3 Concepts For Persona 5 Palaces

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Persona 5 is filled with many amazing features. The cast of characters are interesting and relatable, the soundtrack is phenomenal, and the world-building is pleasantly unique. I could write dozens of blogs about all the things I love about Persona, but today I’m going to focus on the palaces, or more specifically, some possible ideas for new palaces.

The game tackles the concept of palaces really well already, I have little to no complaints about that, but I still think there are some other ideas Atlus could have used or maybe can use down the line. Without further ado, here are my best ideas for new palaces in Persona 5.

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Prison

A prison break would be an exciting adventure for the phantom thieves to embark on. It could start outside of the prison walls, and you would have to avoid search lights and guards in order to get inside the building. Once inside the building, you would have to traverse the various parts of the prison like the courtyard, cells, cafeteria, and warden’s office.

The palace ruler would be the warden, and the treasure could be something dear to him in his office like the deed to the prison. I could even go a little more abstract with it and say the treasure is a prisoner that you would need to break out.

As for the real world, the palace ruler could just be an average citizen who has blackmail on a lot of people. These people would be thought of as his prisoners. Honestly, this is my personal favourite idea, and I would at least like to see something similar to it in a future installment of the franchise.

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Skyscraper

Imagine a building so high you can barely see the top of it. Now imagine getting to explore every floor of that building! A skyscraper palace set in the middle of a densely populated city would be awesome. Persona 5’s third palace did something kind of similar to this, but I feel like it didn’t go far enough.

The layout of this palace is where its diversity would really shine. Instead of having a few large areas to explore, this palace would have multiple smaller areas separated by floors. Each floor could be completely different from each other, allowing Atlus to really flex their creativity.

In terms of the palace ruler, I don’t think it really matters. He or she could be similar to the fifth palace ruler in Persona 5 or could just be a somewhat well-off person who thinks too highly of themselves.

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Jungle

This palace idea is definitely the most unique, and that’s why I think it’s a good one. Having every palace be a building makes sense, but I think that breaking away from this mold would have been an interesting break if it was somewhere in the middle of the game’s story.

The palace would consist mostly of trees, and the shadows could be various animals. At the heart of the jungle would be a temple where the treasure is located, Indiana Jones style. With Persona 5 Royal’s new grappling hook mechanic, traversing through the jungle landscape would be a blast.

Like the previous example, I don’t really think the palace ruler is too important on this one. Maybe he or she could be a person who views the city and modern life like a chaotic jungle. I’m sure everyone can relate to that to a certain degree.

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Those were some of my ideas for possible palaces Atlus could have used or could use in the future for Persona 5. If you are interested in reading about more ideas on this topic, there was a Reddit post about it you can find here.

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Hunter Rogers-Millson

My name is Hunter Rogers-Millson. I am a Professional Writing student at Algonquin College. My interests include video games, anime, and classic rock and roll. I aim to one day write and publish my own comic book.

Dishonored's Balance Between Magic and Politics

Photo Credits: https://glitchwave.com

Dishonored is a first-person stealth game created by Arkane studios that combines sneaking, gadgets, a little bit of magic, and a ton of politics.

In 2012, Dishonored shook the gaming world to its core by presenting gameplay with intricate level design and unique stealth/combat mechanics.

However, Dishonored’s gameplay isn’t its only aspect that’s worth talking about. The plot and the world-building are so artfully done that I can’t praise it enough.

I will be talking about a few events that take place at the very beginning of the game. If you want a completely fresh experience of the game, you can buy and play it Here.

The player travels across the city of Dunwall through the eyes of Corvo Attono, the head bodyguard for Dunwall’s empress, who is framed for the assassination of the empress. The true assassins who were responsible possess strange supernatural abilities that overwhelmed Corvo.

Dunwall

The main location of the game. It’s a Victorian style city littered with harbors, slums, rats, and criminals.

Photo Credits: https://dishonored.fandom.com

The people who hired the assassins have a vast amount of political power which they used to both place the hit on the empress and also keep their involvement hidden.

Corvo is thrown in jail, but as his execution day grows near, he is freed from prison by unknown allies. These allies know the truth about the assassination and wish to use Corvo to help them punish those who were responsible.

Photo Credits: https://dishonored.fandom.com

As you can see, the main storyline has very little to do with any form of magic (aside from the assassins.) Personally, I think this was a really good direction to take the game’s story in.

