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[SPOILERS] Persona 5 Spoiler Thread | Steal your heart; steel yourself
- Thread starter Nachos
- Start date
ChasingComets
Member
And that's why liking Futaba is the true Persona 5 experience. You're always getting labelled! 
Man, i'm not so sure about that. The game seems to encourage romance of any kind.
I wouldn't be surprised, but any specific examples?
Lol yea, they even let you date Ohya!
Hasphat'sAnts
Member
Mostly from the Valentines date.
1.) Sojiro's reaction shows he feels kinda betrayed.
2.) The line where she says she wishes Sojiro adopted the MC got a very loud "NOPE!" outta me.
Ah yea, true
Sojiro's reaction basically has him begrudgingly accepting it, though. If it were Dojima or literally any other father in existence, Joker would have ceased to exist. He also covers for you, even if you cheat on Futaba, which is a pretty lo move.
The game doesn't criticize you at all for dating Futaba. They play up their relationship as "cute."
Benzychenz
Member
I definitely expect Akechi to return in an eventual enchanced version or a spinoff.
Off screen death and then no followup for the remainder of the story is so suspect, not to mention anticlimactic.
Off screen death and then no followup for the remainder of the story is so suspect, not to mention anticlimactic.
Finished it last night slept on it and alot of things have probably been said already but here are the quick points
-The last act while fun is also not needed. The game's last message of the importance of the small battles is completely at odds with the need to have a battle against a god because persona has to follow the rules of the average action anime of fighting demigods in the end. The Igor swerve saved it for me.
-I loved how the end result wasn't a big jerk off fest for the MC (other then trying to get him out of jail and his farewell tour of the town which makes me sense) but more so of the PT group itself.
Fun ride. I got into this series from P4A so give me the arena game now.
edit: Shido even got the better battle theme so yea he should have been it
-The last act while fun is also not needed. The game's last message of the importance of the small battles is completely at odds with the need to have a battle against a god because persona has to follow the rules of the average action anime of fighting demigods in the end. The Igor swerve saved it for me.
-I loved how the end result wasn't a big jerk off fest for the MC (other then trying to get him out of jail and his farewell tour of the town which makes me sense) but more so of the PT group itself.
Fun ride. I got into this series from P4A so give me the arena game now.
edit: Shido even got the better battle theme so yea he should have been it
WrenchNinja
Member
I thought for sure he saved Ryuji in the explosion and I was surprised they just left it as Ryuji blacking out and randomly waking up on some grass
Mediking
Member
Actually thought Makoto was gonna be a traitor from how the game was portraying her at times. Still a shame what happened to Akechi.
StarCreator
Member
Do I really need to quote that huge post from last page again lol
Young Magus
Junior Member
Do it
If your talking about the last act with the fake Igor there isn't much you can spin on it other then them wanting a god battle and tried to cover it with story beats about the nation bring asleep at the wheel which was pretty much laid out with shido.
It wasn't worth undercutting the pancake detective and shido last moments story wise. It was still fun tho and I'm glad it was padded with more gameplay there.
Lunafreya Nox Fleuret
Member
Uhhhhh why would Makoto be a traitor? She was being used.... which is why she was forced by the Principle to investigate Joker and the thieves. He even put her recommendation for college on the line. After that... when she got called useless by her sister is when she truly decided she wanted to save her sister from authority. I never got the impression she was a traitor because the phonecalls made it obvious something was up. I dunno, I just feel it was obvious Makoto was not spying on you for her own benefit.
Antiwhippy
the holder of the trombone
Why do we want to replace akechi again...?
Iva Demilcol
Member
I think it got lost/discarded as the story unfolds but I thought that the original intention of P studio was that we had to believe that one of the confidants (anyone) could betray you and that all of them would have reasons to do so. For example: Shinya's or Hifumi's mother, or Sojiro, or your teacher, etc., it would've been more interesting if you had to discover by yourself who was the traitor instead of giving that role to a story related confidant.
