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[truly101]

Finished it last night. I liked it quite a bit but I think I enjoyed TMS more to be honest. P4 is easily a better game. The second half of the game (say July onward) the narrative really takes over and limits what you can do to almost ridiculous levels.
I romanced Makoto but wished I had stuck with Ann. Despite the flaws in her S link story, she's just a more believable, or at least more relatable character, Makoto sort of hijacks the narrative, and while she never becomes annoying (I don't think any of the characters are annoying) she's a bit heavy handed.

 

[pixxxelz]

 

[Fjordson]

Wow, the piano music in the Crossroads bar is so good. This game man.

I'm really liking the non-teammate social links. Almost maxed Kawakami's and am enjoying Ohya and Takemi's.

 

[Lunar15]

Some of the comments in this thread, particularly about Ryuji, remind me of people who talk during movies, commenting on things that are literally about to be answered in the movie itself.

That said, I really want to do a write up of all the things I liked and didn't like from a thematic standpoint. There's plenty of times where the game crumbles under the weight of what it's trying to say, but there's other times when I found it to be really on point. I think there's a lot of cool little things that people miss, but also larger problems that people don't address.

 

[kenta]

I finished the game over the weekend, it took me 112 hours and I enjoyed all of them

 

[muteki]

Wow, the piano music in the Crossroads bar is so good. This game man.

I'm really liking the non-teammate social links. Almost maxed Kawakami's and am enjoying Ohya and Takemi's.

Yep. Best bonuses too.

 

[Opa-Pa]

Some of the comments in this thread, particularly about Ryuji, remind me of people who talk during movies, commenting on things that are literally about to be answered in the movie itself.

To be fair, the way the game handled Ryuji was very surprising, especially if you take P4 into account. And I say this as someone who liked him for the entirety of the game.

That didn't make the first OT being 80% Ryuji bashing any less annoying, of course...

 

[mrmickfran]

Lmao

 

[Lunar15]

To be fair, the way the game handled Ryuji was very surprising, especially if you take P4 into account. And I say this as someone who liked him for the entirety of the game.

I definitely have problems with the way it was written. But you have people that are saying "I can't believe ryuji is being such a jerk!" without thinking that maybe there's a scene coming up that addresses the fact that he's being a jerk.

Then again, Yosuke never really had that in P4, so I guess I can understand people's fears. Actually, it reminded me of Junpei a bit, where he just starts being a dick to you out of nowhere but there is reconciliation eventually.

 

[Fjordson]

Yep. Best bonuses too.

The Takemi bonuses are amazing. The SP accessories make it easy for me to finish any Palace or multiple mementos in a single day.

 

[Opa-Pa]

I definitely have problems with the way it was written. But you have people that are saying "I can't believe ryuji is being such a jerk!" without thinking that maybe there's a scene coming up that addresses the fact that he's being a jerk.

Then again, Yosuke never really had that in P4, so I guess I can understand people's fears. Actually, it reminded me of Junpei a bit, where he just starts being a dick to you out of nowhere but there is reconciliation eventually.

Yeah that's what I meant.

Spoiler

Yosuke was rather shitty in many ways and there's nothing that suggests the writers intended him to be that way, so when I was introduced to all the things people hate about Ryuji, even liking him myself, I expected them to be unintentionally annoying and not something the writers deliberately made such to then make the character realize them and have a redeeming scene late into the game. Totally unexpected to me but pretty damn cool.

Still the double standard is weird because shouting and being careless aside, you can see those traits in most of the cast at some point, it's just that they express them differently.

 

[Lunar15]

Yeah that's what I meant.

Spoiler

Yosuke was rather shitty in many ways and there's nothing that suggests the writers intended him to be that way, so when I was introduced to all the things people hate about Ryuji, even liking him myself, I expected them to be unintentionally annoying and not something the writers deliberately made such to then make the character realize them and have a redeeming scene late into the game. Totally unexpected to me but pretty damn cool.

