@mezmero: I, similarly, became depressed and aloof after finishing the game. For close to the reasons you've stated as well.

I think what really hit me, though, is the characters all felt like friends to me. When the MC had to go home at the end, it felt like I was leaving as well. I felt the same way to a lesser extent at the end of Persona 3 while I didn't get a reaction like that at all with Persona 4.

@strangestories: I thought it was so sweet how they all pack in to that van for a roadtrip to the country in order to drive Joker home. I couldn't stop smiling.

Also it's a perfect jumping off point for any Persona Q/Arena spinoffs.

@strangestories: It definitely added to my melancholy that I became as attached to the characters as much as I did. I think since P3 the primary casts of these games leave a pretty lukewarm first impression and then become more and more endearing throughout the game. It helps that there was so much more utility to the Confidants in P5 which probably led to me biting off more than I could chew with regards to reaching max ranks. It's been a number of years since I played the other 2 but this might have had the highest ratio of characters I enjoyed to characters I found wholly uninteresting or archetypal to a fault.

Something super end-game final-boss spoilery that I've wanted to shout at some friends but I haven't been able to because of that:

I shot a god in the head with a fucking SIN BULLET.

That was fucking awesome.

The entire ending sequence was also great, with the road trip and all. It ranks up there with the end of P4 Golden for me.

Going through NG+ right now and am at the first celebration and I think I noticed something through the eavesdropping bit. You listen in on an IT Company President and a TV Station President, so you may have listened in on at least two of the letter of recommendation people pretty early on. One also mentioned a big meeting, which may have been with Shido since he's in the building too. Just a possibly neat thing I thought about while doing that part.

I just finished the game. Overall, I think I prefer the people and universe of P4. The focus in that game is all on your friends. There are long-ass scenes of them dressing up in bikinis or cross-dressing for school festivals, going out camping and bathing in puke and all sorts of fun stuff. Additionally, every party member besides Teddie has a dungeon/boss you need to go through before you even get them in your party, and you learn their innermost secrets and sides they are ashamed of during that part of the story. There is no comparison to that in P5, almost every social scene pales in comparison to P4's work and the characters in this game haven't worked their way into my soul quite the same way characters like Kanji or Chie did. They work so hard at focusing on the abusers and the abused that there's no room for people struggling with themselves in the same way, or having fun without anybody mentioning the Phantom Thieves. Futaba isn't really a NEET, she just got turned into one by assassination and lies, and that's not stuff that's relatable for me. Haru especially suffers from the lack of main character focus. Naoto was a part of the story from what, the second main dungeon, when Kanji fell in? She was even along for a school trip. Haru just shows up and is that rich girl from K-On! minus the lesbian shipping aspect that character had. She's probably meant to be a red herring with the whole "betrayal is the family motto" thing, but Akechi is so obvious there's no point.

There's a big deal about fame, like being famous is what you wanna be a secret cat burglar for. Nobody's fake or real death got to me in the way Nanako's did, because none of my bonds with the characters were that strong or tested in such a way. Everybody is a shitty adult, and it sucks. The game could do with some more Lupin or One Piece or any other anime thing with sympathetic outlaws fighting the power, because none of them are as preachy, self-righteous or dour about it as Persona 5 is. You wouldn't see Lupin hold a long dialogue with the Count of Cagliostro about why it's bad to print money and force women to marry him. You wouldn't see Luffy discuss how just his actions are with his pirate crew.

The plot is completely predictable. I knew Akechi was a villain from the day I saw his character design(I feel that same way about your boss with the long hair and glasses in Persona 3, though I have yet to check). I knew Shido was the main bad guy from the moment he showed his face again in that restaurant and the main character had the world's worst case of convenient amnesia. I knew Fake!Igor was the supernatural bad guy from the day you could hear his voice and someone in the comments went all "Ohoho yes it is a weird change isn't it ohohho", but that's not really the game's fault. Of course Medjed was Futaba. Of course the white fade-outs means that the characters are finally suspecting Akechi and moving to trick him. In other news, Kanji might have a complex and Tartarus might be connected to phases of the moon. Persona writing is the lowest common denominator. It was tiring when I was 19 and is still tiring now that I'm 26. Just give me some credit, writers. I can figure shit out without the characters agonizing over mysteries I already guessed the answers to and doing exposition for hours.

