Hello Again,

Didn't think I'd make another post so soon, but I thought I'd go back and revise the game page AGAIN. Thankfully, I'm very happy with how it's turned out, and this'll probably be the last revision I'll have to do. I think the new design absolutely NAILS the mystique feel of Persona 3, which is what I've been trying to go for all this time.

lso, I have some design and character changes in mind, some I've had for a while and just never talked about, others very recent...

• N.M. Boulets is being replaced with Solid Snake. When I initially added Boulets to the game, he was a funny idea and a good pull to add. Though with time, the meme has died off. One of the troubles in developing a meme game, especially on and off like this, is memes are constantly made, then fall out of relevancy. Or new stuff even make for good plot points or extra bits to add sometimes, meaning the update or update ideas are constantly changing depending on what's trending. I was considering replacing him with Ryu Hayabusa at first because recently I've really gotten into Ninja Gaiden (goated series btw, this is propaganda to give it a go) but I thought about Snake, and it just clicked. He's memeable asf and fits in perfectly with the update's character roster. One of the other issues with Boulets actually was that he didn't really fit in with the other game, every other character was a character from a game or a popular piece of media but Boulets was obv just a meme, so he just never really fit into the cast looking back on it.

  

• El Donte will NOT speak in google translated spanish anymore. El Donte speaking badly translated spanish was a funny idea initially, it's been a staple since the game initially released 3 years ago today (HAPPY 3RD ANNIVERSARY TO THE GAME BTW, I ONLY REALISED EARLIER). Though him speaking this way, to me at least, is only funny for 5 minutes. There's a lot of hurdles with him speaking like this, the most prevelent being that well.. most players won't be able to understand what he's saying. This means that if I was to keep it, dialogue will have to be written with other characters having to make jokes for him or paraphrase what he says for the player to understand him. Therefore, its better for both the player and the writing of the game for him to speak in English.

• Game Overs won't happen when El Donte dies. Obviously a lot of this game takes from SMT and Persona, especially Persona 3 as it was the initial inspiration for the new story. It's not just the story that it takes from though, there's quite a lot of mechanics and gameplay features that're also taken, one of which is a game over upon the party leader's death. At the time, it seemed like a nice mechanic to have because people might play the game, experience that then be like "Ohhhhhh, it's like persona, thats cool". But looking back on it with more knowledge over game design, damn is it a bad design choice. That's why to give the game more balance, ESPECIALLY on the higher difficulties and Hell and Hell mode, I'm gonna remove it. I know that it's still in the Phantom Demo, I think, maybe, haven't checked on the demo in a while. But just know, it won't be a thing in the future.

• Developer Commentary and Voice Acting will no longer be added. I think I mentioned or discussed this in a devlog a while back with BBMV. But to save time since putting this update together is taking a while, developer commentary and any voice acting won't be added. I was originally gonna add commentary because I thought it would be a cool thing to have after you finish the game, have the option to have little interactable bubbles in each area that give you commentary on what went into making it, and if there was any initial ideas that didn't make the final cut. There was only going to be once instance of voice acting, and it was going to be for one of the superbosses. If you've played BBMV and know about the "???" secret, then you'll know. Again, I'm not adding it to save time as the amount of VA I'd have to do would be quite a bit, since this character has many different things he can say depending on the amount of progress you've made or if you've met with him before etc.

Coming back to this has been really fun, and it's reminded me what made game dev so special, especially coming back to re-release and patch up v1 El Donte and sort of seeing where everything started. There's nothing like being able to add whatever you want to a game, and watching everything fall into place and come together, it's a really satisfying process.

I do really want to come back to this full time sooner, I have that unique drive to do so, but I still have academic stuff to tend to first, though it isn't too much.

Anyway, I hope you guys are looking forward whats to come as much as I am, and I hope you guys have a good night!

- Tyler