I wrote this on 9/8/19, sad to say I still haven’t finished this game. I’m still in awe over a year after writing this (and over 3 years after the release of this game) how both excellent and frustrating I find this gaming experience.
A good video game will pull you in through either its addictive gameplay loop or invest you in its story and characters. A great video game will do both. My impression of Persona 5 after over 20 hours is that it’s a good video game, with problems in both gameplay and story that have me questioning whether or not I want to continue the 80 to 100+ hour journey.
Before covering what I feel are the more positive aspects of this game I’d like to provide some context. This is the first Persona series game I have played. Also for context, I grew up playing the SNES and fell in love with the American Final Fantasy 3 game (Japanese Final Fantasy 6) – some hailing it as among the best video games of all time. I truly enjoy the tactical battle menu-based action games when done well. Creating a balanced experience between solid and fun gameplay against a fantastic story that has you thinking about it long after you put down the controller, that’s the epitome of excellent video games for me regardless of the genre. Persona 5 has the great tactical turn-based action I love. It also has well fleshed out characters I enjoy which are founded (generally) on cliché though with interesting aspects that are distinguishing. Most people use cliché as a bad thing, though I am not – there’s a reason why clichés exist and great entertainment can come out of clichés if done well by balancing the rote cliché against bringing something new. It’s a difficult balance and I feel Persona 5 does this well.
Personas (or spirits that aid you in battle and perform the ‘magic’ aspects of the game) are interesting. They’re well designed from an artistic perspective and make the repetitive grind of combat engaging – especially considering how much time you spend in combat with this game. The gameplay loop of both Mementos and the two palaces I have played are engaging and make leveling progression of your character fun. Being a ‘thief’ and taking bits and bobs from a meta-reality into the real world and unloading them for ‘real world’ cash at the oddest toy/replica store I could ever conceive of is interesting and amusing. The style on display here oozes with makes me smile every time I load up the game. The main menu screen reminds me of how I felt in my high school art class on the possibility of art and how composition can convey style to evoke feeling.
No comments about the great parts of this game would be complete without mentioning the music. After playing video games for over 30 years I cannot recall a time I have caught myself idly singing or humming a soundtrack the way this game has inspired me to. I must have heard the same battle and victory music a thousand times at this point and I am still not tired of it. The only similar things that pop into my mind as I write this are Final Fantasy, the Legend of Zelda, and Nier Automata have generated and remain to influence emotion from me as a catchy and fantastic beat of music.
With a game that has THIS much going for it, what’s the problem? Okay…. so let’s start with the high-level through-line of the story. The protagonist (which you are able to name) is a high school student who, while walking home at night, stumbles (metaphorically) across a stumbling (literally) drunk man who is harassing a woman. The woman in question is actively calling for help, there is no help coming, while the stumbling drunk tries to force her into his car while telling her how dumb she is to resist him. The high school protagonist, as I’d like to think most people would attempt to intervene by touching the man’s shoulder which results in the drunken man stumbling backward due to overcorrection of his weight distribution and begins berating the protagonist claiming he will sue. Apparently, he not only remembers the light shoulder touch the following day, but also feels no shame at his throwing himself at the poor woman, and ends up pressing some kind of charges and (with a dumbfounded level of shock from me) wins his persecution/prosecution which is the lead in to the player starting to discover this world.
Granted, I understand this is not an American video game – it is Japanese with the cultural trappings involved. I respect differences from standard American media, though I am shocked that this story beat could be considered understandable from any cultural viewpoint. I also understand the Japanese legal system is severe to the point of draconian and, to a limited extent, the cultural implications which occur when someone is convicted of a crime. Even understanding to the limited level I do of these things, this premise is asinine to the point of anger-inducing for me. The early hours of the game have nearly everyone treating you like garbage because you’re a ‘criminal’. The protagonist doesn’t have any voice except offering the player options of what to say and in most situations. As a boisterous and overbearing American, I would have much more choice things to verbalize versus anything offered in the game.
This could be just a ‘suspend disbelief’ type moment and something a player like me just needs to ‘get over’ – right? Okay… let’s talk about my second issue – persona acquisition and management. These are technically two things but I’m lumping them into a single item. To acquire a persona, you must negotiate with it upon placing it in a weakened state – almost like building on the Pokemon formula by adding a conversational mini-game element you must ‘win’ in order to acquire the persona. In theory, that sounds interesting and potentially fun depending on how it’s executed. My problem is in the execution. The conversational element is arcane at best, you must weigh in the ‘temperament’ of the persona and role-play answer questions they ask to you to make the persona like you and remember who they are so they will join you in your battle. A conversation I had this morning, which I lost, was conversing with an ‘upbeat’ temperament persona. It asked me where I live, which my potential answers were ‘near a convenience store’ ‘near a supermarket’ or something that was equivalent to ‘I don’t know’ or ‘it’s not your business’. I’m attempting to role-play an upbeat answer to this question…? This aspect of the game is frustrating – unnecessarily so.
