Persona 5 (2016)

Progress (44 Hours) Infiltrating Futabas Palace.

As much as I have been enjoying this game I have found pacing has really suffered in this particular part of the game. Having spent the last two and half hours trudging through an incredibly slow burn of story exposition that was admittedly interesting but could have been done so much more efficiently. This pacing issue is only exacerbated by the fact that as I finished the last palace quite efficiently I probably spent another hour or just doing day to day life so its probably been 4 hours now to get back into the action.

I really just came here to vent. I have a bit of love hate relationship with this game at the moment but now I am looking forward to tackling this latest palace.

Question for those who have beaten the game how is the pacing for the remainder of the game? Does it suffer this kind of problem all the way through or was that the worst of it?

Progress (20hrs) Infiltrating Madarames Palace.

Despite not initially being a fan of Persona 5's aesthetic or combat this game has really got its hooks into me. The life sim side of the game is where this game really shines and is a great way to unwind and the end of a day when you just want to chill. The characters are all captivating and I genuinely want to take down these villains. The over arching story is intriguing and the mystery of this weird abstract world keeps me wanting to advance to find out what the heck is actually going on in this game.

I'm also going through a tough time with a particular person causing a lot of grief in my life and playing this really makes me wish I could be a phantom thief and steal their distorted desires. Its been a long while since something has caught my imagination like that.

I find myself pretty conflicted about this one. It's a strong step up from Persona 4 in a lot of respects- the main story dungeons are no longer procedurally generated (although Mementos still is), which allows for better traversal, and the plot is a similar improvement as a group of teens do brain anarchism. Combat is also greatly improved by the addition of SMT-style negotiations, which adds a fun sense of chaos to the proceedings. Perfectly fine and good stuff! Littler things, like the Phantom Thieves group chat, are pretty endearing as well.

On the other hand, there are a lot of issues- a playthrough runs 100+ hours (I finished in around 115), and the game itself doesn't feel engaging enough to prevent a sense of tedium from setting in around the late-mid-game (somewhere around the space Palace, for me). The aforementioned teens and the game's Social Links don't feel especially well-written to me, either. There's some great stuff in the plot- Ann's story at the beginning of the game is a particular highlight- but a lot of the side characters feel much less interesting, with a few exceptions (read: Kawakami). There's almost a sense that the game feels a little too full- Persona has always had a pretty wide variety of ways to use your time (both in and out of the game) but the addition of some 40-odd shops and so many dungeons means the game feels a bit like it's stretched itself thin- removing a dungeon (say, the space Palace) and paring down Tokyo might have improved the whole game.

Aesthetically, this game is amazing. The monster designs, the environments, the art and music are all incredible. The main gameplay loop, with multiple levels of strategy between the real (high school) world and the cognitive world when you're going through any individual dungeon, is satisfying and a lot of fun to play out. Several side characters and some of the party members have deep and interesting stories that you want to play out, and the game often delves into meaningful and serious themes.

But with 99+ hours worth of gameplay, they aren't all going to be winners. There's an insane amount of text to read in this game, and to be honest, most of it has mediocre writing. The story and characters are core to this game, but it's a mixed bag there. The game pounds its themes and points into you repeatedly, and each bit of the complicated plot is overexplained to make sure you don't miss anything (except for the parts that don't add up, which the game glosses over). The protagonist has no personality, and most of the characters have little dimension and don't interact with one another, even party members who spend tens of hours fighting together.

It's tough to recommend playing this game all the way through, due to its length and some issues with pacing. There are strong bits throughout and most of the game is great, but there's a lot of text and diversions that get in the way of the good stuff.

I’m a big fan of JRPGs. Or at least I’ve played a lot of them, but for every one I’ve enjoyed, there have been five disappointments. As such going into 2017 I thought that I was kinda done with JRPGs. That nothing could surprise or enthrall me like those first times through Chrono Trigger, Xenoblade Chronicles, or FF6. But a buddy recommended I try that new Persona 5 game. I remembered hearing good things about Persona 4 back in the day, wasn’t playing anything at the time so I thought I’d give this game a shot. 80 hours later a game had cracked into my top 10, and the Persona series had a new fan for life. Going forward I’ll be avoiding any major spoilers, as I feel this game is worth experiencing with no spoilers, so apologies for some vagueness on story critiques.

