Ahead of a livestream being hosted by Atlus [later tonight here, as of writing this] that aims to explain a Blu-Ray/CD release of the Persona Super Live 2022 concert as well as additional 'exciting' stuff, a video in the comments section of a post by news aggregate Persona Central would blow things up far beyond the realm of Persona, putting the spotlight on SEGA itself.
Twitter user AVtoGAMEnoYAMI would upload two videos containing clips of three in-progress SEGA/Atlus titles supposedly taken from an internal conference back in 2021, and their contents have taken quite a few folks (myself included) completely by surprise. Only time will tell, of course, just how many of these projects are actually real. Going in order, we have...
1.) Persona 3 Remake?
The first video shows Yukari Takeba with one of her bows shooting garu-laced bows at a shadow. Using entirely new animations and more dynamic camera angles, this whole thing swept me off my feet. Additionally, there's music that I don't quite recognize from anywhere. It's instrumentation, though, sounds like something you'd expect from one of the game's later spinoffs. All things considered, I think this looks REALLY good, but it's validity is super questionable.
For those of you totally out of the loop, many have been questioning if Atlus intends to remake any of the older titles, with there being a split between Persona 1 and Persona 3. Not helping this was a Japanese-exclusive poll they held some time ago, where the top three choices were Persona 3, Persona 2, and Persona 1. The latter two were literally at each other's necks, too, only being off by 5 or so points.
Fueling the desire for 3 in particular, Atlus put out a port of Persona 3: Portable earlier this year [2023] that wound up being considered a less-than-desirable way to play the game for returning players, with a myriad of technical issues and bad AI upscaling. Even more than that, though, many people were left questioning why Atlus chose to port the PSP title over instead of just monkeying around with the PlayStation 2 expansion, Persona 3: FES.
Likely licensing issues with the Renderware engine, which only the console releases used.
Some time ago, a fake leak was spread around by an Atlus US YouTube channel with a blanked-out video that was quickly put on private titled "Persona 3: Nightfall". Despite exciting many people, a critical few would quickly find the channel had only been made months before putting out the fake video. It was also found they had intended to do a Persona 1 remake listing as well.
To that end, the skepticism surrounding this video is totally founded. For one, this looks like some sort of vertical slice either intended to only be seen internally by investors and/or by Pachinko game players in Japanese arcades. This doesn't exactly look like footage from an actual videogame. Moreover, the Yukari model looks quite similar to the Persona 3: Dancing Moon Night one, skin gradients, jagged edges, outlined eyes and all.
For comparison:
Not too long after the videos were posted, user MbKKssTBhz5 spotted a domain with a similar abbreviation to one that would eventually become the website for Persona 5: Royal, which reads "P5R.JP". This one's titled "P3RE.JP".
Out of everything seen here, this is both the thing I want the most, but also heavily suspect is likely fake.
2. Sonic Frontiers: Beta Footage
Too lazy to properly edit, so just put up with everything here.
If you thought the Persona 3 bit was fake and were ready to write off the whole thing, then it was this segment that grabbed EVERYONE by the balls and has led a few to believe in this video's legitimacy. This, in my eyes, is 100% real.
In this jam-packed section, we see...
- An early version of Kronos/Ouranos Island without all the rails and other props, as well as an odd figure looming off in the background. Many have assumed this to be a spaceship that was taken out of the game at some point, leading to the infamously vacant "water city" bit that goes completely unacknowledged in the final game.
- An early version of Sonic's "Grand Slam", where the spin-dash that flies into the enemy has no special aura applied.
- An early version of the Caterpillar miniboss, with a few attacks that are either heavily altered or just not present in the final game. Its design is also similar to the original concept art:
- An early version of Giganto that takes place in Supreme's boss arena and emits smoke, just like described in one of the first "Sonic Rangers" 4Chan leaks. At some point, he brings down Giganto with a beam attached to the inside of its mouth. Is this Enerbeam?
It's also just worth noting how much better the game looks in general. Yeah, the video's in super low-quality, but Super Sonic looks more golden and the lighting just looks better overall. This was likely taken on whatever high-end PC development stuff they were working with before downgrading bits and pieces to deliver a consistent experience across all consoles (including Switch).
In the midst of the subsequent complaints about the hybrid console's lesser architecture (at least in comparison to the Xbox Series X and PS5), something I haven't seen anyone point out was that SEGA likely hid this on purpose. I'm simply speculating here, but we all know about how certain companies will present a game at e3 or something and said game looks REALLY good, only to come out looking half-baked by comparison when the game releases, right? If there were trailers that presented this stuff, there's no doubt in my mind that there could actually be a case for false marketing here, and given the company's less-than-reputable resume when it comes to being men of their words, I actually think this was a good move.
...and then last, but absolutely FAR from least.
3.) New Jet Set Radio?
The actual footage from the video isn't anything too notable, just showing us an older Beat doing his Dreamcast moves in a pretty stationary background. Gotta say, though, I absolutely love these designs and am totally on-board with the time skip being presented here.
This one has me split. On one hand, this does make sense, following rumors of SEGA greenlighting full-on revitalizations of JSR and supposedly Crazy Taxi in what is being titled the 'Super Game Initiative'. Shortly after Bloomberg outed the news, Executive VP Shuji Utsumi has confirmed this to be a thing that will include several AAA titles that are currently in development as we speak. That, and there is continued interest in this series if absolutely nothing else. On the other hand, there's always that chance that both the Yukari bit and this could just be fake videos made to pull on people's legs.
I'm going to remain skeptical in regards to this one.
I would highly recommend you all to remain skeptical here. It's possible that this could be either proven real or fake in a few hours as of writing this. Stay tuned for further news or whatever regarding this insane development.
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