Persona 5

So, finally finished the game.
Loved it. Ten outta ten.

A few things on the ending did make me laugh unintentionally tho:
Igor's voice actor is.... kinda bad, which I am guessing also comes from the fact that in the original they balantly used just archived lines.
On the voice acting part, it felt like the guy who did the voice had no idea how the previous guy who voiced Igor sounded like in english. Even Persona 4 Arena managed to get someone who sounded like the guy, and not only that but his delivery was pretty flat. Which is weird because Yaldabaoth/Igor's voice is pretty fucking awesome.

On the other hand, Igor almost felt like a senile grandpa, Lavenza even excuses him for not being on the best state of mind and she has to speak for him while he just says lines that I can remember from Persona 4 and 3. Which is hilarious. No idea why the Japanese are so firecely fixated on not changing VAs, if they keep it like that they should do what they did with Mido in SMT4 and just turn him into a digital version of himself.

Kinda minor things, I still think this is the best Persona game by a mile.

Another thing that made me Laugh was when you are sending the Calling card for Shido (Excellent scene), Futaba at one point states that she is gonna use her "Futaba Cannon" which, if you know what Futa also tends to mean in anime circles, and take into account that she was the Waifu choice I made that run, you'll understand why I just started laughing and making jokes. Also Shido's name sounds like a Mexican slang word for "Cool" so whenever they wondered why people still supported Shido I just started making jokes in an exagerated mexican accent about him just being Chidito. Because I am a crazy person and I talk out loud when I play videogames.
 
I give it 9,5/10.

Cons:

-Little challenge
-You can not max Persona stats anymore
-A few social links could be a bit better
-Small Camera issues
-English dub was very good, but it had some minor issues

Pros:
-Everything else.

Welp, after playing through Persona 5, the biggest gripe I have got with it is combat, which could be a better.

First of all, the bosses are not as much as challenging as cinematic with some gimmicks attached to them. Not even once, I have lost to a boss. In fact, I have died a lot to some ordinary shadows simply because I lacked resources or they critted me like crazy and I died. In persona 4 golden, fight with Yukiko's shadow was crazy. You needed a good persona, one that nullifies fire and then there was that prince charming.

The first boss in Persona 4 golden was hard and I lost several times on my first run. While in Persona 5, I just steamrolled through all the bosses on my first try. Each boss brought something new to the table and you had to be careful.

Persona 4 Golden Spoilers:

HOW DO I EVEN USE SPOILER TAGS?

Kanji had poison and rage.

Rize attacked your weakness.

Shadow Teddie had an attack that could kill your entire team, etc.

In Persona 5 though, the hardest opponent was a miniboss in mementos. He killed me several times, until I found out that you could guard against ailments.

The palace bosses on the other hand were kind of weak. They had some gimmicks, but with mediarahn and a bit of tactis, you could play whole game without worrying too much.

2.Second, the game difficulty was hit and miss for me. I mean I was more worried about an ambush from ordinary moobs than a boss fight.

Despair is one of the most abusable and powerful moves in game. Very few are immune to it and it makes the opponent kill himself after few turns.

I also think, that some things from Persona 4 and 3 should have been carried over. Fusion attacks with different Personas would be nice , but most importantly raising Persona stats through cards or something else.

You can no longer max out any Persona stats, due to hard limit cap, which ends at 304. And it makes high level Personas kind of useless, to be perfectly honest. Sure they have got resistances, but if you can bring let's say Shiki Ouji to level 99 with 99 strength, etc. You will deal more damage than some high level Personas due to mix maxing. It also turns Arsene into a damn good Persona, since you can boost it's stats however you want from level 1.

Just because of that, I will have to take another half a point from Persona 5.

It is truly amazing game, one of the best Persona games, but it made some mistakes along the way.

9/10.

So @Walpknut what do you think about combat?

PS: I forgot Gallows makes skillcards fairly useless.
 