The second aspect of personas I find frustrating is the ongoing management. The persona system is designed not as a Pokemon-style of ‘collecting them all’ but more of a thought of keeping up with shoe styles each season for every outfit you may own (if that’s your thing). Keeping with the analogy, you can only keep 6 pairs of shoes in the beginning and you must keep swapping out shoes each season so you don’t get slaughtered. Back to the game and swapping our shoe to persona terminology – also you need to make sure that you keep the right mix of persona types that won’t get you killed in a palace/dungeon, so you need to make sure you can represent each element in the game (as most if not all bad guys in the game have a weakness to a single element), oh and also you must absolutely make sure that when you visit your friends (named confidants) in ‘the real world’ that you have the right category of persona on your person so you can level your attributes appropriately. Part of the swapping process there are two considerations:
1. You can ‘murder’ two personas in a guillotine which somehow combines them into a stronger persona.
2. You can ‘release’ a persona you’re currently carrying in favor of a new one you have negotiated with.
Considering everything you must balance I mentioned above, this process isn’t fun, it’s honestly stressful and I’m constantly concerned I’m either going to get mowed down by a new enemy because I’m not familiar with the new persona or I had to get rid of my hierophant category of persona to get a magical attack I needed which handicaps me when I train with Sojiro to make coffee and I won’t be able to level correctly. I should note: some players of games enjoy getting good at games by dying repeatedly, trying something new and dying and trying again then dying again and again until they figure out or stumble on a solution (which may or may not be reasonable or logical). This is not for me, which is why I struggle with this kind of gameplay.
Another area I’m on the fence about, which I won’t call positive or negative, is how the game handles perversion. On the one hand, the game places the characters in an obvious good vs evil situation with an incredible over-the-top teacher who is so egotistical that he feels all the high school girls should give it up for him and uses manipulation tactics and coercion to do so. This includes the main party member who is the ‘pretty girl’ of the group named Ann. This teacher is the first boss of the game you must takedown. On the other hand sexuality, especially around Ann, is repeatedly touched on (no pun intended). Between her deeply cut latex/leather catsuit outfit in the metaverse and the main plot point of making her decide whether or not to pose nude for an art student who is inspired and passionate by her beauty. Having never been a beautiful high school girl, this may be a reality that they must face – and I’m sure to a certain extent that’s true… though the tone within the game is a little too lascivious about it that makes me question the message being conveyed. One thing is obvious to me in terms of audience, this game absolutely appears to cater to male tastes over females.
The final area of the game I struggle with is honestly like a backhanded compliment. The themes of the game are criminals, jail, and generally how it feels to be a teenager with limited to no control of your life as you move from obligation (i.e. school) to obligation (i.e. part-time job, or home chores, etc.). I remember very well how that felt when I was in high school and I very much didn’t like the feeling of being trapped with an inability of personal choice / severely hampered options of choice. This game is impressively oppressive and regenerates that feeling I had in high school. This is absolutely a ‘me’ thing and honestly a compliment. I haven’t thought of the miserable lack of control in my life in a while and this game brings it back up in a very impressive way.
Let’s take a look at one particular mechanic. The game introduces a crafting system that enables you to create lock picks for certain treasures in the dungeons/palaces inside the game. If you do not have a lock pick, then you will be unable to open the chest and you must leave it behind. I believe I created 2 the first time it allowed me to do so. I wanted to have a few more on hand just to ensure I had them in case I needed them. The game forces you to stop after creating so many and changes the day based on the calendar system implemented. Then it forces you to your obligations, then the plot forces you to do other things. It was at least 2 weeks of in-game time before I could go back to the lock picking, having left behind 1-2 treasures because I ran out long ago and couldn’t create more due to the heavy-handed nature of how the game is driven (i.e. the character of Morgana) forcing me to do things I may not want to do. I’m not sure about you, but that’s how high school felt to me and I’ll tell you I still don’t like the feeling. I’ll also say as a caveat, it’s entirely possible that I could have created lock picks at other times and didn’t know it because the game varies between heavy-handed and allowing choice in a way that I can’t say definitively what I can do and in certain situations. If I try to do something it will sometimes commit me in a way that will end the day (and means I have to go to school and my next potential area of ‘choice’ is the following evening… if the plot doesn’t have other ideas and further removes me from what simple task I want to do) which makes me hesitant to experiment due to the potential loss of valuable time and not knowing what tomorrow will bring. I can completely understand and respect people enjoying this balance or seeing this as a constructive challenge – though for me personally, it’s just a pain in the butt.
All of this being said, I really do enjoy this game. I honestly don’t know if I will have it inside of me to continue it to completion as the more I play it, the more I want to find something that has the benefits without penalty of the drawbacks.