But I still enjoyed Persona 5 a ton. While none of the characters managed to get deep under my skin, I certainly felt for them(Yoshida, Futaba, Sojiro, Morgana and Mishima in particular are characters I enjoyed). While some felt like bad versions of characters I liked(Ryuji is a bummer for me compared to Yosuke, though he is better than Junpei, and the Twin Wardens are a bit of a nightmare comapred to Margaret), others felt like good versions of characters I didn't like. Makoto is essentially Yukiko with added smarts and coolness from Naoto, and actually acts intelligently instead of just using more advanced words like Naoto did. Ann is basically Rise with her personality extracted and replaced by a little Chie, which works pretty well for me. Morgana is Teddie without being annoying, and he actually gets around a lot since he attaches himself to Joker's body in a Banjo-Kazooie kind of way. Yusuke IS Goemon, the Lupin character, and he's hilarious. I wish they made Ann more like Fujiko Mine. She doesn't even like her catsuit, and that's a criminal opinion.

While the predictability ruins the excitement a little and can make the slow progression of the story frustrating(I was expecting to kick Akechi's ass when he came for Okumura), it all makes sense in a way Persona 4 didn't. What's the story with Izanagi and the big eyeball? Fuck if I know, they're just real gods, I suppose. What about Adachi? He was just an antisocial loner who thought the world sucked and maybe he was also possessed a little. In Persona 5, the only explanation needed is that the desires of humanity manifest in a reality based on their cognition. The villain is technically godlike, but he's only a manifestation of people's wills as much as anything in the Palaces were. Yaldabaoth isn't riveting or anything, but he's good enough, and gains something from being disguised as Igor and pulling out a colossal gun. Akechi was raised poorly and got handed an ability by a being specifically to turn him into a murderer. The main human villain actually has a huge conspiracy going, with a big plan for the future of the country and the world, with a pretty grounded application of the fantastical world. It's not complicated, but the ability to consequence-free murder anyone who opposes you and use that ability to become Prime Minister isn't bad at all. It's not insane, and it doesn't come out of nowhere, it's just a heartless and cruel realization of someone's desires. Kamoshida, Kaneshiro and that entire villain gang is the same. They do what they do for petty and egotistical and most of all HUMAN reasons, like abusing what little power you have to feel better, getting ahead in your career or earning money on the backs of people more talented but less savvy than you. But at the same time, the shadow/palace version of those wishes is completely bonkers anime. Every one of them look like absolute supervillains, and they are fun villains for heroes that look like awesome kaitos to go up against. Shido in particular is amazing, but I loved Kaneshiro and his funny Gangnam Style thing and pig robot too.

The execution is as important as the story, here. I loved so many of the scenes in this game, from the reveal of fake Igor(with the Twin Wardens fighting you while he stood and watched) to Makoto's awakening. Every character is bouncy, expressive and animated, both in-engine and in the anime scenes(well, some of them. I saw studio TRIGGER among others in the credits and if those guys weren't responsible for the whole pyramid escape sequence and Ryuji running up that ship I don't know what to think). They've come so far from Persona 4's 5 or 6 super short anime cutscenes and static shots, and it's not like that game didn't have a ton of unique animations too. The enemies are better animated than ever, especially the ones that do a little dance, like Kali. Pisaca is just disturbing to me. While Mementos reminded me of how bad the dungeons in P3 were, at least they were an option to flesh out the world with Requests, had the fun scenes with Mona suddenly turning into a car in a Teddie growing a human body-type fashion and established the entire true ending. And the real dungeons are these intricate, amazing places with varied architecture and puzzles. I'm not gonna sit here and say they are Zelda-level or anything, but they are so far above the procedural dungeons of the earlier games that there's no comparison. I wish every bandwagon indie roguelike out there took that lesson to heart and just made some good stages. The only wonky aspect of them is the camera when you're hiding, but I learned to jump around corners so that it largely was no issue.

The way the confidants interact with the gameplay is flawless, pretty much all of them giving you a good benefit for the metaverse part of the game. Most of them were even pretty good, and I only missed finishing Fortune, Hanged, Devil and Tower. Mishima is a treasure, a great portrayal of a person who was abused and is very sympathetic but also a very flawed and annoying human being. Yoshida is a champion, a wonderful old man I loved hanging out with, and the completion of his confidant almost brought tears to my eyes.

The improvements made to the combat system and fusing is almost as overwhelming as the changes to the dungeons. It's too much to go into, but let's just say I'm not looking forward to going back and trying to finish Persona 3 FES at some point. They've made it so much better.

