Took me a little longer then most to beat this game but now that I have it's time to talk about it... without spoilers of course.
I guess it's best to start with my history/bias towards this series.
Back in high school all my friends were talking about Persona 3 and how it's the best thing ever. I had never heard of it but when they told me the FES edition just released that there was never a better time to jump in.
I remember looking at the back of the box and thinking "80 hours? yeah OK I doubt it"
120 hours later.... i was hooked.
I love the characters, the art, the music, the life sim aspect... it was all so new and different.
Eventually persona 4 came out.... and i played the shit out of that (until i got one shot in a dungeon and lost all my progress for that day [enemies shouldn't have insta kill attacks when the main character can't be revived by friends]... and then i put the game down till... well till i got the vita versions....) And i loved this even more. the deceptively lighter tone, the same and yet better music, art, dungeon design and gameplay... it was all so wonderful and i was sad when it ended.
So that pretty much gets us to the present right?
well not exactly.
I have tried to play both person 1 and 2... and while i did like the latter a bit more i didn't get far in either. apparently I'm not a fan of first person grid based dungeon crawlers.... who knew.
So now... having loved half the series and..... experienced the other half how was persona 5 going to fare in my eyes.
Well right off the bat I loved it. It came out at the worst time for me because I was literally going on a trip to japan for three weeks shortly after it came out... but still I played what I could and knew I'd get back to it when I returned.
However besides that one little hiccup I was in love. this game oozes style, the music fits perfectly and the art makes me want to push myself as an artist. Hell I even enjoyed the "stealth" mechanic and the only thing I hate more then first person grid based dungeon crawlers it's stealth... The battles had a few more kinds of attacks and the dungeons were so much more interesting then the previous two titles.
So then why did I find it so hard to sit myself down and just beat it?
Why did i end up taking it out of my ps4 for other games.... why did other older titles keep beating it out of my currently playing slot (ok obvious answer is they were all falcom games and falcom wins every time for me)
As I got further and further in I felt there was one truth about this game that I couldn't ignore.
I didn't like the theme.
Or more accurately... the theme of persona 4 resonated with me so much that the fact this theme didn't hook me made it hard to get into the game.
Persona 4 deals with that ugly voice that sometimes pops up that we try to ignore or deny... it's something that is universal... we have all had thoughts like that... and we all have the capacity to be better people despite our occasionally ugly nature.
Persona 5 deal with Corruption... a very real corruption that I think everyone is seeing in the day to day life of the world... and while the game has a message of hope... it's hard to feel like you have any power in the situation... in the end I'm just one voice...
I want to say the theme rings a bit hollow to me but that is not accurate, more like "I wish there was more I could do to see a similar outcome" and perhaps that is the point... to spur people to do what they can to show that corruption can't win.
still I did love the game... well most of it.
Remember that I mentioned I didn't mind the stealth in this game... yeah about 3/4th through the game I realized "no i still hate stealth" and by the end of a certain dungeon i was just wanting it all to be over.
Also the fact that the dungeons are no longer procedurally generated (excluding mementos) led to some awesome puzzles and set pieces..... on the other hand it made the dungeons incredibly long do to the fact that a lot of the puzzles involve backtracking which just feels like padding for an already long game. (my play though was around 95 hours)
Still I did enjoy it... I know I'm being harsh but trust me I really did love it and I got emotional more then once.
Is it my game of the year? probably not but I can see why so many others say it is.
I may do a newgame plus run of it... see what trophies I need and try to platinum... no promises though since it is a bit of a beast.
If you haven't picked it up yet and you were curious or you loved any other persona or SMT titles then yeah i would say give it a try.
Nothing is done poorly and all my criticism is 100% due to things I like or dislike in games.
Still I do wish other games had even 1/8th the amount of style this game has. you could teach a course on the menu design alone.
Alright that is enough rambling for now... time to figure out what to play next! (probably tokyo Xanadu ex + since that comes out in a few weeks.)
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