So I've been playing this game for the past few hours and thought it'd be rad to have an official discussion thread!

Post your initial impressions, tips or otherwise! No spoilers please.

So far its really great, they keep dolling out the combat slowly and it's making me want to get into it more and more. So far the characters and story have been really interesting. What do you think?

I dislike the transition from the stats screen where you're running back in to the dungeon. It's a shame when everything else is so stylish to get a lame fade. Also the beggining is so disjointed, though I see what they're going for. Edit: Also, how they say Ann as On.

Loving it so far, even if a lot of it is slow paced at the start. It's important to ease in newcomers and take some time to get to know the characters. After about 5 hours, I'm hooked already.

Difficulty-wise, Normal seems okay so far. I haven't died yet but it's also not too easy, but I haven't faced a major boss yet so I don't know if that'll continue. Also, I had no idea you have to negotiate with personas SMTIV-style to recruit them. Shuffle time seems to be gone, not sure how I feel about that yet.

I need some help with negotiation. If I have the persona, should I kill them or get money? Is the money you get worthwhile? I don't know if you get more XP for killing. If there is fusing I'm not sure I need to get them from battle but I haven't reached fusion yet.

It finally here. An hour and a half in but it a very nice start than the last 2 games.

@alistercat: I try and ask em to lend me their power more so if its a new persona i didn't have yet,if its weak foes i just ask them for items

I think you do get more XP for killing them,but its always worth it to ask them to join you for fusion.

@alistercat: Sometimes you get less money than you do for killing them, somtimes more. You can get som pretty nifty items though.

@alistercat: I'd recommend asking for money if you already have said persona, and there's few enemies left. Say, if there were 5 at the start, and you killed 3 and are now negotiating with the last 2, then asking for money is a good idea. Otherwise, go for the XP. Also, pay attention to the way they're talking. If they're using simplistic language, such as "Me want no die!", etc, then they're a lot less likely to carry heaps of money. The more eloquent sorts, on the other hand, can throw you multiple thousands. Early on, I'd say go for the persona, then for the item.

I'd love to join this discussion if they'd actually deliver my playstation pro and persona 5 today. I guess I'll have to live vicariously through whatever people share here.

@tothenines: That really sucks. I feel for you. In the same week both my Nintendo Switch and Horizon Zero dawn were lost in the post so I didn't get either of them for release.

Played about 2.5 hours last night before needing to get some sleep. Brought the Vita to work today to remote play it on breaks. In love so far.

I'm about 4 hours in, the story is really interesting so far, and the music is great, also the style is unbelievable.

I think the prologue and the "style" is kinda overdoing it, feels like edgy sonic all over again and I enjoyed the more laidback P4 much more. Anyways im very early on and im confident i will make peace with the flashiness and start enjoying it more as time progress.

I woke up at 4 to start playing the game, and just now took a break to drop by to say this seems amazing so far. The changel they've made are smart. It's nice to have negotiations in the game, and it feels more engaging than p4 and p4 golden were. So far the negotiations have been real easy (just go along with what they're saying) but I'm still only in the first area. I'm guessing they get trickier eventually.

Everything is really stylish, and I like the characters so far. At the moment it feels more mature like P3 and less care-free cartoon investigation squad which is both good and bad in ways. They definitely do not shy away from some very dark situations, and give you plenty of reason to absolutely despise the first person you oppose. Like he actually seems like human garbage so far, and not in a Saturday morning cartoon villain way. More in a this guy is seriously the personification of bullshit kind of way.

I'm a little iffy on the flashback situation. I think i may have deduced what is going on already just with my best guess. And the random interruptions on some of the social link creations seem unnecessary. It's a cool style though, and it might really hit home when it comes back around later on. If not it's still not like its an offensive choice of narrative, so I can't fault it too much.

The animation in game is real nice. I love the scenes when people get their powers. Reminds me of majora's mask kind of.

I didn't take the day off (thought about it) so I can't start until tonight, but I am working from home today so I got to open it up a little while ago once it was dropped off. I have it on my desk. It's real.

It's real, everyone.

Downloading the game right now. I can't wait to get to the point where I understand what's the negotiation thing you guys are talking about. Is this the same thing you did in Persona 1?

Definitely worth the wait, this game is great ! In most games i tend to skip most written dialogue but the style and the story keeps me hooked enough to read most if it.

