nowhat
Member
(Disclaimer: Persona 5 is the first and thus far only game of the series I've played, so this is from the perspective of a franchise noob. Also it should go without saying, but SPOILERS obviously.)
I had been aware of the Persona series, but as I never owned a system capable of playing any of the games they were never really on my radar. But with so much hype building up to the release of Persona 5 and the absolutely glowing reviews (and me having a PS4 now) I thought I'd give it a go. Turn-based JRPG meets high school dating simulator, why not, I've heard worse ideas. And... I liked it, quite a bit. I didn't love it though, not to the extent many people seem to at least. Which is fine, it still very much was worth the purchase and generally an interesting experience.
But with the year drawing to a close and the game popping up on so many GOTY lists, and myself having a bit easier work schedule for a while and thus more free time available, I started to think perhaps I didn't give the game a proper chance. I have this bad habit of sometimes "binge-playing" narrative-driven games. "I just want to see what happens next!", I'm guessing many here will know what I'm talking about. That easily leads to fatigue though and being more irritated by minor things that wouldn't bother me otherwise, and it is very much amplified when the game is as long as Persona 5 is. Despite being constantly instructed to I didn't "take my time" with the game. With NG+ available (so potentially a less grindy experience) and more time/patience this time around, I decided to play it again instead of trying to clear my backlog (that's a lost cause). Just finished the game again, so here are my incoherent ramblings about it.
STORY AND CHARACTERS
I was actually quite surprised how much of the story I had already forgot or just had missed. I remembered the major plot points, sure, but there were a lot of smaller details that if I encountered them on my first playthrough, they didn't stick with me. I found the game a bit overwhelming at first (more on that below), so perhaps it played a part too. Also inheriting the social stats for a new game made it easier to maintain more relations to my confidants, thus giving new content to play. Still, my overall impression of the plot remains basically the same: the game starts off very intriguing and remains so for quite some time, then it starts to spread itself very thin and at the end it just kind of goes off the rails. This time at least I managed to maintain my attention better so the ending made more sense. Of sorts, within the game world, which is to say not much within our world, but at least there's some internal consistency. Anime and nonsense seem to be mostly inseparable (nothing wrong with that, just an observation).
Many reviews praised how the game tackles difficult issues, but I don't think it really does, not in a very meaningful way at any rate. It more like just includes them in the story, but that's pretty much the extent of it. Which is fine, I just didn't feel the game does anything special in that department. Instead of the overarching plot and "adult" themes I found myself more drawn to the characters, who for the most part are good, some very much so. Sure, some of the more minor NPCs are rather shallow, but that is to be expected. It's three of the main characters I had an issue with before, and still do. The first two to a lesser extent. First off there's Akechi. The fact that you feel like you'd want to punch him constantly is probably intentional, given he's an antagonist (of sorts). But I think so much more could have been done with the character, now he remains very black and white (both literally and figuratively). Then there's Yusuke. I don't hate him as such, I just find him so very bland and uninteresting. I could have this time easily maxed out my relationship with him, but didn't. Call me boring, but my idea of a fun afternoon doesn't include stalking random strangers at a railway station.
...and you never saw this coming (yeah you did), then there's Morgana. He plays a pivotal role both in the story and in gameplay (guiding the player and giving tutorial hints, like in so many other games). I don't even mind that he's a cat who turns into a bus, although I would have appreciated a more original/creative design (yes, the game is very self-aware in this regard, but I don't think lampshading makes it any better). My problem is with the character itself. In most games that feature a sidekick, especially a very talkative one, I get annoyed by him/her/it by the end, but I found Morgana quite intolerable from the very beginning. Not everything has to all dark and grimy, but he just didn't work for me as a character, at all, too much of a comic relief and not a good one at that. Something more impish, along the lines of Midna from Twilight Princess, would have been so much better in my opinion. In a (mostly) fine cast otherwise he stuck out like a sore thumb and not because of the appearance (which I would have been willing to give a pass).
I'm a big fan of epilogues and this game... has one, I guess? It is just rather underwhelming. Meeting the people you've spent the game with for one last time is always great, it just didn't feel as impactful here as in some other games. Maybe, even with the more leisure pace and less grinding, it's just the fatigue kicking in. I feel the same way as I did the first time I played the game: the story pretty much holds itself together to end of the casino palace, after which it just kind of falls apart. Which is a shame, as it is a very enjoyable ride up to that point. All in all as far as writing goes, I found it to be good but not great. The story could have been trimmed quite a lot and it would have been better for it.
