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Persona 5 |OT2| Someone must have been helping you go to bed early. Talk!

RalchAC

Member
I really liked the gameplay. The enhancements to combat through the addition of baton passes, guns, and shadow negotiations were improvements as were the quality-of-life additions of the R1 button to auto-use a weakness skill.

Outside of combat, being able to accept shortcuts to confidants via IM and using the map were nice. One complaint would be the constant recap IMs you got. I think they did that in case you come back to the game after stopping so you get a recap of the current situation but hearing the obvious got kinda tedious sometimes.

Sometimes there is some cool banter between characters during those group scenes before they go into recap mode.
 

ckohler

Member
Sometimes there is some cool banter between characters during those group scenes before they go into recap mode.

That's true. I think it says a lot about how good these characters are that so much of their personality comes through in just their IM messages.
 
What's this?

Seth, please for the love if God, learn high counter.

Re:Seth
A skill card from a Mementos request is by far the easiest way, get Yusuke to dupe it first though. You could also Gallows it on from one of the persona that learn it but only Kaguya Picaro (DLC) and Dakini (learns at 52) won't push completion about 10 levels back.
 
Re:Seth
A skill card from a Mementos request is by far the easiest way, get Yusuke to dupe it first though. You could also Gallows it on from one of the persona that learn it but only Kaguya Picaro (DLC) and Dakini (learns at 52) won't push completion about 10 levels back.

I'm trying with dakini. Problem is, she had 8 moves. Seth has learned 7 like 3 or 4 times but hasn't learned high counter yet. 😫

Yeeeeees. Just got it.
 
I unlocked the Fortune Teller as a Confidant a few in-game days ago, but every time I go to see her in the evening to do a verification test, she says she's closing up shop. What's going on?
 

zeniselv

Member
I unlocked the Fortune Teller as a Confidant a few in-game days ago, but every time I go to see her in the evening to do a verification test, she says she's closing up shop. What's going on?
She isn't avaible everyday for the verification test, confidants usually send you a text when they are, or just press square in the overworld map to see if it is avaible for interactions that day.
 
She isn't avaible everyday for the verification test, confidants usually send you a text when they are, or just press square in the overworld map to see if it is avaible for interactions that day.

Ah, thanks. I don't know why, but I thought I could take the test anytime.
 

Dice//

Banned
Just finished Palace 4. It was very nicely designed, continuing from Palace 3 which was also great, but Jesus... This is the game to point to when someone doubts that you can actually have too much of a good thing. P5 does not know when to let go.

I can't say it was a bad dungeon at all, but it sucks that my final thoughts were "I hope it ends soon" while looking at the time every 5 minutes, when a couple of hours ago all I was thinking was about how cool it was, and how nice the puzzles and level design were.

And I didn't even do it in one session. It was one in-game day, but I saved and turned off the console to continue later.

I def would have preferred more/shorter dungeons.

Palace 5 can go suck a lemon. :(
 
I def would have preferred more/shorter dungeons.

Palace 5 can go suck a lemon. :(
Palace 5
The last airlock puzzle in 5 is mean. The correct solution is to change as little as possible while still progressing. I completely lucked out by deciding to see everything I could without changing anything and almost accidentally​ solved it.
 

Gbraga

Member
I def would have preferred more/shorter dungeons.

Palace 5 can go suck a lemon. :(

I'm approaching the deadline for Palace 4, so many comments about how Palace 5 is ridiculously long... I'm already scared. I guess I'll be doing it the entire week.
 

LotusHD

Banned
I'm approaching the deadline for Palace 4, so many comments about how Palace 5 is ridiculously long... I'm already scared. I guess I'll be doing it the entire week.

By the time you're there you'll get the complaints, but your expectations are in check, so you'll likely won't think it's that bad
 
I didn't think 5 was that much longer than 4 (which was pretty long). 5s greatest flaw was probably that it wasn't broken up very well and it had a very weird safe room placement.

2 definitely had the best pacing because so far because you actually make a bit of progress before
Yusuke's awakening.
 

