Support NeoGAF

[Dead End Irony]

Just wanted to say a few big gripes I have with this game. I know they've been mentioned, but I gotta speak my piece:

1. The traitor boss fight theme being "Blooming Villian"/"Will Power" pissed me off to no end. It's supposed to be a major boss fight and we get the same shit.

2. I really wish there would have been more variety in the daily life music. Maybe a song change midway through the game or after a major event? Also would've liked a different song for the major areas (Shibuya, Yongen-Jaya, etc). The soundtrack is so good, I just wanted more and more variety. Not enough vocal tracks featuring Lyn either.

3. Outside of the perks, the Social Links/Confidants just felt too same-y compared to Persona 4.

4. That time skip at the end was irritating as hell. Took me back to vanilla Persona 4. That + the tedious 7th dungeon kind of left a nasty taste in my mouth. Maybe I just wasn't ready to say goodbye?

Other than that, stellar game. I just don't feel eager to start NG+ and I almost want to just wait for Golden/Crimson/FES. Hopefully the enhanced version gives us more variety in the soundtrack, modified dungeon designs, revised scenes, and revamped Social Links. They've come really close to making the best JRPG ever IMO.

 

[ShadowSoldier89]

You know, it's pretty funny how none of the guys were that impressed with the girls in yukatas. They made such a big deal in P4G but here, it's like, whatever lol

err, Ryuji was "But man, you both look amazin' in your Yukata! Talk about Japanese beauty..."

 

[LiK]

err, Ryuji was "But man, you both look amazin' in your Yukata! Talk about Japanese beauty..."

He didn't even notice at first, iirc. He was trying to be nice.

 

[ShadowSoldier89]

He didn't even notice at first, iirc. He was trying to be nice.

He didnt say anything at first since they came over berating him for trying to hook up with the random chicks instead of waiting for them. He had to get past that first.

Though he clearly enjoys the bikini more

 

[Kensation]

Akechi is the man.
"FUCK YOU FUCK YOUR SHITTY FRIENDS FUCK YOUR NON HUMAN CAT FUCK YOUR FUCKING DIRTY ATTIC!!!!"

DUN, DUN, DUUUNNNN

 

[PK Gaming]

You know, Akechi is hands down the most entertaining character in this game. As a tryhard detective, as a tryhard ally who dances after an AoA kill, and even as a tryhard traitor, he's always making making me laugh in some way.

"I'M A CELEBRITY!!!!" (paraphrased)

 

[chrominance]

I think the biggest thing is that from a systems level I'm going to have a hard time going into other JRPGs considering the production level of P5, plus how great the battle system feels with its snappiness and the wonderful dungeon design. I'm thinking of finally getting through #FE next but I'm pretty worried it's going to be disappointing going back to conventional (sort of) JRPG designed dungeons

I wouldn't say the dungeons in Persona 5 are that much better than #FE, to be honest (except for some of the puzzles that I found annoying, but then people had similar issues with some of Persona 5's dungeons!). You may still find the game disappointing coming off Persona 5 just because it clearly had more resources and is much more ambitious, but I think #FE holds up well and is still worth playing.

Before we knew what Persona 5's battle system was going to be like, a lot of people thought #FE's session system was a great improvement over Persona 4.

 

[CrimsonFist]

I'd put P5's dungeons significantly above #FE's, but the combat in #FE has some pretty different focuses, and whilst it's not as snappy as P5, it's still a solid system. Also does a really good job at keeping reserve party members relevant and encouraging use of newcomers.

 

[Suzushiiro]

Basically a lot of people feel that way about the game. Most of us are just salty about how MC goes to prison in the end for almost 2 months to save his team and all the time that it wastes. Then they go and skip most of February too just to kick you to the ending in March.

I don't really get the complaints about the timeskip, since

A) 3 and 4 also skipped most of that time, so it's not like it's unprecedented

B) It would have been shit pacing if you could play like normal from the final battle to the day you leave since nothing would really happen (especially since you destroy the metaverse, so they couldn't have put a postgame dungeon in there if they wanted to)

C) Since there's no more dungeon gameplay there'd be very little point to maxing the remaining confidants other than for the sake of getting them or for the NG+ bonuses.