GAMEPLAY
As said, I was a Persona virgin, and I have to admit I found the gameplay a bit frustrating at first. Not the combat mind you, it's pretty much your standard turn-based fare (which is not a bad thing, why reinvent the wheel, and the game does include some little tweaks to the standard template), but managing the other aspects of the game. So this confidant wants to hang out with me, cool - oh wait, I need a level or two of $STAT more, I'll just run around the city looking how to improve it then. And now I've improved my rating and you've completely stonewalled me. Very likely had I played the previous games I would have been more comfortable with the systems, but it certainly took some adjusting. I admit making mistakes of my own too - I discovered "SP Adhesive 3" way too late, it would have made the game much more pleasant.
With NG+ life is so much easier, getting all social stats to maximum takes little effort. No need for planning, what's left for you is to do basically whatever. Which is fine I guess, but other than meeting up with your confidants you can... hit a baseball? Go fishing? It's not supposed to be, but Yakuza 0 this is not. So I guess in the end I did prefer the juggling of time slots, as confusing as it initially was.
Other than that the gameplay is quite enjoyable. Fusing personas is fun and combat is solid (if not very original). Combining turn-based combat with real-time movement works rather well and navigating around the Palaces (which are mostly very well designed and creative) is fun. Two minor complaints - the cover system is a bit hit-and-miss, sometimes the player seems to get too stuck to an object, and not having control of the camera sucks sometimes. I do realize that they want to show a particular view in a scene, it looks great, but if you're about to jump down and can't see where you're jumping, and you know a shadow is there, it just seems too random whether you get ambushed or not.
Oh one more thing, speaking of random: I don't know if something has been lost in translation, but I can't understand the negotiations with the personas. I understand the concept, I just literally can't understand at all what is trying to be said. What the persona says and what Joker is able to respond seem to be completely separate. Perhaps I'm just stupid, but to me the whole process seemed like "pick the right one out of three options by sheer luck two times" instead of using your wits to overcome your enemy. Conceptually a fitting idea, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired.
GRAPHICS AND UI
I'll keep this brief - you know the drill, it's not all about the polygons and shaders, but art style too, and this is stylish as hell. The visual style has been lauded pretty much everywhere and it deserves every bit of praise it gets. I don't think I've ever been amazed at menus in a game, but here we are. At least a teeny weeny bit of anti-aliasing wouldn't hurt though, but seems like a petty complaint given all the visual splendor. The actual anime bits also work surprisingly well in tandem with the graphics.
I have to say though, after a honeymoon period with the game, and especially now playing it for the second time, while the UI is sublime, it is at the expense of UX at times. Some of the information is not so easily accessible as with a more traditional style, the menus can be a bit fiddly (for example when fusing personas) and fuck that item menu, especially in a NG+ when you have a ton of stuff in there. How about switchable categories, at the very least? And please let us skip some of the animations. So I answered a question right in class and my knowledge is... still max! That was worth the wait.
So, it looks fantastic, but at times is form over function. But what a lovely form it is.
SOUNDTRACK
I still think it's one of the greatest soundtracks of 2017 and last year also had NieR: Automata, Super Mario Odyssey and Xenoblade Chronicles 2 among others, so the competition is tough. As far as music style goes it is a peculiar choice and seems a bit off place at first, but manages to fit the game perfectly. My only real complaint about the soundtrack relates to the game length, you end up hearing the same songs way too often. Having the Mementos theme drone on, occasionally interrupted by the combat music, can get tiresome. But great music still, absolutely great.
TL;DR
In conclusion, a second playthrough helped me get a better grasp of the story and characters, but it didn't make me a convert. There's a lot to love about the game, but personally I feel it could have been so much better still. My initial frustration with it can be attributed to my unfamiliarity with the series mechanics - in retrospect, it was more fun trying to maintain an active social life while fighting shadows in the Metaverse than having all handed to you on a silver plate with NG+. Perhaps this could be a life lesson in general, having to work to achieve something makes it more worthwhile. Or not. Still, while I cannot say I'll pick up the previous entries of the series (I have already too much junk in my apartment already, don't want to add a few old consoles to it), I'll certainly get Persona 6 if it ever comes out (if I have something to play it on, that is). But I still don't think 5 is the greatest thing ever, or even last year.
