They make you waste so many days.

I'm on 5/8, and it is really starting to hit me how few days I have had to just do what I want.

Small gameplay spoilers up to this point:

So to start you have to dedicate at least 3 full days to completing a dungeon now, as opposed to the 1 from previous games. I'm willing to accept this because it feels more like you are setting up for a heist, but combined with all the other mandatory events it is kind of a bummer. I was alerted to the exams coming up, but suddenly they tear 3 days in a row away from you to explain the randomized dungeon, introduce characters, and even force you into a social link scene.

I really hope that I'm almost to the point that the game will start to cool off on this. I don't remember Persona 4 being nearly this bad about it. At the very least if it does keep doing this I hope there isn't a major timeskip later in the game like in P4. I just really feel like I am making little progress overall because of these interruptions.

My only real issue with this is wasting evenings for no reason. I like that there are more things going on to occupy days, it makes the pacing feel a lot better than just a long string of do-whatever.

But Morgana has to stop chiding me to go to bed on time.

May is pretty heavy on the limited days, but it frees up eventually from what others have told me. It sounds like its actually easier to get most of the confidants/social links in comparison to the past games if you know what mechanics to use. There's still plenty of year left. To put it into perspective, by May in P4 you had only saved Yukiko. Now imagine how much more time you had left after that. P4 also had its fair share of wasted days. You basically blow through a whole week when Yosuke asks you to help at Junes for example.

@mezza: I think this one just feels a lot slower to start. It's a lot more "Hey let's stop for a sec while I teach you about this new system/mechanic!" It feels a little overbearing at times. Maybe because it's been so long since I played 4? Could just be my perception.

Don't get me wrong, I think this game is amazing and I'm having a blast so far, but the tempo is kinda stop and start.

Also Morgana. I like Morgana just fine. But, sometimes, I just want a little peace and quiet. Let me read my novel on the train. You're never alone. Ever.

@dr_monocle: I agree, it definitely feels odd on the pacing at first. I don't know why, but going straight from boss to memento to exams to new dungeon panicked me a bit. I'm not even sure I'd say slow is the word because they basically throw you straight into a tutorial dungeon which feels better than going like 4 hours without combat. Something definitely makes the passing of time feel heavy. They kind of let you loose and then pull you back to the rails almost immediately, so maybe that's whats hitting me harder. It was like a tease that didn't deliver as much time as I expected. It might just be because this is the first time since 2013 that I haven't felt confident in how to best spend my time in a persona game, but I totally get where you're coming from. I'm just trying to remind myself that I'll likely play this game more than once, so if I don't get as many events and confidants as I could its not a huuuuge deal.

I've actually been thinking about this a bit because Morgana does seem a bit overbearing, but then I realized what he's doing is just replacing those instances in previous games where the narration would say something like ">You're tired. You should get some sleep", or ">You have some time. Would you like to read a book?" by having someone outright tell you to do it. Basically, the way he comments on each and every thing you can do has me feeling like he's a bit of a nagging mother hen, even though it's actually not much different than P4.

My memory of Persona 4 is that the start of that game felt like an unending pit of exposition.

This game isn't much different but I think by jumping around task to task it offers a wider variety of things to do besides just talking and that in turn made it feel like a way better paced intro to me.

@mezza:Exactly. The letting you loose and reigning you in thing is kinda jarring. You get that system message about spending your time freely (which is kinda when I feel like we're "off to the races" in Persona) and then there's still 4 or 5 things they stop you for after that. I just got to Memento for the first time and was honestly surprised that there was still that much left explained after the first palace. Maybe I've grown impatient, I dunno.

@redyoshi: You're absolutely right and that thought totally occurred to me. Maybe because it's another character instead of just narration from the void? The thing I like about Persona is that when I decide to hang out with someone it's me and them and then maybe I'll do something else on my own for the evening. Rent a DVD or something. But Morgana is always there. Study time? There's Morgana. Batting cage? Morgana's here. Making a little extra scratch at your job? Morganaaaaaaaa. I do like him otherwise. I'll get used to it.

I would have preferred the internal narration then Morgana constantly telling you what to do or commenting on what your are doing, she/he is just obnoxious in large doses. Also the game seems to lock you out of doing activities for no good reason on some days. Like not being able to do stuff at night after a day in the dungeon makes sense, but Morgana locking you in your room and refusing to let you do anything but sleep on a day where all you did was run one simple errand (selling the gold medal to the gun shop guy) isn't a rational reason for you to be too tired to do anything. The game seems to be railroading you more then P4 did so far.

