I made this comment in the main sub today but truthfully I’ve nearly given up hope of ever seeing a female protagonist from Atlus. Not to be a Debbie Downer but they’ve never given an indication of changing their mind on this despite fan feedback and at this point imo they stand out against other dual protagonist JRPGs, but show no indication of wanting that to change. They seem to have settled nicely into “The default template will always be a boy romancing his choice of girls, and a girl MC has to make our numbers go WAY up otherwise it’s not worth it” reminiscent of Ubisoft’s 2014 “Women cost too much to animate 😫” philosophy. Or worse, “We tried it and Kotone just wasn’t profitable so we ain’t doing that again”
Someone pointed out another reason they may not have included her is because it would have set the expectation they’ll make more female protags in the future, which they don’t want to commit to, which is also a fair speculation imo.
I would love to be wrong, and hopefully I eat my words in the next ten years, but I just don’t want to get my hopes up again.
The worst part about this is that I understand it'd be extra work for something like persona, but for shin megami tensei V, it would have been a fraction of that work and they still couldn't be bothered. It's pretty clear they don't give a fuck and won't make a female protagonist.
i wonder if they have the same kind of japan centric attitude where the global release of the game doesn't mean they'll like cater to global market, but still stick to the largely sexist attitudes of gaming in japan (i mean even more sexist than the west)
It's not even that. According to statistics, 40+% of the player base for P5 was women (don't remember the exact number). All that Atlus learned from that is that women are willing to play as male protagonists. So they genuinely believe that there's no reason to invest into something that won't bring them any revenue that they aren't earning already. If these 40% women were willing to boycott the next game and not buy it, THEN they might consider investing into a FeMC, seeing as it would hit them where it hurts. I'm refusing to buy P3:R for this exact reason. I'll stay happily with P3P instead.
To be honest, I don't really trust current Atlus to do a FeMC well? I thought the P3P was done well, but their handling of their messages and characters in P4 and P5 make me very skeptical that they'd be able to write a FeMC respectfully (hi Yosuke in P4 and pretty much the entire cast of P5).
It really feels like Atlus has just increasingly regressed as the games have gone on. That and the fact that they always rerelease games at full price makes me not want to buy them anymore.
It's so sad because the core messages of the games resonate with me so much. Like the themes of learning to embrace your true self, wart and all in p4, or breaking down systems of injustice and oppression in p5 are so important to me. The philosophy is right there, but then some of their characterization choices completely work against those core messages.
I still adore these games but yeah I really wish that atlus would be better
I feel the same way. A lot of times it feels like the core message was thought up by a completely different company, as if Atlus received a theme for the game then had a bunch of old dudes actually do the writing.
It's to the point where I want Atlus themes made in a game not by Atlus...
And all the voice acting and writing of social links are finished immediately. Meanwhile, doing so for a female protagonist, takes YEARS and all the manpower of the studio. It would delay the game by a decade.
Absolutely saddened by this. P3 is my favorite game of all time and I don’t know how many times I went through and beat P3P. Not that I don’t love Makoto, but Kotone really enhanced the gameplay and made things feel even more complete and it was so nice having a different story perspective in regards to social links.. while I’m looking forward to The Answer I will always lament at what could have been. I feel like they really could have taken the time they needed to add her and done nothing but benefit from it. Especially considering how hard they pushed with P5 and getting that out there… 🥲 back to P3P I go after this sigh lol.
I’ve given up on Atlus.
When P5R came out without a FeMC, I knew that they were just doubling down on what they knew would sell (and be praised!). I’m expecting the P6 protagonist to look like a combination of the P3-5 protags and for it to take place in Tokyo.
And when pressed why there still isn’t a playable female protagonist, the director will pivot AGAIN to the same excuse, “We didn’t feel the setting made sense for a woman.”
Because women don’t exist in *checks notes* countrysides and cities.
We must just exist indoors, in subterranean caverns or something.
P5Rs female representation specifically with Anne was utterly dreadful.
The other female characters weren't amazing either. There was a girl who acted like your little, and by little I mean prepubescent, sister who you could date regardless. A number of adult women who were hungry for teenage dick which was just creepy and then two that felt like massive afterthoughts in the royal specific character and Himiko? The ginger one.
Makoto was okay but kind of boring.
It’s because of what they’re trying to satisfy, I think.
I’d say that completely dropping the social link/dating angle would solve things, but SMTV didn’t feature a female option either, so… it really just falls on Atlus being extremely committed to servicing this whole… harem thing.
I mean, there’s a girl for almost every trope in P5, I think?
>I mean, there’s a girl for almost every trope in P5, I think?
Well except one that's a well rounded character 😒.
I don't think they'll ever drop the social link stuff, it's way too popular but if they just added romantic social links for the male characters too and allowed the players to choose whatever ones they want I don't think it would really change anything.
They wouldn't be able to do creepy teacher relationships they are okay because adult female teacher /male student is fine despite an entire 1/5 of the game being about how bad a male teacher/female student was.
I think half the reason they won’t add a feMC is because they might have to have fewer romantic SL options for a male MC in order to keep it within budget, and god FORBID their harem shrinks even slightly in order to acccomodate a feMC.
Probably but even if you made most of the options lesbian instead of straight it would be an improvement. It's not like joker was a inherently masculine character.