PK Gaming

Member
Fun fact: After knocking all enemies down, you can press triangle immediately after HOLD UP appears on the screen to keep the momentum going. Pressing it too quickly makes the music cut out for a bit.
 
Just finished the game after 146 hours, and man do I have a lot to talk about. The last 7-8 hours of the game made my overall feeling towards the game a bit better than before.

This is gonna be a long post (that a lot of people will skip, hahaha) so let's get to it.

Things that I liked:

+ Visual style - Game looks stylish as hell.

+ QoL changes made to the game - Fast forward is a godsend. I was forced to reply a section of the game and having the option to just do FFW.... Whoever came up with that idea, thank you.

+ The new benefits form the confidants - Man, I LOVE those. doing a confidant and then getting a skill to make better use of your time? Hell yeah. Getting a skill to ask for more money? Please. Warning shots? THANK YOU. This was one of the best new features of this entry.

+ Negotiations - Sometimes I was wondering "what did I do wrong?", but the whole sequence of knocking down enemies and then holding them up for money, items or their powers, just feels great.

+ Video games - One of the few ways of raising your stat that was actually fun and more interactive.

+ Hand crafted dungeons for main story - Even if the quality does drop later on, sneaking through the hand crafted dungeons of Persona 5, will always remain as one of most interesting things that I've done in JRPGs.

+ Mementos - I love them. I don't know why, I really don't. Especially since we have handcrafted dungeons in the main story that each have a lot of details put into them, but for some reason I really enjoy just going through these random floors in Mementos.

+ Puzzles - There weren't that many of them (I wanted more), but I truly liked it every time the game tried to change up it's gameplay loop by throwing some puzzles at you. I especially loved the ones in the 4th palace.

+ The story and characters within the confidants - I have to think hard and long in order to remember the times that I didn't like my interactions with characters during the confidants. Besides a certain character that I just couldn't care less about through the entire game
Mishima
, I really liked the stories and character growths that you saw during confidants.

+ Funny responses - "Hands off my cat", "Excuse me while I vomit", "Something witty"... There were so many of them hahaha. My favorite was one of the girls asking you if you've ever felt like you love someone and then one of the responses was something like "Way too many times". Extremely appropriate since my Joker was dating 7 girls at the same time lol

+ Daily life parts of the game - This may seem too broad, but the game was really enjoyable when I had a lot of free times, and could just focus on social aspects of it.

+ Dungeon crawling parts of the game - Just like above, when I was inside a dungeon, just focusing on that part of the game, getting ambushes, managing SP, finding the weakness of enemies, convincing them to join you as Persona... It all just came together very nicely.

+ Special actions during boss fights - I don't wanna spoil anything, so I won't say much, but a lot of those were really good. Especially the one that you do in the first Palace, it just felt soooooo right.

+ Second half of the story - I know a lot of people don't agree with this, but even if it wasn't as good as I was hoping, I still enjoyed it. I like it when the story gives me a clear goal and puts me in a path towards that goal. Even if takes a long time to reach the said goal, I'll just like it a lot more if I know that I'm moving towards that. So the second half of the story was nice for me.

+ The ending - I really liked how lengthy it was. You didn't just see a single cutscene and then be done with it. They gave you enough time to say goodbye to the game, its world and its characters.


Things that I didn't like:

- Pacing of the story - I've talked about this in length in so many threads that I'm starting to sound like a broken record, so I'll keep it short. I don't like TV shows/crime dramas that will have 20 self contained episodes and then 3-4 episodes at the end that try to tell an overreaching/main story. Persona 5 uses the exact same structure.

- The cast during the main story - As much as I liked interacting with them during the confidants, the characters are very one-note and very very annoying during the main story. There is a point that suddenly all of them at the same time "grow", but the game does a very bad job of selling it.

- Extreme focus on Phantom Thieves - They sacrificed a lot of time that they could've spent focusing on characters, in order to completely focus on Phantom Thieves. If I don't like these characters, then I won't care about their group. The main story does not give me much of a reason to care about these characters outside of them being "victims of society". The main story failed to give them enough identity in order to make me care about them. So the whole "Phantoms Thieves this, Phantom Thieves that" simply felt annoying.

