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[SPOILERS] Persona 5 Spoiler Thread | Steal your heart; steel yourself

Yukari gets name dropped on the TV, and I also saw mention of the Amagi Inn on TV as well.

Naoto gets referenced in comparison to Akechi too. And Adachi gets referenced (seems to be a TV drama about the Inaba murders since 2016 would be way to late for any live questioning of him by detectives).

Wait.

If they got mentioned on the TV...

Does that mean things are acting up in Inaba again!?

Nah. Only Yukiko was specifically mentioned to be in Inaba IIRC.
 

KTallguy

Banned
I'm jealous of people who have been playing the series in Japanese all this time, since you got to hear the real Igor at the end of the game - even if it was pieced together from old clips. The dub used a new VA, so the "real" Igor is just as foreign as the imposter Igor.

The game doesn't come out and say this, which I think it definitely should have, but I think Haru was able to get over her father's death so easily because he was honestly a complete piece of shit. And not even like "typical deadbeat dad" piece of shit, but "full-on mustache-twirling villain" piece of shit.

I agree that Yusuke feels very unique even among a cast of outsiders and outcasts. His design feels much more SMT than the rest of the cast, too.

Fuck Morgana and the fedora he rode in on.

First, thanks for reading my wall of text.

I assume they didn't use the original Igor VA because of contract shit. Localization is a total bitch. I bet they tried though.

Even if Haru's dad was a POS, Yusuke was still whining about his teacher/father Madarame the entire game. Haru barely shed any tears for her dad. It's just not really realistic. Even just one scene where she breaks down and says "I know he was an asshole, but ... shit I miss him," is enough to imply that he's on her mind. The mementos scene where you meet all the other assholes had a tiny sequence but it was kinda meh.

But Yusuke did feel kind of real in a way, Quirky, but real.

I always thought "The Golden" was just referring to the golden shadow in Jungian psychology:

Thank you for this, it's fascinating. Jungian psychology is cool.

I thought the game would have benefitted by breaking the structure of repetition up sometimes. Why do I always get text messages from my stupid group chat of morons as soon as I get home? They could pop up randomly and maybe make them feel a little more organic.

I think it's because you are typically making all your decisions on how you spend your time right away. If invitations popped up randomly, I might miss them as I trigger some other shit first.

However, the suggestion that they send chat about other stuff is cool. But I also figure people might get annoyed because they can't DO anything with them. Basically unless there's gameplay intentionality, they don't use the chat system outside of cutscenes.

Maybe non important chats could be a different color ... but I digress. I think the SMS system is cool and modern though.

My favorite ancillary character is that asshole on the train playing his Vita. That's me!
 

Guess Who

Banned
You can see a complete transcription of all the past Persona references on the TV here:

https://pastebin.com/8qVDJc6n

Complete list:

- Naoto Shirogane (P4)
- The Kirijo Group (KJ Mobile) (P3)
- Wild-Duck Burger (P3)
- Rise Kujikawa (P4)
- Kizuna Fest/Kanamin Kitchen (P4D)
- Marukyu Tofu (P4)
- Yukari Takeba (P3)
- Feather Pink/Featherman (P4AU/P2)
- Taro Namatame (P4)
- One handsome detective with red sunglasses (Katsuya Suou) (P2)
- A legendary gumshoe who took down a bear (Akihiko Sanada) (P3)
- One tough girl in police academy who knows kung fu (Chie Satonaka) (P4)
- The P4 culprit (
Adachi
)
- The Amagi Inn/its young proprietress (Yukiko Amagi) (P4)
 

Telfo

Member
Just finished after 105 hours and have some thoughts:

- the Igor reveal was great and totally unexpected

- The way they killed off Akechi was kind of anti-climatic

- between Haru joining the team so late and her s-link being gated I ended up just ignoring her completely in order to max out some others that I had already started.

- Futaba being a romance option seemed a bit creepy since they made her out to be a little sister type the whole time and she was younger than MC as well

- Makoto the best

- The Morgana storyline ending was OK but a bit underwhelming in the end.

