Persona 5

[Water Mage]

48 minutes ago, Thane said:

I've seen many streamers stream past it anyway, both on Twitch and YouTube. It seems that so far, Atlus threat was just empty. Maybe they realized how much bad publicity it would give them after people flipped out.

Hopefully they will continue to ignore it.

Changing the subject for a bit, I've mentioned this behavior before, but the way this game shows internet behavior freakishly realistic. And the behavior of society in general. I mean, if something like Phantom Thieves existed in real life, I'm pretty sure the public would react the same way they do in the game. Makes me wonder what the characters of previous Persona games think of the Phantom Thieves.

[Corrobin]

I can't tell if I find Yusuke weird or funny. I mean, he's an impressive "sweeper" (I keep him for normal dungeon exploration, allowing Ryuji to conserve his pitiful SP pool for mini-bosses, mid-bosses and bosses) in battle, but as a character? I liked his introduction and Awakening, and he was pretty essential to the Madarame arc, but after that, he feels the least necessary party member plot-wise.

[Radiant head]

5 hours ago, Water Mage said:

Hopefully they will continue to ignore it.

Changing the subject for a bit, I've mentioned this behavior before, but the way this game shows internet behavior freakishly realistic. And the behavior of society in general. I mean, if something like Phantom Thieves existed in real life, I'm pretty sure the public would react the same way they do in the game. Makes me wonder what the characters of previous Persona games think of the Phantom Thieves.

i was pretty much expecting a naoto cameo in this game, though relived if that's not the case.  though i'm sure some fan service spinoffs are already on the way.  

 

[Corrobin]

2 minutes ago, Radiant head said:

i was pretty much expecting a naoto cameo in this game, though relived if that's not the case.  though i'm sure some fan service spinoffs are already on the way.  

WELL, Goro's known as "The Second Coming of the Detective Prince"... Does that count?

[Water Mage]

1 hour ago, Radiant head said:

i was pretty much expecting a naoto cameo in this game, though relived if that's not the case.  though i'm sure some fan service spinoffs are already on the way.  

 

They actually mention Naoto by name, if you check the TV one day, not sure which. 

Speaking of cameos, if you check the TV on the first day of July, it will talk about Rise. They said that Rise is still in the idol industry as shown in the posters, and that she recently turned 20. According to the Art Book, Rise's birthday is is 6/1. If we take her age and birthday in account, that means Persona 5 takes place 4 years after Persona 4.

Edited April 11, 2017 by Water Mage

[Radiant head]

oh yeah i did see rise and that one mcdonalds looking idol on a poster at a station. 

so are physical personas still king like in 4?  it seems like they added all these other fancy magic elements, but between the sp scarcity just like in 4, and yoshitsune seemingly as op as ever, seems like this is the way to go. 

i spoiled myself on the mc's ultimate persona, which makes sense but feels extremely underwhelming and a bit generic.  

[Ebony]

Right now my Persona team is pazuzu/daisoujou/anubis/barong/bugs/isis/parvati/yurlungur/mothman/melchizedek/baphomet/pale rider. Working well atm.

I'm gonna try and go up against the reaper.

Endgame... feels so long...

[saisymbolic]

I'm on the fourth dungeon now (watching, that is), and it is by far my favorite in terms of design, theme and music. It gives me a distinct feeling of nostalgia as it reminds me of a few stages from Sonic Adventure 2.

Edited April 11, 2017 by saisymbolic

[Konnor97]

2 hours ago, Water Mage said:

Speaking of cameos, if you check the TV on the first day of July, it will talk about Rise. They said that Rise is still in the idol industry as shown in the posters, and that she recently turned 20. According to the Art Book, Rise's birthday is is 6/1. If we take her age and birthday in account, that means Persona 5 takes place 4 years after Persona 4.

Which is weird because Persona 5 matches 2016's calendar, so she should be 21.

[Ebony]

Late game Persona 5 hurts. Oh Goro, sweet Goro, you deserved so much better.

[Slumber]

Thankfully this last week I've had more free time than I've had in a long while, so I'm crunching this game hardcore. 50 hours in about a week. 

I've gotten to the point where I've passed up the

 

interrogation

Seventh Palace now. 

And as some were concerned about prior to release, the story up to this point is holding up a lot better than Persona 4's. The escalation of stakes makes more sense, and the big "twist" so far was a bit harder to call than Persona 4's first big twist, though it still might be a bit easy for some people to call ahead prior to it happening(I more or less figured it out even before the game went back and said "Hey, remember all of these weird things that you probably didn't notice at the time, or have since forgotten about?"). 