For those curious, Persona 5 is a standard turn-based JRPG, mashed together with Pokemon and a Japanese Highschool life simulator, then drowned in a tub of symbolism and style. You control your protagonist, go to school, meet with friends, play some baseball, break into the minds of abusive high school teachers and use terrifying monsters to fight the physical representations of his distorted lust. You know, normal high school activities. Each day is split into two halves, and you can choose to do a limited amount of activities during each. With a limited number of days in the game, and a limited time to complete specific story dungeons, the importance of prioritizing your dungeon crawling, as well as your studying finals is crucial. The beauty of Persona 5 comes first from how these two gameplay areas appear disconnected, but as you play become more and more linked. Hanging out with party members in the real world will increase their combat abilities in the dungeons, and going out on the town to expand your own skills will be necessary to be there for your friends. Finding people who can assist you in town, like a doctor to provide you with medicine for your battles, further assists in fighting your way through the hordes of shadows. And defeating shadows and clearing dungeons opens new opportunities and experiences for you in the real world. But for many people, myself included, the standard turn-based combat of an rpg can wear thing real quick. Thankfully Persona 5 does plenty to make its combat engaging.

You and your high school buddies will journey into the minds of many distorted adults, and once within face shadows, creatures that vary from cute, to cool, to giant penis chariots. Thankfully you can recruit these embodiments of weird to fight on your side. This gives the game that same cathartic loop that Pokémon has. Get a new Persona that can use light moves and that opens up whole new strategies for you to explore, switching Personas on the fly to adapt to any situation. The game re-enforces that by giving each shadow Pokémon esque type weaknesses, and rewards the player for exploiting those by giving extra moves for hitting weaknesses. This rewards the player for playing well, by giving longer higher damaging combos, leading eventually to the incredibly stylish and satisfying all-out attacks. Because you can pull off crazy damage, and possibly down whole groups of enemies, the challenge comes from the high damage output enemies can do, and having to manage the parties’ HP and SP over the course of an entire dungeon. Do you spend all your items to re-enforce your SP and keep going, hope that you can tank the next couple of battles, or call it quits and try to finish the current dungeon the next day? Finishing the dungeon in one go could mean a few extra days for fun activities with friends, but failure has huge consequences. And you’re going to want those extra days, as many times it can feel like the game is stealing time from you, when you lose whole days to story events or exams that really feel like they shouldn’t take away a full day of activities.

Persona 5 can be broken down into little mini-arcs around each dungeon, or as they’re called in-game, Palaces. The player protagonist transfers to a new school where he very quickly meets a few like-minded individuals, and gets on the shit-list of an abusive volleyball coach, who threatens to have the boy expelled at the next school board meeting. Thankfully you and your new acquaintances have a power that allows you to enter the distorted cognition of particularly rotten individuals, stealing the source of their desires, and affectively forcing them to change their ways. Of course once the first problem is dealt with, more evil people show up and it’s up to the protagonist, and his new team the Phantom Thieves, to find new allies and correct the wrongs in society produced by morally bankrupt adults. Tying the completion of a Palace to a real world consequence is a double edged sword, on the one hand it works great for explaining the consequences of failure, and makes sense for why you can wait several weeks sometimes before completing a palace. But on the other hand, if you complete the palace early (which many will to have the extra time for social activities) it makes this awkward disconnect where you’ve done everything necessary to force the criminal to confess and they just kinda wallow around for a few weeks before confessing on the scheduled date. Obviously, each arc varies in quality, but even at their worst there are neat set pieces, quality writing, and some decent character development. I do think that the first antagonist is easily the most hateable, making some of the subsequent villains feel slightly less detestable. Make no mistake, they are still gross to look at and fight, and an absolute pleasure to take down, but it is unfortunate that as far as villains go, I feel P5 peaked early. Like I said above I’m avoiding spoilers, but the end of the game goes in a bit of a different direction from the early game setup. There’s a certain amount of foreshadowing, and if you’ve played a JRPG, or especially a Persona game you can see it coming, but for some people the shift in scale may be disorienting. I personally really enjoyed it. Not as much as I enjoyed the cast though.