I regret beating the Reaper with the FLU trick, like three times. I was only around level 80 at the end, which is less than the max personas I could fuse, but more than enough to completely trivialize the endgame(everything after the ship). I regularly did over 1000 points of damage between buffs, debuffs, charge/concentrate and high-level attack spells. Was never in any danger, compared to during the Shido boss fight, who had me on the ropes during his last phase and exhausted my supply of coffee. Should have bumped it up to hard.

Sorry for the super long post. In my defense, I played it for 123 hours and 33 minutes, not counting deaths, which is a super long time for a linear story game. TLDR; I have some issues with it, but if I'm having this much fun I can't really complain. The improvements they've made to every aspect of the game is astounding, and a preference in style, tone and focus is the only thing that keeps me from being as head over heels in love with it as I was with Persona 4. I hope I don't have to wait quite this long for the next one. Five stars~ *****

@redhotchilimist: The under-use of Haru is especially terrible when compared to how Naoto was introduced, I agree. There were a few times when Haru would pipe up in conversation and speak like she's always been part of the gang since day one, and I just felt like she hadn't really earned that. On top of that, I think many players will barely get a chance to rank her up as a confidant since it's got that max proficiency check right off the bat. She feels like a missed opportunity. I think they could have maybe introduced her much earlier in the school year just as a sympathetic NPC that Joker meets, and maybe the rest of the crew interacts with her a few times on the roof or around school. They could also let you grow those plants of hers at a weaker effect, and then she could become playable once the conflict with her father arises. I think that would have been an interesting little twist.

@redyoshi: Sure, that would help. It's not like she isn't around, she goes to the same school and even spends her time on the roof where you hang out at the beginning. But I can only remember seeing her a few times: Once getting into a limo before Futaba's pyramid, and meeting her on a bench in Hawaii. I don't ever think I saw her around school just in the environment.

@redhotchilimist: I always have to laugh when people like to shit on P4s story, especially the villains. Izanami and Ameno-Sagiri/Kunino-Sagiri are explained throughout the game and not just "random gods".

Izanami awakened several people to use the power of summoning Personas. The popular three are Yu Narukami/Protagonist, Adachi and Toru Namatame. All three represent certain traits: Hope, Emptiness and Despair. Izanami treats it all as a game or rather an experiment. What does humanity desire? And judging by the effects that the actions of the awakened people have on others, Izanami would act accordingly. Adachi's (And therefore Namatame's actions of putting people into the midnight channel) showed Izanami that humans keep their true desires and emotions hidden under lock and key and can never truly be happy, so she plans to flood the world with fog so they can embrace their shadow selves fully.

Ameno-Sagiri a.k.a. Huge Disco Ball Eye and Kunino-Sagiri a.k.a. Namatame's Shadow (which isn't really a shadow, but an aspect of Izanami that possessed him) are just projections of Izanami to enact her plan of flooding the world with fog.

Since i also mentioned Adachi earlier, let's talk about his motives. He's often called a simple or flat villain, that just did stuff for the "lulz". I remember the term ressentiment being thrown in his story before. Creating scapegoats, by blaming those he considers superior for his actions. He says it straight away that only "Talent" matters and he wants to wipe this world away bc of it. He was an utter dick and used his power to do what he likes, bc he was always being put under by the "bad people above him", which helped Izanami emphasize her point.
In a way he was the protagonist's shadow. The protagonist inspired the people around him, while this guy is just out for himself, trying to fill the emptiness within using his power.

In the end P4 is about finding your own identitiy. The good and the bad and accepting every part of yourself. That's what the true ending shows when Izanami is angry at you for seeking the final truth, therefore destroying her plan. So she invites you to a last battle. During that battle you destroy her facade with the Orb and her "corpse-form" Izanami-no-Okami" shows up. Through his will of withstanding her attacks, the protagonist summons Izanagi-No-Okami and finishes Izanami. While defeated she accepts it and vows to let humanity live in peace and choose their own actions, even if they won't gain happiness from it. Therefore her experiment ended.

What people could hold against Atlus is that they don't show the Izanagi/Izanami connection. The myth is well known in japan. After Izanami's death Izanagi goes down to the underworld, looking for her. Even though Izanami doesn't wish to be found, Izanagi finds her in the end and sees what has become of her: A bug ridden, decaying corpse (Izanami-No-Okamis design in the game goes in that direction). Instead of accepting her, he runs off, Izanami in pursuit, until he blocks the entrance to the underworld with a boulder. Izanami was betrayed and had to stay in the darkness, vowing to take 1000 souls down to hell each day, while Izanagi wanted 1500 to be born each day. Two halves of creation battling each other, unable to face the truth.