That said, I'm only in November and still have probably half the game left, maybe a bit less. Persona games like to skip over large chunks of time around December-February, then March starts the endgame. And after this seventh palace, I'm having a hard time seeing where the story would go. The next palace seems pretty obvious, but I don't know what would happen after that. Probably another late game plot twist or something. 

But yeah. 50-60 hours in and the game still kicks ass. Might dethrone Persona 4 for me. It addresses my one big complaint, which is the pacing and escalation of the story, and improves on everything else. If anything, though, I'm not as big of a fan of the main cast as P4's. Ryuji's an asshole who is constantly on the verge of fucking up every mission, Morgana's better than Teddy, so there's that, Ann's fine but a little bland, Yusuke's great but he's not exactly the most vocal member of the team, and from there I don't want to spoil the rest of the crew for those not far. But one's great, one's kinda boring, and one's interesting but kinda obnoxious. 

Also, Tokyo isn't as interesting as Inaba, IMO. Something about the homely atmosphere of Inaba was great, and Shibuya/Its surroundings aren't nearly as interesting to me. 

Edited April 11, 2017 by Slumber

[Water Mage]

6 hours ago, Konnor97 said:

Which is weird because Persona 5 matches 2016's calendar, so she should be 21.

Could it have been a typo from the game? Or maybe they didn't take Rise's birthday in account when writing that. 

 

[Ebony]

Well, done with Persona 5.

Yeah, I think this might be my favorite Persona.

[Water Mage]

Well, I'm finally at the sixth Palace,

 

You know the Casino. Who is going to betray the group, if anyone at all? At first I thought it would be Akechi, but it feels like it's to obvious and while he's acting suspiciously in the dungeon, I don't think it's him. My best guess is Makoto, due to her acting weird before starting the Palace. But I don't she betrays the group intentionally. To anyone who finished the game would tell me if my guess is right? And if I'm not, who betrays the group? Just tell me the name, without telling me why, just who. I really want to know. 

And I'm probably sounding extremely rude asking like this, so I'm sorry if I'm coming off like that. You really don't need t tell me if you don't want to. It's just I really have to know who betrays the group.

Edited April 12, 2017 by Water Mage

[Konnor97]

12 minutes ago, Water Mage said:

Well, I'm finally at the sixth Palace,

  Hide contents

You know the Casino. Who is going to betray the group, if anyone at all? At first I thought it would be Akechi, but it feels like it's to obvious and while he's acting suspiciously in the dungeon, I don't think it's him. My best guess is Makoto, due to her acting weird before starting the Palace. But I don't she betrays the group intentionally. To anyone who finished the game would tell me if my guess is right? And if I'm not, who betrays the group? Just tell me the name, without telling me why, just who. I really want to know. 

And I'm probably sounding extremely rude asking like this, so I'm sorry if I'm coming off like that. You really don't need t tell me if you don't want to. It's just I really have to know who betrays the group.

You really want to know?

Akechi

[Water Mage]

10 minutes ago, Konnor97 said:

You really want to know?

  Reveal hidden contents

Akechi

 

Really? A bit to obvious in my opinion. Well, just one more question if you don't mind me asking, does Akechi leave the party permanently? Or does he return to the group?

[Konnor97]

Just now, Water Mage said:

 

  Hide contents

Really? A bit to obvious in my opinion. Well, just one more question if you don't mind me asking, does Akechi leave the party permanently? Or does he return to the group?

 

He's gone for good.

[Water Mage]

1 minute ago, Konnor97 said:

 

  Hide contents

He's gone for good.

 

Ah, dammit, should have see it coming. At the very least he isn't evil or anything right? 

[Konnor97]

Just now, Water Mage said:

 

  Hide contents

Ah, dammit, should have see it coming. At the very least he isn't evil or anything right? 

 

I wouldn't call him evil.

[Water Mage]

Just now, Konnor97 said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

I wouldn't call him evil.

 

I see. Thanks for answering. Guess it's good thing I got Moon to Max, so even if I used him, other characters will get experience.

[Caster]

Beat the game yesterday. Love this game.
Favorite characters would probably be Futaba, Haru, and Yusuke, even though I don't dislike anyone in this game.

The plot has it's weak points definitely, but I thought it was solid overall, and I liked most of the script besides maybe the 3rd dungeon, which pretty much felt like filler overall.

I think the big "twists" of the game are done a lot better than in P4 considering they at the very least foreshadow most of them, unlike in P4 where the big huge twist I find really stupid because it's almost never really... foreshadowed more than one time in the beginning. 

Solid game overall, probably my favorite Persona game.

I'd say overall the games social links I'd probably put above 4. Although 4 has a lot of good ones the ones I didn't like were really boring or bad in my opinion, so.
I feel 5 is probably the most solid overall.