Persona 5’s second great strength comes from its ability to write compelling, likable characters, who feel more real than some people I know. After you get the initial required four party members, consisting of a blonde rebellious boy, a beautiful half American-Japanese model, and a cat, each new arc adds a new friend to the crew. Each new character comes with their own baggage, burdens placed on the characters either by society, or their own emotional vulnerabilities. Spending time with them lets you help them work their way through their problems, strengthening them both in life and in combat. I don’t want to deny anyone the pleasure of getting to know these characters themselves, but by the end of the game I fell in love with nearly all of them. Now some party members function at a disadvantage, as joining later in the game means they get less time to shine and interact with the party members. But even the final girl is still a very well-rounded and sweet character. And speaking of girls, Persona 5 also falls into that sweet zone I like to call, Disguised Dating Sims. Sure you spend most of the time fighting scary demons, but we all know it’s really an excuse to pick and date whoever you think is best girl. And the candidates here are great, to the point that it becomes a difficult decision since nearly all of them have more personality and character than the entire cast of your average harem. Even the non-party members, while obviously a bit weaker, still have their own desires, hangups, and unique attributes they bring to the table. There are one or two characters, or an interaction here or there that feel a bit weak, but they are just buried beneath the avalanche of quality writing, and top-tier humour and wit. These characters are used to tackle some pretty dark subject matter and themes. From mental, sexual, and physical abuse, to matters of self-worth, depression, and the value of freedom. All these are grounded in the characters and their personal struggles, and reinforced by strong references to other literary works, and visual theming. Which is then further enhanced by the games strongest attribute. Its presentation.

I will go on record that Persona 5 is, in my opinion, the strongest visually designed video game of all time. Even at the most basic glance the game is gorgeous, with striking colors and dynamic menus, which manage to be flashy and eye-catching, while still being functional and easy to navigate. Great sound design, with perfect highlighting and color usage, consistently draws the player’s eye exactly where it needs to go. These extend even further, with the games overall visual design complimenting and enhancing its themes. This applies to the character and world design as well, your party members costumes, appearance, and even that of their Persona’s, all inform on their past and personality, and make them stand out on the crowded Tokyo streets. Tokyo itself is a bustling hub of Arcades, fishing spots, and shrines. But the standout visually are the Palaces themselves, whether it be a Bank, a Castle, or a Pyramid. The palaces are these interesting distorted and exaggerated version of their real world counterparts, and give an interesting glimpse into the psyche of the person they belong to. After my first playthrough of P5 I can remember the layout and puzzles of each palace, simply because of how visually striking they are. As opposed to cave number 3000 in every other rpg. All that being said I will admit that Mementos, an “optional” area to go train and do side objectives during your down time is a bit weaker. The dilapidated subway, while interesting at first, quickly feels repetitive and uninteresting, further exasperated by the mostly droning repetitious song that accompanies it, which is the only song on the track that is less than stellar. P5’s OST is easily one of my all-time favorites. Battles are accentuating by snappy upbeat, jazzy tracks, with deep melodic tones and strong blasting choruses. As you explore Tokyo you are put at ease by smoother lo-fi tracks that really ease you into the world and your day to day activities. The most powerful tracks are complimented by the bombastic vocal performance of Lyn Inaizumi, my personal favorite being Rivers in the Desert, a powerful boss theme that I have listened to near daily since my first playthrough and never grown tired of. Shoji Meguro has crafted a soundtrack that perfectly complements the visuals, which perfectly compliment the gameplay, which makes for a game that is just about as close to perfect as I think a JRPG can get.