Rawr Its Ry
Member
Bruhhh I feel like we're gonna wait a long time with dbfz coming out first
Isaac Otherworld
Member
So does anyone know the symbology behind Mementos? Why is it called Mementos? What's the deal with all the different "Path of Whatever" names for all the major areas? The megaten wiki and TvTropes don't really have anything.
While Akechi was obviously suspect number 1, I felt like Makoto and Haru had the potential to be curve balls and be the traitor. Makoto was acting very weird during the final palace. It makes sense because it's her sister and I felt like it was a possibility she could be the traitor because she'd want to prevent a chance of heart in your sister.
I suspected Haru because she's too much of a cupcake to be believed and felt like maybe she could actually blame the phantom thieves for her father's death.
Like I said, Akechi is the most obvious suspect but had the game thrown either of those twists at me I would have been surprised but would have bought it.
While Akechi was obviously suspect number 1, I felt like Makoto and Haru had the potential to be curve balls and be the traitor. Makoto was acting very weird during the final palace. It makes sense because it's her sister and I felt like it was a possibility she could be the traitor because she'd want to prevent a chance of heart in your sister.
I suspected Haru because she's too much of a cupcake to be believed and felt like maybe she could actually blame the phantom thieves for her father's death.
Like I said, Akechi is the most obvious suspect but had the game thrown either of those twists at me I would have been surprised but would have bought it.
Autoignition
Member
They're all pulled from the Kabbalah. The levels generally refer to some spiritual form of stubbornness, apathy, etc. It's nothing super special.
They just want to invoke the wrath. My wrath.
Mediking
Member
Hear me out. Lol.
Think back when the crew was invading Sae's Palace. I thought Makoto felt very uncomfortable with invading Sae's Palace. And some of the dialogue she had about the crew at that point sounded very... "Are we doing the right thing?"
Thats another good point. I also had the feeling that maybe Morgana would turn into a traitor when we found out he really was. Now THAT would've been impactful because Morgana is very close to Joker.
I could have seen Morgana betraying the team as well, maybe the false Igor could have been the one to create Morgana (rather than Morgana being made by mankind's willpower or whatever) to bring joker and the gang (the only ones who could stop the BBEG) down to the depths of Mementos and their probable deaths.
StarCreator
Member
Shido was just a red herring for the corrupt politicians who were just going to keep doing what they do regardless of their figurehead's changed heart. He was a catalyst for the events of the game, sure, but he was far from being the true mastermind; he only just happens to be at an advantage because he's Akechi's dad and happened to find out about what Futaba's mom was researching. Without those things, he is utterly insignificant and any one of those politicians could have served the same role.
I'm really glad the game didn't end there because it would be a complete non-ending.
Antiwhippy
the holder of the trombone
I mean, it's her sister.
Yeah, I read someone saying that the big twist in the story wasn't that Akechi was the traitor, but rather that the team was a step ahead of it the whole time. It makes a lot more sense if you think about it that way.
I was incredibly sleep deprived when I saw the pancake scene, and missed the hint entirely. The whole reveal hit me that much harder because of it.
I was also badly thrown off by a stray google search a while back. I was looking up something about Haru's confidant lines, typed "Haru" into the search window and Google fucking autocompleted "Haru kills futaba" so I thought I had spoiled myself. In my mind, Haru and Akechi were the prime suspects for the traitor. Akechi joining and his behavior throughout the casino palace made him too obviously fishy, but Haru also seemed suspicious because of that Google search, and also because of various red herrings:
- she took her father's death WAY too well
- She was the only Persona user who was not only not exhausted after her awakening, but was tough enough to finish her entire dungeon run without missing a beat.
- she seemed generally way less shocked/upset than you might expect about how that entire heist went south. She had every reason to get angry at the team for repeatedly telling her to trust them, but nothing ever came of it.
StarCreator
Member
Haru might be the most confusing of the party. Her link to her Persona wasn't complete, but she had the Metaverse outfit thing going on despite that? Why did she effectively have two Persona awakenings besides simply it being convenient to the runaway Mona plot that way?