My copy is on the way as I type. This is gonna be a long day at work and an even longer drive home. Can't wait to play it. This will be my first Persona game I'm playing st launch so it'll be fun to experience it with everyone. Between thst, Zelda and Mass Effect on my back burner I have a looooot of gaming hours to go through.

Ya'll should really watch the movies in the cinemas, by the way. (In the game, yes.) The voice acting for those films are sublime.

"You're a psychopath who bakes for money!" is a quote I'll remember for some time to come.

Loving everything about the style and glad to see a bit of a departure from the cheeriness of 4.

Not to decry that too much, it worked very well for 4, just that I didn't want the success to turn it into the permanent tone.

Also curious if anyone knows if there is a difference between the PS4 and PS4 pro version? I know this was a weird title cause it technically came out before the pro I think? So in theory it wasn't forced by Sony to implimenr any sort of enhancements. I could be totally wrong though and hope there is some benefit to it. If not guess I'll just flip on boost mode and see how things go there.

Aww man I put in four hours last night before falling asleep. Haven't got to any of the negotiation stuff yet and just kinda got into the first meaty part of the combat.

I got off of work early today, so I managed to play it for three hours. I love the music and the game's sense of style – in fact, I found it difficult to skip the intro the second time I booted the game. Although, the texture work on some parts of the environments like the signage is not great. As for the game itself, I'm obviously still very early, but so far it's more or less what I expected. I'm hooked though and I can't wait to play more. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to until the weekend.

5 hrs in and I still can't use the vending machine :O I don't have much to say other than it's stylish as hell, and I am loving the story, characters and music so far!

I love the voice cast in the game - D.C Douglas, Matt Mercer, Jamieson Price, Cherami Leigh.

Although it might just be me, but is the audio quality on the spoken lines kinda bad? Sounds like a microphone fault, or something of that nature.

Might just be me. Other than that, it's bloody fantastic!

Oh did anyone else get the 'take you heart' edition? The box itself is a work of art.

Also I deeply appreciate that the MC is not strictly silent this time around. He's limited enough to still be primarily an avatar but has enough to actually seem like he's a part of a scene.

Yes, I do like this.

About three hours in so far. The framing the story sets up is interesting. There's post-battle transitions that had me grinning because it's done so well.

@whatshisface: very similar to mainline SMT games. There'll be a tutorial in the first dungeon, but essentially once you knock down all remaining enemies, you have the option to perform an All-Out Attack or start negotiating for their money/item/powers. I currently suck at negotiating for new Personas, but there's still plenty of game left.

On-topic: It gets darker a lot earlier than the previous Personas (Personae?) I've played. I mean sure there were murder mysterious and Apathy Syndrome but this one straight up throws you into a world of adults who are annoyed by you (the MC) at best or outright abusive at worst. Then again, I guess "darker" plots are par for the course in most SMT titles.

Also, the multiple times the wrong syllable in "Sakamoto" and "Takamiya" is emphasized really grinds my gears in the English dub, but it's a minor quibble.

The way you fuse personas in this game is the most fucking raw ass shit. Watching them get put in a guillotine and have their god damn heads cut off is the darkest thing.

So far everything is really solid. Love the voice acting, though hearing Sakamoto's name spoken will take some getting used to.

I have to wonder though if I have to worry about missing personas if I skip or kill them all in the beginning. If I get too strong and end up oneshotting everything before I can negotiate with them. Will they show up stronger later?

Waiting on the UPS guy to deliver the game right now, then it will take every ounce of strength NOT to lay the kids down for bed super early so I can play a bunch of Persona tonight.

@burncoat: You can always downfuse. I think taking two personas of the same arcana gets you a lower level one.

Here is Atlus's, uh, somewhat draconian set of streaming restrictions. It's no wonder that GB didn't put the Quick Look up on YouTube.

In short, if you post video of anything past July 7th (in-game calendar), they may very well use content ID to take down your video.

@cloudymusic: Japanese side of things continuing to kick and scream as they are dragged forward, it seems.

Is there a trick to negotiation? I feel like I've gotten lucky so far but I have no idea what I should be saying to them. Most of the time I get notes, which is good. Am I supposed to deduce the answers?

