"Persona" games about the struggles and experiences of teenagers are cool, but what if instead you cast four old ladies living in a Miami house share?" is the question that developers Joey Pagano and Chris Lindgren are trying to answer in their upcoming parody game, The Golden Girls Take Manhattan DX," the pressing question that developers Joey Pagano and Chris Lindgren are trying to answer in their upcoming parody game, The Golden Girls Take Manhattan DX.

"What started as a joke quickly became a playground of ideas to explore how far we could push our skills and how far we could keep our sanity with our humor," says the introduction on Pagano's developer site (opens in new tab). Simply put, this puts the gameplay of Persona 5 into the context of The Golden Girls. There is no reason as to why we painted it this way, other than to see "how far we can take this joke."

The project has been in the works for several years, and the site states that a playable demo will be available in the summer of 2021. This demo does not appear to have been released yet. However, thanks to a trailer on The Golden Girls Take Manhattan DX Twitter page over the weekend, we got our first look at what this is all about.

The Pagano website specifically calls it a parody of Persona 5, but it is also very much inspired by Persona 3 and Persona 4. Each girl has a classic side-portrait icon, and the battle menus and overworld look very similar to the old ones. Some things, such as the Souls-style dodge rolling, are decidedly un-Persona-like, though. Not sure why it's there, but that's what I'm here for.

Top fucking post and can't wait to try it out when it releases for free on Holiday 2023.