Persona 5 Review
Persona 5 is an incredible game that has taken great leaps forward since Persona 4! I’ll be honest, I almost didn’t buy this game because I thought it would have the same annoyances as Persona 4, but I am so happy those assumptions were wrong! After playing the game from start to finish, seeing all the bad endings as well as the good ending, allow me to explain what makes this a fantastic game and how it’s a lot better than Persona 4:
The Best
Aesthetics/Palace Design
Persona 5 is beautiful! Especially playing on the PS4, this game is just absolutely gorgeous! The creativity used in the palaces/dungeons is remarkable! Persona 4 had a bad habit of having the exact same boring environment for every single level of a dungeon. Persona 5 creates beautiful environments that feel intertwined. Take the first palace as an example. It’s a castle! You are literally exploring a castle from bottom to top. It’s not the same boring level design every stage, it feels as if you are exploring a castle like in Super Mario 64! This change from Persona 4 makes the game so much more fun to play! I expect the environments to be even more beautiful and intricate in Persona 6!
Attacking Shadows
The most significant gameplay difference from Persona 4 is the complete overhaul of the ambush system. In Persona 4, you would have to manually sneak up behind purple blobs who would immediately attack you as soon as you got near them! This problem from Persona 4 was so frustrating because even though you spent the time and effort to sneak up to the shadow, it would immediately see you and run around and ambush you instead, and that didn’t feel fair at all. In Persona 5, it’s completely different. You can use your environment as cover, crouch behind structures or jump down on top of the shadows from the ledge above them, guaranteeing an ambush! If you’re careful enough, you could very easily stealth your way through all of Persona 5 ambushing every enemy (besides the bosses).
Persona Management
This is one of the biggest differences from Persona 4, and I am so happy about it! Instead of having to rely on luck when it comes to gaining a new persona after battle, you now have control. You can choose to target a specific persona to capture in battle! Moreover, another huge improvement is the Velvet Room! Unlike Persona 4, you are shown all the possible combinations that your current personas can fuse into, so you spend a lot less time guessing as to which combinations you need for your fusion to be a specific persona. But on top of that, you get to choose which skills to inherit from the fused personas! So, you no longer need to save the game and fuse and restart the game over and over until you get the right combination of skills for your new persona (this is what Persona 4 made you do painstakingly). Persona 5 simplifies everything for you. You can even create and duplicate skill cards to use on your personas. Hopefully in Persona 6 you’ll be able to choose the inherited skills from personas used to strengthen as well. Yet, Persona 5 makes it so much easier to make the personas you really intended and wanted to create from the very beginning, which makes the game so much more fun to play!
Storytelling
As expected from a Persona game, the storytelling is extraordinary. The game keeps you in the dark about the story’s secrets until the very end, but the themes of justice, defending the weak, bravery, and psychology (even mental illness) is addressed. Some parts of the story are not particularly deep, such as those of secondary confidants not in your party. But I must acknowledge that the story from the Hermit arcana was especially emotional, both sad, angry, inspirational and hopeful with meaningful character growth. The other stories are great too though, and the dialogue is often cute and funny. There are enough entertaining, mysterious, shocking and emotional moments to keep you fully invested throughout.
Music/Soundtrack
What makes the music in Persona 5 so good is not just that it’s very catchy music on its own, but that it is also appropriate for every mood. The relaxing music at Leblanc, the exciting music when stealing a treasure, the foreboding music when encountering a boss, the energetic music when fighting the boss. Every palace has new music too! Sometimes I would just stop playing and listen to the music for a while, it’s that enjoyable.
The Good
Combat
The fighting is very similar to Persona 4, except with the addition of guns. It’s not a big addition, but being able to knock down enemies with a gunshot makes the game a lot more fun to play. As mentioned in "Persona Management", when a shadow is knocked down, you have the ability to capture that persona by talking to them. This is a really fun way of going about it. I definitely had some interesting conversations/negotiations with the shadows over my playthrough. You can also ask for money, get an item, or all-out attack them as usual.
Difficulty Levels
It’s worth mentioning that in addition to the standard difficulty levels, Persona 5 adds a “Safe” mode that players can use if they never want to lose or are simply impatient and want to experience the full game without having to grind for money, items and experience. That being said, I found the game to be fair enough in terms of difficulty as long as you use every item, skill, and party member to your advantage. The only part I still hate about the difficulty is that if you die in battle (even accidentally because a shadow ambushed you from behind) you have to start over from your last save point. This can be enormously frustrating, especially early on in the game when you are at a weak low level without any strong personas, equipment, or items. Thankfully, the game gets easier as your personas and confidants grow stronger, and in the worst case scenario you can just switch on safe mode and enjoy beating the shadows senseless.
The Worst (Needs Improvement)
Palace Puzzles
In order to keep the palaces interesting, the game has puzzles to solve. Some are quick and easy, like running across tiles to change the floor to a specific color. Some you have to think, like changing airlocks or inputting codes in a computer. Some are mildly annoying, like having to use your third eye all the time in a pitch black maze. Some are extremely boring and time-consuming, like having to run back and forth as a mouse, then open doors as a human, then continue running around as a mouse, over and over until you open all the doors in the area. I wouldn’t say that you need to get rid of the puzzles altogether, but when I just want to explore the map and fight shadows, I’m not at all interested in spending hours solving boring puzzles.
Mementos
I think I understand what Mementos is supposed to be. It’s supposed to be a really long dungeon in which you can train (earn money and experience) on the side. I absolutely love the concept of making a dungeon out of the public’s consciousness. But practically speaking, this was arguably the most boring part of the entire game. Firstly, you are stuck in the car, and unlike the palaces, you cannot dash/run faster while in the car. It would’ve been nice to be able to speed up the car to complete the level as fast as possible, but instead you are stuck at your regular speed. This is painful to play through because you very often don’t have a map of the floor. So you are slowly exploring every single corner of every single floor until you finally are able to find the stairway to go to the next floor and repeat over and over again for what feels like forever. Also, although it’s nice to see the floors look a little different (more gruesome) the deeper you go, it still looks practically the same the whole way down. Nothing but train tracks, red and black coloring, and shadows look exactly the same the whole way down. Mementos felt the most like Persona 4, with its never-ending boring levels, and I think the game could’ve been better without it. Instead, make those mementos requests into interesting side missions or something. Don’t make the player slog through a monotonous dungeon like Mementos again please.
Conclusion
I gave this game a 10/10 because it’s as close to a perfect turn-based RPG with social simulation game as I’ve ever played. It does get a bit boring at times with the puzzles and dungeon in Mementos. However, this game does everything else right in every way. The beautiful palaces, intricate and diverse palace maps, improved ambush and persona fusion mechanics, interesting shadow negotiations, wonderful music, great storytelling, and a difficulty level to suit every player’s preference. Whether you’ve played previous Persona games or not, I guarantee you’ll have fun playing this game.