After playing through P5 I went back and played the rest of the entries in the series. And while most were just as good, and even better in some areas, as far as a complete package Persona 5 stands atop the rest for me as the best game in an incredible series. The way in which its gameplay, design, characters, story, and themes are so intricately tied into one another to produce a game unlike anything else I’ve played is incredible. After completing my fourth playthrough for this review, I was just as enthralled with the world and the characters. I cannot recommend Persona 5 highly enough, it is not just one of the greatest JRPGs of all time but one of the greatest games of all time.

Pros:

• Strongly written, charming characters with depth
• Compelling narrative, with many twists
• Interesting themes, linked to all aspects of designs
• Strong core gameplay loop, with high replyability
• Playerchoice in both gameplay and relationships
• Visual style unlike anything else
• Gorgeous music

Cons:

• Minor pacing issues depending on playstyle
• Anime tendencies and strong themes can be off-putting if unprepared
• If you’re not into turn based combat, this may not change your mind

10/10

We played this game for like 5 hours and never actually got to play the damn game so I'm out. I know this is a cult classic and everyone who somehow survives the first 900 hours ends up adoring it, but I do nooootttt have the patience for that.

I work as a writer and editor, and my biggest frustration comes from the writing. The game didn't need to be this long. If they had tightened up the dialog and hired a strong editor, it could have communicated the exact same plot and characters in a fraction of the time.

Idk, I have no other feelings for this game except a long, anguished groan of frustration, and bafflement at the glowing reviews from people who love it.

I had a thought while playing this game. It's beautiful, I love the storyline, and I enjoy returning to turn-based strategy RPG. But one thing I think they could have done better is making the Joker an ACTUAL character. There is some great voice acting here and then our MCis this silent dud(e) in the corner of the room. This is a classic RPG tactic, but I truly feel we have moved past this now in gaming. I don't want to place myself in Joker's shoes; I want to know who he is as a character. Aloy, from Horizon Zero Dawn, is a perfect example of what they could have done. I get to chose what she says, but she still is her OWN character.

What are your thoughts? Do you think you would enjoy Persona 5 with voice acting from Joker, or do you disagree, liking the classic elements?

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SPOILERS!!! This review will spoil character names and plot events in Persona 4 and Persona 5.

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Persona 4 Golden (P4G) is my favorite JRPG to date, so I couldn’t wait to play Persona 5. But instead of immediately grabbing my hands on Persona 5 at release I was eagerly waiting for the improved edition of the game similar to what the Atlus team did with the last two core Persona games. After waiting with baited breath for over a year I could no longer hold my excitement and decided to go all in with vanilla Persona 5.

Persona 5 is a great game. It refines and improves on mostly everything that past Persona games have already excelled at. The game oozes with style. Animations are slick and fluid. Simple things in other games like visiting a shopkeeper or opening a menu is given a full stylistic treatment in Persona 5. Battles and victory screens are a joy to play and watch and never get old. The carefully designed dungeons are an impressive feat and a first in the series, though the latter dungeons drag on for too long. I can gush on and on about how much Persona 5 excels over other games such as how the story serves as a social commentary of real life Japan and the impressive battle system that makes every single ability, even status ailments viable. Unfortunately I had serious faults with Persona 5 and from this point on it goes downhill.

My initial impressions of Persona 5 was that it was trying to copy what made Persona 4 great. The game’s first act, includes an animal mascot that helps our heroes navigate the mysterious world, a party member that coincidentally looks and acts like a straight version of Kanji, another party member that is like a Caucasian Rise but is an upcoming model instead of a famous idol and... the first dungeon is a castle bathed in red hues. I honestly felt like I was playing Persona 4 all over again but with much better styyyyle and gameplay mechanics.

