Finally, eight years after the
last mainline Persona game comes Persona 5, for the PS3 and PS4. The PS4 version has a more stable framerate and natively renders at 1080p compared to the PS3's 720p. Other than that, the two versions are identical. Despite being a last generation game the aesthetics and design of the game lends it to compare well against other recent games. It looks absolutely amazing. First thing that strikes you is how slick and stylish the presentation is. The whole game is so slick that you cannot help but smile while browsing through the menus. The usage of red and black as the main theme colors looks great and even the loading screens has a few nice touches to make it more dynamic, making the loading times just fly away. A great example is how the battle results screen appear to be the group running after a battle, it transitions back to the environment seamlessly. Coupled with the awesome music that the Persona series is known for, and this is a very stylish game.
The game takes place in Tokyo with environments based on real life places like Shinjuku. It reuses the turn-based battle system from
Persona 3 and 4, with a few refinements. Gone is the menu selection list, rather, each action is mapped to a face button or the D-pad. It takes a short while to get used to but makes battles much quicker. You control a party of four, each character can physically attack, use their gun, or use their Persona for magic. Furthermore, items, guarding and analysis is also possible. The game defaults to the AI controlling the other characters but you can assume direct control (and this is recommended).
Attacking an enemy with an element that they are weak against or a critical hit will allow you to gain one more turn. This extra turn can then be passed onto another member if you wish. If you knock down all enemies, then you can perform an All-Out Attack which deals significant physical damage. There are five difficulties: Safety, Easy, Normal, Hard and Merciless. Safety means you can just enjoy the story while anything Hard and above makes even normal encounters a challenge. The higher the difficulty, the harder it becomes to see everything the game has to offer in a single playthrough as you would need to spend multiple days to clear a dungeon. Annoyingly, if the main character, codenamed Joker, dies, it is game over.
The story dungeons are called Palaces and they represent the target's heart. They are now unique designs in contrast to the procedurally created dungeons in previous games. It's great but the dungeons are also a lot longer, seemingly endless and outstaying their welcome towards the end. Granted, they are designed to be tackled over various in-game days with generous save points that allow you to fast travel between. While the puzzles in the dungeons are generally easy and your standard affair like switches and patterns, there is a point where there is a few that is just a massive waste of time. Forcing you to move around pointlessly activating switches as a straight line even worse, switches blocking and unlocking paths, is just extremely aggravating and stupidly excessive padding in an already long game.
One of the final dungeons, which is also the longest in the game, just reuses the same annoying maze-one-way mechanic too often. It's boring and makes it extremely tedious, particularly since it isn't even a good mechanic in the first place and forces you to constantly backtrack. Sidequest dungeons (known as Requests with the dungeon known as Mementos) are randomly generated more akin to previous games. They are the game's option to allow the player to grind for more money, levels and Personas. You'll be cash strapped in this game as you don't earn much money whether this be from defeating Shadows or from part-time jobs. A new addition during exploration is that the characters can hide behind cover. This isn't just a one-off gimmick, it becomes crucial as hiding from enemies means you can easily ambush them. The addition of an "Action" button means that the mundane activity of pressing that button to jump between places feels awesome and great thanks to the smooth acrobatics of the onscreen characters.
The game is played over one in-game year. The main character arrives in Tokyo due to having a criminal record, this is a major theme for the game and will haunt the player during his whole time here. Each day, he can spend on various activities from attending school, to clearing dungeons to part-time jobs. The Confidant system is the equivalent of previous games' Social Links, where the main character can spend time with NPCs to boost friendship levels and learn their backstories. This ties into the Persona system as the character will gain extra experience when fusing Personas as well as giving the player additional useful abilities inside and outside of battle. Maxing out all Confidants in one playthrough is tough and requires careful planning.
On the dating and sim aspects, the player has five stats that they need to level up through activities: Guts, Knowledge, Charm, Proficiency and Kindness. For example, studying will increase your Knowledge and watching a fighting movie will increase your Guts. This is essential to gameplay because this determines your scores in your final exams as well as initiating events with certain Confidants. Thus as the player, you have to juggle through what you want to prioritize and do first on your free afternoons and evenings. The game allows you to visit real world locations in Tokyo but each area is just a small snippet. Still, it is novel checking out each new location and then thinking how closely it would match the real thing.
Fusing Personas is the main way to gain more abilities and get stronger Personas. You can now obtain Personas when battling and targeting the enemy's weakness. If done correctly, you're able to negotiate with them to join you. The game begins with a flashy and slick opening segment in which the main character (whom you will name) is infiltrating a casino, and then makes his daring escape. The story is told from his perspective as he recounts the past up until this point. It properly starts off with him arriving in Tokyo on probation due to holding a criminal record. He has to attend school for the next year and if all goes well, he'll be able to return to normal life.
The theme of Persona 5 is the restrictions and labels society places on certain "outcasts". It has each of the party, with their own reasons for being prejudiced against, rebelling against society's norms and helping the oppressed. The group, known as the Phantom Thieves, scouts out criminals whom the police has done nothing against, and steals their hearts. The way it works is that the Phantom Thieves enters the Metaverse, the physical manifestation of their target's desires. They navigate through this world in order to steal the target's treasure and doing this will force the target's real self into repenting for his crimes. As with most Persona games, it has a slow start but push through and it'll begin to pick up its pace. Nevertheless, 30 hours in and you still feel as if the story is in its beginnings as you still don't have all your party members yet (although thankfully, the majority of the gameplay mechanics are introduced by then).
While the game itself takes 70 to 120 hours to finish (lower end is if you follow a walkthrough and optimize your run and you can even take longer than the higher end if you take your time to find everything yourself), the story stalls in the middle. It becomes a bit formulaic and predictable until the last third where the links connecting all the events start to be revealed. Nevertheless, there are some events that could be cut without causing any issues at all and would have maintained a better and faster pacing. Due to these reasons, the underlying mystery of the story doesn't quite suck you in as much as Persona 4 did. Persona 5 also lacks in meaningful character interactions that shows the characters' camaraderie and the bonds with other NPCs that are not part of the Phantom Thieves.
The last third is also when a few story twists are thrown to the player, including ones that plays around with your expectations of the whole prison theme. The ending is about all the bonds that the main character has made and how these assist him in defeating the final boss. It's predictable but still manages to emotionally hit you all the same. Regardless, the final days where you start to say goodbye to all these characters that you have grown to know is sad and once the game is finished, you do feel like there's now a gap in your life.
New Game Plus allows you to carry over quite a significant amount of things including money, equipment and your abilities from maxed out Confidants in your first run. A superboss is also unlocked which require very specific strategies. As per usual with the series, the superboss can be heavily reliant on luck, especially at lower levels. Since you can only fight them on New Game Plus and levels don't carry, it's a bit obnoxious and tedious to gain the levels to withstand their attacks, abilities that you want, and waiting for party members to join (even if you want to solo, as you cannot pull characters out of your party until your fifth member joins).
Overall, Persona 5 is a great game and well worth the massive wait. The aesthetics of the game is phenomenal and everything feels so polished. The story takes a long while to get the ball rolling and is only towards the end where it ups the pacing. If you have played previous Persona games then Persona 5 might not surprise you with its various story developments, nevertheless, this is one of the best JRPGs for the PS3 and PS4, packed with so much content and is a satisfying journey.
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