D) If you *did* have that time to do more confidant/social stat grinding in those 1.5-3 months you wouldn't be able to get more done than you would have otherwise, they'd have just re-balanced everything around that time being availible, which would have meant that maxing all of them by 12/24 and thus getting the benefits of doing so (both in terms of gameplay and in terms of the extra scenes that happen in the climax/denouement) in the first run would be impossible. The same thing goes for all of the nights the fucking cat keeps you home- it's midly annoying, but the game wouldn't be any easier if it gave you that time.

 

[CrimsonFist]

I don't really get the complaints about the timeskip, since

A) 3 and 4 also skipped most of that time, so it's not like it's unprecedented

B) It would have been shit pacing if you could play like normal from the final battle to the day you leave since nothing would really happen (especially since you destroy the metaverse, so they couldn't have put a postgame dungeon in there if they wanted to)

C) Since there's no more dungeon gameplay there'd be very little point to maxing the remaining confidants other than for the sake of getting them or for the NG+ bonuses.

D) If you *did* have that time to do more confidant/social stat grinding in those 1.5-3 months you wouldn't be able to get more done than you would have otherwise, they'd have just re-balanced everything around that time being availible, which would have meant that maxing all of them by 12/24 and thus getting the benefits of doing so (both in terms of gameplay and in terms of the extra scenes that happen in the climax/denouement) in the first run would be impossible. The same thing goes for all of the nights the fucking cat keeps you home- it's midly annoying, but the game wouldn't be any easier if it gave you that time.

Plus with the Metaverse gone, most of the confidants outright wouldn't work, since almost all of them have Mementos requirements.

My only real complaint with the epilogue is that on the final day the school is locked out and you only get to walk around during the day, so you can't talk to some of the NPC's.

 

[chrominance]

Plus with the Metaverse gone, most of the confidants outright wouldn't work, since almost all of them have Mementos requirements.

My only real complaint with the epilogue is that on the final day the school is locked out and you only get to walk around during the day, so you can't talk to some of the NPC's.

That and fuckin' Persona 4 set us up to have to check every single area and prompt possible anyways just to make sure we didn't miss some trigger to a true ending.

 

[vkrili]

That and fuckin' Persona 4 set us up to have to check every single area and prompt possible anyways just to make sure we didn't miss some trigger to a true ending.

The worst is after you've talked to everyone and try to enter Leblanc again Morgana's all "Are you sure you have talked to everyone?" >y "Are you REAAALLLYYYY sure??" >y...y...n?

fucking cat stressing me out

 

[LiK]

I'd put P5's dungeons significantly above #FE's, but the combat in #FE has some pretty different focuses, and whilst it's not as snappy as P5, it's still a solid system. Also does a really good job at keeping reserve party members relevant and encouraging use of newcomers.

I think in terms of design, P5 is better than #FE but in terms of length, I preferred #FE except for the stupid one involving the mannequins and giant dresses and also that one with traps on the floor.

 

[Guess Who]

On the last day I tried going to the Accessway at the station, since P4's true ending required you to go to that game's hangout (Junes). Morgana did have a unique line for it - something like "hey, remember when we all used to hang out here? But we don't have any reason to be here now" - but I was hoping it would have unique dialogue for repeatedly trying to go there even when the game tells you to go home. Alas, it did not.

 

[Suzushiiro]

I'm sure Persona 6 and maybe 7 will have similarly obvious bad end/true end requirements and we'll still be super fucking paranoid about every decision we make in the late game, especially on the final day, because of 4.

Then for the one after that we'll finally let our guards down and LOL GET FUCKED YOU HAD TO MAKE THIS PARTICULAR DECISION IN DECEMBER THEN GO TO THIS PLACE ON THE LAST DAY TO GET THE TRUE END

 

[blankempathy]

I'd put P5's dungeons significantly above #FE's, but the combat in #FE has some pretty different focuses, and whilst it's not as snappy as P5, it's still a solid system. Also does a really good job at keeping reserve party members relevant and encouraging use of newcomers.

Throw in the option to swap party members in and out from the start of the game plus the ability to act that same turn and it further encourages different party member use. I love how flexible #fe is with building your party members. Persona 5 characters are pretty set in their roles outside of makoto since she's kind of a Jack of all trades and even then she doesn't really get good late game physical moves. I played p5 with Ann and makoto in my party the whole game while alternating the last slot. While #fe doesn't allow complete customization it allows enough so you can have characters dip a little bit into mostly everything. It makes me actually care about using other characters and keep them leveled up so I can further tweak their abilities as well.

