Nerd Roundtable Episode 5: A Spoiler-y Smorgasboard!

Kevin and Matthew begin with that important thing that happened on Game of Thrones. BIG FAT SPOILERS for Game of Thrones (and The Walking Dead, I guess), skip ahead if you wish to avoid that (2:30).

From there, it's a rambling spree: the Assassin's Creed movie and other significant video game projects like Final Fantasy XV and Persona 5 (20:37), the casting controversy surrounding Doctor Strange (38:30), why remakes and sequels are so prevalent in movies and games (46:00), and Matthew ruining GTA IV's attempt at a serious narrative (56:30)

Nerd RoundTable Episode 4-Superhero Movies: What the Hell's Happening?

Kevin, Matthew, Laurel, Jake and Kendal wrap up last episode's discussion/destruction of Batman v Superman (1:00), then ponder how DC can make things right going forward (10:00)

Other topics include other iterations of Batman, including the upcoming Killing Joke movie (20:10), Marvel wackiness (29:45) and the future of the comic book movie industry (42:45). 

EVERYONE STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING, PERSONA 5 HAS A RELEASE DATE

Stop the presses! 

Put down your ham and cheese sandwich! 

Stop shooting at each other over your ideological differences! 

Quit performing CPR on that guy, he's not going anywhere!

Only one thing matters today: Persona 5 is coming out September 15, 2016. 

Well, a release date for Japan. Other regions  such as the US are still in the dark, though a February-March 2017 release is probably the latest we'd have to wait. 

But who cares, IT'S HAPPENING. 

Now, those of you who know what the hell Persona is just had a brief seizure of joy and are now leaping around the room like a maniac, confused onlookers be damned. The rest of you are those confused onlookers. Let me explain. 

Persona is a series of Japanese role-playing games that are part detective novel, part monster-fighting dungeon crawler, and part anime high school simulator, all mixed together with some Carl Jung philosophical themes for good measure. 

.....no, that was too much. Let me sum it up:

The Persona games are brilliant and you've never experienced anything like them. Persona 4 in particular is one of the greatest works of art I've ever seen, and that's including books and movies and other things that people with fancy hats call art. In the crowded field of JRPGs, Persona has consistently stood above the pack with its strong writing, unique focus on contemporary life and striking visual style. Yes, I'm a big Persona fanboy. 

And speaking of style, look at that trailer. I don't speak Japanese, so I have no idea what's going on, but just LOOK AT IT!

Victorian masks! Tommy guns! Tron motorcycle! Paint flecks when the protagonist does cool stuff! Some kind of....cartoon Zorro cat? I dunno, but I dig it! 

Hell, Persona 5 has more creativity in just its UI than most games have in their entire game!

Persona 5's UI is hot pic.twitter.com/ahx9zGvLKW

— Wario64 (@Wario64) May 5, 2016

Moving past the game's eye candy, the trailer confirms that Persona 5 isn't straying too far from the series formula, design-wise: by day, you play as a normal high school student, attending class, making friends and doing other high school things. By night, you and your friends enter an alternate reality to do battle with horrific monsters that personify human emotions. 

Presumably, the heroes will have Personas: beings that they can summon to fight the monsters. But the game's promotional material has been coy about revealing them. Only the protagonist's Persona has gotten good screen time so far.

So mark your calendars, dust off your PS2s and replay the previous Personas, because we have a long, agonizing wait ahead of us. And if you've never played the series and are intrigued, there are tons of ways to give it a try! Persona 3 and Persona 4 are available on numerous platforms, including Playstation 2, Playstation 3, Playstation Portable and PS Vita. 

You won't regret it.