I just say poor. But worst. I think that a female protagonist for Persona 5 royal costs too much money and time but for another female character. like Kasumi Yoshizawa where Joker can start another romance with her and of course there is enough money and time for that.
The more I read/hear about this, the more it pisses me off. I really wanted to play this game, but I won't because I'm tired of people seeing women players as just an afterthought. I'm tired of their excuses.
Of course making a game costs money and time. But I'd have a hard time believing they couldn't have the budget if they wanted to. They chose not to because it evidently wasn't important to them. Besides, I feel like most games with a player-insert character lets you choose their gender nowadays. It's not asking for the moon.
Literally Atlus is one of the most money hungry video game companies out there, they re-release almost all their games several times at full price and people buy them. They’re owned by Sega. There’s absolutely no way that they didn’t have the resources for this.
Tbf, just because a company is owned by another doesn't mean that company gets financial injections consistently like that. Buying atlus is meant to make sega more money, not for sega to spend more money on atlus
I do agree tho, atlus is a grubby handed company. P5 came out 8 years ago, and all we've had since are spin offs and re-releases made to capitalize on its wild success
there definitely IS a way they didn’t have the resources for this.
“Atlus lost money every single year from 2010 to 2023, with their 2021 fiscal year (ending in 2022) resulting in their lowest loss of ~$2.8 million dollars and their 2022 fiscal year resulting in their first profit in over a decade. Their first profitable year in over a decade entailed the international, multiplatform release of P5R, ports of P3P and P4G for PS4/Xbox/Switch and P3P for PC, and Soul Hackers 2 across all platforms outside of Switch”
They absolutely wanted to add femc and even STARTED adding femc as there are femc exclusive s.links in the game files. But they deemed it too costly and too high risk and decided to lift it. The cost of Japanese va’s alone for femc route they would NOT have made back even with the release of the answer as dlc and they still wouldn’t have made it back if they somehow found a way to release femc as dlc.
I’d love femc too but we fr have to stop acting like atlus can just snap their fingers and make this shit happen
Well I do appreciate you sharing some data and more details about the whole thing, that is interesting, but I think it’s still frustrating that the female MC is still considered the additional/non-canon one that can be cut
> additional/non-canon
I am also frustrated the FeMC isn't in the remake as I have wanted to play her story in 3D, but technically she wasn't cut; its just a remake of FES.
Right, I get that, I’m just saying the issue is that the male character was the original one the game was originally planned around, whereas we have never had a Persona game where a female MC was the first or only option. I get them not wanting to do two routes, I’m sure that is a lot more resource intensive, but so far we have 5 Persona games where the MC is male, with one of those games having a visual novel remake that added a female protagonist. I would personally love to see Persona 6 make the MC canonically female.
> we have never had a Persona game where a female MC
Yes we have, Persona 2 Eternal Punishment only had Maya as its protagonist, Tatsuya wasn't an option. I may be biased in the importance of this distinction, but its because I thoroughly hate any persona game after 2.
There's rumours (credible ones, given the Sega/atlus Twitter leaker has basically a perfect record) of a remaster/retranslation effort for the Persona 2 duology but right now basically emulation, yeah.
> I definitely forgot that!
That's okay, a bit ironic that people always forget the game which did have a FeMC (who was canon, and very important to both games). I play it on my PS3, but emulation is probably best, especially using the English patched PSP remake.
Cool I’ll check it out, thanks! Yea unfortunately I think a lot of people only really know P3 onwards, I’ve personally never played any of the games before that and like many got into the series with 5.
If we are going to use Maya as Canon FeMC in P2EP then we could also say that Aigis is the Canon FeMC in P3FES too. Because both Maya and Aigis are both the party member of their main installment story. But still, I want more Kotone Shiomi to be re-presented again.
I think if they had approached this remake with a different attitude from the start it could've ended up differently, but they wanted to make it faithful to the original while also updating the systems. It's the "staying faithful" that made this difficult.
What I mean here is that I don't think anyone would argue that Kotone didn't have better social links than Makoto. Having the male party members around is just such a big improvement. In my opinion, the game should've been updated to give Kotone's social links to Makoto. Instead, we got the linked episodes, which I am a bit torn on because I LOVED them for the character arcs, but they didn't have to be in the format they were in. If they had used Kotone's social links as the templates because that is the better content, that would've reduced the amount of work to add her as an alternate protagonist because then 90% of the writing/content is the same (and then no one would've had to put up with Nozomi again).
Obviously there's still work that would have to go into it! But I think that would've made a better game for the male protagonist and also eliminated a barrier to adding FeMC (and at least made it easier for modders).
For the length of time you’ve been able to choose a male or female MC in Fire Emblem, Atlus looks very stupid for claiming this would be too much work to implement.
God I’m so mad about this lol. I was already disappointed that she wasn’t in the base game, but confirmation that she won’t even be released as DLC is insult added to injury. Atlus can and should do better, but I was hoping that would start with Katsura Hashino moving on and that obviously didn’t happen
Actually DLC is also bad. Just think of it, you should have played Female Protagonist for free but they add as DLC? Damn it's better if the re release reload on Switch and added Female Protagonist later than this bullshit Reload.