- Confidants still happen in a vacuum - This is something that really could've help as a counter balance to the point that I brought up above, but unfortunately it doesn't. No matter what I do during the confidants, the main story, the characters attitude, the relationship between characters, they all remain the same. Not only that, but the game outright ignores the characterization that happens during confidants, with characters going back to their former (underdeveloped) personalities during the main story. The disconnect between what happens in the main story and what you do during confidants, is so bad that at times makes an entire conversation just seem pointless or outright wrong. Haru towards the end of the game talks about how she has changed, but I still had her at level 3 confidant, so
she was struggling even worse than during her arc
in the main story. Not only that, some character like Yusuke, just completely disappear in the background if you don't do their confidant. I didn't do much of his confidant and he wasn't part of my main team, so during the ending there was a scene that I thought,
"okay so everyone is here" and then he comes from the back and I was like "oh yeah Yusuke is part of our group too."

- All of the main story social events - I think this also a side effect of them focusing on the Phantom Thieves instead of individual characters. I did not like a single mandatory social event in this game. I didn't like the school trip, I didn't like the get-togethers by the cast. I HATED most of those. A huge step down from Persona 4.

- Time management/stat building - The fact that this game still uses the same exact formula from Persona 3/4 is absolutely ridiculous. Doing 5 swings should not take me an entire evening. Come on Atlus, it's been 10 years, change that freaking mechanic already. Also, I expected the stat building to be a lot more interactive this time around. Like, if I'm fighting a tough enemy and manage to defeat him then give me some Guts/Proficiency. If I'm holding up some Personas then let me release them and get some Kindness.

"But that would make it too easy to max everything on the first playthrough"

Who freaking cares? This is a +100 hours single player game. Just let loose a little and let me have more fun with it.

- Joker as a leader - Yeah, yeah, he does some cool things towards the end and acts like a leader, but that still doesn't change the fact that for the first 50-60 hours of the game, no one listens to him. They just call him leader and then do whatever they want.

- Illusion of choice - Now, Persona 4 may be just as guilty of this as Persona 5, but my God Atlus. Either let me have actual choices or just record the following lines: "okay", "sure", "no problem", and take out 80% of those choices. The choice between "no problem" and "leave it to me" is an utterly pointless "choice", that it's just there to check a box. I fee like if Atlus was the developer of RE:REV2, each time you wanted to go out of a building and get to your next destination you would be given a choice between "we have to live" and "let's survive". NO ATLUS, that's not how you do it. It's okay to tell a linear story that has different endings (like the story in Persona 5). You don't have to hide this by giving the player, completely pointless "choices". It's okay to simply have a choice between "pick up the gun" and "don't use the gun" that will determine your ending, in an otherwise linear game.

There are times that you get to pick different responses in Persona 5, but then the majority of time other characters outright do what they want regardless of what your choice is. In the 7th palace when
Makoto asks who wants to accompany her to the table in the restaurant
it literally doesn't matter which character, you pick as the so called "leader". I mean, why even give us the choice if you are simply gonna overwrite our choice with the "right" option?

- Ridiculous amount of hand-holding - Persona 4 may also be guilty of this (haven't played that in a while), but honestly, this is just insulting in Persona 5. There are times that the game treats the player as a complete and utter idiot, who cannot comprehend what was just told to him. The amount of times the game repeats itself for you to understand a very very simple task is just embarrassing. I'll simply copy an example from another thread.

I was just playing through the 7th palace and some party member suggested that we should get to a safe room before talking about specifics of our plan. That's like the last line in the cutscene. The cutscene finishes and the first thing you see when you get to back to the game, Ryuji is saying the exact same thing. And then Makoto says how she agrees that we should do this. Then the game puts this on the top right corner on the screen as your objective. And then you'll get a giant exclamation mark on the map...

-------

All in all, Persona 5 was a very very good yet flawed game that I enjoyed a lot. But this is a game that years ago, I thought it could be something really really special if it used the potential that was apparent in its PS2 entries. And while they did improve on a lot of things and took a few things to the next level (like dungeon design), I think most of the potential that I saw in Persona 4 remained untapped here.