- I thought it was weird how most of the Shido stuff was wrapped up off screen, would have been cool to at least get a short cut scene for that

- Overall I really liked the presentation and gameplay of P5 but still liked the plot and characters of P4G better. One day soon I am finally going to play P3 FES.
 
- I thought it was weird how most of the Shido stuff was wrapped up off screen, would have been cool to at least get a short cut scene for that

I found this to be weird, too. Dude fucked up the lives of like half of the main cast (MC, Futaba, Haru, Akechi) and the game just yadda-yadda'd the catharsis for taking him down. It was like... great, so glad we spent the entire game building him up as the big bad just to get a few throwaway lines from Sae as to what happens to him after his boss fight.

The game should've gone full Ace Attorney with his trial, honestly.
 

kewlmyc

Member
You can see a complete transcription of all the past Persona references on the TV here:

https://pastebin.com/8qVDJc6n

Complete list:

- Naoto Shirogane (P4)
- The Kirijo Group (KJ Mobile) (P3)
- Wild-Duck Burger (P3)
- Rise Kujikawa (P4)
- Kizuna Fest/Kanamin Kitchen (P4D)
- Marukyu Tofu (P4)
- Yukari Takeba (P3)
- Feather Pink/Featherman (P4AU/P2)
- Taro Namatame (P4)
- One handsome detective with red sunglasses (Katsuya Suou) (P2)
- A legendary gumshoe who took down a bear (Akihiko Sanada) (P3)
- One tough girl in police academy who knows kung fu (Chie Satonaka) (P4)
- The P4 culprit (
Adachi
)
- The Amagi Inn/its young proprietress (Yukiko Amagi) (P4)

I'm confused as to when this game takes place. I assumed 5 years after P4, but Yukari is still in college. Maybe she's pursuing her Masters.
 

Guess Who

Banned
It's 2016 because Rise is 20.

The days of the week on the calendar also match up with 2016.

Rise would be 21 in 2016. 20 would be 2015. However, you're correct that the game calendar matches up with 2016.

The real answer to "when does P5 take place" is "several indeterminate years after P4," and the answer to "why is Yukari still in college?" is "because the TV appearances are just silly cameos and aren't meant to be analyzed this deeply."
 
Rise would be 21 in 2016. 20 would be 2015. However, you're correct that the game calendar matches up with 2016.

The real answer to "when does P5 take place" is "several indeterminate years after P4," and the answer to "why is Yukari still in college?" is "because the TV appearances are just silly cameos and aren't meant to be analyzed this deeply."

You can just about make Yukari in college work. Final year in High School in 2010. Then assume she did college part time and acting part time and she'd be in something like her Final Year in 2016.

Chief as a Police Cadet is harder unless being a Police Officers either require a degree or has a 3 or 4 year training program of its own in Japan.

Also Rise would would be both 20 and 21 in 2016 (20 until June 1 then 21 for the rest of the year).
 

Bladenic

Member
Also why does it have to be about the case all the time?

Some random chat about whatevers could probably help make the group dynamic seem more casual.



Ah alright.

Honestly this went a long way into making me care less about the group as a whole. They seriously have next to no group interactions that aren't about being Phantom Thieves. Going to Hawaii? Still talking non-stop about being PTs. That combined with no social link between the group made me feel like their group dynamic was harmed compared to P3 and P4's group.

The saving grace is when they help Futaba come out of her shell, which is my favorite part of the game for the group. That, plus the final boss. In previous games, it's always the protag alone who finished off the boss. Here, your crew is right there beside you, which was cool.

The group chats definitely became unbearable though. I started holding fast forward through them by the end.
 
It's funny, because I think talking about being Phantom Thieves could have helped a lot with the group dynamic, but the conversations that they do have are just repeats of what's already known. Most of the group conversations follow the exact same format:
  1. "Something bad happened!"
  2. "What should we do?"
  3. "I dunno..."
  4. "Me neither."
  5. "I guess all we can do is wait, huh?"
I do think it's interesting that some people miss the auto-advancing group links though. Those always seemed like a waste to me, as they only really advanced after major plot moments and not after the friendly bonding moments. Those links felt less like the group coming together, and more like an indicator of story progression.
 