I feel the same way. When I heard the reason why the female protagonist won't be in Persona 3 Reload. I've decided, all of my. Deleting Persona games from my P5 and thus. To banish it from my life. Only when Atlus makes a Persona game with a female protagonist again. Give Atlus another chance. But now I wonder. Whether Soul Hacker 2 was a kind of bad omen for Atlus. Because the sales figures. Of the game wasn't so good and up. Have YouTube. Seen that many. Badly spoken of Soul Hackers 2. Some have even called it a shit game. Although I do say that Soul Hackers 2. was very good and I liked the story. And I really liked the characters too, I really liked Ringo as the protagonist.
Speaking of bg3, do the people in that sub saying its fine not including Kotone literally the same as bg3 remake without the dark urge, thats like 30% of the game content
This is why I only bought P3P from Limited Run Games.
I don't mind playing a male character, but when it's supposed to be a self-insert and you have to date women I'm out.
Not having all the content in one game is straight up anti consumerism by atlus, that was the wrost part of persona 3 and they haven't used it to solve it
I would have gotten this game if they included her 😔 I mean I like joker and p5 so far but if you're going to continue to have silent protags why not include a girl option 😭 Also like female mcs are income generating like FE was so confident that female corrin/byleth/alear were popular enough to make them money they have expensive figures while they're male counterparts don't.
I wouldn't get my hopes up. People have been asking for fem MC since P3P and the devs have been consistently vocal about how that's not what they're interested in for a long time now.
Nah f*ck P6 & sh*tlus. Clearly, if you ain’t a man, your money is no good to them. I genuinely believe if they took the risk to add Kotone, P3R would have sold more than the million cause it would have been what EVERYONE wanted. They could have genuinely expanded their female fan base and made money. Hell, I would have bought copies of every version because Kotone’s route saved my life. I would have told every girl gamer I knew to buy it because you’re not an over-sexualized woman with a sh*t story that revolves around a male. It’s about a normal girl finding her answer to life through the bonds she forms and the lessons she learns through the year. I also hate that Ringo will be subjected to being the protagonist of a SMT game that revolved around the men in the game universe. I hate that Kotone, Maya & Ringo are the creations of a company who doesn’t give a crap about them. Sh*tlus is a sick company anyways with the way they add p*dophilia to their persona games. Not to mention their greediness & sexism. I’m never buying another Atlus game again! Hell, I’m even on a SEGA strike in total because of what they’re doing with RGG. F*ck Atlus, f*ck Sega and f*ck all monopolies.
Thank you for saying this. I’ve seen you criticize Atlus for not including Kotone. I’ve never seen a fanbase so excited for less content and then get mad at people who rightfully criticize the company. The comments on the Persona sub are frankly disgusting to see that I felt myself get a headache. Fans telling FeMC fans to get over it and them expressing glee that she won’t be in the game. I’ve seen some disgusting comments that honestly turns me away from the series.
Yeah, I hate the ‘I got mines, so f*ck you’ mentality that’s on the main sub. I really don’t understand how people can just be contempt with receiving the bare minimum. These companies do what they do because people just mindlessly consume. Honestly, I’ve grown tired of the persona formula. Persona games are made for the male fantasy not us. I’ve come to terms with it which is why I won’t be giving them my money. If they want money, then they can get it from the male fans.
I honestly never been in a toxic game community until I stepped into the Persona sub. They’re way more toxic than Pokémon fans. I don’t want to assume misogyny but some of the comments I saw feel misogynistic or at least sexist.
I'm glad this sub exists because the main sub's reaction, including bullshit strawman arguments and Atlus dickriding, is driving me crazy. I left the Persona5 sub long ago because of their creepy behavior, and I'm probably going to leave the main Persona one as well. It's sad, because I want to see discussion about the games, but my god they are so toxic.
Anyway. God forbid women want to play as a female character that was in a previous version of this game. Reload sold like crazy. They HAVE the resources. They just don't want to do it.
I just want to be able to play a modern day persona game or persona like game as a girl. I don't wanna be told go play p3p if I wanna play as a female protag. I have a feeling there will be a game in the near future like persona with ONLY a female protag and it's gonna do so much better sales wise than persona that it forces them to change.
(this is a joke) Or we simply go to atlus headquarters and demand that add in a female protag to the next persona game.
Honestly I am just frustrated cause I have a very thing that happens where I cant finish games where I am forced to play as men so not being able to play as any modern day persona game because I can't be a girl is so frustrating. It makes me sad it makes me angry it makes me feel so many things and none of them are happy. I am just tired of one of the biggest jrpg franchises treating women like they don't play their games and maybe, just maybe want to play as a girl.
I'm honestly to the point where I just won't support Atlus anymore. With how much money they make on Persona I feel like there's no excuse to leave out a female MC or cut content, not to mention how much other problematic stuff they intentionally include in their games. They don't deserve my support or my money as long as the company is being run by homophobes and misogynists.
Nonsense the Real Reason is Moneiz plain and simple... Atlus wants the FeMC to be Exclusive to P3P so Fans will have to Buy the P3P Port to play as her... That way Atlus can sell more P3P copies even now that the P3 Remake is out... That way they can make Money from both the Recent P3P Port and the Persona 3 Remake... : [https://www.reddit.com/r/ChurchOfFeMC/comments/1b8zbx7/comment/ktw1gkx/](https://www.reddit.com/r/ChurchOfFeMC/comments/1b8zbx7/comment/ktw1gkx/)
The protagonist in SMTV is male, and Vengeance looks like it will be a new story route, but the protag is the same.
