Persona 5. Created to celebrate 20 years of the Persona series, itself a branch of the greater SMT series, even though it wasn't released in the West until the year after... Well, it is a game which will take your heart, at the very least.


The basic concept is the same as prior Persona games - you play a transfer student who just transferred to a new school. Although in this case... It's because you have a criminal record after trying to help someone and ending up hurting a powerful man who manages to stick a charge of assault onto you, meaning you were expelled from your old school and had to move to Tokyo because of the school you go to there being the only one which would accept you.

...Although it doesn't begin like that. Instead, it begins six or so months after you transfer into the school, and you are in the middle of a heist in a casino. You play as Joker, the leader of the Phantom Thieves of Heart - real name choosable by yourself after a short while - during one of the heists, and this serves as a good taste of power, showing you what Joker can really do, barring his Wild Card ability, at this point in time - jumping from ceiling-mounted lights, dashing from cover to cover, and even a fight with a Shadow - but this is short lived, as Joker is captured, drugged and forced to sign a false confession - the latter being how you can choose your name.

Now, this serves as a framing device for most of the game, as from then up until the time where the Casino heist happens, you will occasionally jump forward back to the present time, where a female prosecutor is trying to grill you for information on your group and/or showing you who your next target was, either at key moments in the plot, or when you gain a new Confidant - this game's equivalent to Persona 3's and 4's Social Links.

Anyway, the game dives you right into the meat of things early on, as on the first day you should be going to school, you instead end up at the first Palace of the game - these are fixed layout dungeons which you have to work through - and are captured by the Shadow of the PE teacher of your school. But thanks to this, you awaken to your starting Persona, and eventually, with the help of Morganna, a small anthro cat with a big head and a Persona who serves both as your first new party member and your starting Mission Control who teaches you about a lot of things, you manage to return back to the real world.


Now, I'll move away from the plot for now to go over some other things. For example, there's the graphics, which are a sight to behold, even if most of the crowd are faceless - and the UI is gorgeous, both in battle, in shops, and even in the pause menu which, in the main pause menu, has the protagonist hold his hand up to the screen while text next to him says, "Don't look at me like that." Although why is something you should figure out yourself. The game also heavily features blacks, whites and reds - the latter chosen to excite in contract to Persona 3 with its blue and Persona 4 with its yellow.

And I have to fanboy about the soundtrack - it has great songs such as Last Surprise, which is the battle theme; Life Will Change, the theme which plays whenever the Phantoms are doing a heist, and especially Rivers in the Desert, which plays for latter bosses, including bonus ones. You can even listen to prior battle themes thanks to the DLC costumes which you can get, which include other SMT games and not just Persona games.

Also, the difficulty can be adjusted whenever, so long as you don't pick Safety, meaning you can choose how easy or hard you want the game to be. This includes a DLC difficulty which increases the damage dealt by tech hits or exploiting weaknesses by a lot, meaning hitting someone with a weakness of their is likely to take them out. But there are helpful additions, like being able to switch the party in the dungeon, a quick way to heal without using the menus, the ability to quickly get a skill to exploit a known weakness, and the fact that switching Personas are linked with selecting the skill Joker will use, meaning you won't accidentally switch to the wrong Persona.

Finally, like in the first two numbered entries, Persona 1 and Persona 2, you are able to negotiate with the Shadows you fight if you knock all of them down, where you can gain money, items or even a new Persona for Joker. Or, you can go for an All Out Attack if you so desire - which if it would kill them all, will result in a little sequence where the person who triggered the Hold Up! formed from knocking all the enemies down forms a pose of some kind, be it adjusting one's gloves, falling flat on their face before getting up and acting like it never happened, or sitting in a chair while making a pose which would be sinister... That is, if it wasn't Morganna trying to pull it off.


Anyway, the plot basically revolves around stealing the hearts of adults who have fallen into a sin of some kind, and who also are threatening the Phantoms as well in some way, be it a PE teacher threatening expulsion or an artist threatening legal action - these help to serve as deadlines for when you have to steal the Treasure of their Palace. To do so, you first need to secure an infiltration route, then you send a calling card to the target in the real world so that their Treasure can manifest. Then, the next day you have to steal it - which doesn't always go as planned, leading to a boss battle - before escaping the Palace before it collapses. You rinse and repeat, whining new party members as you do so, until you finally reach the Casino - but I'll let you discover what happens after that, as I won't spoil you.

