[Guest]

Hmmm...okay. If it's for the greater good :D

There's 191 pages, so it'll take awhile for me to scan them all ('bout a minute per page, so that's 191 minutes  ) but sure, I'll see what I can do. I'll start scanning bits and pieces when I get out of work tonight, and hopefully finish sometime this week.

No, I own both books. They're pretty different.

P4 Official Design Works (the Japanese book) is a lot bigger, has more illustrations, a few more portraits, the All-out-attack cut-ins, full body shots of the other S-Link characters (like the sports guys, the nurse at the hospital, etc.), renders of different locations, some anime storyboard stuff, a little bit o' interface design, and loads of commentary all over the place, concluded with a massive interview with Soejima.

::deep breath::

The pre-order art book in the states (Visual Data) has less illustrations at the beginning, fewer portraits, a lot less text/direct commentary from Soejima, no interview, but oddly enough includes larger prints of the early concept images (you know, like the girl standing in that river in town or whatever. Those are just thumbnails in the interview). Other concept sketches are removed completely (i.e. Margaret has her own page. Actually, I think every subcharacter does.)

I'm comparing them now, and the Japanese book is more than twice as big as what America got. But that's besides the point; there's a lot of commentary in this book, but since I lack knowledge of the language, the big interview at the end is kind of a waste :(

Oh well. It didn't cost me any money, so I guess I can't complain :D It'd just be nice if there was a translation for some of this floating around.

Uh...yo. 'Name's Phoenix Gamma, PG for short. Lurked the site for quite awhile, so I figured I'd join the forum.

Um...I'm not really sure what else to say. My interests are all sorts of art (I'm working on my degree in Art and Graphic Design), video games, and music. I realize that's about as bland of a bio as I can get, so I guess I'll just add that I'm pretty new to the SMT series; I've watched my roommates play some of the older games, but I didn't start playing myself until Persona 3, so I'm very much an SMT virgin. If you've got recommendations for where to start or what to play, go ahead and name them, because I totally want to be more than "another Persona guy".

I've got a deviantart that I sometimes update. I recently uploaded an entry for Games Radar's Persona 4 contest, so please check that out too! I placed second! :D I do lots of different stuff, so please take a look!
http://pheonixgamma.deviantart.com/

I guess that's about it. I hope this introduction wasn't too long! 

Hmm...if it's for PSP, I'd guess it's probably a port. Can't you buy PS1 games from the Playstation store? I feel like I should know this, what with me being a PSP owner... 

I'd prefer a remake, just because I'm the kind of shallow person who has a hard time going back to PS1 games.

I'm on the final dungeon myself after 60 hours of playing.

I'm torn, though; on the one hand, the gameplay elements have been improved a lot; the way Down works is a nice change, jumping back into a dungeon from the floor you left off is great, and S-Links are definitely improved (choosing friend or lover, hanging out with multiple people at once, and unlocking new attacks and abilities in battle is superb) but...

...well, the story gets in the way. A lot. The two hour introduction is probably the worst offender, but there's plenty of times where you're just advancing text. It's good text (the translation can be too literal at times, like a fansub. I think P3 did a better job) and the voice acting is just as good as P3 (save for Chie and Teddie), but you're not playing a video game during those segments. You're just reading. It's like a visual novel until it remembers "oh yea, the gameplay!"

I think P3 is still more appealing, but it'll be hard to go back after the luxuries that P4 gave me for the past 60+ hours.

I've got a quick question: there wouldn't happen to be any translations of the interview or commentary, would there? I got this book in a contest, and I'm really interested in seeing what Soejima has to say since I'm an art major and all.