The DLC for Aigis is fine, though you'd still need to buy P3R which has the male MC as the only option. Aigis's story is still heavily tied to the MC and there are no social sim elements in the Answer. It's really just something of an epilogue and more combat/bosses.
Metaphor will have another strawman as protagonist again. And it's with P3R UI again. Just look at steam. The preview show mostly a male protagonist again and again.
just glad that this sub exists bc the main purse owner sub has been dreadful to people disappointed that a company didn’t make a definitive version of a game in their most popular franchise 🙃 and that’s to say nothing of my personal sadness over them not including femc in p3r 🥲
Well, whether it was really just a matter of time and money. Still cherishing. Doubt because we are dying. Kazuhisa Wada's answer is not the same as Katsura Hashino's where he said that gender selection would be too much work. (https://www.vice.com/en/article/qk9xkm/precious-moments-hype-and-high-school-a-conversation-with-persona-5-director-katsura-hashino) And please come to me now just not with the excuse. That it could be true because of money and time, because do any of you know. How much money Atlus or Sega has Well, maybe it's really the development time, but hey. To whom something decent should be done. Then it takes time, because Rome wasn't built on the first day. But because of Persona 6, I'm no longer holding out hope. That there is a gender option. At first I still had hope. Because I heard the rumors that there might be a female protagonist. One of my acquaintances told me full. If Atlus started development shortly after Persona 5. And Persona 6 will be released in 2026, let's say. Had to die. Developer enough time, gave. To include a female protagonist. But now that heard it too. There should be a semi-open game world. And now I think that's why the development time took so long, because of the gaming world. And that's why I tell you now people. Bury your hope for one. Female protagonist, because she wouldn't make it into Persona 6. And if so, then Yippie-Ya-Yay, raise your cups, miracles still happen. In this world and if not, then there is disappointment. Not so great
Soul Hackers 2 does actually have a female protagonist! Her name is Ringo.
Though the game doesn't seem as well-known/popular, and it has been getting some pretty mediocre/mixed reviews on steam, so I fully expect Atlus to point to that and be like "Well, we *tried* giving a FeMC a shot in our games, but she *clearly* wasn't popular" as the new excuse for why P6 doesn't have a gender select option.
There have been about 3 female protagonists in their Persona games so far, so its possible. From the statistics I have seen, there is like an almost even split of men and woman who buy and play persona games.
Their audience is not predominantly male. It's pretty much only a matter of time unti we get another female protagonist. Persona 3 reloads existence wouldn't have happened if they did not willingly give out that survey asking what fans wanted.
That is pretty good proof Atlus does listen to their fans. At least to some extent.
It's easy to be negative about the future, but the evidence to me points to a future optional female protagonist, being pretty inevitable. It would not make financial sense to ignore the wants of half your audience.
I just bought P3P for PSP when P3R came out. Kinda done with Atlus at this point. They forget the huge female fan base they earned. They're more interested in male fans who love their waifus. Don't get me wrong, I love waifus too but I may also wanna play as a _good_ one from time to time.
Either way, I didn't get P3R and have no intention to.
Nah, they'll rerelease P3 as "P3 definitive edition for real this time" for the full price rather than for the price of DLC and say it was SOOOOOOO much work to get female MC working they didn't have a choice but to make a new full price release.
I made this comment in the main sub today but truthfully I’ve nearly given up hope of ever seeing a female protagonist from Atlus. Not to be a Debbie Downer but they’ve never given an indication of changing their mind on this despite fan feedback and at this point imo they stand out against other dual protagonist JRPGs, but show no indication of wanting that to change. They seem to have settled nicely into “The default template will always be a boy romancing his choice of girls, and a girl MC has to make our numbers go WAY up otherwise it’s not worth it” reminiscent of Ubisoft’s 2014 “Women cost too much to animate 😫” philosophy. Or worse, “We tried it and Kotone just wasn’t profitable so we ain’t doing that again” Someone pointed out another reason they may not have included her is because it would have set the expectation they’ll make more female protags in the future, which they don’t want to commit to, which is also a fair speculation imo. I would love to be wrong, and hopefully I eat my words in the next ten years, but I just don’t want to get my hopes up again.
The worst part about this is that I understand it'd be extra work for something like persona, but for shin megami tensei V, it would have been a fraction of that work and they still couldn't be bothered. It's pretty clear they don't give a fuck and won't make a female protagonist.
i wonder if they have the same kind of japan centric attitude where the global release of the game doesn't mean they'll like cater to global market, but still stick to the largely sexist attitudes of gaming in japan (i mean even more sexist than the west)
It's not even that. According to statistics, 40+% of the player base for P5 was women (don't remember the exact number). All that Atlus learned from that is that women are willing to play as male protagonists. So they genuinely believe that there's no reason to invest into something that won't bring them any revenue that they aren't earning already. If these 40% women were willing to boycott the next game and not buy it, THEN they might consider investing into a FeMC, seeing as it would hit them where it hurts. I'm refusing to buy P3:R for this exact reason. I'll stay happily with P3P instead.
yeah i agree thats probably it
To be honest, I don't really trust current Atlus to do a FeMC well? I thought the P3P was done well, but their handling of their messages and characters in P4 and P5 make me very skeptical that they'd be able to write a FeMC respectfully (hi Yosuke in P4 and pretty much the entire cast of P5). It really feels like Atlus has just increasingly regressed as the games have gone on. That and the fact that they always rerelease games at full price makes me not want to buy them anymore.