P4 showcases this myth without actually acknowledging it, which was a missed opportunity, but oh well. In the end P4 was about forcing Izanami to see the "complete truth", showing that not all of humanity is as weak and flawed as the two subjects before. That's why the final move of the game is called "Myriad truths".

Just saying that i haven't played P5 yet, but i plan to do so. This was just here to counter the always popular "P4s story/villains were shit and underexplained"

I just said pretty much exactly this in the main thread. The P5 cast feels like my team of Phantom Thieves more than they feel like my friends.

@kev1989 I mean, I'm gonna spoil all the important stuff about the whole setting and plot of Persona 5 here, so you shouldn't read if you're planning on playing it, just do it afterwards. But this is my take on P4's villains and why P5 is that, but better:

I think the one thing I loved about the game and its ending the most is how it treated the idea of being truly free, as well as their exploration of justice and what justice actually is. The gradual build to fighting God at the end of the game (and a god really presented as a Christian one considering the angel guardians you fight leading up to him) I thought was brilliant, as well as how after the battle ends no change is really seen in people. I really loved how Atlus played with people being imprisoned willingly because freedom and obtaining true justice against wrongdoing is scary. I like how humanity is shown to be willingly ignorant of truth and conforms to society's standards because it is safe and they receive selfish benefits of not rocking the boat with people of influence or power.

The reveal of Morgana being basically a god of hope for humanity was awesome, and the Velvet Room's true nature and the return of Igor proper (what a great swerve with his voice alteration!) was amazing. I really like how Morgana didn't disappear; I feel that makes the most logical sense considering he is humanity's hope and hope dying would have an oddly grave implication on the true finale of the game. The confidante nods throughout the ending....the music....the animation....and the fact your crew goes on a road trip...everything gave me chills and I admit to crying at the end because I just felt everything was handled so well.

And hopefully I don't offend anyone with this, but having Shido as the one evil doer that Japan is afraid of taking to justice after he confessed his crimes is just eerily reminiscent of (for me personally) the political climate of the US. I love the reactions and discussion swirling Shido during the ending and how the uncertainty and fear of removing him as prime minister.

Ultimately, this is my favorite Persona game to date. Everything, and I mean just about every single detail in the game, married with the themes the devs wanted to play with in such a way that not a hair felt out of place. I came away incredibly impressed with the maturity found in the game.

I have a question for you guys. Why didn't the MC have a mental shutdown after his metaverse self was shot dead by Akechi?

@redcream: I believe that was Sae's cognitive version of the MC that was shot. I think the mental shutdown only occurs when it's your own Shadow self that is killed inside your palace. Remember during the first palace, that fake swimsuit version of Ann was attacked and nothing happened to the real Ann.

@matiaz_tapia: @linne: Between hanging out with Devil & Sun and taking baths I quickly had enough charm to hang out with Priestess (aka best girl, seriously) and Death again. I ended up maxing 10+ links by the end, so I couldn't be happier with how things turned out.

Now to read up on new game+...

@redyoshi: Oh yeah, you're right. Thanks for clearing that up.

Right?? I also found myself projecting Bernie Sanders onto the political speaker(I forgot his name.) Dude fights for youth and just wants to make things right!

@cmaley1 said:

I totally thought this as well, and am now really curious as to ATLUS's thoughts on the comparison. Since the game has been in development for so long it obviously could have gone through some changes, but it came out in Japan before the US elections so I wonder if there's something going on over there they based it on.

People thought the final boss in Metal Gear Rising Revengeance was very Trump, too, but it's not like the writers predicted anything, they just had him use a bunch of old quotes. Having said that, I got some real Armstrong vibes from Shido with how that shirtless that battle also went. I wonder if Shido was ever a quarterback.

I've been doing NG+ so it seems Yaldalbaoth is totally justified in treating me like a prisoner given how I'm inexplicably still enraptured by this game's styyyyyyyyyle. As I suspected it's not quite filling the void as the first time through did though it is fun to relive some of the character moments. It saddens to admit that I seemingly came out on the lower end of the completion spectrum and that left me with a number of regrets at the end. As of now, favorite character: Morgana, best girl: Makoto.