I think in terms of design, P5 is better than #FE but in terms of length, I preferred #FE except for the stupid one involving the mannequins and giant dresses and also that one with traps on the floor.

I always finished them in one day and while feeling accomplished I was also glad to be done. Shido's dungeon really annoyed me though in terms of length. Especially since the passages between each part of the ship didn't show up on the map so I never knew how much more I had left to do. #fe dungeons are pretty standard affair. Some have slightly neat gimmicks but outside of that nothing special so far. I hate the aesthetics of some of the dungeons though. There are barely any landmarks on screen to show you where you're going or where you've been. I got turned around so many times in the dress dungeon because the walls and floor are all the same color across multiple floors. Same with the dungeon after that. Everything looks the same so its hard to tell where the hell I've been. Especially with that dungeon having you go between floors frequently.

Spoiler

Those camera's from the dungeon though ugh. I accidentally walked into those stupid things too many times and the punishment of sending you back to the start of on area was so annoying.

 

[LiK]

I kinda wish P5 had something similar to #FE's Sessions mechanic rather than the Baton. Sessions in #FE was so damn fun to watch in action constantly. The occasional super moves and combo attacks were also quite amazing.

 

[QisTopTier]

I still can't get over that this game in the end is pretty much just a dramatic build up for the holiday special of Satan Saves Christmas

 

[CrimsonFist]

I kinda wish P5 had something similar to #FE's Sessions mechanic rather than the Baton. Sessions in #FE was so damn fun to watch in action constantly. The occasional super moves and combo attacks were also quite amazing.

Being able to baton to reserve party members would have been cool if the game was balanced around it.

 

[Guess Who]

Being able to Baton Pass to reserve members would've been a baller Star arcana perk.

 

[Sub_Level]

Throw in the option to swap party members in and out from the start of the game plus the ability to act that same turn and it further encourages different party member use.

Having access to every possible weakness every turn would be pretty broken. If you have a good set of personas then the player already has access to every weakness on his particular turn as it is. It would have to be rebalanced I think. Maybe lessening the damage of all out attacks and/or limiting them to once per battle.

 

[chrominance]

Having access to every possible weakness every turn would be pretty broken. If you have a good set of personas then the player already has access to every weakness on his particular turn as it is. It would have to be rebalanced I think. Maybe lessening the damage of all out attacks and/or limiting them to once per battle.

Besides the fact that Itsuki doesn't have access to all elemental spells/physical weapons, I think part of the reason why it works better in #FE is because you only have THREE party members, which felt like it made all the difference when it came to survivability. In Persona, having two of your team members down wasn't the end of the world so long as the MC had a resistant persona; in #FE, one person dying could easily start a cycle where you'd have just enough turns to revive and heal before the person who died gets session'd out of existence again.

 

[Guess Who]

The Akechi discourse is gonna be hell, isn't it?

 

[Gartooth]

Fuck this! The game locked me out of the secret boss on the final day! I thought I would be fine fighting the twins as long as I returned to the Mementos entrance before the Holy Grail. I wanted to level grind right before Holy Grail. Of course now Caroline only heals and doesn't offer to fight.

Guess I should just YouTube the fight.

 

[Verder]

basically satan saved christmas

mask off... fuck it mask off

 

[sjay1994]

You know, it's pretty funny how none of the guys were that impressed with the girls in yukatas. They made such a big deal in P4G but here, it's like, whatever lol

I think thats why I like Ryuji so much. He isn't as skeezy as Yoskue, and the "stop acting like you are the protagonist in some anime, its really embarrassing" line he has in Ann's arc is really strong.

 

[Guess Who]

Ryuji is only ever really skeevy at all to Ann, and they have a somewhat flirty teasing relationship going back to middle school that contextualizes it. Nothing like Yosuke I-Bought-You-Girls-Some-Swimsuits-Even-Though-I've-Only-Really-Known-You-For-Like-Three-Months Hanamura.

 

[Weiss]

Yeah I did not get a Yosuke vibe from Ryuji. Both him and Ann are pretty flirty-ish towards one another, and it's clear that they're comfortable with the boundaries they've set. Otherwise he was ever uncouth towards any of the other party members as far as I remember.

