Okay, so there's this seventeen year old kid, going to live with his Uncle for a year because his mom and dad will be unavailable to take care of you. So you're being sent to his town, way out in the boonies on that one Japanese planet I can't remember the name of. And on the ride there, you fall asleep and wind up in a blue limo with blue velvet upholstery, a mini bar, and a guy with THE BIGGEST NOSE. I mean, Wow, that guy has a huge nose. And he wants you to sign a contract that has only one line.

'I, the undersigned, do take responsibility for all my actions.'

Which seems fairly harmless, right? So you meet your six year old cousin, your uncle, get oriented, watch some TV, go to sleep, see a guy crash his bike, go to school, make your homeroom teacher's short list of troublemakers, Meet a cute girl who kicks someone in the face five minutes after you meet her, and stumble across your uncle at a crime scene because he's a detective, and the rookie runs past you to hurl in the bushes. Obviously that leaves you and your cousin are alone for dinner, and then you discover the hidden Midnight Channel that only appears on rainy nights when the TV is off and stick your hand inside the screen and nearly get sucked in!

Are you going to talk to anyone about this, or should we maybe skip ahead to the second murder and manifesting your True Self to fight monsters inside the television? And if there is someone for teenagers to talk to about investigating obviously supernatural murders in small towns, who is a good candidate for this?

(Yes, this is the opening plot of Persona 4. I'm just curious as to how shifting it over would effect the protagonists choice of how to deal with events, and how to deal with the titular Personae. And for bonus points, what the heck Gryph thinks of this opening.)

"I'm hugely confused, Ted."
- Father Dougal McGuire

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

JRPG called Persona 4. Came out on the Playstation 2 well after it was fashionable to do so. Giant Bomb played through the whole thing on camera a while back - it's worth watching if you ever have a spare 100 hours (the game is very long).

I've watched the whole thing but haven't played it (I don't own a PS2 or a Vita, on which they released a special edition) and it is a very good story, full of really well-realised characters, a corker of a plot and some really quite excellent voice acting. The cast would fit pretty well into an Eyrie story, I reckon, though of course that thing kind of relies heavily on the author knowing anything about the source material.

I think they made a TV show out of it at some point - if you can find it, it'd be absolutely worth a watch.

>"I'm hugely confused, Ted."
> - Father Dougal McGuire
>
>--G.

What the Ferret said-it's a game that came out very late in the PS2's life cycle, but managed to find a significant following regardless. It's a member of the Shin Megami Tensei series, famous for their impressive levels of difficulty, random dungeons, and the importance of status effects and buffs in combat. There are monsters visible as random encounters on the map-and you can either take them unawares, or be ambushed by them.

But that's only half the game-maybe less. Because most of Persona 4 is a visual novel, happens in the real world, and consists of meeting, befriending, and helping people who correspond to the Major Arcana of the tarot, so that you can summon more and more powerful creatures from the collective unconsciousness to fight for you. The dedicated may wind up with such notables as Lucifer, Amaterasu, Avalokiteśvara in her incarnation as Kanzeon, and the most famous of Ainu deities-the Bear. Fear the bear! But the game shouldn't have to bribe you with mystical power to pursue these people's stories. They are not Death, Justice and the Lovers-they are Hisano, Nanako, and Rise.

There is also a minor sequel, Persona 4 Arena, which again combines the Visual Novel with another game type-a fighting game. That expands on the Persona meta-plot and brings in a number of popular characters from the preceding game Persona 3. It also bring back Margret and her total bullshit abilities-seriously, 9999 damage in a game that only has 999 as the maximum health?

Anyways, that's a bit of a long winded digression on what the game is, when the real question here is 'what kind of support exists for people in these situations in UF?' Is there a hotline? An IPO team that might be conceivably sent to investigate the mysterious murders?

Sounds like a case for the BPRD.

Well yeah, but I thought they were more a Zeta Cygni thing and who is going to call them in when it's just at the 'unsolved murder' stage of things? Not that it lasts more than a day or two from the Protagonist's standpoint mind you. Once you've wound up inside a television at the mall...well things are definitely odd.

>Well yeah, but I thought they were more a Zeta Cygni thing and who is
>going to call them in when it's just at the 'unsolved murder' stage of
>things?

Well, by that same token, who's going to call in anyone in the "special investigations" line when all it looks to be is an unsolved murder?

At some point, once the paranormality of the situation had become evident to "regular" law enforcement, such a case would, depending on where it was happening, either be looked into by the BPRD (if in IPO territory) or the operatives of the Federation Bureau of Investigation tasked with "Classification Unknown" cases.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Or, I suppose, wherever the Ghostbusters end up...

>Or, I suppose, wherever the Ghostbusters end up...

Yeah, or possibly a team from Tesladyne, or the nearest itinerant Jedi Knight or Ignatine Grammaton Cleric, or actually, it sounds much like the kind of situation into which the Doctor and/or Professor Tyler habitually blunder into without really meaning to... lot of possibilities.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>>Or, I suppose, wherever the Ghostbusters end up...
>
>Yeah, or possibly a team from Tesladyne, or the nearest itinerant Jedi
>Knight or Ignatine Grammaton Cleric, or actually, it sounds much like
>the kind of situation into which the Doctor and/or Professor Tyler
>habitually blunder into without really meaning to... lot of
>possibilities.

I'm suddenly picturing a situation where (for example) a kid delivering takeout food comes across a weird glowing in an alley... and EVERYBODY suddenly shows up.

(Including, of course, some guy selling sausages inna bun).

Or the local variant, something wriggling on a stick.

Aya is known to deliver anywhere and everywhere!

But seriously, how do they find you when you're being chased by the dude who beats up entire biker gangs for disturbing his momma's beauty rest?

I dunno man, but if you ever find out...

>or the operatives of the Federation Bureau of Investigation
>tasked with "Classification Unknown" cases.

I see what you did there.

Well, Elizabeth is the playable character, not Margaret, and to be fair, her Megadolaon is an instant-death attack anyway (and every character gets one), so it doesn't actually matter if she does 999, 9999, or googol damage; the numbers are part of the eye candy you get for connecting with an attack that's -that- difficult to land.

Regardless, I adore the Persona series, and while I doubt they will be included in UF because Gryphon doesn't play the games, they -would- fit very well. Put them, say, a little under what the My-HiME characters can do raw power-wise. Almost every Persona 3 and 4 character would make a fantastic Duelist, save the ones that use guns, and Aigis and Labrys would fit better in UF than they do in their own games.

(I have had an Arisato Minako wallpaper up on my computer for months now. And I hadn't even thought of Persona characters in UF before. I'm actually rather disappointed in myself.)

--------

this world created by the
hands of the gods
everything is false
everything is a LIE
the final days have come
now
let everything be destroyed

--mu

There is an anime out of Persona 4 proper.

Just sayin'.

-----

"V, did you do something foolish?"

"Yes, and it was glorious."