Going back through it makes it feel almost unfair to compare the primary cast of this to the one in P4. In P4 the insecurities of the characters are laid bare before the player through the magic of the premise so naturally it's a lot easier to connect and relate with the characters on an almost intimate level. Where as in P5 you're meant to infer a lot based on character exposition and certain monologues from the antagonists. I ended up liking the cast in P5 a lot overall but there were a handful of characters in 4 that I genuinely empathized with what they were going through mentally.

I found it interesting that the seven deadly sins are such a prevailing theme throughout the game. Although the main cast aren't always specifically guilty of a corresponding sin it at least seems like you can find one that brought about each of their hardships. Morgana (envy), Ryuji (wrath), Ann (lust), Yusuke (pride), Makoto (greed), Futaba (sloth), Haru (gluttony). I could be off base with some of these associations but I was thinking about these long before the final boss started literally attacking you with sin.

@redhotchilimist: It kinda strange how many of these Japanese devs are able to predict certain events either by small changes or public attitudes.

Eh, observing that modern society is pretty cynical and fed up with the current political climate isn't that difficult, though yes politics in advanced nations have only gotten more turbulent since the game started development. Shido actually kind of fell flat for me because he's portrayed like more of an idealogue than just a demagogue, but the specifics about what was bad about what he wanted, or how he was going to go about securing said goals that was so heinous, wasn't really sold. Obviously electing someone with that sort of moral compass is bad, and with the means to knocking off people in his way is worse, but I was never completely bought he was an institutional threat the game seemed to imply. Having excess pride is pretty normal for anyone running for high office.

I like the idea of describing the end of Persona 5 to someone by the saying the final boss and bad guy is a literal god cup.

Just finished the game last night. I have a few nit picks here or there: group scenes are too uneventful and there should've been a way to flex your persona fusing muscles because the game kind of ends while there's still 10% of the progression left to go.

But on the whole this is definitely my favorite persona game. I really like the commitment to a theme across all social links, I thought pretty much all characters were great. While no one reaches the highs of Kanji or Aegis some (Makoto and Yusuke) come damn close. The quality of the characters is way more consistent across the board when compared with Persona 4-5. That's not even touching on the best feeling most fluid menu based JRPG combat system of all time and the styllllle, orders of magnitudes more pronounced when compared with passed entries in the franchise.

Closing thoughts: here's a random grab bag of amazing things in this game

Haru's baton pass animation:

The best boss theme in the series:

The best dungeon theme:

The cat turns into a car!

This cat:

Man this game is good

@alistercat: I saw someone on twitter or here describe the ending as "You and your friends save Christmas by summoning Satan to kill God."

@thebluthcompany: I read this and thought you were talking about Persona 3 for a moment

Finished this game about a week ago, here are some thoughts:

Though the party members aren't as good as in P4 (since the dungeon structure in 4 made good characterization a layup), the overall cast of confidants is streets ahead. Makoto may be my favorite Persona character ever.

The Twins fusing was heavily telegraphed, but I was totally expecting them to become Margaret. Somehow.

Ryuji's heroic scene made me tear up. They really gave him a whole arc-- I went from lukewarm to hatred to admiration. I also got to speculating in that brief window that Morgana was some weird reincarnation of Ryuji and man I woulda loved to see that.

This game is a weird reminder of how important the player's timing can be to the overall experience. I can't imagine how I would have read a bunch of that NPC chatter and the Shido plot a year ago.

I'm 75% through NG+ and realized I messed up and can't do all Mementos requests, so it looks like I'll have a third go at some point.

I finished this today and I feel the game really blew it's load way too early as nothing from hour 20 onwards topped the character development, style and pacing of the first Palace. The battle system also doesn't really evolve at all once you get the SP accessories and decent elemental cover (probably mid Palace 3) which is what... hour 40? That's an issue when there's a further 50 - 70 hours left on top of that. What's left filling those remaining hours is just a bunch of repetition: inane, repetitive dialogue, repetitive confidant arcs, zero character development of your party members, characters constantly wondering over plot points that the player had figured out 20 + hours prior, repetitive music... I could go on. I felt in past Persona games there were distinct seasons and turning points that are like ripples, pushing me through but in Persona 5 I just see a single, grey line in my mind. Nothing of major importance happens from Palace 3 up until the end of Palace 7. Well... things definitely happened but these things had very little weight to them. The stakes were high in some instances but how they were presented was just flat. Threads are picked up then dropped, never to be spoken of again, never having affected any character in any meaningful way.