Thankfully the game evolves and becomes distinct after the first act, but I was continually disappointed at the party members for generally being unlikable or barely fleshed out with exceptions for Morgana, Makoto and Futaba:

• Ryuji is a loud, horny idiot with little redeeming qualities
• Ann doesn’t play much of a role on the team other than being the sexy member of the crew
• Yusuke is too much of an eccentric art enthusiast to be relatable
• Haru is introduced out of nowhere and gets little time to be fleshed out before the final dungeon.
• And Akechi deserves his own paragraph for how poorly thought out his arc is.

Akechi is initially introduced as the foil to the Phantom Thieves. He harasses the MC at his home and on his commute. He constantly spouts about how the Phantom Thieves are unjust and should be arrested. From the first time Akechi and the MC met face to face I knew this guy is a total sham and should never be trusted. So I was completely shocked that at the end of Akechi’s arc, the Phantom Thieves were sympathetic to Akechi, despite all of the evils he has committed and the evils he planned to commit.

I never felt that the team really gelled compared to the previous two Persona games. The school trips and events were barely memorable. The week long trip to Hawaii goes nowhere. Your party members mostly converse their Phantom Thieves work instead of actually enjoying where they were and what they were doing. I realize it’s part of the plot that your team is constantly on edge but it ultimately didn’t appeal to me. It’s a shame that at the end of the game, I sincerely felt that it was the first time the Phantom Thieves bonded but I was already sick of the game at this point and wanted the whole experience to be over.

Persona 5 also suffers from unusually bad writing at times. Attempts at comedy are lazy and eye-rollingly bad. I barely registered a chuckle on the good cop bad copy routine by Caroline and Justine. I didn’t find it funny when the characters surreptitiously gaze at a wet woman’s clothes, only to be quickly reprimanded. And I also didn’t find it funny when two overly flamboyant gay men started hitting on one of the characters.

The adults in the game have terrible, cartoonishly cheesy dialog not dissimilar to the adults in the South Park series. The SIU Director has multiple soliloquies on how evil he is and how the Phantom Thieves are going to be destroyed. Sae’s dialog in the interrogation room sounds like a computer generated script instead of what an actual prosecutor would say to a suspect. And Sojiro’s conversations especially in the beginning sounds like a broken record when he berates the MC to behave or else he’ll report the MC to the police.

The last thing that I felt was out of place for a Persona game was that the high school slice of life is mostly non-existent. There are no school clubs or teams to join. Half of the school (the practice building) is essentially barren with nothing to do. The MC doesn’t bond with many students at Shujin Academy other than his teammates and Mishima. Doing well on exams doesn’t give much benefit other than two ticks of Charm. And the only interactive places at school are the library and the rooftop.

I had lofty expectations to the sequel of my most favorite JRPG and Persona 5 simply didn’t connect with me. I did not leave with the same grief that I had with P4G. I was not saying goodbye to a memorable cast of characters that I’ve grown to love. I was not itching to immediately start a New Game+ to relive the story and try different things. Instead, I was relieved that Persona 5 was finally over and that I won’t be revisiting this game anytime soon.

I forgot to post on here the other night about this; I finally saw credits!

Even though I kept saying I was ready to be done, I was kind of sad when it was all said and done. It was a really good game. The story is pretty good, and most of the characters have great story arcs as part of their social links. There were a couple of social links I could care less about, but most of them were worth trying to see through.

This game is very stylish, from the characters down to the menu system. The dialogues and characters were fun to interact with and the story, like most persona games are a bit dark and twisted, which is what makes the plot so intriguing.

The battle system is fun and can be challenging, especially towards the end.

Like every persona game the music is amazing! It makes me want to dance to it.

It is a pretty long game, but it's well worth your money. I would have given 5/5 but I found the story kind of dragged on a bit towards the end. But other than that, definitely worth looking into if you like RPG.

Persona 5 continues the tradition of a streamlined JRPG experience with social simulation on the side, but blasts off with style, story, and the type of content you'd want in every single RPG you play.

Starting off as a wrongly accused high school student on probation, you live from the month of April to December taking up social links, fighting Shadows in dungeons, and fusing and growing your Personae. Seems like the previous game, except the game has a mind-boggling amount of options at your disposal.

