Persona 5 - PlayStation Hits - PlayStation 4 Standard Edition

In a twisted sort of way, which is the only way Persona knows, these games are a bizarre 21st entry heir apparent to John Hughes high school hijinks and angst. Persona 5 continues a very unique evolution of the SMT JRPG system which by this point is a genuine formula involving dungeons, Pokemon, high School, social links, group battles and dating. Yeah that's all Persona. All of it.After many, many P4g and P4 PS2 play throughs, I can attest that P5 is a well-made follow up to P4. The lineage is clear. The music is great and the story is solid. Atlus did a great job in some areas in particular:- The Tokyo details. You didn't have to spend time in Shinjuku to pick up on everything, but if you've spent any extended time anywhere in metropolitan Japan - Osaka, Kobe, etc - there is so much here to connect with. From the convenience store layouts to lines of subway ticket machines, the environment designers hit all the right notes. THERE IS EVEN A POLLEN WARNING FOLKS.- The music. Now arguably P4 had better music, but the soundtrack is still pretty awesome stuff.- The visual design is as colorful and as lively as walkthrough through Shinjuku or Dōtonbori in Osaka after sunset. Atlus sort of took the Catherine graphics design and went nuts.- Offering a Japanese audio track for free. Confession: I haven't actually heard a single word of the English track. I have a Japanese copy I brought back from Osaka and I played through the American release from start to finish with the Japan audio. I know some people have ranted about flaws in the localization, but if that stuff bothers you so much, just get the full Japanese version. If your kanji isn't really up to snuff like mine, but you can get through the audio, the American release is an easy choice. The Japanese audio track is a free download on the PSN store.- 100 hours from start to finish. This shouldn't be a surprise to any Persona vets. The truth is, a lot of this play time is more about watching the story unfold and fulfilling character stat boost tasks than some grueling marathon. It's like a Netflix season really.- Though the difficulty spikes are still there, the combat is also still tons of fun, strategic and really satisfying.Now some complaints. Persona 5 is not perfect. Neither was 4 or 4G. Or 3. Or 3 FES. Or Q.- Main dungeons are not half random like before, but honestly, they're still a little bland. Some have some really great bits and the use of color is fantastic on all of them, but you're still essentially on rails waiting for a button prompt to hit shadows for combat. I actually think Persona Q felt a little better than this even if you were just moving on squares. Traversal in a Persona game has never been a focus of the designers and it's not really much different here than past titles, but it feels limiting. Mementos - the side mission grind playground - IS made of randomly generated room branches and mostly a good edition since dungeons disappear permanently after you beat them, but it's sort of small scale simplistic stuff that often feels a little weak in comparison to the rest of the game. However, you finally do get a mystery machine van that we didn't have in P4.- 100 hours from start to finish. The downside to this? Well a lot of that time has to do with Morgana telling you what you can't do on particular days early on (this was something the game used to force on you in P4 but now handled through a screen character). Another chunk of time is the infinite cross fading loading screens between any action that happens in the game.- Persona 4 was a little slow moving until you hit the 8-10 hour mark. Persona 5 is marginally better, but arguably, the game doesn't actually begin until when the 3rd dungeon begins which is roughly 18-20 hours in.- Lastly, and this is 100% subjective, but as good as this game is, it is lacking the immeasurable charm and heart from P4 or P4g. I'm not taking anything away from the full group of characters in P5, but overall, it's maybe 9/10s of Persona 4. There is a distinct lack of freshness to many of the game's systems too as some aspects of the game feel lifted from Catherine too. But as I type this, I know there were plenty of people who said similar things about Persona 4 coming off P3. Your mileage may vary.You can't go wrong though. Person 5 is in line with the other life dominating Atlus entries to the series and is so dang amazing that my complaints above came after much thought from a player who has braved the Tartarus, Midnight Channel and now the Metaverse. This is a great game and in many ways is the opposite of open world games in good and bad ways that are dominating video game releases these days. By the end, it's not really about stats or how many cars you have in your GTA garage, it's about looking back and truly earning the right to say, you went on a real journey and you did it among friends.But I still miss Yukiko and Rise. And maybe Chie.

If you played Persona 4 before there's not really a drastic change to the formula; you're still dungeon hoping while trying to balance your social life, but the changes made makes this the best and easiest Persona game to jump into.-StoryYou're a high school student moving to a new town trying to change the hearts of corrupt adults thus making society a better placeThe game is split into days where you try to balance your life in the real world and meta-verseIn the meta-verse or the dungeon aspect of the game, you face shadows or enemies made by corrupt adults which guard their evil heart in palaces (or evil manifestations of a person)Once you enter a palace you have a set number of in-game days to complete it before the corrupt adult does something to ruin societyOnce you defeat the boss in the palace you'll change their hearts forcing them to turn themselves in to the authorities in the real worldIn the real world, you spend time with friends getting to know their darkest secrets and may romance them if you further the relationship far enough. Along the way you build stat upgrades which you can use during your dungeon crawlingThe story, dialogue, voices and character interactions are very good, making it an addictive game where you want to level up and progress to further the story. The story also involve real world topics that deals with mature themes such as abuse, crime, rape, blackmail-GraphicsVery stylish with its anime art design/cutscenes, jagged comic book speech bubbles, very colorful backdrops and varied characters personalities . Even the UI has a stylistic flare to it. All transitional screens and menus are well animated. Very nice presentation overall as it looks very slick, edgy and modern.-Gameplay:In the metaverse, you sneak through palaces and stealth hit/ambush wandering enemies for a leg up in battleOnce battle is initiated it's your typical jrpg turn based system but with a twistIf you hit an enemy with move that's super effective against them, you'll get an extra turn to attack until your combo gets large enough where you get an optional all-out-attackAn enemy can sometimes do an 'Hold Up!' prompt where you can spare their life for money, item or have them join you as a Persona summon.For the latter you get a multiple choice question answer segment where you have to convince them to join you with a successful choice dependent on the enemies personality. You can then fuse personas and make stronger onesOnce a palace is conquered you are not able to return, but you can get mementos or side quests from random NPCs to further level up if you want toIn the real world there's a lot of micro time management. You may be overwhelmed with activities that you cannot do all in a single day and some activities are only open on particular days . Thus you have to pick and choose what to do to build up your stats (like eating burgers, reading on the train station, studying, watching movies, etc) or build relationships with a friend. For the latter, building relationship further increase their persona in battle and similar persona types that you capture/make join your teamAll activities level up 1 of 5 stats: Knowledge, Charm, Guts, Kindness, or Proficiency. These stats once leveled up open new activities and opportunities to level up in the meta-verse and improve social links furthering the story.They're a lot of interlocking game mechanics in play that the tutorial may last you a couple of hours depending on how familiar you are with the series. Even though the game handholds you for a couple of hours, it's very natural and you don't feel lectured most of the time. After those few hours, you get invested very easily as the world opens up to you, and you can easily sink in 100+ hours into this game.Overall best Persona Game I've ever played and for those who like a narrative driven story where a lot of your own choices predicts an outcome, this game is a must buy.