Almost every story that has magic in it makes it crucial to the plot, and honestly, I have no problem with that. Many of my favourite video games, movies, and anime do this very well.

Despite this, I find that Dishonored’s approach is not only unique, but utterly outstanding. Magic exists in this world, but it is a mysterious force that is underappreciated by most of the people of Dunwall.

There is so little information on the subject that many people either ignore it and focus on the problems at hand, or, in some cases, simply deny its existence altogether.

The way magic is presented in the story is through a character known as the Outsider. The Outsider exists in a place called “the Void,” an area outside of time and space. He can pull people into the void and bestow his mark onto them, granting them many bizarre abilities like teleportation and possession.

The Outsider pulls Corvo into the void near the start of the game and gives him his mark. Throughout the rest of the game, the Outsider occasionally pops in here and there and gives the player information about Dunwall and its people, as well as explains more about his mark.

The Outsider

He is neither friend or foe to Corvo. He simply wants to see something interesting happen.

Photo Credits: http://www.game-art-hq.com

To sum it all up, the Outsider and his goals are completely separate from Corvo and his ally’s goals. Magic and the Void come into play occasionally in the main story, but never to the point where it takes the spotlight. From a world building standpoint, this is excellent because it creates a layer of mystery for the player similar to the layer of mystery present for the characters.

Most of the people in Dunwall have little knowledge about the void, and neither do you! This layer of immersion couldn’t be achieved if the game developers took a different approach.

Even though later installments of Dishonored moved away from the politics and leaned more towards the magical aspects of the world, I still cling to the belief that the first game had the best story, and I wish more video games attempted mixing politics and magic.

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Hunter Rogers-Millson

My name is Hunter Rogers-Millson. I am a Professional Writing student at Algonquin College. My interests include video games, anime, and classic rock and roll. I aim to one day write and publish my own comic book.

The Genius of One Piece's Geography

Eichero Oda’s One Piece is a fantastic work of fiction with colourful characters, an engaging plot, and most importantly, an incredibly well thought out world.

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Introduction

Photo Credits: Christine Cox

The story is about a group of pirates who sail the treacherous Grand Line in search of the fabled treasure known as One Piece. The setting is a fictitious world made up of mostly water. I won’t go into too much detail about why a setting like this is genius because I already talked about it in my previous blog post (link at the end).

Basically, pirates need water to sail on. That much is obvious. Not only that, but the characters with special abilities are all weak to water, adding another layer to the plot and setting.

Lots of water isn’t the main reason why this setting is so great, though. No, the true genius of One Piece’s geography is shown in the way the various oceans and islands are organized in the world.

Before I go into detail about why the structure of this series’ world is genius, I will first outline the important aspects that shape it.

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Aspects of One Piece’s World

The planet is one giant archipelago organized in chunks and sectioned off by stretches of ocean and mountain ranges. There are five primary sections of ocean in the series. The East Blue, West Blue, North Blue, South Blue, and the Grand Line.

Photo Credits: https://myanimelist.net

The Grand Line is a thin stretch of ocean that wraps around the entire planet. It is a perilous bought of water and islands filled with the strongest pirate crews in the world.

Photo Credits: usmap.finansabi.com

On either side of the Grand Line lies the Calm Belts, two stretches of ocean that have no wind or currents and are home to a large number of dangerous creatures called sea kings. Sailing into the Calm Belts is nearly impossible.

Photo Credits: https://onepiece.fandom.com/

Perpendicular to the Grand Line is a mountain range called the Red Line. It stretches from the ocean floor, goes above the clouds, and also wraps completely around the world in a perfect circle.

Photo Credits: https://onepiecetheories.com/

The only way for most people to enter the Grand Line is by sailing up a river passage through one of the corners of the Red Line and the Grand Line.

Now that that’s out of the way, I can finally delve into why all of this is relevant.

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Why These Aspects Are Genius

The driving force of the plot is the One Piece and the characters who wish to find it. The One Piece, of course, is located at the end of the Grand Line. Notice that I said “end,” meaning there is a start. There is a place where everyone must begin their journeys if they wish to discover the One Piece. There are no advantages (well, for the most part at least).

Photo Credit: https://onepiece.fandom.com/

The genius behind this is it creates a set path that the main cast MUST go on if they want to achieve their goals, and that path is filled with multiple challenges that cannot be avoided. And just because the path of the characters seems linear and basic, this couldn’t be farther from the truth.