Edited April 12, 2017 by Sophie

[Water Mage]

Fuck, I am close to ending the sixth Palace, and got the entire plot spoiled. That's ok though, there were some things I did suspect though, and I gives me something to look foward in the game too. 

Sorry Konnor, for asking those questions, only for me to get spoiled minutes later.

[saisymbolic]

Something else I noticed about a certain someone is that

Spoiler

his social link didn't provide any bonuses outside of extra fusion EXP. I could be wrong (because I did skip around when watching a play through) but, it seemed as if even the non-team social links gave you some useful abilities. I found something off about that, though I could be wrong.

The social links have been pretty well-rounded in that I enjoyed most of them, and I was actually looking forward to seeing a majority of them. There aren't any that I wanted to skip or were a slog to get through, which is an upgrade from the previous two games, but the ones I enjoyed the most were: Futaba (a.k.a. the confirmed waifu), the kid, the teacher, Mishima, the doctor and the politician guy.

My only complaint - and it isn't really a complaint - is that I feel Morgana didn't develop as well as Teddie did over the course of the story. Though it could be that I'm being critical as I view Teddie as the best in P4, but I just didn't see the progression in character in Morgana that Teddie had despite them both having social links tied into the main narrative.

Edited April 12, 2017 by saisymbolic

[Thane]

Finished watching a walkthrough yesterday, have thought about it a bit and figured I should write a spoiler filled collection of my thoughts on the story, characters and writing.

Overall plot and writing

Spoiler

It starts of really, really well. The locations are gorgeous, the premise exciting and things get engaging quickly by having the protagonist start off at a major disadvantage, which gets even more complicated immediately when he discovers the Metaverse. 

However, many flaws quickly make themselves known. First and foremost, a lot of different elements feel very familiar for anyone who has played Persona 3 and 4, the latter in particular. A few of these include Sojiro and Futaba's relationship, where you live with a grumpy adult who wound up with the sole custody of a kid; Morgana the mascot character with plot amnesia in search of his past and true self; Akechi, who's a combination of Naoto and Adachi, and then yet another entity who does X because humanity desires Y.

Another weakness of the game is how it suffers from a real lack of a solid objective from the onset. Persona 3 had the cast investigating Tartarus and trying to reach the top, Persona 4's characters tried solving the Inaba serial murder/kidnapping case, but in Persona 5 the characters sort of just go with the flow and randomly fight injustice, all while for some reason being super concerned about their popularity on a website. This leads to several instances where the game is just filler, the most notable being the third Palace, where you just take down a gangster none of the characters have any relation to, unlike other Palaces. I'd even say the second dungeon falls very short and is only to bring in Yusuke into the party. Unlike the first dungeon which presented a very near and clear threat with a tangible consequence for everyone involved, the second and third dungeon just came out of nowhere.

A third thing that kept bothering me was specifically the dialogue in several places. Not only did it feel incredibly preachy - which both Persona 3 and 4 are guilty of as well, although to a much lesser extent - but there are times where it's just incredibly out of place. The SIU director, who we don't even get a name for before he predictably gets killed, just spouts a bunch of exposition to clumsily "hint" at Shido's involvement in the most comic book villain fashion possible. This is especially odd when you consider the structure of the narrative and how the protagonist is talking about his time as a Phantom Thief, which includes detailed conversations about a man he had never interacted with.

I think the ending was pretty lame, with Sae Nijima going "it's almost as if someone set all of this up!", hinting at a Persona 5 Golden. 

Nevertheless, while there are many things that bothered me in the overall presentation, I also need to bring up a few things I thought were particularly good. For example, I do love how they dare to go further than in Persona 3 and 4 when it comes to making the characters feel miserable. I mean the game was downright vicious towards Makoto before she joined, getting bullied by her sister, the principal, Akechi and even the protagonists. I felt super bad for her but at the same time really enjoyed it because it was interesting to see what she would do - I don't really like how she handled the situation, but still.

Main characters and Co-Ops

Spoiler

Ryuji - Not a fan. He was everything I expected him to be and he didn't surprise me once apart from him being rather mean spirited on occasion. I hoped he'd die after Shido's Palace not because I can't stand the guy - I'm just pretty indifferent - but because it would've raised the stakes in a more organic way, I feel like. That fake-out didn't really do anything and lasted for a very short time. Makes me wonder what the point was of Shido taking those pills.

Morgana - Teddie 2.0, with the exception that I don't really get a good grip of his character. I'm not sure where they wanted to go with him. His "Lady Ann" business got boring fast, but he had several good lines that I enjoyed.