Herr Starr
Member
That was what I thought while playing as well. I expected her to be the traitor, but not in terms of actually betraying the group, but more in terms of preparing an alternate plan behind the group's back, one resulting in Joker getting captured and placed in that particular cell. I thought Joker escaping would be the result of some kind of Makoto master plan.
Akechi blindsided me completely.
Marmaladefire
Member
I think the gist is that Morgana + the fact that it was her father's palace was pushing her to keep moving despite not being totally instep with her own Persona yet. Besides Akechi, Haru had the most trouble mentally putting aside who she was "supposed to be" and becoming a full time delinquent.
KO Traveling Hobo
Member
There was also that line in the apartment before changing Sae's heart where Makoto says something like "I won't let anyone do anything to you". It was a bit ominous at the time.
Just about to finish the game - about an in-game week or so away from unlocking the final dungeon - and I just happened upon this thread. So why not contribute a few thoughts before I head into the Depths and start bodying god or whatever. (Yes I've been somewhat spoiled. Trust me, I do not care.)
Overall, I think the game is....good. Not fantastic by any means, but good. I'm actually going to finish it, which is rare for me with games, so that's pretty high praise. That said, I did have some problems. Namely with the script and pacing of the game.
Now, before I start, I'm going to say that I understand that the game is balanced with the time the player has available in mind. Having limited time isn't my problem - if it were, I wouldn't be playing Persona. Rather, it's the way the game paces its story segments, and thus has to rip control away from the player, that gets irksome. There were a couple times I would sit down to play, excited to explore Mementos or hang out with the homies, and be treated to a hour (or couple of hours) of cutscenes. The developers seem to be really banking on the player being in love with the story to the point they wouldn't mind. I can even say for myself, that was the case in P4. But here...
I think Persona 5 has a very interesting story to tell. I enjoy the themes of rebellion, upsetting the status quo, learning to stand up for your beliefs and convictions, the political allegories, etc. But it tells that story in a very slow, and often bland way. And maybe this is an issue with the translation, but I felt like the script could have used some tighter pacing and a little "punching up" to make the scenes and dialogue more natural and engaging. A lot of it is either repetitive exposition (I know how the cognitive world works. Stop explaining it) or fairly inane conversation (the got damn text messages). There were so many moments it felt like the story was just milling about, and I just never found myself really into the main cast as a collective, though I do like some of them as individual characters. (Not poor Haru, tho. I don't dislike her, but....why is she there? If she didn't have the odd bit of dialogue, I'd forget about her completely).
It wore thin after a while. I think the school trip to Hawaii was what finally broke me. So. Boring. And maybe that was the point, but my stars and garters. It lasts a good while, and once it's over, you're thrown into more story stuff. Again, maybe if I loved the story more, this would have been okay. As is, I was just over it.
However, I have played this game almost 100 hours, so I obviously don't hate it. So what do I like? Well, the Palaces are amazing. Wonderfully designed dungeons from art direction to music to theme to level design. Some obviously better than others - the tomb and museum were standouts for me while I wasn't so hot on the ship or the bank - but none I would call bad.
I loved that they brought in negotiations. It added a needed new layer to combat and strategy, and the negotiations feature some of the game's best dialogue. Also, as a dude who has been a big Pokemon fan since I was 8, I really enjoyed trying to collect all the shadows.
The confidants were good. Again, some better than others, but that's always been the case. Loved the doctor (aka bae), the reporter, Ryuji, and Shogi girl. Really though, I love that confidants unlock new abilites beyond just the party. It gives another layer of incentive to building your links and makes deciding who to spend time with harder. Often, I would find myself struggling over whether to pick pursue a link because I was interested in the story (reporter) or because I just wanted those sweet abilities (anime Bernie). Story usually won out, but thankfully, most characters give you good stuff.
So overall...good game. 4 is still my favorite, but I definitely like it over 3 and hope the new gameplay improvements make their way into Persona 6.
