It's been a long time since I wrote down my thoughts on here, and I've been meaning to give it another go. So, even though I've got other, more productive things to do, here I am writing about Persona 5.

Which is appropriate, because for the past week or so after picking the game up it's been dominating my thoughts like little else this year. When I haven't been playing it, I've been thinking about playing it. It's been taking over my being. I'm afraid if I don't write something down I might turn into a shadow or something. I certainly didn't expect to have this kind of response.

Some background: I've watched a playthrough of Persona 4 (no, not that playthrough) a few years ago, so I had a pretty good expectation of what my experience would be if I got the sequel. While I thought I had swore off anime garbage for good, dammit, I'm a sucker for good styyyyyle. That's how the game roped me in, and I suspect a large part of the reason it's kept my attention so much. I also figured that if I want to finish the game before the end of the year (which is sort of an arbitrary deadline if you really think about it, but) it was now or never.

I'm 30 hours in now. I'm just about to finish the "free" period after the third dungeon, so I suspect the story will get back into gear immediately. This seemed like a good opportunity to write my thoughts on what the game has been like so far and what my expectations are going forward. I plan to write a follow-up at some point to see if my thoughts change between now and then.

So, first off - as I said, the style is almost violently good. It makes the presentation of the past Personas look like baby toys. Everything is sharp and flashy, and I still greatly enjoy looking at it. The music is catchy as hell. It does continue a tradition from the past, though - English lyrics which I can't hear most of the time and don't make much sense when you look them up. But at least it's nice to listen to.

In the intro of the game, I named my character Mike Pence because I thought it was funny. I also immediately put the difficulty on easy. I will quote the old family adage and say that I Am Terrible At Most Games But Especially Ones That Involve Any Sort Of Strategy. If I was to get enjoyment out of this experience, I knew I had to make it easy. So far, it's paid off. It feels like a good difficulty for people like me who struggle to get through pretty much anything.

I've been enjoying the story quite a lot. The problems and themes it works with are really interesting. It feels like the writers were taking a risk with this story, and I like the direction they took it in. The localization team also did a nice job. I'm interested to see where the story goes from here. They're definitely teasing a confrontation with someone else going through the Metaverse for evil purposes. Right now my prediction is it's Akechi, the kid detective.

The parade of characters they introduce was really strong for most of what I've played, which kept my interest going strong. I really enjoyed the interaction between the Phantom Thieves at first, but I did have a big worry. Comparing the number of people on the box with who was in my party, I worried that the team might get too crowded and the interaction would suffer. Sure enough, by the time Makoto joined up, I'm starting to feel that. The roster is only going to grow from here, and I'm worried characters I don't like as much will pollute what was there before. They are somewhat awkwardly dropping hints about a pro Shogi player, so I assume that's the next member of the team. Looking at the box, I still have sweater woman and the Inkling to go.

The RPG-ing is pretty good, I think. It's mostly building on Persona 4's ideas, so I feel like I would be lost if I didn't have that prior experience. To have all those systems be totally new, and then have the actually new systems layered on top of that... yeah, that might have been too much. I feel like I'm not doing great with getting new Personas through fusion and what not, so hopefully that doesn't bite me in the ass.

The dungeon crawling is set up in a way that keeps you from doing it too quickly. Sometimes there are just hard barriers, like in the second dungeon, but mostly it comes down to SP management. The design is such, on easy at least, that you can make a lot of mistakes since healing items are so plentiful. But it's a lot harder to replenish SP, so it encourages you to go until you run out and come back the next day. While this is probably Good Design, it's a little frustrating at times, especially since you are ticking away at the deadline.

I like to get the dungeons out of the way as fast as possible. I don't think I'm the only one, as the game not-so-subtly pushes you to do so. Afterwards, you get a while to do as you wish. Now, many, many hours of the game are pretty much on rails. You just sort of watch some cutscenes, and the controllable parts are... limited, to say the least. But all of a sudden, the game throws like a billion things for you to do. Do you work on your social links for sweet benefits and story? Do you improve Mike's character traits by studying or watching DVDs? Do you do sidequests in the random dungeon? It's kind of overwhelming that the game throws the switch straight from "zero options" to "a billion options." Since there's only a few precious days before the game goes back on rails, you have to make tough decisions. And the stupid cat won't let you stay up late most of the time.

There's a phrase that keeps cropping up in the dialog, and that's some variation of "we have no other choice." It's usually a way to keep the game on rails during those segments. At first, I thought it was just repetitive writing. Then, I thought that maybe it was tying in with the grand themes of the game. These kids have no other choice than to go along with what The Man tells them to do. They don't have enough agency over their lives. It's up to the Phantom Thieves to liberate the youth from the evil adults of the world and restore justice. When the player is being strung along the story, they're experiencing the same thing until they finally get a taste of freedom after each dungeon. If they bring that around and justify that line, it could be a really cool revelation.

...Then I thought, it's probably just repetitive writing.

Anyway, check back in after the next 30 hours or so! Who will I romance? How many times will I die? What's the big payoff? Find out the answers to all these and more in the next blog!