Persona 5

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Sonic#
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Persona 5

Post by Sonic# »

Started to post this in the gaming thread, then wrote too much. Anyone else playing this? If so, feel free to jump in - I only ask people mark spoilers for content after the first palace.

I'm only about halfway through it, in mid-September game time, but I've been obsessed enough that I'll read any non-spoilery article about it. I've checked RPGFan looking for whether they'll post a review. I check reddit, something I very seldom do otherwise, just to follow some discussions about characters.

Two things keep me coming back. In terms of storytelling, the thoroughness with which it follows each character's interactions is really compelling. Most scenes only do small things to maintain tension or move the plot along, but it's that daily contact with the near-mundane that makes these characters seem like more than high school stereotypes, and makes this story seem like more than, "Oh, so we're superheroes now." No, we're still high schoolers with some comical high school anxieties and preoccupations. I've seen occasional clunky localization: overly verbose phrasing, for instance. But it's nothing that rips me out of the setting.

In terms of pacing, the high school simulation seems even better balanced with the dungeon exploration and combat portions. One can binge palaces in a single sitting (which I've done), or space it out across two or three sittings with time to still enjoy the high school simulation. Both work for me; if I start to get impatient with one, I can always go back to the other.

The other elements don't hurt. The menus and interface are gorgeous, with reds, blacks, and jagged, non-parallel lines making the interface pop. The music is great: also contemporary, at times pop and punk for a JRPG.

I think this is the best Persona game, and (in terms of story) the best RPG I've played since Xenoblade Chronicles or The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky.
Sonic#

"Than seyde Merlion, "Whethir lyke ye bettir the swerde othir the scawberde?" "I lyke bettir the swerde," seyde Arthure. "Ye ar the more unwyse, for the scawberde ys worth ten of the swerde; for whyles ye have the scawberde uppon you, ye shall lose no blood, be ye never so sore wounded. Therefore kepe well the scawberde allweyes with you." --- Le Morte Darthur, Sir Thomas Malory

"Just as you touch the energy of every life form you meet, so, too, will will their energy strengthen you. Fail to live up to your potential, and you will never win. " --- The Old Man at the End of Time

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Re: Persona 5

Post by AkagisWhiteComet »

Since no one has responded I'll give my thoughts...

I bought the PS4 special edition the day it came out; all $97 for it. I'm a sucker for pack-ins. It's by far the largest packaged game I believe I've ever purchased. It's nearly double the size of the Catherine special edition and that was a huge pizza box. A lot of stuff I'll never see again but I did flip through the art book quite a bit and the steel box version of the case is really cool.

I own all the other Persona games and I enjoy the series tremendously. I really enjoy this game and feel it was worth the wait. My wife and I are in alternative play-throughs and we're both about finished with the game, with just under a hundred hours in each. FFXV took me a hundred hours to platinum it so I feel like this is a very respectable play-through. Some things I like include;

- The more mature nature of the characters and the story compared to the prior entries. The game doesn't waste any time bringing up uncomfortable topics but they help tremendously with character development. I haven't found any primary or secondary character I don't like.

- Shibuya feels like it's on rails (har har) at times but it's very lively and immersive. If you don't quick travel and take the time to walk around everywhere it's great, especially with the soundtrack setting the tone at various points.

- I like that some of the more classic components of Persona were brought back, like using unique firearms and detailed negotiation. turned based RPGs of any kind need to take notes from P5's battle menu; it's extraordinarily fabulous, well thought out, easy to use, and rewarding.

I too think the overall presentation of the game is fabulous. Tremendous of all is you have to remember at it's absolute core this is a last generation PS3 game that for the PS4 has effectively been up-res'ed. Still though despite lower triangle count and lesser detailed environments the game plays and moves very impressively.

I do have some gripes though;

- People talk about the translation/localization frequently and I agree that at spots it's very sketchy. It's mostly in the beginning, where there are some very questionably translated lines, and I believe there is an out-right error at one point where Ryuji's portrait is imposed over another character's dialogue (it's very early on IIRC). For the translation issues that do exist it's also not localized optimally (although this tends to be an issue with a lot of the Persona titles). I had thought with the delay these issues were being worked out. I've learned to live with this sort of stuff though; LUNAR Eternal Blue Complete's translation has a very large glaring error on the PS1 so some sentence and wording structure doesn't bother me as much as it possibly could.

- I thought the difficulty curve on normal in the first play-through at spots was a bit sharp and not gradual. First-time players may be thrown off in that you have to pay serious attention to Persona fusion - as that's where a lot of your power above leveling up comes from - and if you just try to play through you'll likely hit some spots where you'll die frequently. Obviously if you bump down to easy difficulty then these issues are negated.

- Knowing what happened with Persona 4 Atlus is likely going to milk this title for all it's worth. I haven't even jumped into the DLC because to buy it all it's going to cost nearly the price of the game itself. I also believe the Persona 3, 4, & 5 director has left Atlus so any subseqent main entry Persona title will likely have a different tone.


EDIT: A wishful thinking item about the game I believe myself and a good chunk of the fan base would like to see is something similar to P3Portable where you could have a male or female protagonist. It'd take a lot of work to implement something like that with P5, but if there was a choice it would really appease a lot of people. P5's protagonist design lends itself well to being female, although the Arsene "Gentleman Thief" angle would need some tweaking.

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