Overall, I think the game is....good. Not fantastic by any means, but good. I'm actually going to finish it, which is rare for me with games, so that's pretty high praise. That said, I did have some problems. Namely with the script and pacing of the game.
Now, before I start, I'm going to say that I understand that the game is balanced with the time the player has available in mind. Having limited time isn't my problem - if it were, I wouldn't be playing Persona. Rather, it's the way the game paces its story segments, and thus has to rip control away from the player, that gets irksome. There were a couple times I would sit down to play, excited to explore Mementos or hang out with the homies, and be treated to a hour (or couple of hours) of cutscenes. The developers seem to be really banking on the player being in love with the story to the point they wouldn't mind. I can even say for myself, that was the case in P4. But here...
I think Persona 5 has a very interesting story to tell. I enjoy the themes of rebellion, upsetting the status quo, learning to stand up for your beliefs and convictions, the political allegories, etc. But it tells that story in a very slow, and often bland way. And maybe this is an issue with the translation, but I felt like the script could have used some tighter pacing and a little "punching up" to make the scenes and dialogue more natural and engaging. A lot of it is either repetitive exposition (I know how the cognitive world works. Stop explaining it) or fairly inane conversation (the got damn text messages). There were so many moments it felt like the story was just milling about, and I just never found myself really into the main cast as a collective, though I do like some of them as individual characters. (Not poor Haru, tho. I don't dislike her, but....why is she there? If she didn't have the odd bit of dialogue, I'd forget about her completely).
It wore thin after a while. I think the school trip to Hawaii was what finally broke me. So. Boring. And maybe that was the point, but my stars and garters. It lasts a good while, and once it's over, you're thrown into more story stuff. Again, maybe if I loved the story more, this would have been okay. As is, I was just over it.
However, I have played this game almost 100 hours, so I obviously don't hate it. So what do I like? Well, the Palaces are amazing. Wonderfully designed dungeons from art direction to music to theme to level design. Some obviously better than others - the tomb and museum were standouts for me while I wasn't so hot on the ship or the bank - but none I would call bad.
I loved that they brought in negotiations. It added a needed new layer to combat and strategy, and the negotiations feature some of the game's best dialogue. Also, as a dude who has been a big Pokemon fan since I was 8, I really enjoyed trying to collect all the shadows.
The confidants were good. Again, some better than others, but that's always been the case. Loved the doctor (aka bae), the reporter, Ryuji, and Shogi girl. Really though, I love that confidants unlock new abilites beyond just the party. It gives another layer of incentive to building your links and makes deciding who to spend time with harder. Often, I would find myself struggling over whether to pick pursue a link because I was interested in the story (reporter) or because I just wanted those sweet abilities (anime Bernie). Story usually won out, but thankfully, most characters give you good stuff.
So overall...good game. 4 is still my favorite, but I definitely like it over 3 and hope the new gameplay improvements make their way into Persona 6.
Antiwhippy
the holder of the trombone
Yandere ending.
The fact that they're switching directors is slightly worrying, but the hope is that they use P5 as a base and latch onto a fresh new direction for the sequel.
Marmaladefire
Member
Poor Futaba. Just off of the edge of suicide and then killed by the worst person in the cast
Iva Demilcol
Member
If Haru killed Futaba, Haru would be the best girl since Futaba is so "effing" annoying.
Antiwhippy
the holder of the trombone
Ok, weird.
It's just such a left field thing to become something that gets autocompleted lol.
Mediking
Member
False Igor reveal was amazing. I remember thinking why did Igor sound like a demon and so different before playing P5. Then the game tricks you into thinking False Igor was your ally then BLAM! He's not Igor at all. Now that was awesome.
I was hoping Akechi wouldn't be a traitor because he was gonna be an Adachi clone. He deserved to be a good guy and not be evil. Really don't like that he turned out to be a killer. Even worse he turned out to be Shido's son. Like really???
EXACTLY! That's the exact part where I was like... "Did Makoto do something...?"