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I think what makes Persona 5 feel somewhat "less challenging" than P4 is becayse the combat mechanics are actually much better. Elementl resistance are better defined and outlined, there aren't as many worthless Skills that are just renamed forms of other Physical attacks and you canemploy better tactics with momentum and synergy between party members. They didn't adjust all the bosses to take this into account altho in my experience playing on hard from the get go elemental weaknesses were much more punishing and the special Boss moves where a guaranteed OHKO if I didn't guard. In Persona 4 challenge in bosses came more from them just spaming high damage skills early on. They didn't have things like Madarame's Mushroom attack that forces you to guard as to not give the boss an extra turn by exploiting your new "weakness to everything" ailment, same way I once lost to Cognitive Wakaba because she despaired my whole party so I was reduced to wait out my demise for 3 turns. there was this high level shadow in Kamoshida's castle that turned into Power whose Makouga skill was a whole party wipe out and thus it forced me to fuse a light resistant Persona and try to crit it to beat it. Furthermore taking care of SP drain is much more important now, there is not magic fox with macca leaves to fully heal you and crafting the SP recovering items takes out time away from doing other activities, it wasn't until I unlocked access to Takemi's special inventory when I started abusing the Invigorate accesories to help me investigate dungeons in a single day.

It's kind of like the transition from Persona 3 to 4, many people complained that Persona 4 was less challenging, but the challenge in 3 came from the fact that the combat system was shit.

I am testing Merciless with an NG+ file and even when using my end game gear my party members are getting OHKO'd by elemental weaknesses so maybe you will want to test that out.
 
Walpknut said:
I think what makes Persona 5 feel somewhat "less challenging" than P4 is becayse the combat mechanics are actually much better. Elementl resistance are better defined and outlined, there aren't as many worthless Skills that are just renamed forms of other Physical attacks and you canemploy better tactics with momentum and synergy between party members. They didn't adjust all the bosses to take this into account altho in my experience playing on hard from the get go elemental weaknesses were much more punishing and the special Boss moves where a guaranteed OHKO if I didn't guard. In Persona 4 challenge in bosses came more from them just spaming high damage skills early on. They didn't have things like Madarame's Mushroom attack that forces you to guard as to not give the boss an extra turn by exploiting your new "weakness to everything" ailment, same way I once lost to Cognitive Wakaba because she despaired my whole party so I was reduced to wait out my demise for 3 turns.

It's kind of like the transition from Persona 3 to 4, many people complained that Persona 4 was less challenging, but the challenge in 3 came from the fact that the combat system was shit.

I am testing Merciless with an NG+ file and even when using my end game gear my party members are getting OHKO'd by elemental weaknesses so maybe you will want to test that out.
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On Merciless, the weakness deals 3x the damage, so both you and shadows die easily.

In Persona 3, you could not control your teammates, which killed you more often than anything.

I agree that the resistances and skills are better defined, which was a problem in Persona 4 golden.

Persona 4 golden had worse combat system. There were 5 types of attacks you could use on a boss (Light and Darkness were always nullified). And with things such as freeze, shock, etc it makes it much more dynamic.

And despair can only be cured later into the game, which makes it crucial to be mindful of it. Overall combat itself is an improvement, but the balance could be better that's my stance on it.
 
Walpknut said:
I am testing Merciless with an NG+ file and even when using my end game gear my party members are getting OHKO'd by elemental weaknesses so maybe you will want to test that out.
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IIRC, Merciless turns everyone into glass cannons. Hit their elemental weaknesses (or Criticals) and they are dead.


I do agree the game feels easier. I only died to one boss (Madarame) but only because he got lucky.
 
CerberusGate said:
IIRC, Merciless turns everyone into glass cannons. Hit their elemental weaknesses (or Criticals) and they are dead.


I do agree the game feels easier. I only died to one boss (Madarame) but only because he got lucky.
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I died more than that but only in the first palace to the mobs and to a miniboss. On the first run, your resources are so limited, you can not finish it in one go, unless you play it on easy which is a mistake I made.

Then in mementos you fight a guy, who brainwashes your entire team, when I did not know you could guard against status ailments.

Besides that, I had no trouble through the rest of the game.

However in the late game, the personas lose quite a bit of power. There is hard stat cap of 304, meaning you can not specialise personas past level 99, which in turn makes high level personas worse than their early counterparts. Like yoshitsune, who has got magic stat even though he never uses it.

Overall the gameplay is better than in previous games, but balance is a bit of hit and miss.
 
Ediros said:
Like yoshitsune, who has got magic stat even though he never uses it.
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Says you! I removed Hassou Tobi for Maziodyne! :drunk::aiee:

But seriously, I guess they did this to encourage the Sacrifice aspect of the Velvet Room. Sacrificing Persona to power up low leveled ones is one option that seems viable in this game and makes it possible to make high leveled initial Persona (that the anime adaptations love to show for P3 and P4 no matter how nonviable they were in the actual games).
 