I just hope that if we get a Persona 6, it doesn't simply tries to be an improved version of Persona 5. The series can achieve much more, but in order to do that, they have to take risks and change a lot of things about the old formula that was created by Persona 3.
 
Who freaking cares? This is a +100 hours single player game. Just let loose a little and let me have more fun with it.

Very well written post. I don't agree with you 100% on everything, but I really want to focus on this part of your post.

I feel Persona 5's structure tries to gear you towards NG+ too much. It just feels incredibly cheap. Yeah I know it's present in Persona 4, but damn there were just way too many parts of the game where the game is obviously saying 'Yo we can't give you that much free time. You won't have a reason to play NG+!"

Had the opposite effect for me. I'd rather wait for an FES/Golden version that will likely give you more freedom with your time instead of dive right into NG+.
 
bKb1eYu.jpg
And... finished. I put a lot of time into this game, but it was well worth it. As my first Persona game, not only did I enjoy it, I loved it enough for me to go for the platinum. What a great game. It seems as though the Phantom Thieves stole my heart. I'd personally rate this game as a 9.5/10; not quite perfect, but it is essentially a souped up PS3 game so I'd like to see what Atlus will do when developing the next Persona game for PS4.
 

JJShadow

Member
Just finished Palace 5. I didn't find it as long as people were talking about honestly, it's true that the puzzles and mechanics were not as good as in previous palaces, but I think I spent the same time as in Palace 4

Really loved the aesthetics and theme though
 

PK Gaming

Member
I'm glad the second half ended up being a better experience for you Sparda, but man, I don't really get the "X character disappears in the background" complaint at all. Especially when compared to P4, where every member barring Naoto loses out on the ability to say or do things by the end. Like Yusuke for example, still feels involved during lategame cutscenes, offering a distinct voice. The game doesn't spread out attention evenly of course, but everyone feels like they actually got to do things in Persona 5, especially when compared to 4.

- The cast during the main story - As much as I liked interacting with them during the confidants, the characters are very one-note and very very annoying during the main story. There is a point that suddenly all of them at the same time "grow", but the game does a very bad job of selling it.

???

I feel like it's the opposite. Confidant stories veer towards average / good when compared to Persona 4, but the characters are much stronger during the main narrative.
 

Balphon

Member
Re:Seth
A skill card from a Mementos request is by far the easiest way, get Yusuke to dupe it first though. You could also Gallows it on from one of the persona that learn it but only Kaguya Picaro (DLC) and Dakini (learns at 52) won't push completion about 10 levels back.

Dakini + Pixie = Anubis

Seth is a level higher than Dakini so it shouldn't delay completion any.
 
Very well written post. I don't agree with you 100% on everything, but I really want to focus on this part of your post.

I feel Persona 5's structure tries to gear you towards NG+ too much. It just feels incredibly cheap. Yeah I know it's present in Persona 4, but damn there were just way too many parts of the game where the game is obviously saying 'Yo we can't give you that much free time. You won't have a reason to play NG+!"

Had the opposite effect for me. I'd rather wait for an FES/Golden version that will likely give you more freedom with your time instead of dive right into NG+.
Thank you, and yes had the same effect on me as well.

Just to be clear, I felt the same way about Persona 4. I do get them wanting to leave some stuff for players who try the NG+, but the prospect of replaying a game this long just isn't really appealing to me.
 
Just finished Palace 5. I didn't find it as long as people were talking about honestly, it's true that the puzzles and mechanics were not as good as in previous palaces, but I think I spent the same time as in Palace 4

Really loved the aesthetics and theme though

Palace 5 hate is overblown IMO. I still maintain that the worst part of Palace 5 is:
"Your party members constantly putting the idea in your head that you're almost done. I swear the "Treasure is in the next room" line was said @ about the 50% mark of the palace. The dialogue really messes with your emotions/expectations.
I think without those lines, you wouldn't see nearly as much hate here.
 