Your party members have a few highlights (Yosuke, Ryuji, Morgana) and then the rest are just totally mediocre and zero fun to interact with. Makoto is one dimensional and a bore, Ann's character is all over the place, Haru is a complete non entity, the writers didn't know what to do with Futaba 90% of the time and Goro's arc might have been better had it happened earlier. By the point that turn happens I was beyond caring, having been beaten over the head by all the hints.

Saying that, the soundtrack is one of the best in gaming and the presentation was a breath of fresh air: both fun, inventive and thematically cohesive. The MC is the best in the series and Kawakami is probably the most realistic depiction of adulthood in a game I've ever seen.

I hate being a downer because there are aspects and moments of this game I loved but yeah... I'm glad the majority are finding so much to like here at least.

@mikachops: I don't disagree with your points, the one about MC being the best perhaps, I just really enjoyed it regardless.

@mikachops: I loved the game, but I agree that it never tops the beginning, particularly in terms of character development.

The only thing I hate the most was how cringing and crawling under my skin was the first dungeon and the story involved with it because there were "implications" that didn't cross my mind until Ann started talking about Shiho. I was like, "he actually did that to Shiho." Ugh... I know the game is supposed to be a social commentary on exploitation of adolescence, women, workers, pretty much everyone It doesn't pull back it punches. Damn, it's brutal.

Edit: Then again, I could be overreacting over implications. His dungeon was icky.

Love the music, confidants, story, and gameplay even though I wasn't used to stealthy stuff. That took a while to adjust.

Everything else was fine with some minor things I can overlook like how rushed and dragged on the ending was plus how they handle a few things (two LBGT guys and poor Ann being butt of a joke during Madarame's dungeon) and less memorable group activities: Hawaii and School Festival were boring

Hello gang, finally finished it earlier tonight. Clocking in at about 116 hours.

So...did anyone else hold out a little bit of hope, to the very end, that the big bad was going to turn out to by Nyarlathotep? I myself never actually played either P2, but he sounds like he was a real good cool villain. Not that I was disappointed with what we had. Gnostic God is pretty cool, especially with how similar he was to YHVH from classic SMT.

Edit: Tossing some more thoughts on here. I really enjoyed the Confidant mechanic from a gameplay perspective. Getting perks from them adds a big incentive that I feel wasn't present in previous games. And in general I found the non-party member Confidants more engaging and compelling than the non-party Social Links in P3 and P4. Party members are a bit harder to judge. P4 had higher highs (Kanji, Chie, and Naoto) but much lower lows (Teddie and Yosuke). I feel like they kind of dropped the ball on Ann. A victim of sexual harassment and almost sexual assault, and then afterwards the generic fanservice girl. And Haru was barely a factor, I felt a stronger connection with Akechi. I kind of forgot she was a party member a couple times until she said something in a cutscene.

That said, Ryuji is shitty and angry in a way I can get behind. He felt like a delinquent, shitty teenager, warts and all, which was something I appreciated. Yusuke had a rough start, but once he was on the team he grew on me pretty fast, as did Futaba. And despite being the "mascot character", I liked Morgana a lot.

I don't know how I rank this game yet. Gameplay and mechanics, it is far and away the best modern Persona, pulling elements from the rest of the games to craft a really fun playing experience. I especially appreciate bringing in Psychic and Nuke, as well as giving damaging spells to Light (Bless) and Dark (Curse). It was real smart to give the MC's starting Persona a curse spell to highlight this.

Does anyone know that the Judgement Confidant perk is supposed to mean? The "True Justice" one?

@beforet: I checked out a wiki the other day and was a little surprised that Yaldabaoth isn't new to the series. He's Demiurge in the other games, and was the ultimate boss in Strange Journey, for instance. But it's not like there's any story connection between the games. He just fitted the "fake god" mold, I think. According to the wiki his whole deal is that he thinks he's the creator of the world and god above all, while he only created the material plane and has no hold over the spiritual planes and souls. That arrogance fits pretty well with a god who's really only an enlarged Treasure.

I was also expecting Nyarlathotep, but I appreciate that they went with something that made sense with the established elements in 5 instead of bringing back someone from 17 years ago that I only know of through the same wiki, checking to see what the butterfly was all about.

I do think that the chance to ever get more of Philemon and Nyarlathotep has passed. Those games are old and a big part of the fanbase haven't even played them, which would make the reveal have no impact on most of people. Nyarlathotep himself was really more of a manifestation of everything wrong with humanity, as he's mankinds collective shadow, while these new games are more interested to bring up certain themes and aspects of the collective mankinds weakness. He was more... Straight up a villain, than either Nyx, Izanami or demiurge.