I had been aware of the Persona series, but as I never owned a system capable of playing any of the games they were never really on my radar. But with so much hype building up to the release of Persona 5 and the absolutely glowing reviews (and me having a PS4 now) I thought I'd give it a go. Turn-based JRPG meets high school dating simulator, why not, I've heard worse ideas. And... I liked it, quite a bit. I didn't love it though, not to the extent many people seem to at least. Which is fine, it still very much was worth the purchase and generally an interesting experience.
But with the year drawing to a close and the game popping up on so many GOTY lists, and myself having a bit easier work schedule for a while and thus more free time available, I started to think perhaps I didn't give the game a proper chance. I have this bad habit of sometimes "binge-playing" narrative-driven games. "I just want to see what happens next!", I'm guessing many here will know what I'm talking about. That easily leads to fatigue though and being more irritated by minor things that wouldn't bother me otherwise, and it is very much amplified when the game is as long as Persona 5 is. Despite being constantly instructed to I didn't "take my time" with the game. With NG+ available (so potentially a less grindy experience) and more time/patience this time around, I decided to play it again instead of trying to clear my backlog (that's a lost cause). Just finished the game again, so here are my incoherent ramblings about it.
STORY AND CHARACTERS
I was actually quite surprised how much of the story I had already forgot or just had missed. I remembered the major plot points, sure, but there were a lot of smaller details that if I encountered them on my first playthrough, they didn't stick with me. I found the game a bit overwhelming at first (more on that below), so perhaps it played a part too. Also inheriting the social stats for a new game made it easier to maintain more relations to my confidants, thus giving new content to play. Still, my overall impression of the plot remains basically the same: the game starts off very intriguing and remains so for quite some time, then it starts to spread itself very thin and at the end it just kind of goes off the rails. This time at least I managed to maintain my attention better so the ending made more sense. Of sorts, within the game world, which is to say not much within our world, but at least there's some internal consistency. Anime and nonsense seem to be mostly inseparable (nothing wrong with that, just an observation).
Many reviews praised how the game tackles difficult issues, but I don't think it really does, not in a very meaningful way at any rate. It more like just includes them in the story, but that's pretty much the extent of it. Which is fine, I just didn't feel the game does anything special in that department. Instead of the overarching plot and "adult" themes I found myself more drawn to the characters, who for the most part are good, some very much so. Sure, some of the more minor NPCs are rather shallow, but that is to be expected. It's three of the main characters I had an issue with before, and still do. The first two to a lesser extent. First off there's Akechi. The fact that you feel like you'd want to punch him constantly is probably intentional, given he's an antagonist (of sorts). But I think so much more could have been done with the character, now he remains very black and white (both literally and figuratively). Then there's Yusuke. I don't hate him as such, I just find him so very bland and uninteresting. I could have this time easily maxed out my relationship with him, but didn't. Call me boring, but my idea of a fun afternoon doesn't include stalking random strangers at a railway station.
...and you never saw this coming (yeah you did), then there's Morgana. He plays a pivotal role both in the story and in gameplay (guiding the player and giving tutorial hints, like in so many other games). I don't even mind that he's a cat who turns into a bus, although I would have appreciated a more original/creative design (yes, the game is very self-aware in this regard, but I don't think lampshading makes it any better). My problem is with the character itself. In most games that feature a sidekick, especially a very talkative one, I get annoyed by him/her/it by the end, but I found Morgana quite intolerable from the very beginning. Not everything has to all dark and grimy, but he just didn't work for me as a character, at all, too much of a comic relief and not a good one at that. Something more impish, along the lines of Midna from Twilight Princess, would have been so much better in my opinion. In a (mostly) fine cast otherwise he stuck out like a sore thumb and not because of the appearance (which I would have been willing to give a pass).
I'm a big fan of epilogues and this game... has one, I guess? It is just rather underwhelming. Meeting the people you've spent the game with for one last time is always great, it just didn't feel as impactful here as in some other games. Maybe, even with the more leisure pace and less grinding, it's just the fatigue kicking in. I feel the same way as I did the first time I played the game: the story pretty much holds itself together to end of the casino palace, after which it just kind of falls apart. Which is a shame, as it is a very enjoyable ride up to that point. All in all as far as writing goes, I found it to be good but not great. The story could have been trimmed quite a lot and it would have been better for it.
