Persona 5

A case study in style over substance, not helped by a grating localization. Doesn't know what to do with its themes of oppression or societal pressure, and is muddled as a result.

Persona 5 (and Persona 5 Royal) are both titles that have successfully wooed audiences into convincing themselves that they actually like jrpgs, through an admittedly beautiful presentation, the skin of Persona 5 hides the most disgusting excuse for a main body of a game that has ever been host to such critical acclaim. Persona 5 constantly betrays its own themes, characters and arguably even its own aesthetic for the purposes of emulating the same "style" that has won the affections of many a player, and fails to hold a mantle to most of its contemporaries, especially those developed and/or published by Atlus themselves.

The most significantly egregious flaw Persona 5 boldly waves in the face of its players its lack of character writing for many members of the cast, even some of its own party members. The tried and true social link method from 3 and 4 returns. but with much less heart and effort than in either of those titles. Each optional/player driven social link is bound by the aesthetic desires of persona 5, all these relationships must serve towards a thief making some sort of "deal" to improve their ability to heist. Which results in an incredibly set of same-y social links. Compared to the diversity of exploration of themes within Persona 5's predecessors, many social links are forced to harp on the same points: any social link with a female character that is not a party member (totalling 5 social links) follows the exact same formula over the ten social events, beginning with the forming of the contract, and a discovery that the given character is a "prodigy" in their field (a dedicated teacher, world class shogi player, etc.). The next few levels provide an insight into their oppression (Hifumi stands out here as being the only character not tormented by a male figure, making her slightly more unique than the other 4). The character's attempts to stand up to this oppression ultimately fail and it is up to the protagonist (during s.link levels 7-8) to solve this problem for them, ultimately leading to the same conclusion over the final couple ranks)
The social link system acted as a unique and interesting way for the modern Persona games to explore their themes in greater detail, while also adding to the cast of their games with a unique set of characters that were not fit for the roles of protagonist/antagonist. This genius circumvention of the JRPG side of Persona's story structure is flagrantly misunderstood and abused in Persona 5's writing.
Within the Royal expansion, the two social links of Akechi and Maruki serve as examples that Persona 5 was not bound to this issue, as they display a level of writing quality closer to Persona 5's predecessors, and explore their characters in ways unique to the plot and their story roles.

Even Persona 5's own main cast of party members aren't safe from the overbearing desire to "look cool" that persona 5 holds. Character developments are often betrayed for the sake of fulfilling the "phantom thief" aesthetic. The most flagrant example of this, being any time Ann is used to overcome a plot obstacle (entering Madarame's house, the pool of Shido's palace) has a comparison of this done right in Rise from Persona 4. Where as Rise's idol performance in Inaba serves as a showing of her appreciation to the party for saving her from the TV World, and provides a unique look into the subtle differences between what being an idol means to Rise and what her character conflict as shown in the TV World is. Ann's objectification after her resolution to stand up against said act (as this is what brought about her Persona awakening) offer no insight into her character as they're played off as a gag, and act as a subtle character assassination as her lack of real opposition implies no real drive in her ideals. Credit where credit is due. Yusuke's social link stands out as one that both explores Persona 5's themes of oppression and identity in a way unique to not only Yusuke, but also noticeably separate from what's explored in his mandatory story section, and serves as a unique reminder of the potential Persona 5 had to be an incredibly well written game alongside its beautiful visuals, soundtrack and good gameplay.

The part that irked me the most about Persona 5's writing after I first played the game in 2016, and especially after playing Royal during 2021/2022, was the way that the theme's of Persona 5 are constantly dragged through the mud by Persona 5 itself. Modern persona stands out as a uniquely thematically driven game, narratively speaking. Persona 3 is very clear in how its story links back to the themes of death, futility and moving on. And Persona 4's truth theme is so prevalent it leaks into half the song titles in the soundtrack. Persona 5 is so dangerously afraid of looking into the ideas of overcoming oppression and identity in a world that seems to keep everyone down that the star of the show becomes a minor and secondary theme of the effects of fame. Persona 5's desperate attachment to the phantom thief aesthetic inevitably links it to the ideas of anonimity in fame, the link between fame and power, and other effects of popularity in the modern era. The game's best and worst conflicts stem from these ideas (the best being Persona 5's original bad ending, and the worst being the Morgana/Ryuji conflict that climaxes/concludes in the Okumura palace). Regardless Persona 5 handles this in a way that ties strongly back into gameplay, Persona 5's first bad ending offers the player a chance to again revel in the fame that is tied to every successful dungeon clear within the title, and overcoming this desire for praise and remembering why the phantom thieves began in the first place is the path that leads to the good ending. This serves as not only Persona 5's strongest piece of writing but also a significantly above par moment even amongst other story-driven titles released in the surrounding time period/in the same thematic ballpark. It's a shame that because these conclude with the ending of the base game Persona 5, that Persona 5 Royal is left straggling for anything to hold on to.
As Persona 5 clung for dear life to the aesthetics that kept it in the public's eye, the inevitable interlinking of the themes lead to all of them reaching some form of conclusion by the end of the game, the good ending has the phantom thieves positing that they would 'live in the real world' regardless of whatever suffering came with it. This, of course, if thrown out the window the second the Royal expansion begins, the game offering a second bad ending in of which you can choose to live in a world of fantasy where everyone is happy directly contradicts the lines which joker nods along to within the conclusion of the original Persona 5. If temptation was given any room to exist in the absolute resistance to oppression that Persona 5 ends on (killing god) then perhaps this could have served as a unique insight into how hard it is to hold onto ideals/identity when a uniquely easy but (to the character) morally incorrect solution is placed right in front of them. However Persona 5, surprisingly, seems not to be written with the patented Atlus expansion in mind, and is forced to retread themes in a way somehow weaker than the original.