I am thinking about trying to make a high level Arsene in NG+ as soon as I get access to the gallows again.
 
So, started new game+, some of my impressions and thoughts:

-Lavenza gets waaaaay too little screentime. I mean we get her for an hour at the very end. I wish her arc got expanded or some bonus dungeon like in Persona 4 golden. Also, best waifu, wish we could romance her, but what can you do?
-Gotta abuse Gallows and turn Shiva into best money maker. 2 hours with 41 luck and I had 7 mln yen. A pity he is not that useful outside of that.
-Already got 4 builds planned for current playthrough, Angel Megidoloan, Oni Gigantomachina, Satanael utility/tank, Shiva money maker.
-I think that should have kept stat boosting, but limited it to new game plus and a ton of cash. Removing this feature is the reason why people go min maxing instead of just playing with Persona they want and boosting them.
-Alternatively they could have let us control persona stats, why would I need strength on Alice is beyond me.
-Many Personas are terribly balanced or worthless, especially some of the most iconic ones like Lucifer (no null or res and a weakness to light, yay).
-English script could be a bit better, after hearing Japanese audio you can tell the difference.
-Gallows should be less random in skills and stats.

Overall, I stick with my score of 9/10.

Ps: Japanese audio is great.
 
Ediros said:
Also, best waifu, wish we could romance her, but what can you do?
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Ediros said:
-I think that should have kept stat boosting, but limited it to new game plus and a ton of cash. Removing this feature is the reason why people go min maxing instead of just playing with Persona they want and boosting them.
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Perhaps that's for the updated re-release?

My own brother is playing through NG+ (that I set up) and found that maxing out Confidants is a lot easier than previous games (thanks to Chihaya and Sadayo's Confidant perks). In fact last time I checked, he finished Haru and simply needs to wait for the story Confidants to max them all out.
 
CerberusGate said:
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Perhaps that's for the updated re-release?

My own brother is playing through NG+ (that I set up) and found that maxing out Confidants is a lot easier than previous games (thanks to Chihaya and Sadayo's Confidant perks). In fact last time I checked, he finished Haru and simply needs to wait for the story Confidants to max them all out.
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Walpknut said:
Lavenza waifu? Dat lowkey lolicon lol.
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Hey! Just because she looks young, that does not mean she is. She and the rest of velvet room attendants are born from human consciousness. They could be thousands of years old.

Besides, the protagonist can wait for her to grow up, worst case scenario.

About that, I agree. In persona 4 golden you had to plan out each day, even with max stats or you wouldn't be able to max out everyone. Persona 5 is much more forgiving, which I approve off. Combat should be hard, but strict time table is just dull.
 
Walpknut said:
Or they could just be a couple of hours young when you meet them.
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Touche.

Although, I haven't found any mention of age for any of them, so it's just a guess.

Meh, still would wait for her to grow up.

Now question of the day, who did you romance?

I went for Makoto on my first playthrough. Next one is going to be Futaba Sakura.
 
CerberusGate said:
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I went Makoto as well. My brother's going for Hifumi atm. Next one will probably be Tae.

I'll be getting each romance option once per playthrough.
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Seems like both of us, share the same mindset. I could never date more than one girl at a time. It is just wrong, plus I shudder at the consequences.

Walpknut said:
Futaba is a cool character so I picked her. Maybe I'll go for the Punk doctor in NG+.
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Mind filling me in on her romance? I will most likely avoid all the mature beauties myself. Not really my type.
 
Walpknut said:
Well she is a punk rock chick with short hair. Why do you need any further elaboration?
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That is not what I meant. More like once you finish it, how well was it made, that kind of stuff.

Personally, I adored how Makoto was implemented and her role in the story, but her social link sucked.

I wonder how chichaya's route looks like?
 
Futaba's confidant is pretty good and it also plays nicely with Sojiro's confidant.
Waifu bullshit aside, she's easily my favorite character.

Second comes Yusuke. You even engage in sacrilegious mockery of the crucifixion of Jeezoos in a church. Which is pretty metal.
Also watched a few videos of all the Mementos idle chatter. A lot of it is hilarious, specially Futaba making plans with Yusuke to make cosplay of their thief costumes.
 
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