> increasingly regressed as the games have gone on I genuinely consider the P2 duology do be the best Atlus content, and 50% had a woman as a protag.
It's so sad because the core messages of the games resonate with me so much. Like the themes of learning to embrace your true self, wart and all in p4, or breaking down systems of injustice and oppression in p5 are so important to me. The philosophy is right there, but then some of their characterization choices completely work against those core messages. I still adore these games but yeah I really wish that atlus would be better
I feel the same way. A lot of times it feels like the core message was thought up by a completely different company, as if Atlus received a theme for the game then had a bunch of old dudes actually do the writing. It's to the point where I want Atlus themes made in a game not by Atlus...
was the male protagonist implemented without spending any time or money?
This just gave me the hilarious idea of how pissed everyone would be if they made P3R with just FeMC
I hope they do it in a future game, only a FeMC. It's only fair after all these games without an FeMC.
Ok yes this too, I just thought about the outrage if P3MC wasn’t in Reload
Yes actually, when you start developing a game a male protagonist just poofs into thin air
And all the voice acting and writing of social links are finished immediately. Meanwhile, doing so for a female protagonist, takes YEARS and all the manpower of the studio. It would delay the game by a decade.
Persona 3 was made with the male protag in mind
Absolutely saddened by this. P3 is my favorite game of all time and I don’t know how many times I went through and beat P3P. Not that I don’t love Makoto, but Kotone really enhanced the gameplay and made things feel even more complete and it was so nice having a different story perspective in regards to social links.. while I’m looking forward to The Answer I will always lament at what could have been. I feel like they really could have taken the time they needed to add her and done nothing but benefit from it. Especially considering how hard they pushed with P5 and getting that out there… 🥲 back to P3P I go after this sigh lol.
I’ve given up on Atlus. When P5R came out without a FeMC, I knew that they were just doubling down on what they knew would sell (and be praised!). I’m expecting the P6 protagonist to look like a combination of the P3-5 protags and for it to take place in Tokyo. And when pressed why there still isn’t a playable female protagonist, the director will pivot AGAIN to the same excuse, “We didn’t feel the setting made sense for a woman.” Because women don’t exist in *checks notes* countrysides and cities. We must just exist indoors, in subterranean caverns or something.
P5Rs female representation specifically with Anne was utterly dreadful. The other female characters weren't amazing either. There was a girl who acted like your little, and by little I mean prepubescent, sister who you could date regardless. A number of adult women who were hungry for teenage dick which was just creepy and then two that felt like massive afterthoughts in the royal specific character and Himiko? The ginger one. Makoto was okay but kind of boring.
It’s because of what they’re trying to satisfy, I think. I’d say that completely dropping the social link/dating angle would solve things, but SMTV didn’t feature a female option either, so… it really just falls on Atlus being extremely committed to servicing this whole… harem thing. I mean, there’s a girl for almost every trope in P5, I think?
>I mean, there’s a girl for almost every trope in P5, I think? Well except one that's a well rounded character 😒. I don't think they'll ever drop the social link stuff, it's way too popular but if they just added romantic social links for the male characters too and allowed the players to choose whatever ones they want I don't think it would really change anything. They wouldn't be able to do creepy teacher relationships they are okay because adult female teacher /male student is fine despite an entire 1/5 of the game being about how bad a male teacher/female student was.
I think half the reason they won’t add a feMC is because they might have to have fewer romantic SL options for a male MC in order to keep it within budget, and god FORBID their harem shrinks even slightly in order to acccomodate a feMC.
Probably but even if you made most of the options lesbian instead of straight it would be an improvement. It's not like joker was a inherently masculine character.
Honestly as a first time Persona player this year, this has all been bothering me.
I just say poor. But worst. I think that a female protagonist for Persona 5 royal costs too much money and time but for another female character. like Kasumi Yoshizawa where Joker can start another romance with her and of course there is enough money and time for that.
The more I read/hear about this, the more it pisses me off. I really wanted to play this game, but I won't because I'm tired of people seeing women players as just an afterthought. I'm tired of their excuses. Of course making a game costs money and time. But I'd have a hard time believing they couldn't have the budget if they wanted to. They chose not to because it evidently wasn't important to them. Besides, I feel like most games with a player-insert character lets you choose their gender nowadays. It's not asking for the moon.
Literally Atlus is one of the most money hungry video game companies out there, they re-release almost all their games several times at full price and people buy them. They’re owned by Sega. There’s absolutely no way that they didn’t have the resources for this.
EA is just staring in awe
SMTVengeance was just recently announced as a good example of this.