PK Gaming

Member
It's possibly unintentional, but I've always liked the fact that Joker has multiple faces in Persona 5.

1) During daily life he's reserved, calm and quiet. He has his fair share snarky comments/moments of action, but his body language generally screams passivity.

2) As a Phantom Thief he's flamboyant, confidant, smug, and a total daredevil. Obvious.

3) Inside the Velvet Room he drops the confidence he displays as a Phantom Thief, but he isn't passive either. I like to think that this is his true nature, given his lack of glasses OR mask.

Intentional or not, it's neat how it ties into the "people have 3 faces" concept fairly well.
 
It's possibly unintentional, but I've always liked the fact that Joker has multiple faces in Persona 5.

1) During daily life he's reserved, calm and quiet. He has his fair share snarky comments/moments of action, but his body language generally screams passivity.

2) As a Phantom Thief he's flamboyant, confidant, smug, and a total daredevil. Obvious.

3) Inside the Velvet Room he drops the confidence he displays as a Phantom Thief, but he isn't passive either. I like to think that this is his true nature, given his lack of glasses OR mask.

Intentional or not, it's neat how it ties into the "people have 3 faces" concept fairly well.

I don't think that it's unintentional. There's a real contrast between Jokers normal body language​ and his thief attitude. It'd be hard to do that accidentally.
 

PK Gaming

Member
Oh yeah, the contrast between the daily life and phantom thieving is obvious, but Prison!Joker has me intrigued

EDIT:

the-japanese-say-you-have-three-faces-the-first-face-5699757.png


Basically this. I'm wondering if prison!Joker is his true self.
 
Oh yeah, the contrast between the daily life and phantom thieving is obvious, but Prison!Joker has me intrigued

EDIT:

the-japanese-say-you-have-three-faces-the-first-face-5699757.png


Basically this. I'm wondering if prison!Joker is his true self.

It doesn't seem to line up though. He's passive even when dealing with friends in his real world garb (he's passive even in his lounge wear). And he's cocky and devil may care even against enemies as Joker, he even hams it up more in the intro scene to draw attention to himself. Prisoner!Joker as real self seems to work though.

It seems more like the general persona as masks concept than that specifically.
 

Antiwhippy

the holder of the trombone
But it kinda feels more... appropriate here I guess?

Or maybe it's because everyone is such a dick to you at the start. :p
 
In retrospect, it feels pretty dumb to have Yusuke, Akechi and Hifumi be from other schools and not really do anything with ithat. It doesn't really expand the world, since we never see their schools and they're all friendless losers when we meet them.
 

Bladenic

Member
In retrospect, it feels pretty dumb to have Yusuke, Akechi and Hifumi be from other schools and not really do anything with ithat. It doesn't really expand the world, since we never see their schools and they're all friendless losers when we meet them.

The only good thing to come out of the whole "Yusuke goes to a different" school is when he's all "why the hell am I here, my exams are already finished" in December during a group study session. So funny.
 

PK Gaming

Member
They probably wanted to avoid the "every Persona team member conveniently goes to the same school" thing again

You really should have been able to visit Kosei high at some point, though
 

Bladenic

Member
They probably wanted to avoid the "every Persona team member conveniently goes to the same school" thing again

You really should have been able to visit Kosei high at some point, though

You know, the fact that Haru does go to their school makes her late appearance even more egregious. I can't remember if she was in Makoto's class though, I'm assuming no.
 

Siyou

Member
So I finally finished Persona 5. I'd say that Ryuji was probably my favorite just for how eccentric his voice actor was. As the game progressed, I actually started to hate Ryuji a lot as the story progressed because of how absorbed he became with the phantom thieves and how full of pride he became because of the accomplishments and his lust to accomplish more. Morgana going off on his own later was truly a heart-wrenching moment for me. I truly felt that I had betrayed Morgana based on the indecisiveness of the cast, which led me to realize just how weak the cast felt.

