Overall 9.3 Graphics 9 Sound 10 Addictive 9.5 Story 10 Depth 8.5 Difficulty 6.5
9.6
Taking Your Heart with Style AuroVee
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...
Graphics 9 Sound 10 Addictive 10 Story 10 Depth 10 Difficulty 6
Review Rating: 4.5/5
Submitted: 04-22-17
Review Replies: 6
8.6
A Persona 5 Review Spacey Sul
Hello, everyone! Today I will be reviewing the game Persona 5. Before I start, I’d like to give you all a bit of background on the Persona series itself.
The Persona series is actually a spinoff of the game series Shin Megami Tensei, specifically from the well received setting in ‘Shin Megami Tensei If…’ (which was the high school setting the Persona games all have). The name is based off the fact that the game allows you to summon monsters/characters that are based on aspects of personality. The series revolves around different aspects of the psyche, and uses enemies called ‘shadows’/’demons’ that are typically based off of Gods or demons or any mythical beings from multiple fables and stories, with the main character being the only one able to wield multiple Persona. The games also use the major Arcana (aka Tarot cards) to assign ‘roles’ of sorts for the characters, which allows you to strengthen bonds with those characters and gain abilities. Now that you know a bit more about the series, let's get into the actual review. How I will be doing it is that I’ll be starting from lowest score to the highest score. At the end, I will tell you the overall score, and also summarize the review if you would rather not read a huge wall of text. Let us begin, shall we? This game can be a bit confusing at the start if you have never played a Persona game before, as it has many different controls and makes it so you must be stealthy to avoid being kicked out of the dungeon and wasting time. If you make too many mistakes, you will get a game over and you will also miss out on some content and the likes when you waste time due to mistakes. But, once you get the hang of the controls, the game is easier, Definitely not the easiest game around still, but definitely easier. The battle system is simple and a lot like old school FF (turn based, with ‘magic’ skills and physical attacks and the like). The system is a weird kind of complex simplicity, and the game certainly gives you a run for your money with the intensity of some of the battles. However, other than battle things tend to be simple. It’s easy to grow your bonds with the other characters, easy to increase your stats (albeit slow-going at times), and easy to figure out how the level will go and how the puzzles work. While the battling and exploring of a Palace (the name for the dungeons in the game) can be a bit difficult, it gets mellowed out some by the simplicity and straightforwardness of the rest of the game. Due to that, I give it a rating of 7. This game definitely has a good bit of things to do; from exploring the general dungeon called ‘Mementos’, to simply living the life of a typical teenager (with studying and hanging out with friends). However, the depth feels limited due to the fact that the game makes it so you have limited time to do anything. You simply can’t do everything because of time constraints placed due to the missions you must do, as you must complete a Palace in a set amount of days or else you will receive a ‘game over’. There’s also the simple fact that this game was made with a very specific path in mind. Really, it just gives the illusion of options and having a lot to do while making it hard for you to actually do it. You’d have to play through many times to do everything and that’s just absurd. It’s a weird paradox… It does have a lot to do but you just can’t do all of it. For the simple fact that you can’t do everything without playing many times, something not a lot of people enjoy doing, I give it a rating of 7. Persona 5, and other Persona games, are very interesting as far as graphics go. Why is that? It’s because of their use of mixing together 3D and 2D. The models and battles are all 3D, and the setting as well. But, it also employs the use of 2D talksprites in dialogue, and also does 2D animation for the cutscenes. The animated scenes are beautifully done, the movements are fluid and the style is pretty. They definitely put a lot of time into animation, and were also very detail oriented. From what I could tell, and from some youtubers I watched after I finished playing the game myself, the areas they used stayed true to their real-life counterparts. The 3D models were also pretty good, for the most part. Some bits could’ve looked a lot nicer (i.e. some of the faces just seemed off to me), but they did a overall amazing job in graphics. Looked more old-school to me, which was interesting considering the age of hyperrealism we find ourselves in animation and video games. So, if it weren’t for some aspects of the models they used, the graphics would’ve most likely been a solid 10.The animation was stunning, the attention to detail while not being ‘super realistic’ like games tend to be these days was