Characters seem familiar but are very fleshed out - even the least favorite characters get enough sympathy and endearing qualities to make you want to chat them up. Micro-managing can be a pain, but the game has a high amount of skill sets from each social opportunity and a NG+ that allows you to play your own way and see the entirety of the game in at least two playthroughs.

Combat can be as simple or as difficult as you need to, with a varying difficulty meter, demon negotiation, and a whole plethora of skills from your team. It helps to ensure that unless you're a hardcore completionist, most of the combos you prefer will help you out in the long run.

As for the story and style, this game goes full out in visuals. The UI is a masterpiece, and the graphics are modest but incredibly detailed. Dungeons that represent human desires are wacky and gorgeous - even the lengthy Mementos has plenty of visual flair. The story, while suffering in some characterization issues here and there, comes together in a fantastic plot of rebellion and social reform that the likes of JRPGs have never seen. The music is incredibly jazzy and catchy and adds to the flavor of it all.

Persona 5 is a lot of things, and one of those things is "must-play game of the year". It'll take a lot of time out of your day to go through, but you'll be glad you did.

Everything from the plot to the gameplay adjustments have been so much great of an improvement from the previous Persona games. Best of the series thus far! Looking forward to how the team behind the Persona series would level up their game in the next installment (I really hope there's more to come from these series). Those plot twists, awesome dialogs and cut scenes really got me. Not to mention the big upgrade in the battle gameplay and the added abilities you get from the confidants (social links). This game has stolen my heart as well. #ThePhantoms

Definitely worth playing the 2nd time! Five star rating! 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

The Persona games (or at least, #3, 4, and 5) are a combination JRPG and high school life sim, an unlikely genre mashup that works because either alone would become samey for the 80-100 hour length of the game. You're a highschool student who encounters a supernatural opponent, and you find friends with which to triumph against this foe.

The general premise of the story is about exposing shitty adults, which is relatable to anyone who has been an angsty, potentially depressed teen (read: anyone who has been a teen). There is so much to cover and it would detract from your experience if I went into specifics (Atlus is even blocking people from streaming Persona 5 to preserve the story), so I'll leave it at that.

When you're not fighting against your main adversary, you're living a normal high schooler's life. You make friends, and hang out with them. As you become best buds with people ("Confidants"), their friendship level increases, giving you access to new abilities, which gives you extra incentive to do so. Each confidant has their own story, and each one really good. I was not ambivalent about a single one of the 20 friends you make in the game.

The Persona games have always suffered from a disjoint between the two halves of the game, where the majority of the social gameplay (going to school, developing social links, etc.) is completely isolated from the battle gameplay (exploring dungeons). Persona 5 does a decent job in softening that gap. Abilities gained by confidant levels affect more the dungeon gameplay, as in earlier games only a few of the 20 available confidants would give you advantages in dungeons, now almost all of them will aid in some way. In addition, the method you obtain Personas (the monsters you control to fight) has changed. Before, you could get one at the end of a fight through a little minigame. Now, you instead talk to them during battle, and try to convince them to join you by showing them you're not a bad guy. As they say things and they react to what you say back, you can (usually) get a read on their personality and respond in a way that convinces them to join you. This mirrors the social gameplay, where you can gain more or less "friendship points" if you choose the proper dialogue options.

My main gripe is with the end of the game. While composing of only about 7 hours of the total 100 hour runtime, a good ending makes the whole experience "worth it." Naturally, I won't go into any details, but there is almost no leadup- you are thrust into the final dungeon with no warning and (to the player) it feels like you're stuck there. The previous gameplay of having to conserve resources is gone, with free full heals awaiting you at every checkpoint. The story has some neat twists, but the final resolution is not satisfying.

The soundtrack is filled with the same english-sung-by-a-japanese-woman and I love it as much as the other Persona soundtracks.

If you have been following Persona series, you're still going to play this. It's more Persona, of roughly equal quality to the others. If you're new, P5 has some transparency/QoL fixes that can make it a better first-timer experience than P4:Golden or P3:Portable.