As the game went on I felt like I was learning more and more, and there just seemed to be no end to the learning. It was immense and after finishing the game it has left me with an odd hole. Like, the game taught me so much on how to play it, and I only really learned by the time I beat it the full extent of playing the game.

Truth be told, I enjoyed the pacing at times, but I hated how the characters would fall apart as time went on without a firm lead. I finished the game with about 130 hours clocked and as others have mentioned, the Igor reveal floored me. It was perhaps the most surprised I've ever been from a Persona game to this point (I've only played; 3 FES and 4) Everything felt weird though, the elaborate dungeon crawling near the end with enemies much more difficult to take down than those prior. It was like running a gauntlet.

The game though really wore me out after the time spent playing for the finale. By the time the end finally came about, I didn't really feel much about the ending like I had with P4. I maxed out every social link but Hanged and Priestess. Kawakami was perhaps the only choice for waifu, the others all felt excessively fake.
 
Anyone else wish the Hawaii part of the game was longer?

Having beaten the game today, I feel that one thing that is missing are the hilarious misadventures like in Persona 4. Some of the most memorable moments in P4 are things like the camping trip and Mystery Curry X, the school trip and the Kings Game, the school festival and the beauty pageants.

The Hawaii trip was the perfect opportunity for some fun shenanigans and it was ultimately very uneventful. It's a small nit pick but it was one of the few things I think P4 has over P5.
 

Kalentan

Member
Having beaten the game today, I feel that one thing that is missing are the hilarious misadventures like in Persona 4. Some of the most memorable moments in P4 are things like the camping trip and Mystery Curry X, the school trip and the Kings Game, the school festival and the beauty pageants.

The Hawaii trip was the perfect opportunity for some fun shenanigans and it was ultimately very uneventful. It's a small nit pick but it was one of the few things I think P4 has over P5.

Yeah. I do feel like the group rarely got together to do things outside of being Phantom Thieves.
 
Maybe it'll be different on a replay since I've grown more fond of the cast, but at the time of the Hawaii trip I just wanted it to get back to the main plot. The group dynamics weren't interesting or funny enough to make me want more hangout events. I wanted less.

Ryuji and the lads not shutting the fuck up about how desperate they were just annoyed me. Teddie and Yosuke already ran that gimmick off into the sunset.
 

EMT0

Banned
Maybe it'll be different on a replay since I've grown more fond of the cast, but at the time of the Hawaii trip I just wanted it to get back to the main plot. The group dynamics weren't interesting or funny enough to make me want more hangout events. I wanted less.

Ryuji and the lads not shutting the fuck up about how desperate they were just annoyed me. Teddie and Yosuke already ran that gimmick off into the sunset.

Yuuuup. You can't outTeddie Teddie. It's just not doable.
 
Yeah. I do feel like the group rarely got together to do things outside of being Phantom Thieves.
Their are a good handful of times they do get together. Their fireworks get rained on, they go to a buffet, and they go to a beach. But none of them really have any super memorable moments like the get togethers in P4.
 

PK Gaming

Member
Hawaii was okay, but that heart to heart with Ryuji and Ann was straight up amazing. I really wish they just let these 2 talk and reflect on everything.

And fuck Mishima for interrupting it with his diarrhea. Damn fool.
 
It's tough to choose but I think I like P4 more than P5.

I also can't stop thinking about P5's characters in terms of combinations of P4 characters.

i.e. Ryuji = Yosuke + Kanji, Makoto = Naoto + Yukiko, Ann = Rise + Chie, etc.
 

Kalentan

Member
One thing I wasn't sure about... Does any of the public remember the fight against Yaldaboth? Or just those touched by the MC?
 
The public seem to be aware that something happened , otherwise the bit where the police deliberately go after them at the end wouldn't make so.

But they don't seem to remember the whole Gigantic Mechanical God confronting the Phantom Thieves and being shot in the head by Satanael bit.
 
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