GAMEPLAY
As said, I was a Persona virgin, and I have to admit I found the gameplay a bit frustrating at first. Not the combat mind you, it's pretty much your standard turn-based fare (which is not a bad thing, why reinvent the wheel, and the game does include some little tweaks to the standard template), but managing the other aspects of the game. So this confidant wants to hang out with me, cool - oh wait, I need a level or two of $STAT more, I'll just run around the city looking how to improve it then. And now I've improved my rating and you've completely stonewalled me. Very likely had I played the previous games I would have been more comfortable with the systems, but it certainly took some adjusting. I admit making mistakes of my own too - I discovered "SP Adhesive 3" way too late, it would have made the game much more pleasant.
With NG+ life is so much easier, getting all social stats to maximum takes little effort. No need for planning, what's left for you is to do basically whatever. Which is fine I guess, but other than meeting up with your confidants you can... hit a baseball? Go fishing? It's not supposed to be, but Yakuza 0 this is not. So I guess in the end I did prefer the juggling of time slots, as confusing as it initially was.
Other than that the gameplay is quite enjoyable. Fusing personas is fun and combat is solid (if not very original). Combining turn-based combat with real-time movement works rather well and navigating around the Palaces (which are mostly very well designed and creative) is fun. Two minor complaints - the cover system is a bit hit-and-miss, sometimes the player seems to get too stuck to an object, and not having control of the camera sucks sometimes. I do realize that they want to show a particular view in a scene, it looks great, but if you're about to jump down and can't see where you're jumping, and you know a shadow is there, it just seems too random whether you get ambushed or not.
Oh one more thing, speaking of random: I don't know if something has been lost in translation, but I can't understand the negotiations with the personas. I understand the concept, I just literally can't understand at all what is trying to be said. What the persona says and what Joker is able to respond seem to be completely separate. Perhaps I'm just stupid, but to me the whole process seemed like "pick the right one out of three options by sheer luck two times" instead of using your wits to overcome your enemy. Conceptually a fitting idea, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired.
GRAPHICS AND UI
I'll keep this brief - you know the drill, it's not all about the polygons and shaders, but art style too, and this is stylish as hell. The visual style has been lauded pretty much everywhere and it deserves every bit of praise it gets. I don't think I've ever been amazed at menus in a game, but here we are. At least a teeny weeny bit of anti-aliasing wouldn't hurt though, but seems like a petty complaint given all the visual splendor. The actual anime bits also work surprisingly well in tandem with the graphics.
I have to say though, after a honeymoon period with the game, and especially now playing it for the second time, while the UI is sublime, it is at the expense of UX at times. Some of the information is not so easily accessible as with a more traditional style, the menus can be a bit fiddly (for example when fusing personas) and fuck that item menu, especially in a NG+ when you have a ton of stuff in there. How about switchable categories, at the very least? And please let us skip some of the animations. So I answered a question right in class and my knowledge is... still max! That was worth the wait.
So, it looks fantastic, but at times is form over function. But what a lovely form it is.
SOUNDTRACK
I still think it's one of the greatest soundtracks of 2017 and last year also had NieR: Automata, Super Mario Odyssey and Xenoblade Chronicles 2 among others, so the competition is tough. As far as music style goes it is a peculiar choice and seems a bit off place at first, but manages to fit the game perfectly. My only real complaint about the soundtrack relates to the game length, you end up hearing the same songs way too often. Having the Mementos theme drone on, occasionally interrupted by the combat music, can get tiresome. But great music still, absolutely great.
TL;DR
In conclusion, a second playthrough helped me get a better grasp of the story and characters, but it didn't make me a convert. There's a lot to love about the game, but personally I feel it could have been so much better still. My initial frustration with it can be attributed to my unfamiliarity with the series mechanics - in retrospect, it was more fun trying to maintain an active social life while fighting shadows in the Metaverse than having all handed to you on a silver plate with NG+. Perhaps this could be a life lesson in general, having to work to achieve something makes it more worthwhile. Or not. Still, while I cannot say I'll pick up the previous entries of the series (I have already too much junk in my apartment already, don't want to add a few old consoles to it), I'll certainly get Persona 6 if it ever comes out (if I have something to play it on, that is). But I still don't think 5 is the greatest thing ever, or even last year.
Last edited:
