Persona 5 Review by: AuroVee - 9.6/10
Taking Your Heart with Style 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 Depth
10 Story
10 Difficulty
6
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