 

[WrenchNinja]

I liked Ann in the beach cutscene being all like "how do you like me now, huh" to Ryuji's ogling. I figured the game would be going for a different anime trope but instead she starts laughing at him

 

[sjay1994]

Yeah I did not get a Yosuke vibe from Ryuji. Both him and Ann are pretty flirty-ish towards one another, and it's clear that they're comfortable with the boundaries they've set. Otherwise he was ever uncouth towards any of the other party members as far as I remember.

I think the best descriptor for Ryuji is "better Junpei", since both of them are "idiots" but Ryuji actually feels like a friend through out the game post the first visit to Kamoshida's palace, where as Junpei felt antagonist to the MC of P3 for a good while.

Sure Junpei might have a more compelling overall arc, but I think Ryuji is an actual friend for more of the game.

 

[sjay1994]

I feel like if you followed all of the pre release media, Akechi just felt really obvious to be the traitor since he is barely in any of the pre release footage... and this is one of the promotional images released for the game

Like it felt really obvious, but I did trust him until it was revealed he was the traitor. In hindsight, the "we can't deliver the card until the 18th" was obviously for the police force to mobilize, which I find really interesting for follow ups since it seems like a good portion of the officials in Japan knew about the metaverse, and the "Sons of Shido" who discussed what to do with the metaverse after Shido's change of heart.

Will probably end up regretting it later, but I want spinoffs to P5

You know, Akechi is hands down the most entertaining character in this game. As a tryhard detective, as a tryhard ally who dances after an AoA kill, and even as a tryhard traitor, he's always making making me laugh in some way.

"I'M A CELEBRITY!!!!" (paraphrased)

Prompto did a good job

 

[LiK]

Ryuji is pervy at times but most of the time he treats Ann like one of the guys. He def doesn't try to really want to date the girls like Yosuke did in P4.

 

[sjay1994]

Ryuji is pervy at times but most of the time he treats Ann like one of the guys. He def doesn't try to really want to date the girls like Yosuke did in P4.

Eh, Yu is Yosuke's real soulmate. Asides from Chie, he didn't really have any real chemistry with Rise, Yukiko or Naoto asides from the occasional skeezing.

 

[LiK]

Eh, Yu is Yosuke's real soulmate. Asides from Chie, he didn't really have any real chemistry with Rise, Yukiko or Naoto asides from the occasional skeezing.

Yosuke always brings out the perviness. He suggested they wear swimsuits during the camping trip, tried to sneak into the rooms of the girls in the Inn and he signed them up for the beauty pageant. He's always instigating stuff with the girls. The only guy more pervy than him is Teddie.

 

[sjay1994]

Yosuke always brings out the perviness. He suggested they wear swimsuits during the camping trip, tried to sneak into the rooms of the girls in the Inn and the signed them up for the beauty pageant. He's always instigating stuff with the girls. Not sure what you're talking about, tbh

He is an instigator, that is for sure.

I mean more in the more direct, intimate interactions. Similar to Ann and Ryuji I feel like in P4 Yosuke had more interactions with Chie compared to the rest of the female cast.
It was mostly him teasing her for her love of meat and kung fu movies, but I felt they had more direct interactions opposed to group wide interactions.(then again, this could also be explained by the fact they are both the first party members you acquire)

 

[bigDdestruction]

You know, it's pretty funny how none of the guys were that impressed with the girls in yukatas. They made such a big deal in P4G but here, it's like, whatever lol

yeah i noticed that too, also did anyone else feel the school trip was pointless and not fun at all, not just for the characters, but for the player as well? I mean i think literally nothing happens. Or am i missing something here?

 

[WrenchNinja]

yeah i noticed that too, also did anyone else feel the school trip was pointless and not fun at all, not just for the characters, but for the player as well? I mean i think literally nothing happens. Or am i missing something here?

We learn that the Phantom Thieves are popular in the U.S., sets up Big Bang Burger being all over the place with Okumura Foods backing, Mishima goings nuts about the site, and uh...yeah that's all I remember from the trip

I really thought Mishima was being set up as the traitor since he had so much prominence here for whatever reason

 

[LiK]

yeah i noticed that too, also did anyone else feel the school trip was pointless and not fun at all, not just for the characters, but for the player as well? I mean i think literally nothing happens. Or am i missing something here?

It was a bit dragged out and I was disappointed that there wasn't any hilarious cutscenes aside from a Yusuke showing up suddenly.