Still blazing through NG+ for some reason. I will say for a large portion of my first play through I thought the final boss was going to be the train of Mementos. It's a pretty prevalent and important piece of the story and game world so I thought they were gonna go full on Final Fantasy 6 with it. I'm glad it goes in the direction it does with the Holy Grail instead which only gets hinted at once or twice in school from what I remember. Turned out to be a much better and more bizarre use of religious imagery as a means to tell its story in my opinion.

It's implied a lot throughout this game that within the domain of a palace that you can be influenced by the owner in the real world. Does that mean that Sojiro was always under a lesser geas of Futaba? He talks at length about not being able to say no to her and that would fall in line with other similarly subservient characters to palace bosses. Or is he simply just a compassionate human being? I'm honestly surprised that there was not at least an attempt at a cognition of Sojiro. Maybe he lives in a town miles away from the pyramid.

I should've know Ryuji's Second Awakening would also be Shounen as hell considering how often you see him with a Jump looking magazine in cut scenes. I think I like this guy more this time around because of it, even if he is still a dumbass.

The igor twist was really interesting. From what I understand, the original vo for Igor was extremely beloved in Japan so replacing him was definitely difficult. Bringing that concept into the game by making him an imposter and introducing the second new igor which sounds much more like the original was cool. I wonder how the Japanese audience reacted?

Also I didn't play with English vo so I was wondering if holy grail igor sounds different than regular igor?

@xanadu: I rember holy grail Igor sounding like the normal fake Igor but with a weird effect on his voice

Pretty much.

Not sure why they changed the real Igor's English vo, that guy hasn't died liked his JPN counterpart did to my knowledge.

I didn't see Akechi being the killer but it was really, really, really obvious he was the traitor. Like he couldn't have telegraphed that he was a narc working with the police any harder since he basically admitted openly to it and was in fact working with the police and had to blackmail himself onto your team. I was hoping it wasn't him since it was just too blatant and then his reveal as a sociopathic killer (with an evil face) who thought he was owed by society based on his perceived achievements and inherent superiority with a goofy facade to cover was just too much like Adachi.

The way you subvert his master plan to screw everyone by playing it against him was pretty good though. For once it felt like the heroes were one step ahead of the villain instead of falling for their lame scheme and then having to scramble to react .

@radish: Akechi was two steps away from going "Hello Fellow Teens, would any of you know where I can go on a Phantom Caper?"

I finished it last night, and overall thought it was delightful.

There are some fantastic and memorable moments - makoto getting her persona, the akechi plot turnabout, ryuji calling the final boss god a 'stupid treasure jerk'. and when the game is funny it's really funny. Sojiro is wonderful and rich as a character, and I thought futaba's arc was great.

I was disappointed with the writing during the non-comedy moments though. Whether it was the original script or the localisation it's hard to say, but so much of the dialogue is awkward, redundant,and bland. Plus some of it, at key points, is just gibberish.

I would have loved for Sae's flash-forward conversations in NG+ to become incredibly self-aware

Like when you make the social link with Makoto

"You stayed one step ahead of me the whole way. You must have had someone on your team who was living with me. Well!? Who was it!"

Or when you unlocked the Judgement arcana

*flash forward to 5 minutes later*

You must have had someone helping you along, giving you clues from the future on what to do next. Spill it! Who was this person!?

Just finished the game, and overall I'd say I enjoyed it. The last 10 hours or so are very dungeon heavy, which is definitely not the best way the game could've ended. After my third ignominious death in the home stretch due to RNG-bullshit, I bumped the difficulty down to Safety. I must say, it made the whole thing much more enjoyable. With the lack of difficulty based trophies, I probably should have picked it from the start. I'm in it for the high school drama, not grindy and repetitive combat.

@strangestories said:

boy i'd be fucked up if this were released close to last august--spent 6 weeks at a summer job at a big university, living on campus, and made a shit ton of great memories and friends. departure day was heart wrenching and not dissimilar to the end of these games

also I was a bit overleveled for the sin man fight (80+), and cranking up the difficulty to hard was the right choice. buffs and debuffs for days because I'm not going to waste my time killing those arms!

That's a pretty shitty spoiler to tweet out, even if it is grossly out of context. The game is also quite clear that you're killing "a malevolent god," not the monotheistic God.