Still the double standard is weird because shouting and being careless aside, you can see those traits in most of the cast at some point, it's just that they express them differently.

I like what they did with Ryuji, just wish it was set up better. The whole Morgana/Ryuji spat never sat well with me because it's kinda brought up suddenly and then resolved suddenly.

 

[13ruce]

Persona 5 is back in stock in my country should i order it or play 3-4 first on PS Vita? since i own those for years already on my Vita xd.

I wanna try 5 or is starting with 3-4 better i never played a persona game before but i am certainly interested.

 

[Gbraga]

Some of the comments in this thread, particularly about Ryuji, remind me of people who talk during movies, commenting on things that are literally about to be answered in the movie itself.

I don't think it's comparable. It's one thing to ask people to wait 2 hours to give an opinion, another to ask them to wait 100, or more.

OTs shouldn't even go live on release date if we go by that. It's different if you think people are failing at giving his arc enough credit on their final reviews, but I have more than 65 hours with the game and he's still an annoying idiot outside of his social link. He has a sad backstory, a pretty good one, but still an idiot. Why can't I say that?

Wow, the piano music in the Crossroads bar is so good. This game man.

I'm really liking the non-teammate social links. Almost maxed Kawakami's and am enjoying Ohya and Takemi's.

The non-party social links are fantastic, easily the best in the series, imo.

Not that the party ones are bad, it's just surprising how good the secondary characters are in this game.

 

[Son Of Sparda]

I will never understand the people who side with

Spoiler

Ryuji

, hahaha.

 

[Elaugaufein]

I don't think it's comparable. It's one thing to ask people to wait 2 hours to give an opinion, another to ask them to wait 100, or more.

OTs shouldn't even go live on release date if we go by that. It's different if you think people are failing at giving his arc enough credit on their final reviews, but I have more than 65 hours with the game and he's still an annoying idiot outside of his social link. He has a sad backstory, a pretty good one, but still an idiot. Why can't I say that?



The non-party social links are fantastic, easily the best in the series, imo.

Not that the party ones are bad, it's just surprising how good the secondary characters are in this game.

They definitely tie into the themes more clearly and have more integration with the story (like there's a reason you'd cultivate a relationship with these people beyond being the Wild Card who needs to form bonds and understand the Arcana / different archetypical masks people wear to maximize your own power or chronic hero syndrome).

 

[Stead Fast]

Persona 5 is back in stock in my country should i order it or play 3-4 first on PS Vita? since i own those for years already on my Vita xd.

I wanna try 5 or is starting with 3-4 better i never played a persona game before but i am certainly interested.

5 is so fine tuned to fit a newcomers needs that I cannot in good conscience recommend holding off on it for the sake of having played 3 or 4 - at least as far as gameplay is concerned.

As far as story, characterisation, and overall concepts of shadows and the subconscious, if you have a spare half a year you could go through all 3. Each is a self-contained story taking place on the same Earth, and said stories only relates to one another in an abstract sense, where a long-term fan will get references, but never will the need to play another game encroach on you playing another. I love the previous two, but going back to them after playing 5 might be more of a chore.

So yeah, I'd recommend 5, and if that delivers what you want you can always chip away at the others.

 

[Xeteh]

Persona 5 is back in stock in my country should i order it or play 3-4 first on PS Vita? since i own those for years already on my Vita xd.

I wanna try 5 or is starting with 3-4 better i never played a persona game before but i am certainly interested.

There's no reason as far as story goes to wait. They don't connect other than random references. If you want to play 3-4 at some point some of the quality of life stuff in 5 might make those harder for you to go back to though but they aren't any worse for it. If you're really interested in 5 and want to see that first I don't see a problem with that, it might spur you to go back to 3-4 later and they're still awesome games.

 

[PensivePen]

Was really getting tired of the first half of September. The plot railroading kicked in really hard for awhile and it felt extremely contrived. Glad to be past it.