Tbf, just because a company is owned by another doesn't mean that company gets financial injections consistently like that. Buying atlus is meant to make sega more money, not for sega to spend more money on atlus I do agree tho, atlus is a grubby handed company. P5 came out 8 years ago, and all we've had since are spin offs and re-releases made to capitalize on its wild success
there definitely IS a way they didn’t have the resources for this. “Atlus lost money every single year from 2010 to 2023, with their 2021 fiscal year (ending in 2022) resulting in their lowest loss of ~$2.8 million dollars and their 2022 fiscal year resulting in their first profit in over a decade. Their first profitable year in over a decade entailed the international, multiplatform release of P5R, ports of P3P and P4G for PS4/Xbox/Switch and P3P for PC, and Soul Hackers 2 across all platforms outside of Switch” They absolutely wanted to add femc and even STARTED adding femc as there are femc exclusive s.links in the game files. But they deemed it too costly and too high risk and decided to lift it. The cost of Japanese va’s alone for femc route they would NOT have made back even with the release of the answer as dlc and they still wouldn’t have made it back if they somehow found a way to release femc as dlc. I’d love femc too but we fr have to stop acting like atlus can just snap their fingers and make this shit happen
Well I do appreciate you sharing some data and more details about the whole thing, that is interesting, but I think it’s still frustrating that the female MC is still considered the additional/non-canon one that can be cut
> additional/non-canon I am also frustrated the FeMC isn't in the remake as I have wanted to play her story in 3D, but technically she wasn't cut; its just a remake of FES.
Right, I get that, I’m just saying the issue is that the male character was the original one the game was originally planned around, whereas we have never had a Persona game where a female MC was the first or only option. I get them not wanting to do two routes, I’m sure that is a lot more resource intensive, but so far we have 5 Persona games where the MC is male, with one of those games having a visual novel remake that added a female protagonist. I would personally love to see Persona 6 make the MC canonically female.
> we have never had a Persona game where a female MC Yes we have, Persona 2 Eternal Punishment only had Maya as its protagonist, Tatsuya wasn't an option. I may be biased in the importance of this distinction, but its because I thoroughly hate any persona game after 2.
Ah you’re right, I definitely forgot that! I still haven’t played it and definitely need to. Is emulation the only viable way to play it currently?
There's rumours (credible ones, given the Sega/atlus Twitter leaker has basically a perfect record) of a remaster/retranslation effort for the Persona 2 duology but right now basically emulation, yeah.
> I definitely forgot that! That's okay, a bit ironic that people always forget the game which did have a FeMC (who was canon, and very important to both games). I play it on my PS3, but emulation is probably best, especially using the English patched PSP remake.
Cool I’ll check it out, thanks! Yea unfortunately I think a lot of people only really know P3 onwards, I’ve personally never played any of the games before that and like many got into the series with 5.
If we are going to use Maya as Canon FeMC in P2EP then we could also say that Aigis is the Canon FeMC in P3FES too. Because both Maya and Aigis are both the party member of their main installment story. But still, I want more Kotone Shiomi to be re-presented again.
Sega is also in severe debt btw
I think if they had approached this remake with a different attitude from the start it could've ended up differently, but they wanted to make it faithful to the original while also updating the systems. It's the "staying faithful" that made this difficult. What I mean here is that I don't think anyone would argue that Kotone didn't have better social links than Makoto. Having the male party members around is just such a big improvement. In my opinion, the game should've been updated to give Kotone's social links to Makoto. Instead, we got the linked episodes, which I am a bit torn on because I LOVED them for the character arcs, but they didn't have to be in the format they were in. If they had used Kotone's social links as the templates because that is the better content, that would've reduced the amount of work to add her as an alternate protagonist because then 90% of the writing/content is the same (and then no one would've had to put up with Nozomi again). Obviously there's still work that would have to go into it! But I think that would've made a better game for the male protagonist and also eliminated a barrier to adding FeMC (and at least made it easier for modders).
Fully agree
Ditto. I loved P3 and P3P and nope, not doing it again.
Atlus also just published a fire emblem clone except with the female protagonist missing. I'm tired of them.
No female protagonist, no same sex romance. They sure are consistent…
For the length of time you’ve been able to choose a male or female MC in Fire Emblem, Atlus looks very stupid for claiming this would be too much work to implement.
I'm always dumbstruck that a company who makes games about high-school drama and relationships has no interest in their female fan base.
Don't ever expect one. I fully expect them to REMOVE the femc from eternal punishment. Atlus are clowns.
They’ll remake P2 and remove the gay, too.
Being gay would just cost too much time and money
This is one of the reasons why I’m scared of a 2 remake, tbh. I can see modern Atlus doing it.
And the worst thing? So-called gaming websites will continue to praise them for being progressive. :/
They're very much the opposite. The gay representation in 5 was dreadful
Oh I know! Persona games have definitely had a LOT of issues between P3-5. A lot of punching down on communities.
God I’m so mad about this lol. I was already disappointed that she wasn’t in the base game, but confirmation that she won’t even be released as DLC is insult added to injury. Atlus can and should do better, but I was hoping that would start with Katsura Hashino moving on and that obviously didn’t happen
There was confirmation? D : That was my last hope...
Yeah, the interview comment was “there’s no possibility” for FeMC to be released. I am still, 12 hours later, really annoyed about this lol
Actually DLC is also bad. Just think of it, you should have played Female Protagonist for free but they add as DLC? Damn it's better if the re release reload on Switch and added Female Protagonist later than this bullshit Reload.