great. But, since some items felt off to me, it was knocked down to a 9. This game is fairly addictive once you start getting really into the story, not gonna lie. They certainly know how to get you reeled in and keep you in; I remember I accidentally played for about 8 hours straight simply because of the fact I couldn’t get enough of the story. It gets tedious at times, certainly, but it somehow manages to make it so you keep playing. There really isn’t much to say here, since I’ll explain story during it’s actual part of the review. So, to end this short little bit, I give Addictiveness a 9. (The tedious bits kinda throw you off sometimes, making it feel less addictive than it can be.) I don’t know if any of you have heard the soundtrack, but holy heck is the soundtrack phenomenal. Every single song is amazing, gets your energy up and your blood pumping. The music makes everything for the game, honestly. Like, if I had to pick one soundtrack to listen to for the rest of my life it would be the soundtrack of this game. The music always manages to fit perfectly with the scene and area it is tailored for, something not all games can claim, and from what I can tell is generally well liked by all. I have never heard anyone say something negative about the soundtrack. Seriously, even if you never play the game and have no interest in playing it at all, you gotta at least hear the soundtrack. There’s no way soundtrack would get less then a 10 in my opinion. The soundtrack is easily one of the best aspects of the whole game, and this game is quite amazing in my opinion. Lastly, we reach the story! And gosh do I absolutely love the story of this game. The characters they have are (for the most part) incredibly compelling, and pretty much all of them are quite likeable. The theme they had was very interesting, the twists were quite awesome (except for one very predictable one, but the person involved was one of the most interesting characters so I’ll let it slide). I was absolutely captivated by the story; I was always wondering what would happen next, how everything would end up. It constantly had my adrenaline through the roof, and the final battle gave me some serious chills. It’s rare I can say a game does that to me! It was such a refreshing feeling! Here’s the premise, basically: A rich and powerful dude gets the main character into serious trouble, and basically ruins his life simply because the main character barely shoved him while the main character attempted to help the lady rich guy harassed. This leads to the MC becoming the ‘Trickster’, and thus sends him on the whole journey. He gains many allies with similar powers, all of them ‘chained’ and ‘imprisoned’ in their own ways, much like how he is due to the rich guy. The whole theme is ‘freedom’, and being who you wish to be. They take down a number of palaces, freeing those people from their twisted desires. This all leads up to an epic confrontation between an unexpected final boss, and to releasing the world from its shackles. Honestly, describing the story itself and how it makes me feel doesn’t do the game justice. Experiencing the story yourself is literally the best way to do it. You won’t regret it, I swear. It’s a solid, solid 10 for me. Literally no way I could give it anything lower with all the emotions it gave me and how deeply it resonated with me. Finally, we reach the final bit, which is the overall score. Now, I do two overall scores: What I feel it deserves, but what my ratings actually gave it. I’ll use the actual ratings for the review, but would like you all to know what I would give it if I didn’t break it down. If asked, I would say the game is a 10-outta-10. It’s such an enjoyable game, and a incredible experience. It doesn’t get enough love, honestly, and that’s really disappointing. I can talk for ages about this game and how awesome it is and how amazing the story is and the impact it had on me. The game is amazing, as stated. It has a beautifully done soundtrack, and a story that can even make the most stoic feel some sort of emotion. It does a wonderful blend of 3D and 2D modeling/graphics, with just minimal issues from a aesthetical perspective, and is a genuinely fun game that just has the usual typical tedious moments of gameplay. It’s not too difficult overall, but can be a bit of a pain when it comes to battles (especially the boss battles). The only thing that really weighs it down is the illusion of depth it has. It certainly has much to do, you just can’t do all of it. It’s pretty much impossible to do all of it at once. If they gave you more opportunity to do those other options, it certainly would’ve gotten a higher rating. That’s all for this review. I really hope you all enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it, and I do hope I helped you understand the game a bit better and hopefully made it so you want to try out the game.
Graphics 9 Sound 10 Addictive 9 Story 10 Depth 7 Difficulty 7
Review Rating: 3/5
Submitted: 07-11-18
Updated: 07-11-18
Review Replies: 1
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