Another annoying thing is party members constantly pestering you to go do the Dungeons. I know it was in P4 but it's unnecessary now that you have a big red count down timer in the corner of your screen with the exact number of days lefts to complete the current dungeon, and they pester you even more then P4 now that they are sending text messages about it every day. The game serious needs a "BTFO I know how to play the game" option or a way to medicate your party on OCD pills so they chill out.

@meatsim: Them texting you about dungeons is actually quite helpful, because it means you can instantly warp to the hideout from anywhere without having to navigate extra menus. It's far more convenient than it is annoying. Plus it's just a text, so you can always ignore it.

@meatsim: I prefer the text messages over getting phone calls at night or having them interrupt your walk into school in the morning. I can read the subject of a text and choose to ignore it much more easily.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this way. Early parts of this game feel glacially slow. I mean, I like what's going on with the story and whatnot, but I wish they would just let me fuckin play sometimes. "You've got a big day tomorrow. You better get some sleep! I mean...I know all you did was hang out with your friends and do nothing, but you still can't go outside and do stuff because reasons." The game hammers home the point of spending your time wisely and literally doesn't allow you to plan you time at all for long stretches of time.

I haven't played/watched 4 in agres, so maybe it was worse, but either way, I don't think that excuses the early parts of this game. Again, I love so much about it. But then there's this shit.

Yeah it's really annoying to introduce all this shit (jobs, burger trials, movies, books, coffee making, tool making, social links) and then go two whole months without letting you do much of anything.

It's one thing to say, "you're too tired to do anything at night cause you fought in a dungeon" another to say so on days where all the team does is meet up to talk plans. Not only does a dungeon require three days, there's the additional days someone like me whose not an expert fighter/SP manager needs to clear it, at best two, maybe three. But also like three or four wasted days that were just the exposition uncovering the "next boss". I feel like in may you get one daytime day a week to do something, and maybe two or three nights. Since the Punk Dr. levels up so fast I haven't done things like batting, training, coffee making, etc.

Apparently there's a social link power that lets you work nights on days you went into the TV. Hopefully you can get it soon.

The pacing and urgency is either one extreme or the other. The lead up to the 3rd palace is kind of insane with this. You're sort of just letting the plot develop every day until the dungeon starts. I'm actually a secret sucker for slow openings. Especially in this game which is supposedly 100 hours. I also didn't play any previous Personas, or many JRPGS, so I can't tell if this pace is normal. Either way this feels normal, for this type of game.

Also I don't think there's any real worry when it comes to getting things done. There's a social link that helps out with this but in general, I haven't had too much trouble getting things done. Also it seems that most of the early confidants rank up pretty quickly.

The more I play the more I think I prefer this style.

P3 and to a slightly lesser extent P4 were so focused on just making sure you hit a deadline that it started to make major plot developments feel like incidental roadblocks in the way of getting back to your normal everyday schedule. I like the plot asserting itself more when it needs to.

Needlessly wasting evenings is still frustrating though.

Agreed, though I think it's mainly the switch back from open to closed that makes it stand out. You get the two weeks of the first dungeon to complete it and run other activities. But then the run from first dungeon end-exams-mementos-second dungeon was pretty infuriating in terms of taking up your time unnecessarily. You run through two weeks worth of events where it jumps you into forced activities or plot and further takes away your nights with no explanation beyond "you should sleep." And it's not even the week jumpcut of exams or vacation, it's day after day of slow exposition and no freedom.

Though mainly I'm just upset they made me return all my DVDs super late.

I really couldn't help but laugh when I was finally allowed to finish off the last half of a DVD I had for the better part of that second month and the store clerk's response when I handed it in is just the most withering tone. I wish there was a way to tell the guy my cat kept sending me to bed early so it wasn't my fault. At least they're nice enough to waive the first late fee.

I mean seriously. I just spent the day pawning some stuff. I can watch the X-Files and be fine for tomorrow. And even if it was an exhausting day, isn't that when you veg out in front of the TV when you get home?

I think a lot of people feel this way during May. There's a good week and a half where you literally have no free time even though the game reminds you when and how to spend it. I will say once I got past that stretch you are definitely given a lot more free time. I also noticed looking at the calendar that it includes January, February, and March and there are exams and such during it, so I assume those months will also be playable. Vanilla Persona 4 skipped them entirely with the same amount of social links and options of things to do, so I think the extra days needed for dungeon crawling might be offset by that. I could be wrong, however, it's just an observation.