 

[Lunar15]

I don't think it's comparable. It's one thing to ask people to wait 2 hours to give an opinion, another to ask them to wait 100, or more.

OTs shouldn't even go live on release date if we go by that. It's different if you think people are failing at giving his arc enough credit on their final reviews, but I have more than 65 hours with the game and he's still an annoying idiot outside of his social link. He has a sad backstory, a pretty good one, but still an idiot. Why can't I say that?



The non-party social links are fantastic, easily the best in the series, imo.

Not that the party ones are bad, it's just surprising how good the secondary characters are in this game.

I just mean there's a specific point in the game where he's genuinely a dick to someone, which is where most people exclaim that they really hate him. But that's part of the story, and there's a part later in the story that addresses this. It's ok to give your opinion, but sometimes you have to give the game some credit and realize that it might be something addressed later.

That said, outside of that one little plot point, if you already didn't like Ryuji, I can't say much in the game is going to change your opinion.

 

[13ruce]

There's no reason as far as story goes to wait. They don't connect other than random references. If you want to play 3-4 at some point some of the quality of life stuff in 5 might make those harder for you to go back to though but they aren't any worse for it. If you're really interested in 5 and want to see that first I don't see a problem with that, it might spur you to go back to 3-4 later and they're still awesome games.

5 is so fine tuned to fit a newcomers needs that I cannot in good conscience recommend holding off on it for the sake of having played 3 or 4 - at least as far as gameplay is concerned.

As far as story, characterisation, and overall concepts of shadows and the subconscious, if you have a spare half a year you could go through all 3. Each is a self-contained story taking place on the same Earth, and said stories only relates to one another in an abstract sense, where a long-term fan will get references, but never will the need to play another game encroach on you playing another. I love the previous two, but going back to them after playing 5 might be more of a chore.

So yeah, I'd recommend 5, and if that delivers what you want you can always chip away at the others.

Thanks i will order Persona 5 then if i like it i will play the other 2.

 

[Elaugaufein]

Persona 3 is the only one that's really bad QoL wise by comparison (they were trying new stuff with the mechanics and it didn't always work well , and they kept some of the crappy stuff from SMT , that it's since done away with too).

If you play P3P / P4G you won't even really see much loss QoL wise. The original Persona 3 or even FES might be pretty obnoxious though.

 

[Gbraga]

I just mean there's a specific point in the game where he's genuinely a dick to someone, which is where most people exclaim that they really hate him. But that's part of the story, and there's a part later in the story that addresses this. It's ok to give your opinion, but sometimes you have to give the game some credit and realize that it might be something addressed later.

That said, outside of that one little plot point, if you already didn't like Ryuji, I can't say much in the game is going to change your opinion.

Oh, ok, I'm sorry, I didn't know it was about some specific event.

I agree with you on that, then.

 

[13ruce]

Persona 3 is the only one that's really bad QoL wise.

If you play P3P / P4G you won't even really see much loss QoL wise. The original Persona 3 or even FES might be pretty obnoxious though.

Sounds nice i always owned the portable versions on Vita but never really got to playing them, i did buy them because of all the good talk i heard and i always wanted to try one.

 

[Elaugaufein]

Man, it didn't even take me much to put together a game breaking

Spoiler

Sandman

for the Mementos Boss Exploits. Probably abut 1.6 M yen total and I made 5.5M on the Mementos Boss I went and did halfway through to renew my cash reserve. Now I'm level 47 with a level 72

Spoiler

Sandman with 94 luck, Pulnipa, Confusion Boost, Ailment Boost and Stagnant Air , which so far seems unnecessary.

On Easy admittedly.

I should fairly easily hit the yen cap on the next one.