For people that have put some time into it:

Do you get used to the new graphical style? At first glance I thought it was very stylish, but when I watched some longer form videos and started trying to concentrate on the actual hud I started to think it has too much style. I find the popping out of letters and weird bolding of letters in the middle of names and headings to be really confusing. Everything looks incredibly stylish but also incredibly busy and messy compared to the very clean and aesthetically pleasing style of P4 or P3.

So do you sort of just learn by feel where everything is or does it get easier? Maybe it's just me but I find it kind of hard to read from the videos I've watched.

@humanity: Really wasn't anything to adjust to honestly. It's true that almost everything is accompanied with a flourish but I haven't felt that it distracts from the nitty gritty all that much.

8 hours in I would say it is definetely more busy, but at the same time much better put together. An easy example of this would be the combat menu - in previous games you had to pick everything from menu, while now everything is on a button (one button for spells, another for items etc.) so once you play for a bit, you click those from memory instead of scrolling through menus. Also there is dedicated button which lets you select a spell for which there is a weak monster in play, further stramlining this. Overal it's improved on both style and usability front, I would say. More systems are still opening up but this is my impression thus far.

I really dislike Ryuji, he just seems like a bumbling, wannabe rebel dimwit who needs everything explained to him in the simplest terms for him to get it. I understand he acts like that for your benefit in the begging while they are teaching you stuff but this goes against one of my biggest pet peeves in games: over explaining simple to grasp concepts.

I'm not that upset about it. I'm about 8ish hours in and really enjoying the game but Ryuji really grinds on me after awhile. Yosuke was an idiot but at least he was a charming one. Ryuji is no Yosuke that's for sure.

@fatalbanana: While he is certainly a dimwit and it can get a little annoying when he constantly needs everything explaining to him, I actually really like him.

I am absolutely blown away by the music in the game. While I have been playing, me and my fiancée have been bopping along almost constantly.

@fatalbanana: Ehh I think he's got a lot of heart. Once the game is past the need for the tutorials I think he'll open up a lot more.

Im sorry, I am reporting this thread for not following Atlus's guidelines for talking about the game. Not enough "broad strokes".

@fatalbanana: I actually kind of like Ryuji better than Yosuke so far. They're very similar in terms of being the protag's partner in crime and shouting at things until they're explained four or five times, but Ryuji leans more into that "loud jerk upfront but actually a nice guy" whereas Yosuke was the nice guy who would just kind of be a jerk sometimes. Not that a character having flaws is a bad thing, I just found Yosuke's jerk moments very off-putting.

Yo these dungeons are too fuckin' long though.

@efesell: I'm at 9 hours and just reached the end of the first one. It does feel longer than I'm used to, but I think once the game settles into a routine and opens up access to more SP restoring items, it might not take quite as long in the future.

@efesell: The first one feels really long because you're forcibly brought into it and kicked out of it multiple times rather than like in the past games where you only had to leave for story reasons once or twice. Once you get full reign of the castle though it doesn't feel too bad. Make sure you're making liberal use of the gun and your physical abilities. The lack of sp recovery available makes that more important than ever to get through it in one or two days. I'm only just doing the final day on the castle though so I can't say for future dungeons yet.

Wanna just say that persona 4 is my favorite JRPG ever, and currently in 5 I'm just about to finish the first dungeon, and unless the next set of characters are boring or the story falls off a cliff, I think I like everything about this game more.

It has just the right mix of 4s cheery "power of friendship" tone with 3s more darker down to business tone, and same goes for the characters so far as well, and the style of everything is just goddamn fantastic, and they made just smart little additions around the core gameplay that make it more pleasant and exciting to play.

Super impressed so far, havent gushed about a game like this in a while. And can't wait till the next fighting game when the 5 characters meet the rest of the cast (that's bound to happen)

@mezza: Nah I did the whole thing in one go so I can definitely judge that it was just very long. Especially with the needless backtrack for keys at the end of it.

I'm like 3-4 hours in and boy they really front-load the dark shit, huh? I'm digging it, but if this is the opening salvo I can't imagine the main plot getting much sunnier. Soundtrack is fantastic and the menus/UI are ridiculously stylish. The English voice acting seems solid though I'll also admit that I immediately think "Albert Wesker" whenever I hear D.C. Douglas' voice, which has made the first dungeon funnier than it probably should be.