Though the whole not being able to do stuff at night when the big thing to do the next day is go stand around an art exhibit is a little bit of nonsense.

I'd definitely like to know if there's a point in the game where it just lets you go nuts with your schedule. Remember December in P4G where it just lets you do whatever the whole month? Something like that.

Okay July is pretty savage about this as well.

It seems best to just assume a lot of down time until a mission starts.

I don't get this complaint at all. I don't know about the rest of you, but one of the mains draws for Persona games is the story and the interactions between the characters, particularly when the whole group is together. I loved the first half of June because there was a bunch of great group dynamic stuff going on, I didn't care that most of those days didn't allow me to go study or work at the convenience store.

The game will give you enough free time to complete all the confidants and max all your stats by the end of the game (even if requires very optimized time management, which is true of the past games as well). A day where story stuff or mandatory activities happen does not mean you're losing out on an opportunity to do other things. The Persona games that use this design formula (3,4,5) have always been like this.

Get out of the mindset that a day where scripted things happen is somehow a lost day. Enjoy the story and character interactions, that is presumably one of the main reason you're playing the game in the first place.

I don't mind the pacing at all, but I roll my eyes every fucking time the damn cat tells me I have to go to sleep early for absolutely no reason

Yeah I don't necessarily mind the pacing. I mind the god damn cat acting like Bobby Boucher's damn mother every night.

It got much better immediately after I made this post, I'm at the end of June, and have not felt like I had an unnecessarily wasted day since the second dungeon opened up. The second dungeon just opened up so fast it was jarring, but I now feel like the game has officially opened up.

Was just thinking about this, being tired after a dungeon is fine, but whole days being dedicated to some dialogue when you have already tasted freedom is quite annoying. When things are coming up, you kinda worry how the game will take time away from you. Think as others have said, it's the early May part that makes players feel this way.

The game isn't taking time away from you though. They design these games specifically so you'll just barely have enough time to do everything in the game by the end if you effectively manage your time. If these "stolen" days were open, you'd finish every confidant and be maxed out on skills before end of the game, and you'd have nothing to do except go home and sleep every day.

@ll_exile_ll: Which is probably fine for series veterans. It's all well and fine to design the game that way, but players (especially new players like me) have no way of knowing that's how the game was designed. To noobs like me, it just looks like the game is taking days off the calendar at random. A deadline is counting down and it's utterly meaningless. So what if the game says I have "14 days" to complete the dungeon? It takes days away from you seemingly at random and with no warning. Most of the stuff it forces you into isn't even on the stupid calendar they give you so it's not like you can plan for it. Even if it's designed to give you plenty of time, it sure doesn't feel like it.

Personally, I think there's a real lack of rhythm to the schedule. Some days you go to class, some days you don't. Some days you have morning activities, some days it skips you straight to after school. Sometimes you can hang out AND study, other days you can only do one. I don't understand the rules or logic behind it. If I can do one self-chosen activity per day, then let me do one activity per day, no exceptions. Don't let me do one activity some days, zero another, and then allow me to do multiple things once in a blue moon. It makes it impossible to plan anything.

The game never takes days from you when a countdown is going. The scripted story sequences happen pretty much exclusively between palaces. Once a palace is available, the only scripted days will be when you finish it and sometimes as a result of a progress within the dungeon. That happens during Madarame's dungeon when you hit a roadlblock halfway through, but the game warns ahead of time that it will happen. When the game tells you there are 14 days until the deadline, those are 14 free days you can count on. Some will have to be devoted to palace clearing, calling card, etc, but the game never randomly skips ahead when have a countdown.

As far as what you're allowed to do on a given day, you have two self chosen activities per day. One during the day and one at night. I don't know when you think you were able to do two things on the same day, but I guarantee you it didn't happen. The classroom scenes, reading on the train, etc. happen at specific times and exist as stat point opportunities. They don't happen every day because you'd max all your stats way too soon if that were the case.

During a day where no scripted events happen, you can do one thing during the day, when that is done it will immediately be evening and you can then do one thing before you go to bed (unless your daytime activity was a dungeon, then your day is over). Those are the rules and they never change.

Unless your one thing that day was to go into Mementos, which is your entire day without a certain confidant ability later.

I think I preferred your internal dialogue instead as well but I guess in the end it doesn't make much difference. the same complaints were made about that back in the day too with "why is the game deciding what im thinking?"

hell even I said it. so I guess im responsible for morgana :(

Let me tell you about my DVD late fees. I got interrupted so many days that I eventually forgot about the DVD I had rented until the late fee was over 15,000 yen. Thank God it was one of those random moments where the fee is waived.