As I mentioned before, One Piece’s world is an archipelago, meaning it is a series of islands that pepper the landscape. These islands range in absurdity from a jungle landscape filled with dinosaurs to a floating island where it’s always daytime. On these islands, anything can happen, and nothing is off the table.

The diversity in these islands shows off the creativity that was put into the series and creates this layer of mystery that intrigues the reader into learning more about the world.

Eichero Oda has managed to take a spherical world and mold it into a straight line with a clear goal at the end all while keeping the adventure fresh and original. When writing a pirate adventure, doing something like this with the setting is not only crucial, but it is utterly impressive.

You can read One Piece here: https://www.viz.com/shonenjump

Check out my previous blog where I talk about One Piece here: http://spineonline.ca/orbis-aedificium/2020/9/24/the-best-examples-of-magic-systems-in-fiction

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Hunter Rogers-Millson

My name is Hunter Rogers-Millson. I am a Professional Writing student at Algonquin College. My interests include video games, anime, and classic rock and roll. I aim to one day write and publish my own comic book.

What Makes a Magic System Great?

Magic is a familiar concept for any fan of the fantasy genre, and here I will explore some of the best examples of a magic system in fiction. I will be looking at three works of fiction that each highlight an important aspect of any magic system: weakness, theme, and structure. Each of these systems is well crafted and shows how magic can help any fictional world feel complete.

Weakness is a Good Thing

Photo Credits:

http://onepiecegold.altervista.org/devil-fruits-explained/

My first example is a magic system that perfectly melds with its world through the use of weakness. Weakness is crucial in magic as it humanizes the characters that use it, but more importantly, it helps raise the stakes in many situations, making the overall story more entertaining. No story handles this concept better than One Piece.

The primary magic system in One Piece revolves around a mysterious food called devil fruits. Eat one, and you gain a bizarre ability, like turning into rubber or turning into an ox, but this comes at a price; you lose your ability to swim.

This may not be a big deal to most people, but One Piece is a story about pirates who sail the waters of the Grand Line in search of treasure. One Piece’s world is also a giant archipelago with well over eighty percent of the planet covered in water. The characters in this world have to think twice before they chomp down on a devil fruit. The powers might be incredible, but would you really want water, the very thing that surrounds you, the very thing that is crucial to your success as a pirate to also be your greatest weakness?

A System That Reflects Its World

Photo Credit:

hostilehippo.deviantart.com

Some power systems reflect the world they belong to excellently showing off its greatest wonders as well as its darkest flaws. The video game Bioshock does this especially well.

The game is set in 1960 in Rapture, an underwater city created to escape the restrictive governments of the surface world. The city’s founder, Andrew Ryan, believed that no person should be bound by law or morality, so he created a utopia where scientific advancements can be made without question.

Bioshock’s magic system, called “plasmids,” paints a perfect picture of how this philosophy is both prosperous and flawed. Plasmids are made from a drug called ADAM which allows a person to gain a multitude of abilities.

ADAM, however, is very addicting, and the citizens of Rapture were desperate for it. Having an underwater city filled with desperate drug addicts with superpowers promptly led to the fall of Rapture, showing that some scientific advancements should be questioned.

The Beauty of Complexity

Photo Credits:

images1.wikia.nocookie.net

Finally, the last power system I will be showcasing, and arguably the best one, is Nen from the Manga Hunter x Hunter. Nen is an aura-based power system that grants its users abilities that pertain to their specific “Nen type.” A Nen user is born into one of six categories; enhancer, emitter, transmuter, manipulator, conjuror, and specialist.

The things Nen users can do with their aura are restricted by these categories. For example, a manipulator cannot use transmuter techniques at all and can only use other techniques at a reduced level of strength.

The complexity of Nen is interesting, but its condition based rules are where it’s true genius shines. In order to make a Nen ability exponentially stronger, a Nen user must restrict themselves. For example, one ability allows the user to summon a tsunami, but he can only do so when it’s raining. The concept of restrictions is genius because it forces the abilities in the series to be creative and doesn’t allow any ability to be too overpowered.

Those three series are all excellent examples of what makes a magic system great and should be analyzed by any aspiring writer who wishes to dive into the fantasy genre.

You can read One Piece and Hunter x Hunter here: https://www.viz.com/shonenjump

You can purchase Bioshock here: https://store.steampowered.com/

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Hunter Rogers-Millson

My name is Hunter Rogers-Millson. I am a Professional Writing student at Algonquin College. My interests include video games, anime, and classic rock and roll. I aim to one day write and publish my own comic book.