 

[pixxxelz]

Man, it didn't even take me much to put together a game breaking

Spoiler

Sandman

for the Mementos Boss Exploits. Probably abut 1.6 M yen total and I made 5.5M on the Mementos Boss I went and did halfway through to renew my cash reserve. Now I'm level 47 with a level 72

Spoiler

Sandman with 94 luck, Pulnipa, Confusion Boost, Ailment Boost and Stagnant Air , which so far seems unnecessary.

On Easy admittedly.

I should fairly easily hit the yen cap on the next one.

Is there a reason why everyone uses sandman for this?

 

[Mieu]

I will never understand the people who side with

Spoiler

Ryuji

, hahaha.

We are delinquents of some sort and have been unjustly labeled by the society too..

 

[LifEndz]

Question re: late November. Possible spoilers so just to be safe.

Spoiler

I just got to the point where I can send out the calling card for the sixth palace, but I have about 22 days before the deadline. Can anyone tell me if I'll no longer be able to build social links once I send the calling card and go to fight the boss of the 6th palace? I still have several social links I can build up and I don't want to initiate that fight if it'll prevent me from improving on my social links. I know I could just load up a prior save if that's the case but I don't want to go through another exhaustive boss battle only to have to do it again.

 

[Beartruck]

Still early on. Just curious, it there any advantage to doing an all out attack over shaking the enemy down for money or items?

 

[Guess Who]

Question re: late November. Possible spoilers so just to be safe.

Spoiler

I just got to the point where I can send out the calling card for the sixth palace, but I have about 22 days before the deadline. Can anyone tell me if I'll no longer be able to build social links once I send the calling card and go to fight the boss of the 6th palace? I still have several social links I can build up and I don't want to initiate that fight if it'll prevent me from improving on my social links. I know I could just load up a prior save if that's the case but I don't want to go through another exhaustive boss battle only to have to do it again.

Spoiler

Long story short, there's no need to worry. Try to send the calling card and all will be revealed.

 

[Lunar15]

Still early on. Just curious, it there any advantage to doing an all out attack over shaking the enemy down for money or items?

You only get experience if you kill an enemy. It doesn't have to be through an All Out Attack, but if you negotiate (at least early on) the enemy often will leave immediately after and you won't get to kill them.

 

[Kazzy]

One a side note, can almost not even force myself to do anything with Yusuke. Completely uninterested.

I was pretty much in the same boat, but his asides in conversations, as well as pushing his rank further (4+), has really made me start to appreciate him a lot more.

He's a lot of fun!

 

[LifEndz]

Spoiler

Long story short, there's no need to worry. Try to send the calling card and all will be revealed.

Gotcha. Thanks

 

[Elaugaufein]

Is there a reason why everyone uses sandman for this?

Spoiler

He's got a high base Luck , Low Base Level , only one weakness (and not to an insta-Kill element or Physical), no problematic Repels and easily inherits Pulnipa and Confuse Boost from Onmoraki and he's not really otherwise useful. Which makes him well suited to even gradually build for this.

 

[Kyrios]

Never realized how funny the conversations between the two security guards in the Ginzu Line station are lol

 

[toddhunter]

I just mean there's a specific point in the game where he's genuinely a dick to someone, which is where most people exclaim that they really hate him. But that's part of the story, and there's a part later in the story that addresses this. It's ok to give your opinion, but sometimes you have to give the game some credit and realize that it might be something addressed later.

That said, outside of that one little plot point, if you already didn't like Ryuji, I can't say much in the game is going to change your opinion.

Ryuji is the modern equivalent of Luke from Tales of the Abyss. He ruins the entire game by dominating just about every scene with complaining and idiocy, but that is supposed to be ok because of one short sentence that maybe, sort of makes him look like he is putting some thought into things. And then after that it is back to usual.

Heck final dungeon

Spoiler

he fucks up every scene in the final dungeon

.

The game overall? Much better than P4 but really suffers from a certain awful character... but more seriously it just runs out of steam. By about the half way point I found myself skipping on certain s-link conversations and really just wanted to get to the next dungeon. The story this time around just isn't strong enough to sustain the day to day grind.