Can we talk for a second about what a terrific character Morganna turned out to be by the end? As the replacement voice-in-your-head while walking around, he sort of integrates with the interface, and becomes a kind of anthropomorphization of the game itself. In the early game, he's haughty and demanding, and infamously puts limits on your time and options. At the same time, you're getting hit with a dour and unpleasant school life in contrast to P3/P4, getting the runaround from a nastier Igor than you might remember, and generally getting the impression that everything is out to antagonize you.

As the game goes on you get allies, and things start to seem less hopeless. All the while Morganna is becoming more sympathetic. We get glimpses of him actively worrying for his friends, and about his true nature. Ryuji calling him useless cuts him deeply, and by the time he temporarily bails, you actually kind of miss his nagging. Interacting with the world feels oddly perfunctory without his commentary.

Once you start hitting the bottom of Mementos, Morganna's demeanor heavily seems to suggest that his own existence might be tied to it, and that stealing the treasure will likely mean the end for him, and by extension, the game that he represents. No one explicitly says this, but I still found myself with him in my party for most of Mementos Depths and beyond, because it felt like my last chance to run with him. Finally, Igor's late reveal that Morganna's nature is unambiguously benevolent casts not only him but the whole game in a more affirming, less grim light.

The moments in the cutscene before he disappeared were probably the closest I came to actual sadness because it was so obvious that it would happen, and I was just waiting for it. With him went all of the game systems that I would no longer need to experience the rest of the finale. The game had made use of all 100 hours to turn this obnoxious mascot task-master into a character whose absence I sincerely felt, perhaps more than any of the other characters. And then of course the little shit waddles back in, because Persona 5 is nothing if not a game where -- if you can just hold out for long enough -- apparent sadness is nearly always dispelled by unexpected levity.

Just finished the game, my first Persona game ever. I thought it was a really good game, but not a great game. It had a lot of things I really enjoyed, but also a ton of things I didn't like.

Probably the worst thing was I didn't like the majority of the party members. A lot of them didn't add much to the story after their arc was done and some of them were just annoying to listen to over and over again (Ryuji).

I also felt like the end of the game from the Shido boss fight on was ridiculously dragged on. I figured there would be one more big boss fight, but they make you go all the way through Mementos, then fight 4 mini bosses and then 2 more main bosses and then 45 minutes of story. It just felt like serious overkill. One good big boss fight after the Shido fight would have been fine. While I enjoyed the combat, After tens of hours of it I didn't need go through that much more.

What was best about the game was the overall experience. Since it took me 2 months to beat it, it actually feels weird thinking about the Komoshida arc and stuff from earlier in the game. It feels like when you spend a long time with a TV show and get used to always having certain characters around as your constant form of entertainment, it feels weird when it finally ends. While a lot of games claim they have 100 hours worth of content, this is the first game I've ever played that actually takes 90+ hours to beat while trying to go fast (I skipped so many cell phone conversations). It had a great arc and it was cool to play a game with so many mechanics and content.

When I finished it, even though I wouldn't consider it one of my favorite games, it still made me feel like other single player games feel small in comparison. The amount of writing alone is astounding. It really did feel like watching 7 seasons of a TV show.

Maybe I will play Persona 4 one day, but not any time soon.

I found that the way to the True Ending (and the ending itself) was so dissapointing. Comparing it to Persona 4, the way you came through to the better endings was taking a step back and realizing that maybe putting all the blame onto Namatame wasn't in fact the way to go, or that even after you beat Adachi and Ameno-Sagiri, there were still unexplained things such as: What was the shadow world, who gave you this power to enter the world and why? You actually had to think about things and seek out the True Ending yourself.

I found that way more satisfying than just having a choice between betraying your friends (also if you choose this option, the game literally tells you that hey, maybe you aren't making the best decision here, heavily indicating you are making the wrong choice) or making a deal with a guy who JUST revealed he was an evil god. Why in the hell would you choose that option? Very dissapointed that they pretty much held your hand in making the right choices.

So what's the downside to romancing multiple girls in this game? I'd heard that their bonuses don't carry over into new game plus, but I was still able to get all of their key items when I was saying my goodbyes. For what it's worth, I ended up responding to Makotos text and spending Valentines day with her.

Not sure about P5, but in Persona 4 Golden they made you feel like garbage for dating more than one girl, because they gave you individual scenes with the ones you scorned being heartbroken. By far my favorite thing they added to that game over the original release.