All in all, Persona 5 is a great addition to the Persona franchise. You don't need to have played Persona before to get to grips with it, but for those who have, you'll notice some things which serve as a nod to prior games, or may hint at something greater...

Around the middle I found this a bit hard to follow, mainly due to the use of terms of Persona series, I guess. You mention Social Links, some kind of attack called Hold Up! that makes a formation? Safety is a difficulty but you can't change it, is that super-easy mode? 


I did play the very first Persona game, I did enjoy that each party member had different traits so you could, talk your way out of fights, like you for mentioned. Bringing that back sounds fun.

endings :

"Hold Up!" is a feature in which your party can do one of four things.

1. Convince the enemy to become one of your personas
2. Ask for money
3. Ask for items
4. Beat the ever-loving s*** out of them

To get into Hold Up, you have to have all the enemy's in a "knocked down" state, by hitting them with their weaknesses. If it gets to their turn, they stand up though, so you basically have to knock down all of the opposing team in one fluid combo, which is why it's no trivial matter to kill everything instantly.

Safety mode is a difficulty I haven't touched, basically, it is for people who care about the plot, but don't want to have any challenge at all. It's for people who want to watch a Let's Play, but want control over where the Let's Play goes. It's super easy baby mode, and even easier than easy mode (which is pretty damn easy, outside of random insta-kill moves).

The Social Links thing has existed since Persona 3, and functions as both a means of progressing side stories with members of your team, and other various characters you see around town/school/etc, as well as a way of powering up personas that you fuse. The higher your "social rank" with someone is, the higher the power of any persona you fuse that shares the same arcanum. For example, in Persona 5, Ann is of the "Lovers" Arcanum (there are 22 or 23 arcanum, from the Fool, to the Tower, and so on, basic tarot stuff). If Ann is at level 1 in her social link, then any personas you fuse that have the "Lovers" link attached to them will boost slightly. If Ann is at level 10, these same personas get massive boosts. There is one social link for each tarot, some advance automatically, and others, you have to go out into the world, and make time for them yourself. It's a neat system that makes the earlier games in the series feel boring.

Hope that helped.

legacyme3 : I was going to get into that myself, but when I first did it, I forgot to add a title, and it caused me to lose my work. And I am not that impressed about you hijacking my thread to explain about it.


Anyway, he is right about that. Whenever you trigger a Hold Up! - by knocking down all enemies, but note that killing the only non knocked down enemy does not trigger a Hold Up!, although there is a chance with a certain Confidant skill to get one from a non-ambush - you can choose one of five things. Although you wouldn't really choose the fifth option.

First, you can ask for money. With the right Confidant skills, you can either ask multiple times, or even ask for one big lump sum.
Second, you can ask for items. A Confidant skills can increase the chance of it being a rare item.
Third, you can try and convince the Shadow to join you as a Persona. This triggers a sort of minigame where you need to choose the right options, but only if your level is high enough until you max out the Sun Confidant. Get it right, and you'll get a Persona. Get it somewhat right, and you'll get items or money. Get it wrong, however... And the Shadows might get up and attack, unless you have a party member with a certain Confidant skill who may trigger it and give you a second chance. There is a confidant skill which lets you fire a warning shot during negotiations which may help at times.
Fourth, you can unleash an All Out Attack for massive damage which they can't null or resist.
And finally, but I don't know why you'd do this, you can back out of launching an attack and keep the One More you would had gotten from knocking down the enemy..

AuroVee :

The only reason you would break formation, is to get a trophy. If you do a weakness exploitation, baton pass, weakness exploitation, baton pass, weakness exploitation (and get a hold up moment), and then break formation, into a final baton pass, you get a trophy, for passing the baton three times.

That's literally the only reason you would do it, since you do more damage, and the character you would theoretically baton pass to would get to attack anyway.

In almost all instances, I just ask for money, use a negotiation perk to ask for more money, then use my all out attack to just annihilate the opponent, and get even more money (on top of the obvious exp gain). It's risky if they enemy says no and starts the battle back up, but that's why you have healing items.

legacyme3 : Actually, that's not exactly true. If you have four or more foes, all of who are weak to Gun attacks, you can shoot one, Baton Pass, shoot another, Baton Pass, shoot a third, then Baton Pass once more.

AuroVee :

You "could" do that, sure. I'm not sure why you'd want to (or do the method I spoke of, either), especially since in that situation, you could just shoot all the enemies down, do the all-out attack on the hold up meanu, and repeat on your second character's turn for more damage... but hey, a trophy is a trophy.

It's a very silly one.