I'm glad the second half ended up being a better experience for you Sparda, but man, I don't really get the "X character disappears in the background" complaint at all. Especially when compared to P4, where every member barring Naoto loses out on the ability to say or do things by the end. Like Yusuke for example, still feels involved during lategame cutscenes, offering a distinct voice. The game doesn't spread out attention evenly of course, but everyone feels like they actually got to do things in Persona 5, especially when compared to 4.



???

I feel like it's the opposite. Confidant stories veer towards average / good when compared to Persona 4, but the characters are much stronger during the main narrative.
Honestly, it's been years since I played Persona 4 so I don't remember much about the game. But I think it might've been because of the social events and their gatherings during the main story, that I felt better about Persona 4's cast. Even if they individually did disappear in to the background after a while.

As for the growth of characters during the main story, I feel like the characters were heavily dependent on their confidant narratives. Like I said, with Haru she didn't do anything to make me think "yes, she has grown" outside of the stuff that I assume would happen during her confidants. I can say the same about Yusuke.

To me it felt like, Morgana, Makoto and to seem extent Ryuji, had a clear growth during the main story. Like, I really thought that Futaba as a character grew tremendously by the time I reached the ending, but that was mainly because of the stuff that I saw her do during her confidant. Whereas Makoto got a lot more screen time during main story and naturally had a more visible growth during them.
 

Nimby

Banned
So is there something I'm missing with stat rerolls. Want a 99 strength Matador, any better methods than strengthening it one level and rerolling until you get +3 Strength?
 
So is there something I'm missing with stat rerolls. Want a 99 strength Matador, any better methods than strengthening it one level and rerolling until you get +3 Strength?

If it's level 99 you're concerned about you can generally let stats split into 2 or 3 pre-chosen stats depending on the base stats and level of the Persona, rather than trying to force everything into one stat, it's a lot easier.

You only need to get enough points over your remaining levels to hit 99 at 99, or 94 / 89 with certain equipment combos (or 94 in everything but magic and 84 in it).
 

PK Gaming

Member
Honestly, it's been years since I played Persona 4 so I don't remember much about the game. But I think it might've been because of the social events and their gatherings during the main story, that I felt better about Persona 4's cast. Even if they individually did disappear in to the background after a while.

As for the growth of characters during the main story, I feel like the characters were heavily dependent on their confidant narratives. Like I said, with Haru she didn't do anything to make me think "yes, she has grown" outside of the stuff that I assume would happen during her confidants. I can say the same about Yusuke.

To me it felt like, Morgana, Makoto and to seem extent Ryuji, had a clear growth during the main story. Like, I really thought that Futaba as a character grew tremendously by the time I reached to the ending, but that was mainly because of the stuff that I saw her do during her confidant.

Character's being dependent on their social links for growth has been a problem since Persona 4, but unlike Persona 4 (where everyone's growth depended on their social link) there are characters who had meaningful character growth happen in the main story (Ryuji, Futaba, Morgana, Makoto). Even characters like Haru and Yusuke, who rely on their Confidants for character growth, still have moments in the story where they have to deal with living without the people who oppressed them. It's different from how Persona 4 handled it, where their initial problems are basically forgotten for good.

There's also less of a dissonance as well, since the characters act pretty similar to their Confidant selves (a huge contrast from say Yosuke, who's rank 10 social link self and main story self were practically different people). That's one of the advantages of having the characters throw themselves into being Phantom Thieves.

Not to be too hard on the IT, since they're extremely enjoyable. But the Phantom Thieves were undeniably better handled in the main plot.
 

vypek

Member
Spent some time getting money in Mementos. I started with around 1 million and time kinda passed quicker than I realized and I wound up with 6 million. I was planning to get money from another boss but maybe I don't even need to. Easily recouped the cost of fusing and boosting a lucky sandman that could confuse enemies
 
Character's being dependent on their social links for growth has been a problem since Persona 4, but unlike Persona 4 (where everyone's growth depended on their social link) there are characters who had meaningful character growth happen in the main story (Ryuji, Futaba, Morgana, Makoto). Even characters like Haru and Yusuke, who rely on their Confidants for character growth, still have moments in the story where they have to deal with living without the people who oppressed them. It's different from how Persona 4 handled it, where their initial problems are basically forgotten for good.