P4 story/characters with P5 mechanics is the marriage you want. I would still consider P5 stronger overall, but I don't think I will return to it.

 

[Zafir]

Ryuji is the modern equivalent of Luke from Tales of the Abyss. He ruins the entire game by dominating just about every scene with complaining and idiocy, but that is supposed to be ok because of one shortsentence that maybe, sort of makes him look like he is putting some thought into things. And then after that it is back to usual.

Heck final dungeon

Spoiler

he fucks up every scene in the final dungeon

.

The game overall? Much better than P4 but really suffers from a certain awful character... but more seriously it just runs out of steam. By about the half way point I found myself skipping on certain s-link conversations and really just wanted to get to the next dungeon. The story this time around just isn't strong enough to sustain the day to day grind.

P4 story/characters with P5 mechanics is the marriage you want. I would still consider P5 stronger overall, but I don't think I will return to it.

What?

First, I can only imagine you didn't even get very far in Tales of the Abyss.

Second of all, I don't see how he ruins the entire game by dominating every scene. He can be pretty annoying with his attention seeking, but man, he doesn't dominate every scene. He makes a passing comment now and then.

 

[PK Gaming]

Yes, Ryuji fucks up so badly when he (lategame spoilers)

Spoiler

literally saves all of their lives with his super amazing running skills.

That scene quite honestly ranks in one of the top 5 worst Persona moments for me. Just terrible all around.

 

[Kazzy]

I don't necessarily agree with the criticism of the Ann confidant arc; the crux of it is that she's trying to find her purpose, so it's completely understandable that she lacks that earlier drive.

Spoiler

She wants to help her friend, which is enough to galvanise her into action.

After she joins the Phantom Thieves, she still has motivation, but independent of that, she's listless, as evidenced by her being upstaged at her job. It's true that she wants to prove her worth to motivate Shiho (initially), but there's more to it than that, and it'd be false to claim she exists entirely in the orbit of her friend.

Although, I do think her love declaration is kind of abrupt. Sure, you've supported her the entire way, but her entire focus has been on her self-improvement and Shiho, so it seems weird that's where she'd start out there. I will say that this might change in the last rank (I never progressed past there, and just tested it out to see the romance flag).

Which makes me think that It would be interesting to see a confidant/s-link that started out as dating, and then progressed from there. Admittedly, it could be a little odd, given the circumstances of the main narrative.

The reasons you dislike it, are probably those I like. She's way more earnest than she initially appears.

 

[Guess Who]

I honestly felt Ann was one of my favorite Confidant stories. I loved

Spoiler

meeting up with Shiho again, and seeing how much Shiho clearly inspired Ann. It'd be so easy and lazy to make Shiho this sad, tragic figure, but to Ann she's the strongest person in the world. I also appreciated that the game called Ann out on taking her looks for granted in the modeling industry, and showed that being a model is actually a really difficult and competitive job. I think a lot of people unfairly dismiss the modeling aspect of her confidant because they think of modeling as frivolous and dumb, when the whole point is to show the opposite.

 

[demosthenes]

Not done w/ the game but saying this is wrong Him and Morgana were both idiots. As far as other actions go

Spoiler

him constantly shouting in public about being a phantom thief and him being the #1 person wanting fame were both annoying to me. The latter more understandable given his upbringing I think

 

[Elaugaufein]

I don't necessarily agree with the criticism of the Ann confidant arc; the crux of it is that she's trying to find her purpose, so it's completely understandable that she lacks that earlier drive.

Spoiler

She wants to help her friend, which is enough to galvanise her into action.

After she joins the Phantom Thieves, she still has motivation, but independent of that, she's listless, as evidenced by her being upstaged at her job. It's true that she wants to prove her worth to motivate Shiho (initially), but there's more to it than that, and it'd be false to claim she exists entirely in the orbit of her friend.