Exactly, when the fuck can I watch the DVD's I rented??? I wish I could skip classes, like an entire month.

@blackout62: I've gotten my fee waived twice in a row after the first courtesy time. I've never had to pay them. My current theory is that if you return the DVD at night they'll waive (or at least be more likely to?).

@ll_exile_ll: As a first time Persona player, this is exactly how I have been approaching it. I'm loving the game so much and I can't believe I have slept on this series for so long.

@bradbrains: I'd just like to be able to read a book or study those nights. Considering how stats block SL progress at certain points it'd be nice to advance those lol

That would make sense. All the times I've returned late DVDs was at night.

I really like the pace of this one, there is a lot less freedom, but I feel like stuff is happening all the time. I failed to finish P3, because it was just endless days of nothing between short story sections. I stopped renting DVDs thought, because it has been almost impossible to finish them. I probably played over 10 hours yesterday and It's all I can think about... this is a fucking great year for games.

So, let me tell ya'll who are worrying about this that the game does open up later on. You get more free days, and you get stretches of nearly full months where you can pretty much do as you please, with a couple of story beats here and there that might take up an afternoon but let you roam about at night.

That said, this is a considerably story-heavier game than previous installments. Once you get used to it, I actually think it's a big improvement. That said, it sure is grating when that fucking cat keeps acting like your evil stepmother. So why is it that I still love the guy/girl/thing?

1) I met with Ryuji after school to run track and then I was allowed to study after that. Both took place after school. But on other days those both seem to take an entire "after school" period and I have to go to bed afterward.

Additionally, there are some days when I'm allowed to make tools in my room before I go to bed. Then some days that f*ing cat makes me go straight to sleep. Again with no seeming logic to when one occurs over the other.

2) I think that's a balance problem then. Just make it so that it requires more points to reach each level. The game keeps telling you to make a schedule and plan your day, so let players plan their day. If they want to read on the train, then let that be a consistent option, not a

Whatever. You're clearly in love with the game and I'm clearly not. I like it's style, but this game just reminds me of all the ways JRPG system design pisses me off, so I think this one gets deleted from my hard drive pretty soon. I feel like I'm being penalized quite heavily for not having prior experience in the series.

This will go away the further you get into the game but I agree its very annoying either way. Like others have said, this one is much more story driven and less focused on the day to day school grind.

Both in game and in real life. HEYOOOO

@lawgamer: it's likely you were able to study because there were exams coming up. The game gives you chances to raise your knowledge that you wouldn't have otherwise in those cases. New players might make the mistake of ignoring stats, so that extra chance was there to help you. There's also a confidant that allows you to do an extra task during some days, but I kinda doubt you have that yet unless you're pretty far in.

It sounds like you're coming into this with the wrong expectations. Why do you have to plan every day out ahead of time? The game isn't about finding the most efficient way to spend every single day of the year. That's a task people take up on future playthroughs typically, but rarely their first. The mechanics simply don't require that level of planning unless you're trying to maximize everything on your first run. Which most people will tell you is a horrible idea for a new player unless you're in new game plus. You're supposed to just enjoy a story and use social aspects of life to strengthen yourself for the challenges the story brings. This isn't some life management simulator where your schedule comes first and foremost. It's a JRPG with social elements. As other people have said, if your day gets skipped it's because you're transitioning into the next palace or chapter of the game, and the game is in full story mode. Anytime the game has something scripted planned for you the next day it'll use that as a chance to reign your focus back into the core of the game.

Have priorities for what you want to accomplish in between dungeon periods so you know what you want to focus on improving, but don't expect to beat able to assign every day a specific task from the get go. The game has its own set of rules just like any video game. Why can't I jump on that ledge? The developers didn't want you to get on that ledge. Why can't I go out before going to bed? The developers didn't want you to that night.

Because the game told me to? Literally one of the first tutorial messages you get flat out tells you "Time is limited. Plan your days carefully." If that isn't what the player is intended to do, then that's a flat out shitty tutorial to give them. I'm not a mind reader. If a game tells me something in a tutorial, I take it at face value. So if it's telling me to manage my time and have a plan ahead of time, that's what I'm going to do. And when the game then frustrates those plans because of its own unexplained reasons, then I'm going to get frustrated.