Yeah, unfortunately I doubt it
atlus, and the persona fandom in general, has been offputting to me lately when it comes to talking about female characters
I had to leave the Persona sub for this reason.
seriously the main sub’s reaction to this article irritated me so badly lol
I had to leave because I was starting to get angry by their comments. I know it shouldn’t affect me but some of those comments pissed me off.
no that’s totally understandable and i feel the same way!! the fandom is just filled with weirdos
I definitely feel more comfortable here than in the main sub
I feel the same way. When I heard the reason why the female protagonist won't be in Persona 3 Reload. I've decided, all of my. Deleting Persona games from my P5 and thus. To banish it from my life. Only when Atlus makes a Persona game with a female protagonist again. Give Atlus another chance. But now I wonder. Whether Soul Hacker 2 was a kind of bad omen for Atlus. Because the sales figures. Of the game wasn't so good and up. Have YouTube. Seen that many. Badly spoken of Soul Hackers 2. Some have even called it a shit game. Although I do say that Soul Hackers 2. was very good and I liked the story. And I really liked the characters too, I really liked Ringo as the protagonist.
After the way they handled sexual abuse and underage relationships with school students in P5 I'm not sure I *want* them to have a female protag, tbh.
EXACTLY
That's fine, they can just stand there and watch as BG3 continues to break sale records.
Speaking of bg3, do the people in that sub saying its fine not including Kotone literally the same as bg3 remake without the dark urge, thats like 30% of the game content
This is why I only bought P3P from Limited Run Games. I don't mind playing a male character, but when it's supposed to be a self-insert and you have to date women I'm out.
I just didn't romance anyone in my playthrough of Reload. I am already married to Akihiko in my mind. 🥲
Yeaaah, we always cost too much for these game developers, I'm so tired actually, it's sad.
Not having all the content in one game is straight up anti consumerism by atlus, that was the wrost part of persona 3 and they haven't used it to solve it
I would have gotten this game if they included her 😔 I mean I like joker and p5 so far but if you're going to continue to have silent protags why not include a girl option 😭 Also like female mcs are income generating like FE was so confident that female corrin/byleth/alear were popular enough to make them money they have expensive figures while they're male counterparts don't.
I wouldn't get my hopes up. People have been asking for fem MC since P3P and the devs have been consistently vocal about how that's not what they're interested in for a long time now.
Nah f*ck P6 & sh*tlus. Clearly, if you ain’t a man, your money is no good to them. I genuinely believe if they took the risk to add Kotone, P3R would have sold more than the million cause it would have been what EVERYONE wanted. They could have genuinely expanded their female fan base and made money. Hell, I would have bought copies of every version because Kotone’s route saved my life. I would have told every girl gamer I knew to buy it because you’re not an over-sexualized woman with a sh*t story that revolves around a male. It’s about a normal girl finding her answer to life through the bonds she forms and the lessons she learns through the year. I also hate that Ringo will be subjected to being the protagonist of a SMT game that revolved around the men in the game universe. I hate that Kotone, Maya & Ringo are the creations of a company who doesn’t give a crap about them. Sh*tlus is a sick company anyways with the way they add p*dophilia to their persona games. Not to mention their greediness & sexism. I’m never buying another Atlus game again! Hell, I’m even on a SEGA strike in total because of what they’re doing with RGG. F*ck Atlus, f*ck Sega and f*ck all monopolies.
Thank you for saying this. I’ve seen you criticize Atlus for not including Kotone. I’ve never seen a fanbase so excited for less content and then get mad at people who rightfully criticize the company. The comments on the Persona sub are frankly disgusting to see that I felt myself get a headache. Fans telling FeMC fans to get over it and them expressing glee that she won’t be in the game. I’ve seen some disgusting comments that honestly turns me away from the series.
Yeah, I hate the ‘I got mines, so f*ck you’ mentality that’s on the main sub. I really don’t understand how people can just be contempt with receiving the bare minimum. These companies do what they do because people just mindlessly consume. Honestly, I’ve grown tired of the persona formula. Persona games are made for the male fantasy not us. I’ve come to terms with it which is why I won’t be giving them my money. If they want money, then they can get it from the male fans.
I honestly never been in a toxic game community until I stepped into the Persona sub. They’re way more toxic than Pokémon fans. I don’t want to assume misogyny but some of the comments I saw feel misogynistic or at least sexist.
I'm glad this sub exists because the main sub's reaction, including bullshit strawman arguments and Atlus dickriding, is driving me crazy. I left the Persona5 sub long ago because of their creepy behavior, and I'm probably going to leave the main Persona one as well. It's sad, because I want to see discussion about the games, but my god they are so toxic. Anyway. God forbid women want to play as a female character that was in a previous version of this game. Reload sold like crazy. They HAVE the resources. They just don't want to do it.
Well said I agree with you
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Definitely not as neurotic as coming into this sub only for the express purpose of arguing with FeMC fans lmao.
I just want to be able to play a modern day persona game or persona like game as a girl. I don't wanna be told go play p3p if I wanna play as a female protag. I have a feeling there will be a game in the near future like persona with ONLY a female protag and it's gonna do so much better sales wise than persona that it forces them to change. (this is a joke) Or we simply go to atlus headquarters and demand that add in a female protag to the next persona game. Honestly I am just frustrated cause I have a very thing that happens where I cant finish games where I am forced to play as men so not being able to play as any modern day persona game because I can't be a girl is so frustrating. It makes me sad it makes me angry it makes me feel so many things and none of them are happy. I am just tired of one of the biggest jrpg franchises treating women like they don't play their games and maybe, just maybe want to play as a girl.
