Persona 5 Royal (2019)

It's looking like I'll be maxing out all confidants except one, which will be stuck at rank 9. I explicitly remember a moment when I could have prevented this by choosing to hang out with them instead of hanging out with someone else. That's several days ago and I've done multiple Mementos excursions since (which led me to collect all the stamps, yay me) so I'm not exactly enticed to go back.

Out of all the palaces, I think Shido's is my favorite. It's so refreshing to have dungeons in JRPGs that are not in your usual forest-desert-snowscape environment. I guess that's what comes with the setting being in modern times. I suppose that's why this game reminds me a lot of The World Ends With You as well. However, though these two games only make a very limited sample set, I realized that I'm more taken by games not set in modern times.

I recently discovered that I can make the characters wear Phoenix Rangers outfits, and I love it. Just the Power Rangers game to keep me going.

I also recently found out that I can just run over shadows in Mementos, and that was such a relief (and a great way to level up personas).

Not sure if I can max out the one remaining confidant before the December deadline but I am hoping for the best. I am 120 hours in, and I'm so excited to finish even just the non-Royal content in the meantime.

The characters keep on expressing surprise on how deep Mementos is, and I’m complaining alongside them. I get so tired from exploring that place and looking for stamps.

I’m watching Kimetsu no Yaiba, and I’m at the Entertainment District Arc, and there’s this bit very early in its opening song which reminds me of one of the music tracks played in this game. I kinda want to look it up to actually check.

I wanted to maximize my confidant ranks with Kawakami and Takemi (with everyone actually) so I'm in a romantic relationship with them, and I hated the dialogue that lead to these. I also can't think about this development much because it throws off the game for me.

In Fire Emblem: Three Houses, there's also the possibility of a similar romantic relationship outcome but I was not as bothered there as I am here. Perhaps it's because that happens only at the end of the game and after a time jump?

I was still fairly certain that I'm going to play Strikers and Tactica after this game but now I'm leaning more to not doing that.

More than 80 hours in and although I am certain that I am more than halfway through, the length of this game is starting to get to me. I appreciate how party members join through different events and how each palace has a different gimmick, and the story is interesting but I'm getting a bit tired, especially with exploring mementos and beating up and negotiating with shadows.

I've finished five palaces, and if my theory is correct, there're at least two more. Plus there's the added Royal content. I'll keep on playing because it is still entertaining but it's not as fun as it was around twenty gameplay hours ago.

Playing a lot of this, and although that's fun, I'm starting to think I should hold back for other activities. Maybe I'll just do a Memento run today (although I have six requests), and wait for the Medjed deadline which is already in two days. That should, relatively, not take much time.

To maximize the rank of female confidants, I have to romance them. There doesn't seem to be a way around it, and I have to do it to everyone. I don't like that. I also don't like how there's no romance options for male confidants.

Managed 35 hours in one week (which is a feat for me) before my living room got out of commission again. Finished two palaces, and team has quite grown but I have no favorite characters yet. I also don't have favorite personas. The ones I have in my party are crazy mashups of skills and abilities from fusions I made with minimal thought.

The concept and gameplay are good but there are still disappointments. I think the sexism in this game hits me harder than in other JRPGs because it is set in modern times. Sometimes all the dialogue options exhibit this, or your confidants make remarks rooted in this, and that puts me off. The prison-guillotine-electric chair theme also doesn't sit well with me although I don't understand why yet. I wish everyone had something like Morgana's slingshot instead of guns.