Ann - I never got a good sense of her character. I struggle to come up with anything to write because her dialogue felt very safe in a game that was about rebellion and standing up for oneself and all that. 

Yusuke - He was pretty fun, and I felt like he got progressively more passionate about what the Phantom Thieves were doing as the game went on without sacrificing his character. 

Makoto - Probably has the strongest main story portrayal out of them all. Like I mentioned in the other spoiler thingy I loved how the game didn't shy away from kicking her when she was down; it really made me want to have her on the team and help her out. A very cool character, but she suffers from a boring Co-Op. Also, now that I think about it, did she ever make up with 

Futaba - Half of what she says is great and the other half makes me cringe. She's a shut-in with severe social anxiety who hasn't left her room in ages...yet is still, of course, very attractive and can train away the worst of her issues in just a few days. Sometime she's hilarious and says random things that really lift the mood, and sometimes she's a plot device who's there for the player to bang.

Haru - Super sweet, but I'm unsure why she joins so late. It doesn't really feel like she brings anything to the table that the protagonists need apart from getting around a very specific obstacle in her recruitment Palace. Still, I rather liked her, and she had the best thief outfit by far.

Overall, what I feel is missing is a connection between all the party members. I absolutely love how they all want to celebrate a successful mission since it makes them feel much more human and like a group of pals, but there's too little dialogue between them - I can't think of many times where Haru interacted with either Ryuji or Yusuke, for example. Sure, everyone makes fun of Ryuji and all that, but I feel like there's very little in terms of unique dynamics between the party members.

Side characters and Co-Ops

Spoiler

Akechi - So uh, yeah, basically Naoto and Adachi with a few tablespoons of Light Yagami, and like Adachi, his betrayal can't have surprised many. However, when they talked about a villain with a black mask, I sort of expected him to be more...I don't know, mysterious and threatening. Akechi was just throwing a hissy fit because daddy dearest didn't love him, and we're supposed to feel bad for him because of it, even though he has killed a lot of people for his own gains. I don't understand how the game can want me to be angry at those gosh darn adults who are all despicable human beings but sympathize with Akechi who do things that are far worse than what the Phantom Thieves have tried stopping. A sad past doesn't excuse his actions. Also, just how dumb is he anyway? Did he think Shido would let him live? For crying out loud.

I get what they were going for, and I think some of it works - being a foil to the Phantom Thieves is a really neat idea, but the execution failed. It's too bad, because he could've easily become one of the standout characters and a different kind of villain.

Toranosuke - One of the coolest Social Links in the series I feel like. Very different, yet so full of passion and hope in a game with a rather dark tone. 

Hifumi - As someone who's a casual fan of esports, this is a very intriguing side story. She gets famous for her looks instead of her abilities, which is a very real issue there. I rather enjoyed the story and her character - maybe because I'm a sucker for Owain in Fire Emblem - but I feel like the whole mother conflict clashes with Shinya's Co-Op.

Kawakami - Initially hilarious but then surprisingly depressing. I feel like the conflict is a tad forced, but I can buy it. I like her personality, being a tired teacher whose passion is buried under something else; really hits close to home for a lot of people I'm sure. 

Sojiro - Really like it. While the situation is a bit too similar to Dojima and Nanako, it's still a different conflict portrayed in a different way, and Sojiro handles it superbly. Definitely one of the best Co-Ops in the game. It also helps that Sojiro's main story portrayal is interesting too.

Mifune - A bit of a forced background I'd say, but maybe that's just because of my distaste for superstitions. However, the overall message is great and the conflict in it is very intriguing. I really enjoyed it in spite of some mumbo jumbo.

Shinya - Pre~tty predictable and standard, but it gets the job done.

Mishima - I feel like Mishima had a lot of untapped potential as the manager of the site, but it felt like he never grew a personality outside of that. Sure he learns to stand up to himself, but I don't know, I feel like it would've been a better Co-Op without the bullying part and with more focus on how managing the site warps his way of viewing himself and the world; instead it's sort of treated like an afterthought.

Iwai - Pretty sweet, and I'm a sucker for cute shit, so I rather like it. 

Ichiko - Eeh...I'm very into mysteries, but I never cared too much about what happened to her friend I must say. Honestly, the best part about her Co-Op was Lala Escargot - now that's a character I want a Co-Op with!

Final thoughts: lots of cougars in this game.

Edited April 12, 2017 by Thane

[Ebony]

I think I forgot to say my favorites.

I have to say Goro is probably my favorite by a longshot, followed by Yusuke. Actually yeah, Goro is definitely my favorite by a longshot.

I believe he deserved better then how the plot treated him.

Futaba is my new daughter.