First things first, well fucken thank you Arc for holding this up for a year, so that European SMT and Persona fans could either get a major spoiler or the "Slowpoke" awards...

So as I said in an earlier journal, I finally got the game, at first I started playin' around in Training mode, then decided to go all Arcade mode to get a better hold of the charas (though hell, they differ in so many ways, some like Naoto or Aigis we're pretty difficult for me to handle efficently), even a few fights in Network mode (and damn, does it irritate me that it doesn't record wins and losses, but just wins and played matches... so yeah, both actual losses and ragequits are counted as one... and I've got people ragequit 5 times already >>"), but anyways, that's the part when I finally tried out Story mode...

Well, I was pretty sceptical at first... I mean, just seeing Mitsuru and Akihiko redesigned so badly was pretty alerting (and before you go "but they look great" or something, yeah, while the outfits themselves aren't "bad", they are completely out of character). But not too surprisingly, the story was very well written, hell, the game even prevents you from seeing the true endings, until you get to know Labrys's true story, which was VERY great as well, you finally get to see them endings.. and... well, and this is the part where shit got real...

To anyone who has already played the game, you probably saw noticed the "Malevolent Presence" (aka "Eerie Voice" at some parts), well, the newer fans might not notice, but as soon as you get to hear the voice, and it's way of speaking... you know THE boss has come... it's either a massive attempt at crushing the older fans hopes that the older Persona games got some attention, OR this was indeed Nyarlathotep himself...
For those who don't know, Nyarlathotep The Crawling Chaos, is the main antagonist of the series (as opposed to Philemon, who keeps watch over the protagonists), as in, the mainiest main (basically, all other "main" Persona antagonists are his underlings), he has a peculiar way of speaking, especially when revealing his plans, can alter his shape and distort reality, usually to create illusions (something he does pretty much all the time in P4A), and was fixated on the idea of corrupting Personas in various ways (like the corrupted Joker Persona in both P2 games, or reverting a Persona back into a Shadow in P4A)... shit, this is a major fan-treat right now... and to top it all off, he has the exact same voice actor, Patrick Seitz, and just so you know (if I haven't said it before enough times), Atlus doesn't choose the same voice characters for their games without a reason >3

Sure, there were various references to the older Persona games in P3 & 4, like the link between the Kirijo and Nanjo groups (as you might guess, the Nanjo group is a rather powerful organization, much like the Kirijo), MMO characters Tatsuya and Maya in P3 (referencing the P2 games protagonists), or various P1 & P2 charas in a TV show in P3... but this, this is a rather big connection between the games... will this prove true and we'll see some of the old cast make a return? I sure as hell fucken' hope so >3

(By the way, I checked, and various blogs, message boards, and even the SMT wikia say the same thing, so I'm not just a geeky fanboy getting my hopes up for no reason >3)