INTRODUCTION

Credits

Amazing, breathtaking, wrapped society, emotional and personal. These are just some of the words one could possibly use to describe Persona 5. Persona 5 is a game developed by Atlus exclusively for Sony’s PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 systems. Persona is a sub-series of Atlus’ Shin Megami Tensei Series of video games and it is the 13th game in the persona universe, even though the game is titled as the 5th in the installment. This is mainly because previous titles were re-released in portable form or as special editions with a couple of titles even receiving spin-offs. With well over 500 hours of love spread across each of the game's previous entries, it's little wonder that I've been eagerly awaiting Persona 5 ever since it was announced in 2013. But was it worth the wait?

STORY: 10/10

The game puts you in the role of a Japanese high school teenager who gets transferred to Tokyo on probation after he was falsely accused and sued for assault and expelled from his school. The game starts very quickly, unlike the last several entries of Persona. In fact you find yourself in battle within moments of beginning the game. Once in Tokyo, you uncover that a whole other world exists known as “The Metaverse”, which was formed through the distorted desires of man and while in the Metaverse you could cause a person to have a “change of heart” if you managed to steal their “treasure” which is the object which caused them to have the distorted desires. By day, you’ll attend class, answer quiz questions, and live the life of a typical teenager, but after school you'll see the clever concept of invading the minds of corrupt adults who are up to no good and battling psychological demons in order to change their hearts. 

The main theme of the story centers around the idea of “Freedom”. Throughout the entire experience, there wasn't a single moment where I felt tired of playing the game and my first playthrough managed to clock in around 103 hours. The story managed to remain engaging to the very end with a more than satisfactory ending. Among all the persona games, this has to be the best one in terms of story.

GAMEPLAY: 10/10

 

This part of the game is the most difficult to explain, since the game does not just stick to a single genre. It plays almost exactly like the Shin Megami Tensei Series except for the social simulation aspect. your daily life acts as a social simulator where you do what your average high school students do, attend school, make friends, study, take on part time jobs, watch movies, play videos games etc. It also plays a bit like a visual novel. But once you transcend into the “Metaverse”, the game plays like a dungeon crawler, turn based game with certain elements similar to the Pokemon series.

Combat is present while in the Metaverse and it is turn based. You can not only use physical attacks, but also elemental attacks by summoning “Personas”. A persona is the physical manifestation of your inner most desires, hence the name “Persona”. To put it simply, your inner personality molds the form which your persona takes. All personas are based off religious, mythical or fictional characters. So say, you are a person who loves to help the poor and believes in justice, one possibility is that your persona could end up being “Robbit Hood”.

 

Each individual can only have a single persona, but the protagonist has the ability to wield multiple personas. Meaning you can have more than one. This is where the game plays like Pokemon. Each persona has a different set of attributes, skills, strengths and weaknesses. The enemies you meet are called “Shadows”, they appear in the form of Lost Personas, you can battle them in a turn based manner and kill them or try to recruit them. Then you can combine different personas you’ve recruited to a create even stronger persona through the process called “Fusion”. You can even inherit skills from the personas used to fuse the new one.

There are a lot of Personas in the game and collecting them is an option as the game gives you an item called “The Compendium” which is a log book which keeps track of all the personas you've unlocked. It also acts as a device where you can buy back a persona you lost to a fusion.

Every persona is categorized into groups collectively called “Arcana”. Groups include “Justice”,”Fool”,”Lovers”,”Devil” etc. These Arcanas represents “Confidents” which are the bonds you create with people while living your daily life in-game. Each Confident is a AI in-game character who you can spend time with. The more time you spend with your Confidents the higher the level of the Confidents gets, which in-turn helps you fuse even stronger personas.

If you max a confident (Max is level 10) you will unlock the ability to fuse the strongest persona of that Arcana.

You even have “Social Stats” which are “Charm”,”Guts”, ”Knowledge”, “Proficiency” and “Kindness”. You can level-up or increase your social states by reading books, studying, watching DVD movies, going to the movies, answering questions in class etc. Increasing your stats is mandatory to Max out your Confidents. You also need to max it out to do certain actions such as stand up to someone or be in a relationship with someone.

The games takes place within a year so you are limited in time. Efficiently using your time is important.

Reading all this might make the game seem cluttered but trust me when I say that isn’t the case. The gameplay is well balanced and paced. But I will admit that completing everything in the first playthrough is impossible. Luckily the game provides new game plus.

VISUALS: 9.5/10

The game was originally intended to be a PS3 exclusive. It was a year after PS4’s release that the game was announced for release on that platform as well. So almost all of the development was done with the PS3 in mind and later ported over to the PS4. This in-turn limited the graphical quality it could have had if it was developed on the PS4. But considering the art style which the team was going for, it looks pretty good. The game was always intended to look like a Japanese anime in a shell-shaded format and never was intended to compete directly with games like Horizon Zero Dawn or Uncharted 4. But the game still does suffer from poor textures on certain objects, lack of detail on non-central characters and NPC pop-ins. That aside when it comes to style, the game is simply oozing in it, graffiti designs with some vibrant colors really make the game pop. Even the title screen to the menu options are stylish beyond comprehension.

Now, let’s talk about the technical aspects of the game. The game runs at 1080p at 30fps on PS4 and 720p at 30fps on PS3. The game is visually identical in all other aspects if compared. Where there is a difference is when it comes to frame-rates. PS4 manages to keep the game locked at 30fps while on the PS3, it's not as stable. It keeps moving from 30 to 25fps and back up again. It's nothing you would notice but is still worth mentioning. Another aspect I should take into consideration is that on the PS3, there are screen tears occurring while rotating the camera around. This issue is not present on the PS4 version of the game. There are no PS4 Pro benefits.

AUDIO: 10/10

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Official Soundtrack

The game boasts superb audio work. Voice acting is masterfully done to the point where it could manage to put some triple-A titles to shame in that regard. Even the music is something to behold. The Persona series always managed to provide an exceptional OST (Original SoundTrack) and Persona 5 is no exception. The game's dynamic acid jazz-inspired soundtrack also helps to highlight everything from quiet moments to bombastic boss battles, helping to tie together an overall experience that feels truly special. In the rare moments when the music stops, it’s as if a city-sized heart has stopped beating. Sure the music won't be for everybody, but for this game, it works really well and hours after starting the game, I was still bopping my head with a stupid grin plastered across my face. What a pleasure.

OVERALL SCORE: 39.5/40

STORY: 10/10

GAMEPLAY: 10/10

VISUALS: 9.5/10

AUDIO: 10/10

 

98.75% approval rating

CONCLUSION

Atlus has always managed to make each new iteration of the Persona series better than the latter and there hasn't been a Persona title that ended up being inferior when compared to it’s past entries. With 1.2 million worldwide sales in the first month of Persona 5’s release, Atlus might finally receive the international recognition they deserved since the first Shin Megami Tensei game back in the 90’s. I would like to point again that our initial playthrough took 103 hours to beat. To put it into retrospect, I managed to 100% complete Final Fantasy 15 in 98 hours, that includes beating Adamantoise, who takes an average of 2 hours of to beat. So this game demands time. But it will be a experience you will not easily forget. It might be possible to complete the game sooner on lower difficulties.

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Official trailer

 Note: All Screenshots of the game were taken during my play session. I review the game when bought and edit the review for steemit.