There's also less of a dissonance as well, since the characters act pretty similar to their Confidant selves (a huge contrast from say Yosuke, who's rank 10 social link self and main story self were practically different people). That's one of the advantages of having the characters throw themselves into being Phantom Thieves.

Not to be too hard on the IT, since they're extremely enjoyable. But the Phantom Thieves were undeniably better handled in the main plot.
I can't say if they are better handled than Persona 4 since I can't remember that game very well, but still as I said other than few select characters, the cast disappear in the background.

Maybe it's because of how long the game is. Cause from the third palace to last one, there is like 70-80 hours of gameplay and some characters like Yusuke and Ann, take a back seat during majority of exchanges in the main story. Like, I can't really remember Yusuke, Futaba, Haru or Ann, saying anything of note in the last 8-9 hours of the game that I played. Other than that one scene, they were just there.

Again, this might be true of Persona 4. I don't remember that game very well, but for Persona 5 that was certainly a problem.

Also, in regards to what you said about characters having a consistent personality between confidant and main story, I agree, as long as you do those stuff at a good pace. I did Ryuji's confidant like half way through the game, and the disconnect between what you see in his later confidant events and his personality mid-game through the main story, is very very jarring. He eventually gets there, but yeah, you have to keep doing them at a specific pace.

That's why I was so disappointed that confidants were still happening in isolated scenarios.
 

ckohler

Member
Spent some time getting money in Mementos. I started with around 1 million and time kinda passed quicker than I realized and I wound up with 6 million. I was planning to get money from another boss but maybe I don't even need to. Easily recouped the cost of fusing and boosting a lucky sandman that could confuse enemies

You are set dude. Unless you plan on spending a ton on repurchasing persona for fusions to fill out your compendium, you have way more than enough to finish the game. I had over 2 million for about the last quarter of the game and still ended up finishing the game with over 2 million.
 

MogCakes

Member
My main complaint with the cast in P5 is how centered they are around Joker. I would really have liked to see interactions between the teams when Joker isn't around and how their individual friendships evolve. I think that's a valid complaint given the events at the end of the game as well.
 
Start Palace 6 to Palace 7 and similar calendar dates spoilers.
They don't even try and hide Akechi is the traitor. He gets all his party member skills at once (which Haru very much does not at this point) but they don't hide that he doesn't get Endure / Protect and he has no misc skill unlike literally everyone else. And his weapons are armor are relatively better too but that's more subtle.

Also a lot of his DLC costumes are the opposite of subtle too, as well as some of the omissions, that wouldn't​ make sense for a permanent party member.

I'm actually a little sad about it, a light / dark party member would have rocked.
 

vypek

Member
You are set dude. Unless you plan on spending a ton on repurchasing persona for fusions to fill out your compendium, you have way more than enough to finish the game. I had over 2 million for about the last quarter of the game and still ended up finishing the game with over 2 million.

Awesome! Guess I'm set then. I don't think I'm going to be repurchasing that much and I didn't plan to work on my compendium until maybe NG+ if I play that.
 
Just finished the game at around level 85 and 97 hours clocked in

Maxed out all social links besides 5

I fused all of the angel personas and demon personas and got Star Arcana persona spoiler
Lucifer

Here are my thoughts

Holy smokes the angel personas are OP in this game

Ann somehow becomes the strongest character in the game doing about 2000 plus damage on the final boss lol

The strength arcana is by far the most useful if you wanna make the game a cake walk

This game has the longest ending ever lol

Out of the persona social link trilogy this has the best and most uplifting ending, which was nice

Some palaces had no business being as long as they were

Mementos was surprisingly short

The pacing kind of goes off the rails in the second half

But all n all I would give this game a 9.5 out of 10!!!!

persona 3 portable and persona 4 were a 9 out of 10 for reference
 
Can you turn the difficulty from normal to easy and be able to change back to normal? Just wondering since I was planning on grinding to get some money. And also do you earn more on easy mode as well?
 
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