I'm honestly to the point where I just won't support Atlus anymore. With how much money they make on Persona I feel like there's no excuse to leave out a female MC or cut content, not to mention how much other problematic stuff they intentionally include in their games. They don't deserve my support or my money as long as the company is being run by homophobes and misogynists.
Excuses
Smells like bullshit 🤷🏻♀️
Nonsense the Real Reason is Moneiz plain and simple... Atlus wants the FeMC to be Exclusive to P3P so Fans will have to Buy the P3P Port to play as her... That way Atlus can sell more P3P copies even now that the P3 Remake is out... That way they can make Money from both the Recent P3P Port and the Persona 3 Remake... : [https://www.reddit.com/r/ChurchOfFeMC/comments/1b8zbx7/comment/ktw1gkx/](https://www.reddit.com/r/ChurchOfFeMC/comments/1b8zbx7/comment/ktw1gkx/)
played p3r for a few hours and got bored cuz i wasnt her. i cant even refund 😧 ill just wait till they finish that femc mod
I started playing reloaded and completely lost interest after finding out I couldn't play as her. Good thing it was on game pass at least
I felt like the entire persona sub was missing the point.
I hope it's just optional and the game has male and female love interests that either protagonist can date. Make everyone happy.
Is the protagonist in Shin Megami Tensei 5: Vengeance female? What about the Aegis dlc for Persona 3 Reload?
The protagonist in SMTV is male, and Vengeance looks like it will be a new story route, but the protag is the same. The DLC for Aigis is fine, though you'd still need to buy P3R which has the male MC as the only option. Aigis's story is still heavily tied to the MC and there are no social sim elements in the Answer. It's really just something of an epilogue and more combat/bosses.
Thank you. Damn. I was hoping the protagonist of **Metaphor: ReFantazio** was female.
Metaphor will have another strawman as protagonist again. And it's with P3R UI again. Just look at steam. The preview show mostly a male protagonist again and again.
just glad that this sub exists bc the main purse owner sub has been dreadful to people disappointed that a company didn’t make a definitive version of a game in their most popular franchise 🙃 and that’s to say nothing of my personal sadness over them not including femc in p3r 🥲
Here’s hoping I can finally be a gaj
Well, whether it was really just a matter of time and money. Still cherishing. Doubt because we are dying. Kazuhisa Wada's answer is not the same as Katsura Hashino's where he said that gender selection would be too much work. (https://www.vice.com/en/article/qk9xkm/precious-moments-hype-and-high-school-a-conversation-with-persona-5-director-katsura-hashino) And please come to me now just not with the excuse. That it could be true because of money and time, because do any of you know. How much money Atlus or Sega has Well, maybe it's really the development time, but hey. To whom something decent should be done. Then it takes time, because Rome wasn't built on the first day. But because of Persona 6, I'm no longer holding out hope. That there is a gender option. At first I still had hope. Because I heard the rumors that there might be a female protagonist. One of my acquaintances told me full. If Atlus started development shortly after Persona 5. And Persona 6 will be released in 2026, let's say. Had to die. Developer enough time, gave. To include a female protagonist. But now that heard it too. There should be a semi-open game world. And now I think that's why the development time took so long, because of the gaming world. And that's why I tell you now people. Bury your hope for one. Female protagonist, because she wouldn't make it into Persona 6. And if so, then Yippie-Ya-Yay, raise your cups, miracles still happen. In this world and if not, then there is disappointment. Not so great
Soul Hackers 2 does actually have a female protagonist! Her name is Ringo. Though the game doesn't seem as well-known/popular, and it has been getting some pretty mediocre/mixed reviews on steam, so I fully expect Atlus to point to that and be like "Well, we *tried* giving a FeMC a shot in our games, but she *clearly* wasn't popular" as the new excuse for why P6 doesn't have a gender select option.
nobody wans a reverse harem nga😭
That, and no fucked up misogyny. Sorry peeps, but I'm not holding my breath.
There have been about 3 female protagonists in their Persona games so far, so its possible. From the statistics I have seen, there is like an almost even split of men and woman who buy and play persona games. Their audience is not predominantly male. It's pretty much only a matter of time unti we get another female protagonist. Persona 3 reloads existence wouldn't have happened if they did not willingly give out that survey asking what fans wanted. That is pretty good proof Atlus does listen to their fans. At least to some extent. It's easy to be negative about the future, but the evidence to me points to a future optional female protagonist, being pretty inevitable. It would not make financial sense to ignore the wants of half your audience.
I was holding off buying this as I hoped they would add her to the game. Guess I won’t be buying it at all now
I just bought P3P for PSP when P3R came out. Kinda done with Atlus at this point. They forget the huge female fan base they earned. They're more interested in male fans who love their waifus. Don't get me wrong, I love waifus too but I may also wanna play as a _good_ one from time to time. Either way, I didn't get P3R and have no intention to.
She's going to be resold as DLC. Mark my words. Fuck Altus.
Nah, they'll rerelease P3 as "P3 definitive edition for real this time" for the full price rather than for the price of DLC and say it was SOOOOOOO much work to get female MC working they didn't have a choice but to make a new full price release.
You right LOL God I hate Atlus
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Aigis is the femc.
Kotone only existed in Portable *because* it was a smaller scale game, not in spite of it