ICYMI, P5 took me 100 hours to complete.

Wow. 😲

Persona 5 took everything I loved about Persona 4: Golden and improved upon it.

The story, theme, characters and setting are my new favorite (this is my third game in the series). The art direction is masterful. The varied gameplay elements have never felt so well-balanced and satisfying to me.

I could nitpick certain things about it. A few of the dungeons had tedious portions. It's still unclear sometimes how to advance certain confidants. But honestly, those elements didn't even come close to making me quit playing.

I'll make this review concise because so much has been written about this game already. It was a joy to play. ❤

I'll try and keep this as spoiler free as I can handle, but be warned for pretty much anything pre-November 20 (honestly not much happens with the story before then anyway). Okay actually endings (except the true ending) are lightly discussed.

Okay, so I can burn out pretty quickly on games, especially so for JRPGs. I could count on one hand the number of them that I've beaten, and I sure as hell haven't had the slightest inclination to 100% them or see all the side content.

Not so with Persona 5.

I bought this game just over two weeks ago. In that time, I put an incredible amount of time into it. It normally takes me the same time span to finish your standard 8-10 hour game.

That's my final save file. 90 goddamn hours in two weeks. I have never, ever been drawn into a game like this. Not even Team Fortress 2, a game I played competitively. Atlus has spent nine years creating something amazing, which is why its flaws feel all the more unfortunate.

For reference, I haven't played any other Persona games, or Shin Megami Tensei by extension. I came into Persona 5 knowing next to nothing about the series in general. So if I start waxing lyrical about stuff that was in previous games, don't @ me.

So Persona plays in two different ways: a stealth dungeon crawler with a unique turn-based combat system, and a high school slice-of-life life simulator. It's basically a combination of two different anime genre tropes that shouldn't play well but totally do. During the high school parts, which make up the majority of the game, you're boosting "social stats", leveling confidants, or working to earn money. These all at first seem kinda useless outside of leveling confidants, which immediately give you return on your investment by unlocking combat and non-combat abilities for both the player character and your teammates. Social stats, on the other hand, grow at an unknown rate and give (at first) unknown benefits. They all play into unlocking/leveling confidants, but you don't know what level you'll need until you reach that point, and even when you are told it's not specific.

The duality of the game is found most heavily (outside of actual gameplay, of course) in the soundtrack. It's somehow a middle ground between the rockin' shonen soundtrack and the light tones of a slice-of-life show, with a bunch of jazz influences that makes it very much it's own thing. Also all the important songs have lyrics which is like, incredibly rare and adds so much to what would already be an amazing soundtrack (like this is just the battle theme what

All the visuals are amazing. Menus are normally a pretty standard affair in a JRPG but each and every menu and UI element feels like it had months of work dedicated to give it the right amount of pop and style. You could seriously make a case study on the menus in Persona 5. I know this sounds like boring shit but it's really, really good folks

The crux of the game's story is that you, blank slate male character, have somehow ended up in an interrogation room, beaten and drugged, forced to recount how exactly you have been stealing the hearts of corrupt people under the guise of "The Phantom Thieves". How you do this, is by infiltrating the twisted cognition of horrid, corrupt adults and stealing their "Treasure", a manifestation of their distorted desires. This all takes place within Palaces, a semi-physical version of how these adults view the world. The first target, for example, is an ex-Olympian gym teacher who is worshiped by the staff and physically, psychologically and sexually abuses students. His Palace is a literal palace, as he views the school as his own personal kingdom, and the students are his slaves.

Anyway, onto what I mostly wanted to talk about. The artsy shit. At its core, Persona 5 is a story about teenagers who awaken to the spirit of rebellion, and choose to take back the world from corrupt adults by changing their hearts. It is twofold a teenage power fantasy, where you run around people's cognitions in cool costumes with massive fuck-off manifestations of your own rebellious nature at your side, but also a male adult fantasy, where you can relive your high school days and do the things you never did. I feel the latter doesn't apply to Western culture that much, but it's very relevant to Japanese culture.