Again, I will say that I think this game is kind of hostile to series newcomers in that respect. Everyone in this thread dedicated to telling me I'm wrong seems to have prior experience in the series and thus "knows" that there's plenty of time to do things and that you aren't "intended" to min-max a first playthrough. Well, I'm new to the series, I don't know. So if the game tells me something that later turns out to be an "alternative fact," let's call it, then I think that's bad design. It shouldn't be up to series veterans to educate new players - that's the game's job and I think this one is doing a particularly bad job of it.

@lawgamer: What prior experience gives you is the sense that you can plan your day and be efficient, but in the end, everything you do is useful. You'll feel better if you just go with it! Let days go by.

You can always crunch the numbers, save scum or read guides too, but in the end: everything you do is useful in some way.

The game does take its sweet time at the beginning before letting you run wild, though I honestly can't say if it's any different in this regard from P4. There are also other times where the game decides to take a stretch of several days to do mandatory story stuff, but over time I internalized the game's patterns, so I got to the point where I could see them coming. In general, you can count on having full control over your schedule during the countdowns and about a week afterward.

The one thing I wish they'd ease up on is having your friends constantly pester you to finish the Palaces. it's like, there's a giant red countdown on the screen at all times, I know what the stakes are. Just chill out for a sec while I try to make it with this high school girl!

@lawgamer: The plan your days carefully message is in regards to the deadlines. As in, don't wait around until the last day when we tell you that a goal has to be accomplished by a certain day. Do something productive with time that we give you. It's a warning to let you know that if you put off the dungeons you will get kicked back a week for failing. The game also says "take your time" at nearly every loading screen. Don't feel rushed. No where in the game does it say that you have to plan to accomplish everything or you'll lose.

It really seems like you're not allowing the game to teach you which is why we're having to tell you. By playing the game you learn that it goes an entire year and that you have plenty of time to do whatever you want, but not enough time to do absolutely everything. The game even says you'll be on probation for a year. I have to reiterate, you're getting fixated on what you think it should be and then not allowing the game to adjust your conception of it over time. This game is a slow burn, and you won't understand it all even with the first month or two. It's a long game and you have to play it to discover the rhythm of what works for you. It'd be like me walking into dark souls and not allowing my experiences as the game progresses to shape what I think the game should be. You're going to have a bad time if you do that with any game.

This style of game just might not be for you because it seems like you're looking for something way different, and then taking it out on the game.

The game does eventually open up around the second dungeon, and I haven't felt as constrained as I did around then. Definitely felt like the tutorial took longer, but that could just be impatience. The pacing around the first exam was bad. Dropping the exam on you and then spending the next couple of days with forced events is kind of nightmarish when you were intending on studying. I managed to get my knowledge to the next rank the day before, so it wasn't terrible, but in the moment I was kind of panicking, like others mentioned.

The game suddenly capping nighttime events during plot critical periods is intensely frustrating, every time it happens. It makes the game feel like it has very distinct segments. Like "okay, now we're in plot land, so don't think about doing any of the social stuff because you need to go to bed early every night". Persona 4 had some of that too, but I don't think nearly as much. It's happened less since the beginning, but every day with a cutscene has me worrying now. If the cutscene happens at night, then I get it, but sometimes it would be an afternoon cutscene, then I'm forced to bed.

That all said, what I wanted to bring up is that this isn't totally new. Have ya'll replayed 4 recently? That game also pulls more days from you than I'd like. Replaying the game, I was focused on maxing out social links, and I was definitely swearing whenever another festival or event was happening, because it meant I had to lose a day, at least once a full week, before I could get back to social links and dungeon crawling. Main point being that this isn't really a new thing, I think we're all just more aware of it now. And it's possible that 5 is a little worse about it.

Edit: One last point: some of us, especially series vets (and I'm including myself here), should probably chill out a bit. The first playthrough is not going to be well optimized. We're going to max out maybe half of the Confidants, and hopefully max out the social stats. The previous Persona games were the same way. This game is good, and we should probably trust the game, when it takes so many days and nights, that we have enough time to see most of what we want to see.

The very idea that you're frustrated because a story event, which usually includes all the characters interacting with each other, is impeding your ability to dungeon crawl is just crazy to me. The story and character interactions are the main draw of the series as far as I'm concerned. I like the dungeon crawling and social links too, but what you've described here, the feeling that scripted story sequences are somehow intruding on your time to dungeon crawl or do s-links, is something I've never felt.

I look forward to those story sequences, and I know there will always be plenty of free days to do other things. If all you're interested in is a time management simulator, I'm sure there other games where a story won't get in your way.