AtlusUSA is continuing to roll out new promotional media for Persona 5 ahead of its release later on April 4. This next set of media focuses on the Velvet Room, a cornerstone of the Shin Megami Tensei franchise. The video is narrated by Igor alongside some comments from Velvet Room attendants Caroline and Justine.
Personas can be fused or strengthened in the Velvet Room, and these enhancements are conveyed through various forms of brutality – execution of Personas by guillotine in order fuse them, for example. Notably, this game allows three types of fusion – Basic Fusion involving two Personas of your choice, Advanced Fusion for preset combinations of three or more, and Network Fusion to fuse with a randomly selected online player’s Persona.
Check out Atlus’ new Velvet Room trailer from Persona 5 below, followed by a set of screenshots and Atlus’ accompanying press statement!
Sometimes when the protagonist of Persona 5 goes to sleep, he doesn’t dream like a normal Japanese high-schooler. Oh no. He gets transported to a place that exists between dream and reality, mind and matter. A place where fate has made it look like a prison. A place where sacrifice creates power, and where a familiar face will assist the leader of the Phantom Thieves in reaching his full potential. Get ready to say hello to Igor once again, because the Velvet Room is back!
For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Velvet Room, it’s a special area where personas can be… played around with. Basically, the room is where personas collected in the Metaverse can be upgraded, turned into items, or undergo fusion. Let’s start with the most morbid one, shall we? Fusion allows personas to be fused together to create a new, hopefully stronger, one. There are three ways to fuse personas, basic fusion lets any two be fused together, while advanced fusion is preset and require three or more. Oh, there is one little thing I should mention. Your personas will need to be executed via guillotine to undergo the aforementioned fusions, so always remember their noble sacrifice when Velvet Room wardens, Caroline and Justine, lets the blade drop (be wary of accidents though). The third method of fusion is network fusion, which allows a player with online function to fuse their persona with a random online player’s persona!
Besides making heads roll, the Velvet Room offers other fun ways to execute, I mean, manage personas. For example, you can strengthen a persona by sacrificing (hanging) another one to it, put personas in lockdown so they can learn to take less damage from their weakness, and “transform” them via electric chair into a useful item/piece of equipment. You can also register and summon them from the compendium as well! Although the Velvet Room may look like a prison, it’s an important place to invest time and persona lives in. Oh, you can also access the area during the day/night or during Palace runs through a prison door looking portal.