Quick note on this one: I originally wrote this review for the Welsh Gaming Network, which you can find right here. It's a great site for gaming news, Wales based events and reviews and they have recently setup their own e-sports teams! Their main site link is: http://www.welshgaming.co.uk/.
I wouldn't be making this blog if not for WGN so please do head over and give them some well deserved attention!
Persona 5 is a masterwork. When I played Persona 4 Golden I had a similar reaction but looking back, the newest iteration is a huge improvement over what was already one of the very best JRPGs around. I had one of those extremely rare moments of utter gaming joy towards the end of Persona 5 in which you just feel like no other art form can possibly compete. Although it has some issues, that feeling of joy is what makes the journey through this game so worthwhile.
Set in a Japanese high school, Persona 5 puts you in control of a dark haired bespectacled student that has been transferred to Shujin Academy after being arrested. The player retains agency over this character, but he has more of his own personality than other series protagonists have had, as becomes obvious during many story cutscenes. He becomes an outcast due to his delinquent reputation and eventually joins other outcasts, rebels and misfits to form a tightly knit group, who become the Phantom Thieves.
The Phantom Thieves (and indeed, the entire game) ooze style from every pore. The red and black theme is striking to say the least, but my pre-release fears that it would look garish or difficult to read didn’t materialise for me. However, I’d be surprised if it hasn’t caused eye strain or ended up too flashy for some gamers’ tastes. On a personal level though, I spent minutes at a time just watching the protagonist run in circles after winning a battle purely to appreciate the colours and environments.
Speaking of, the hand crafted permanent dungeons are my favourite change from the previous game. The Palaces represent the cognition of a person with a distorted heart, which the Phantom Thieves make it their mission to fix by stealing the treasure in each Palace. They are all utterly unique, stylised and perfectly suited to the individual they belong to. I was never too fond of the randomly generated layout of previous games and the clever way these levels are designed was a joy to behold. It would also be criminal not to mention the music here, which is again unique per palace and the full soundtrack is absolutely stellar. The themes for some of the bosses, particularly the last two in the True ending, are outstandingly tense and grandiose.
The combat system has remained relatively unchanged since Persona 4, with the turn based system still focusing on resistances or weaknesses to certain types of attacks and using different Persona’s tactically. Each Persona itself is unique and intriguing and some of the designs of the bosses are phenomenally inventive. The combat will be fairly familiar to any veteran RPG or JRPG player but the attack mechanics and combinations of varied Confidant abilities keep the fighting fresh throughout the game.
The lovingly and thoughtfully crafted dungeons and incredible music both add significant depth to a fantastic main story. It’s a dark story at times, tackling some very serious and emotional topics with (usually) the appropriate level of gravitas. It creates some superb villains throughout and provides genuinely despicable antagonists to revile, yet shows that redemption is always possible and that stories almost always have more than one side. It makes fighting and winning against these enemies extremely satisfying, but definitely promotes some thought about their character.
The characters themselves are what make the story so compelling. The protagonist can interact with Confidants, which are characters that you meet throughout the game. Spending time with them unlocks some excellent and interesting abilities as well as progressing their own story and improves their relationship with your character. Each of these Confidants have deeply personal and rich stories that you learn about and participate in as you grow closer to each person. Main party members also act as Confidants; their stories begin as you progress in the main questline and their personality traits hold true throughout their stories.
As all games do, Persona 5 does have its issues. I found the difficulty curve a little erratic at times, being easy to complete one floor of a dungeon then finding enemies quite capable of obliterating your entire team without giving you a chance to take a turn in the next. Occasionally I also found that some fights could be either won easily or lost without hope based arbitrarily on how good the enemy AI decided to be in that round, but this subsided as the game went on.
Although some of the English voice performances were superb (in particular, Robbie Daymond as Goro Akechi was incredible), others were quite lacklustre. Generally though, the more prominent characters had brilliant voiceover work, particularly for Ann, Ryuji and Makoto for the party members. Persona also sometimes dropped the ball on the issues it tackled. Mostly it approaches dark and painful subjects with grace but did on one or two occasions shift the tone from treating a topic with care and attention to making jokes about a similar enough matter as to be slightly distasteful shortly afterwards. However, this is not a trend and is mostly a single black mark on a clean record of treating heavy subject matter with respect.
If it wasn’t clear already, I adore Persona 5. It took me about 120 hours of play over a good few weeks to play through it the first time but few games in recent memory had me quite as excited to end each day at work and get home to play more. From the most epic, grand scale battles to the mundanity of helping your guardian in his coffee/curry shop, everything about Persona 5 screams quality, care and attention. It’s simultaneously intense, flamboyant, showy, spectacular, dramatic, emotional, heart-warming, saddening, hilarious and about as cool as you can get. It has already gotten all the praise it deserves but is always worthy of a bit more; although the JRPG genre may not be for everyone, Persona 5 earns its place among the best JRPGs ever.