When everything is said and done, and 2017 is in the rearview mirror, Persona 5 will, in all likelihood, be my game of the year. Disregarding the fact that I may have come to this conclusion before even playing the game myself, it may seem is a bit too early to declare such a statement when we still have more than half of the year ahead of us and many more game releases – there are also the several early 2017 releases I haven’t gotten around to yet, like For Honor, Resident Evil, and Nioh to keep in mind. But I love the Persona series and I love Persona 5, so unless something very unexpecting comes along and blows me away, I believe my statement is justified.
Persona 5 retains almost everything I loved about the past entries in the series – likeable characters, interesting story, addicting social sim elements, fun combat, awesome dungeon crawling, and great music – but also makes enough revisions to the core gameplay that the experience still feels fresh, even if it is a fundamentally similar. The game didn’t captivate me in the same way that Persona 4 Golden did when I first played it back in 2015, where entire days seemed to revolve solely around me playing the game, but expecting such an occurrence to repeat itself would have been akin to hoping to catch lightning in a bottle twice.
There is so much great stuff to say about Persona 5, I wasn’t quite sure where to start. But the heart of the series has always been the characters and the bonds they shared, so that seemed about as good as place as any. If you didn’t already know, I believe the characters of Persona are some of the best to be found in any media. While I can’t say they are on the same level of the Persona 4 characters, this mix-matched gang of troubled misfits that make up the cast Persona 5 live up to the series reputation admirably and I believe they even surpass Persona 3’s SEES team. Though there are several reused character templates from past entries included in this group - such as the pervy animal mascot with an identity crisis, the high school detective, and student council president – and while their rapport is a bit weak, the group’s overall dynamic is diverse enough to fill its own niche.
Ryuji is the Yosuke-Kanji hybrid I never knew I wanted to hang out with and fills the role of best bro architype perfectly. The way Yusuke is handled is strange as he fades in and out of the story, but his oddball and eccentric personality goes right the face of his aloofness and makes him unforgettable even when the story does - plus it is also nice to see a male party member with book smarts, something which Persona 4 was devoid of. Haru’s inclusion into the story is hackneyed, but her passion for doing good and over-the-top showmanship sets her far apart from the typical rich-girl stereotype. Ann plays her own role well, while Makoto’s drive to change others perception of her along with her natural intelligence and adorable quirks makes her all the worthier of the codename Queen.
Unfortunately, at least in mind, Persona 5 was unable pull the straight flush that Persona 4 did - by which I mean having an entirely likeable cast. I know other people rank these two are their favorites, but Morgana and Futaba didn’t do much for me. For Futaba – her being practically the world’s greatest hacker is such a trite character development and she’s about as immature and condescending as a YouTube commenter, which I guess makes sense considering her backstory but still dosen't make me like her. Then again, while I certainly don’t love Futaba, I can't say she's offensively bad either. Morgana, on the other hand, is one of the most annoying characters in the series – he’s doesn’t top Ken, but, then again, no one can top Ken. An egomaniacal devil in the shape of a cat (figuratively speaking), Morgana’s need to gush about himself and his greatness drives me to anger. His perving out over Ann is obnoxious, and his constant railing of Ryuji is just as bad, but becomes even worse when the tables get turned and the game actually wants you to feel about for this a-hole of a cat. Also, he doesn’t want you to call him a cat just about as much as Ken doesn’t want you to call him kid.
The story of Persona 5 manages to expertly straddle the line between the darker and depressing tale of Persona 3 and the more upbeat, lighthearted Persona 4. There are some rather serious topics being tackled in Persona 5, but instead of allowing all fun the to be crushed under the weight of it all, there are numerous moments of jovial humor and fun dialogue to balance it out, while the thieves gimmick pieces the entire plot together nicely and is used to great effect. Despite starting with a strong narrative hook, though, the story does take a while to get going. The overarching plot remains dormant for a while, apart from brief cutaways to scenes to villains being evil, and starts to lag in the middle, but the way the storylines seeds they covertly planted at the beginning are brought back together near the game’s conclusion is admirable. One glaring weakness in the writing of Persona, however, is retained – and that is the game’s inability to disguise obvious plot twists. I won’t say much more at risk of spoiling anything, but I was really hoping they would tried a little harder. Thankfully, though, the game’s ending does pick up some of the slack and deliver a few surprises.