My own biases towards the gameplay of Persona 3 Fes aside. Persona 5 is a game that is visually stunning, fun to play (fusion in Persona 5 and Royal is a treat), with a very good soundtrack. However compared to most JRPGs released after the turn of the century (and arguably, ever) Persona 5 has writing and a story that actively detracts from the enjoyment to such an extent that is hard to give this game any praise without feeling disingenuous to what the 80-120 hour JRPG has to offer.

this game feels too MUCH to review conclusively, and that almost seems like its design philosophy. to always be a lot, to attempt to say a lot, be loud be aggressive. move fast and break things. but in its attempt to execute thsi aggressive doctrine it frequently stumbles and in my opinion no element of this game fully escapes this pervasive mess.

but nonetheless its a sort of brilliant i dont see quite so frequently. elegant in its refusal to be properly, recommend-ably good.

Solid game, I have some minor issues with the way its themes sort of face plant in the final cutscenes. This game is maligned because of an overeager fanbase with no concept of where it came from and what it owes homage to.

In the space of the Persona series itself, its a good installment, but arguably weaker than some of its predeccesors.

In the wider world of the Shin Megami Tensei games and their spinoffs, I think Persona 5 is ultimately fairly average. That said SMT has a very high watermark, not a lot of outright duds in that franchise, so dont take this as me saying Persona 5 is bad or falls short of anything, I just dont think it measures up to its cousins.

At this point everyone probably knows what Persona games are all about, and Persona 5 (I've only played the Royal version) doesn't break that mold. It's visually stylish and has a memorable jazzy soundtrack, it puts you in the shoes of a highschooler who must balance mundane high school life with his RPG obligations in a well-realized corner of Japan, there's a cast of rounded, memorable characters, and an excellent English localization (and finally an option to use the original voiceovers). The production values take a distinct step up from the PS2 games. It's all pretty familiar, and a distinct sense of diminishing returns is creeping in. Still, it's well-done.

But an unwelcome change is this is the longest Persona game by a considerable margin, and this is not a series known for brevity and concision. The unhurried pace is part of the charm of these games, but here they take it too far, and a lot of it just drags. There's reams of repetitive, needless exposition and recapitulation, different people say the same things over and over, easily a third of this game's length could've been cut without losing anything superfluous.

The more bespoke, crafted dungeons are a major improvement over the anonymous randomly generated hallways of previous entries - which, sadly, still make a needless return in Mementos, another unfortunate piece of filler in a game that hardly needs it. P5 adds some light action bits to the dungeon crawling, which gives a little variety to the moment-to-moment gameplay but not much else.

Persona 5's combat system is the series' best and most refined, but continues to suffer from the occasional difficulty spike and some overly long battles. It's not much fun when a boss gets a killing blow on your player character 45 minutes into a fight. But a lot of effort seems to have gone in to improving quality of life and making it more accessible, which I appreciate. I just wish they'd slim these games down a bit.

Persona 5 holds a new standard of passion when crafting a video game. This game is not perfect, but it's incredibly hard to be perfect with 100+ hours of base gameplay. This game has 3 major strong points that make it so immersive:

1. Gameplay / Palaces
2. Teambuilding and The Velvet Room
3. Presentation

1. The palaces in this game are incredible. Each have their own themes with immersive fights and gorgeous landscapes along with challenging puzzles. The
combat is incredibly immersive and requires attention to nearly every move. The game is challenging but kind of disappointingly easy when compared to other SMT games. Most other games get pigeonholed in gameplay with the few solutions the player uses in combat, but Persona 5 manages to give tons of solutions and styles with all equal merit. Boss fights are incredible too. The quality of life in gameplay too really keeps you hooked.

2. Collecting Personas and building a team is nothing short of fantastic and intuitive. The game incentives you to do execution fusions, utilize The Velvet Room, fill out the compendium, build out your team to accommodate for different palaces, and fuse together top-notch Personas. Everything here is quality-of-life, and the options here make Pokémon seem limited.

3. The music and art style are the best part of this game. Acid jazz, instrumental rock, and a plethora of other genres hook you into whatever scenario is going on. That paired with the inky comic book style and fast paced animations and smooth framerate makes this game an absolute joy to the senses. The music combined with the team building and gameplay make boss fights in this game some of the best boss fights ever.

Only complaints are the over-the-top ending, some weak characters, incomplete themes and story discussions, and just how derivative it can be when compared to the magnificent Persona 3.

Verdict: Despite its flaws, this is truly one of the best of decade that I've played, and a new steppingstone for RPGs. Only play this if you have an open mind and are willing to put in the hours to really watch this game pay off. One of my favorite stories to tell is how it took me a year and a half to put the first 25 hours into this game, and I beat the other 80 hours in no less than 2 weeks. Thats how much the payoff hooked me.