Herr Starr
Member
I think the reason Akachi's betrayal blindsided me is because it was too obvious. I was expecting the story to try to pull an actual twist, but by doing this after the stuff in Persona 4, it just doesn't feel all that surprising. By virtue of being the most obvious traitor, I considered him to be one of the least likely to actually be a traitor.
Akechi bothered me after his betrayal in how he suddenly went all anime-tropey. Manic grin, exposition dumps that would make a Bond villain blush, and motivations that didn't range very far outside the "ultimate power!" trope kind of sucked my interest in that story away, though the actual confrontation with him in Shido's palace was handled well enough.
I know what you mean.
I actually had a similar thought to you about them setting the MC up to get caught on purpose as a trap. For the exact same reason - that Akechi was too bloody obvious.
That said, by the time I got to the end of dungeon 6, and was doing the opening sequence again, I'd accepted that it was Akechi, as obvious as it was. It was the only answer really.
Although his reveal wasn't surprising, how it all played out was amusing enough.
FantasticMrSnake
Member
I though the same .., it was way too obvious that he was the traitor.
BTW what was SAE's treasure ?
I felt a little disappointed about Morgana, she/he is just.. Morgana..., not a demon, not a shadow, not weird secret, it didn't turn into human like Teddy, just nothing.. at least it didn't died.
One thing that I don't get, why some people die when they shadow die? and others don't, like the main character?
It has to be their one true shadow so to speak. Ie the shadow in their palace, or their shadow in mementos.
The MC shouldn't technically have a personal shadow since his Personas are his shadow.
ShironRedshift
Member
Been going through this again, and just got to Okumura's Palace. This time, I noticed that when Morgana runs off to the Palace on his own, right before he collapses/Haru finds him, he says "Master...?" before he passes out. And of course Kawakami shenanigans aside, there's only one person that tends to be referred to as "Master" in Persona. Nice bit of foreshadowing. Can't believe I didn't pick up on that before, especially since I did notice "pancakes" earlier, and that's probably even more on the nose (fake edit: completely unintentional, but I'll roll with it) than that.
Yeah, it has to be their own personal Shadow in their own Palace (or presumably Mementos, I guess, though we never see such a thing really play out) that gets killed to trigger a mental shutdown. Akechi kills Sae's mental representation of Joker in her Palace, which is fine. It would have only been a problem if that was Joker's own Shadow in his own mental world, but since it was Sae's construct of him, it was fine.
Mediking
Member
Yeah, everything involving Akechi as a traitor was pretty bad. Not really a fan of all that at all. And he's Shido's son... like really? Don't just throw that at a character randomly like that.
Good question... I have no idea what Sae's Treasure is. And yeah Morgana should've been something more and turned into a human!
Watch Da Birdie
I buy cakes for myself on my birthday it's not weird lots of people do it I bet
Finally finished. Wow. I usually don't complete games often but I always seem to have time for Persona ironically despite being so long...too long?
I think the game is its strongest in the beginning as the Kamoshida plot is really well done with a detestable villain (I mean as an American, a sports coach who gets away with sexual harassment because his team is the pride of the school is easy to accept---though in my case it'd be Football, Basketball, or Baseball) and all the NPC chatter does a good job at setting up a depressing atmosphere, but then I feel like the Madarame and Kaneshiro segments lose that and become a bit more silly and less relevant. And then in the end they sort of hastily add, oh yeah, they were working for Shido which kind of bugged me---thankfully they didn't try and wrap Kamoshida into that.
Futaba's palace sort of brings things back into focus a bit by switching things up, and I enjoyed her palace especially the little town you explore---wish we had more of that to break up the more monotonous super dungeons. Then Haru's was cool for the pay-off, even if the story surrounding it and the dungeon weren't all that great, and things heat up as you get ready for Shido who is easily the most potent villain for this day and age with what's going on with Trump---I wasn't a fan of the mice, but I liked how his dungeon progressed and his fight was pretty cool.