The idea of doing things you never got to do comes through hardest in the romance options. Every female character you have a confidant with bar one you can date if you max out their confidant. Immediately, all women are potentially available to you; there is no risk of rejection. You can date as many as you wish, with minimal consequences. Each option is in itself a different fantasy. You could date Ann and be your high school's item couple, or Makoto to be the power couple. Futaba is your perfect gamer girlfriend. Kawakami is your teacher, and you bet you can date her in the most awful and borderline disgusting framing device (though her story overall is pretty good). Tae is a mid-20s goth with a serious dominatrix vibe. Hifumi is your girlfriend that lives in Canada, and finally there's Haru, the correct choice.

You can work a job, but you get to choose when you work. You can apply to work somewhere and only turn up when it's convenient to you without any punishment. Similarly, friends will never be pissed off if you choose to skip on them for something else. The whole high school part of the game takes place in a fantasy land without consequences, where social abilities such as charm and kindness are a "stat" that can be leveled and friendship has a maximum point after which you have no obligation to interact with them again.

These aren't bad things, however, both in a story sense and a gameplay sense. What a pain in the ass if two friends invite you out and you have to choose which one you don't want to lose friendship with, right? But also, the game leans so hard into and is so open about being a fantasy that it's never a problem with me.

However, this fantasy stops sharp in the endings; All bar two have you getting pretty brutally iced in an interrogation room. One ending is, in some ways, the logical conclusion of the game's power fantasy, and I won't say anymore lest I ruin what's maybe the most morbid ending of the game. The true ending is the only happy ending, and thankfully you don't have to jump through hoops to earn it like you'd expect from something called a "true ending".

So

I really liked this game

but

there's some Bad Stuff™ that I have to talk about

First off, the game's politics are weird. Like, really weird. Somehow, a story about teens taking the world back from abusive and power mad adults also contains a 90s sitcom representation of gay people? And you also bully a teammate into stripping? And the game has some incredible purvy parts and is incredible anime about 16-17 year olds girls at multiple points? (there are multiple "hot springs/beach episodes!!!)

llike this is a real ass cutscene

also ryuji is a pure boy and would never do such things

also you have literally just saved the ginger girl from wanting to actually fucking die because she is so incredibly depressed and now it's like hey check out this fuckin bikini babe like christ almighty

Also, one of the confidants is a socialist politician who you can help regain his confidence and face his dark past and pretty much lead him into a government position. Cool, right? Fits right in with the game's themes and story, and no dancing around politics.

So

light spoiler

one of the last antagonists is a corrupt politician. Again, makes sense.

But

my god

they just like, don't actually talk about what he believes? Outside of really vague nothings? (though it did remind me of the senator from the end of metal gear rising, if it was like, terrible) It's just really obvious them skirting around an antagonist's beliefs because a portion of the Anime Video Game Fanbase would get Incredibly Mad if a bad guy was a right wing nutjob (aka what makes sense to the fucking story)

anyway

There's also the most glaring issue with the game: the translation blows. Big time. Somehow one of, if not the, biggest JRPG releases this decade has a translation straight out of early 2000s bootleg fan translations. Characters are straight up misrepresented, there are basic grammatical errors, completely mistranslated dialogue and a bunch of background text is untranslated without even subtitles. There's a website that details all these issues way better than I ever could (http://www.personaproblems.com/).

Anyway, I think that's about it for complaints. For a JRPG, Persona allows for a lot of failure without punishing you harshly. You're not expected to min-max, study boss patterns or balance your team, outside of having at least one healer. Don't get me wrong, there are definitely some Utter Bullshit in a few sections cough oni as a regular enemy cough, but even if you do lose a fight you don't lose much in the way of progress.

Overall Persona 5 is a goddamn amazing experience that is probably the best game I've played in a long time but also has some bad parts that really irk me because this game could've been even more if those issues weren't there.