Although, I do think her love declaration is kind of abrupt. Sure, you've supported her the entire way, but her entire focus has been on her self-improvement and Shiho, so it seems weird that's where she'd start out there. I will say that this might change in the last rank (I never progressed past there, and just tested it out to see the romance flag).

Which makes me think that It would be interesting to see a confidant/s-link that started out as dating, and then progressed from there. Admittedly, it could be a little odd, given the circumstances of the main narrative.

The reasons you dislike it, are probably those I like. She's way more earnest than she initially appears.

P4 Moon S-link spoiler.
Ai

Spoiler

from P4 is almost like that, but taking the early dating option ends up locking you into the platonic one at the end.

 

[PK Gaming]

Ann has something most of the other Confidant's don't

Spoiler

It's fun. There's a level of levity that makes it incredibly refreshing when compared to the general serious Confidant routes. Like in P4, you actually get to hang out with Ann and shoot the shit. Sure it's all over the place, but it actually feels like you're hanging out with a friend instead of progressing through some story. And her Confidant is filled with great moments. Ann getting upstaged by Mika is particularly great because unlike in P4 (where they demonized pretty much anyone who wasn't a part of the IT), Ann takes it in stride, and realizes she needs to get her shit together. The Confidant also knows when the pull back for some well earned drama, giving us a fantastic follow up to Shiho's character arc. Hearing Shiho work through her paraplegia second hand was legitimately painful. The ending is sweet too, provided you don't dare her.

Let's be real, most of the friendship routes in the game are better.

 

[NSESN]

1 day after beating the game, and I can't stop listening to rivers in the desert.

 

[pixxxelz]

Spoiler

He's got a high base Luck , Low Base Level , only one weakness (and not to an insta-Kill element or Physical), no problematic Repels and easily inherits Pulnipa and Confuse Boost from Onmoraki and he's not really otherwise useful. Which makes him well suited to even gradually build for this.

Gotcha, didn't use the trick at all in my first play trough but I'm planning on using it on ng+ to make a bunch of broken personas.

 

[JBwB]

Finished the compendium, just need to max out the rest of the confidants through the story &

Spoiler

fight the twins.

That platinum is mine!

Persona 5 is back in stock in my country should i order it or play 3-4 first on PS Vita? since i own those for years already on my Vita xd.

I wanna try 5 or is starting with 3-4 better i never played a persona game before but i am certainly interested.

Not sure about 3 but you should definitely go ahead and play Persona 4 Golden on the Vita before playing Persona 5. That way you'll have more appreciation for the improvements made in P5.

 

[ShadowSoldier89]

Is there a reason why everyone uses sandman for this?

really easy to get pulinpa and confuse boost on, and he is easy to get luck stat ups on

 

[PSqueak]

Not done w/ the game but saying this is wrong Him and Morgana were both idiots. As far as other actions go

Spoiler

him constantly shouting in public about being a phantom thief and him being the #1 person wanting fame were both annoying to me. The latter more understandable given his upbringing I think

The weird thing about Ryuji is that most people focus on the later but forget something:

Spoiler

Ryuji is the first one of all the phantom thieves to actually want to save people,
in fact he is the one who drags Joker back into Kamoshida's palace because he wanted to free all the "slaves", sure he didn't know they were not real people, but the point is he wanted to do what was right and save people, the fame thing just starts about in palace #3

, also his whole social link subplot is about

Spoiler

helping out his former team mates even tho they pretty much abandoned him after Kamoshida broke his leg.

I think people are super ready to hate Ryuji because Yosuke and Junpei were kind of assholes in P4 and P3, Ryuji was much more of a good person than them.

 

[aett]

Finished dungeon

Spoiler

7

today and just got to (late December spoilers) the

Spoiler

Mementos final dungeon or whatever

.

My questions:

Spoiler

How big is this place compared to dungeon 7? Are there any more opportunities for s-links when this is done?

 

[Quonny]

nevermind i highlighted everything like an idiot