I don't know how I feel about Mementos. In a way I kind of like having a simple area like that to grind through, but it never became the slight bit challenging and became a bore---by the end I skipped it except for Mementos Requests and then had to hurry through the last two floors when going through it the final time, which sucked. The final area was pretty lame though, very simple Hamilton (?) puzzles and the enemies were surprising easy---though I was worried about the lack of save points, I didn't need them since it was so easy to heal and I realized thanks to The Star I could won from any fight free of consequences.
Honestly this game really illustrated the reverse difficulty cliff I feel Persona suffers from---the hardest part is the beginning where you don't have a lot of options, but once you get a decent amount of SP things become easier and easier till you can basically just Physical your way through everyone and heal after each fight without penalty. And while the "Hero Dies. You Lose!" sounds like a bummer mechanic, it really never becomes an issue except for one or two unlucky moments---and if you're smart to save you won't lose much progress, and the progress you do lose can be quickly replicated.
In the end the Igor switch took me by surprise and now I see Adechi was meant to distract from that, which was pretty well-done all things considered. I think this game was a bit better than 3 and 4 for me (as in P3P and vanilla 4), but there were still little quirks here and there that wore me out at points. I also think apart from Makoto and Yusuke I really didn't care for the cast, though I took a shine to Haru a bit since I enjoyed her S-Link (hey, a good adult!) and her gun skills help a lot with the last boss.
Easily a GOTY contender through alongside Breath of the Wild, though it's hard to compare since they're fundamentally different.
I think the game is its strongest in the beginning as the Kamoshida plot is really well done with a detestable villain (I mean as an American, a sports coach who gets away with sexual harassment because his team is the pride of the school is easy to accept---though in my case it'd be Football, Basketball, or Baseball) and all the NPC chatter does a good job at setting up a depressing atmosphere, but then I feel like the Madarame and Kaneshiro segments lose that and become a bit more silly and less relevant. And then in the end they sort of hastily add, oh yeah, they were working for Shido which kind of bugged me---thankfully they didn't try and wrap Kamoshida into that.
Futaba's palace sort of brings things back into focus a bit by switching things up, and I enjoyed her palace especially the little town you explore---wish we had more of that to break up the more monotonous super dungeons. Then Haru's was cool for the pay-off, even if the story surrounding it and the dungeon weren't all that great, and things heat up as you get ready for Shido who is easily the most potent villain for this day and age with what's going on with Trump---I wasn't a fan of the mice, but I liked how his dungeon progressed and his fight was pretty cool.
I don't know how I feel about Mementos. In a way I kind of like having a simple area like that to grind through, but it never became the slight bit challenging and became a bore---by the end I skipped it except for Mementos Requests and then had to hurry through the last two floors when going through it the final time, which sucked. The final area was pretty lame though, very simple Hamilton (?) puzzles and the enemies were surprising easy---though I was worried about the lack of save points, I didn't need them since it was so easy to heal and I realized thanks to The Star I could won from any fight free of consequences.
Honestly this game really illustrated the reverse difficulty cliff I feel Persona suffers from---the hardest part is the beginning where you don't have a lot of options, but once you get a decent amount of SP things become easier and easier till you can basically just Physical your way through everyone and heal after each fight without penalty. And while the "Hero Dies. You Lose!" sounds like a bummer mechanic, it really never becomes an issue except for one or two unlucky moments---and if you're smart to save you won't lose much progress, and the progress you do lose can be quickly replicated.
In the end the Igor switch took me by surprise and now I see Adechi was meant to distract from that, which was pretty well-done all things considered. I think this game was a bit better than 3 and 4 for me (as in P3P and vanilla 4), but there were still little quirks here and there that wore me out at points. I also think apart from Makoto and Yusuke I really didn't care for the cast, though I took a shine to Haru a bit since I enjoyed her S-Link (hey, a good adult!) and her gun skills help a lot with the last boss.
Easily a GOTY contender through alongside Breath of the Wild, though it's hard to compare since they're fundamentally different.