit Yandere Simulator.
• Art Style – I never said that I wanted to directly copy the Persona art style, I said that I was considering something similar. The reason why I’ve taken an interest in the Persona art style is because it’s very difficult to find an anime art style that translates well into 3D models. Persona 5 has proven that its art style works in 3D, which is why I feel confident that a similar art style would work out for me.

Most of the things I discussed in my previous video were features that I was already considering, or aspects of Yandere Simulator that currently lack polish. Only two of the things I discussed in my previous video were actually original concepts from Persona 5 that I think would be very beneficial if directly transplanted into Yandere Sim.

Obviously, I’m aware that what makes a game special is how unique it is, and that if a game copies too many elements from other games, it’s no longer unique, and thus it’s no longer special. I know that it would be stupid to take another game and start copying all of its features until I’ve made a replica of it. However, if you look at the list of everything that I discussed in this video and the previous video, you’ll see that there were extremely few times when I actually discussed the idea of taking any original concepts from Persona 5.

Considering all of the above information, I feel like the reaction to my previous video was completely unjustified, and so I simply had to take the time to write a blog post defending these two videos.

Tomorrow, I’ll write and post the Osana-related blog post that I said I’d post today.

Thank you for following the development of Yandere Simulator.