 

[Crimsonlink]

I don't really get the complaints about the timeskip, since

A) 3 and 4 also skipped most of that time, so it's not like it's unprecedented

B) It would have been shit pacing if you could play like normal from the final battle to the day you leave since nothing would really happen (especially since you destroy the metaverse, so they couldn't have put a postgame dungeon in there if they wanted to)

C) Since there's no more dungeon gameplay there'd be very little point to maxing the remaining confidants other than for the sake of getting them or for the NG+ bonuses.

D) If you *did* have that time to do more confidant/social stat grinding in those 1.5-3 months you wouldn't be able to get more done than you would have otherwise, they'd have just re-balanced everything around that time being availible, which would have meant that maxing all of them by 12/24 and thus getting the benefits of doing so (both in terms of gameplay and in terms of the extra scenes that happen in the climax/denouement) in the first run would be impossible. The same thing goes for all of the nights the fucking cat keeps you home- it's midly annoying, but the game wouldn't be any easier if it gave you that time.

Solution is to add more late game content. Hell they could still have dungeons. Metaverse remnants or something or the Shido group research unlocked a pseudo Metaverse where anyone can have a palace or something.

 

[robotrock]

what does ryuji even say in that bath house scene if you don't say "ann is a great team mate"

 

[LotusHD]

Oh, so I've been hearing that this game's school life was pretty lacking in comparison to the previous games. What did the previous ones let you do?

 

[Guess Who]

Oh, so I've been hearing that this game's school life was pretty lacking in comparison to the previous games. What did the previous ones let you do?

I think the main complaint is the lack of clubs. P3 and P4 let you join sports and fine arts clubs, which had associated social links (Confidants). It was really just another social link to do - you didn't do anything gameplay wise with the club itself - but it made school life feel a little more relevant.

In P3, all the sports clubs and art clubs were the same character you social linked with, but P4 had different social links depending on if you did soccer or basketball, and band or drama.

 

[CrimsonFist]

In P3/4 you just hang around the school more in your free time. School focused club social links, party members tend to hang around school more. Not sure if P3/4 have more school centric events, but the ones that are in P5 either tend to be tied to the abusive/incompetent staff, or Phantom Thief activities, rather than school slice of life.

 

[robotrock]

I liked how in Persona 4 you'd be able to make plans at lunch time with people later

 

[Guess Who]

I liked how in Persona 4 you'd be able to make plans at lunch time with people later

I do miss being able to eat lunch together, but the "friends come up to you at lunch and ask to hang out" system is entirely redundant with text messages in P5.

 

[mdubs]

I'm sure Persona 6 and maybe 7 will have similarly obvious bad end/true end requirements and we'll still be super fucking paranoid about every decision we make in the late game, especially on the final day, because of 4.

Then for the one after that we'll finally let our guards down and LOL GET FUCKED YOU HAD TO MAKE THIS PARTICULAR DECISION IN DECEMBER THEN GO TO THIS PLACE ON THE LAST DAY TO GET THE TRUE END

Man the ending requirements in P4 are flagrant nonsense. Developers shouldn't do things like that

 

[robotrock]

I do miss being able to eat lunch together, but the "friends come up to you at lunch and ask to hang out" system is entirely redundant with text messages in P5.

Phones ruined a generation. Talking to people in person>>>>stupid text messages

 

[Guess Who]

The true end in P4 is deliberately designed for you to miss it and it is a thematically appropriate (if player-hostile) decision that I will defend to my grave.

 

[_Ryo_]

Does the ending of the game make Dungeon DLC impossible? I struggle to see how they could add in any new dungeons via DLC or expansion due to how the dungeons workin regards to the timeline and the story. Theyre all so connected. The only thing I can think of is adding more Mementos requests.

 

[CrimsonFist]

Does the ending of the game make Dungeon DLC impossible? I struggle to see how they could add in any new dungeons via DLC or expansion due to how the dungeons workin regards to the timeline and the story. Theyre all so connected. The only thing I can think of is adding more Mementos requests.

There's any sort of excuse plot you could write to add in another dungeon if you really wanted to, so not technically "impossible". As we'll see when the spinoffs need an excuse for the Metaverse to be back post ending.

I don't think there's any place you could reasonably add another dungeon into the original game though, there's not really any free time to add in extra events, and post final boss doesn't make sense. You could maybe do an Answer style story that's outside of the main game's content.