Have I mentioned how much I love seeing a turn-based game get such a well-publicized release? Because I do. Turn-based games are become fewer and fewer on non-handheld consoles, but Persona 5 should be used as an example of why we need more. The combat still relies on exploiting enemy weaknesses, but new (or returning) affinities like nuclear and psychokinesis give additions layers of strategy to battles. I’m also glad to see that Persona 5 finally added a much-requested feature of mine - the ability to switch party members anywhere in the dungeon. You can even do it in battle (though you must unlock it first), which, as Tokyo Mirage Sessions proved last year, is a useful mechanic and gives you more incentive - and not to mention makes it easier - to use all your party members. Instead of ignoring the outliers during the later parts of the game, which is something I was guilty of in past Persona games, I maintained a more active rotation. It doesn’t hurt that they now allow inactive party members to gain experience (again, you must unlock it first).
As much as I loved past Persona games, if I had to voice a criticism with them I’d say they do feel a little grindy at times. But that’s not the case with Persona 5. Your actions are now mapped to individual buttons streamlining the entire combat process, thus results in faster paced battles and less time spent digging through menus, while the introduction of the baton toss ability, which can trigger a barrage of chain attacks, helps cuts down on wasted turns. The fact that dungeons are no-longer randomized and now feature set designs with more puzzles and intractable environments probably helps as well; they are also much more fun to explore than the empty corridors of past. Though Atlus seemed to realize that some would be discontented without the randomized dungeon crawling of past games, and included a Tartarus-like area called Mementos that allows you to grind for more experience in-between dungeons and fulfill requests, which, in another smart move by Atlus, gives you side-story benefits to grinding.
The only new (or returning, if you count the original Persona games) addition to the combat that I’m not a fan of is enemy negotiation. It kind of brings the fast-paced flow of battle to a crashing halt, which seems to the opposite of what Atlus was intending - considering every other change they made - and generally bland and not explained very well. I do like that you’re now battling against corrupted Personas instead the same batch of repetitive enemies with only slight variations that you fought in previous games. All in all, though, I would have preferred if they had just brought back Shuffle Time from Persona 4 Golden; it was fast and straightforward way to obtain Personas, items, and money, without having to click through repetitive text.
Speaking of Personas, maintaining, collecting, and fusing your Persona remains a stable of the combat and brings together all the gameplay elements. And once again, I spent many hours cycling through them, weighing their skills and weaknesses, and then finally fusing them together – all in the effort of finding the ideal lineup to bring into battle. Fusing works about the same way for the most part, but is now done by execution. While these “executions” lead to some cool and eerie visuals, they are lengthy and repetitive that after the first several times I never bothered to watch them again. The only other change of note – the ability to sacrifice a Persona to strengthen another or convert it into an item – is one I never really found much use for.
I love the combat. I love the Persona management. But what really makes Persona Persona is the social sim segments. Living the life of a high-school student by hanging out with your friends, going to movies, playing video games, and eating at the local burger joint, has always had far reaching effects on the other game elements and is a big part of what makes Persona’s gameplay cycle so addicting. And Persona 5 takes things up another notch by boosting more activities to participate in than either Persona 3 or 4. Other minor additions like, being able to listen in to snippets of the movies and television shows your character is watchaing (which are parodies of real movies) don’t add much to the gameplay per se, but they do give you something to look forward to apart from the usual stat increase.
Social Links (now called Confidants) remain the highlight of the game. I love relationship building in games, and Persona is one of the best at it. Reiterating the point I made earlier about Persona series featuring some of the best characters, I wasn’t just referring to the main characters but the NPC’s as well. Persona 5 has several shining stars in that department too, but I think they could have balanced things out with a bit more diversity – I mean, about half of the Confidants are attractive, young females; all of whom unsettled me by their willingness to hit on the teenage protagonist.
Moving on, despite the name change, social links work the same for the most part. One big difference, though, is that there are now abilities that can only be unlock through specific characters (like the ability to switch party members during battle). While these abilities are cool and do give you more incentive to max out as many social links as possible, I’m not so sure I like the idea that the game is essentially forcing me to prioritize who I hang out with based on the benefits I can gain from them instead of who I’m the most interested in.
While you can plainly see the game was originally designed for the PS3, Persona 5’s graphical inferiority is suppressed by the excessive amount of pure style that can be found in every aspect of the game. I may not be the upmost authority on what is stylish, but I do know enough to tell that Persona 5 captures the essence of the word perfectly. Seriously, the game is just oozing in artistic flavor. Persona 5 touts it fantastic and dynamic art designs everywhere. The dungeons themselves are visual treats and so is getting to see the recognizable Persona from past games in HD. Every screen and menu - plus the screen transitions themselves - in the game are aesthetically pleasing and embrace the outlandish side of Japanese pop culture with elegance.
Like I said from the at the beginning of this piece, Persona 5 is great and probably will my game of the year. I might have done a bit of nitpicking here and there, but since first getting introduced to the series in 2015, Persona has quickly jumped to the top of my favorite video franchises. And the things I love the most tend to be the things that I judge the harshest.