Really baffling to read people say they want the combat cut. I guess I'm coming from this as a long time Persona fan and not a first time outsider, but the combat, dungeon design and the way its been integrated into the confidants has never been better. Some of the later dungeons start to drag their feet with their gimmicks, but otherwise I've never enjoyed the dungeons in Persona games as much as I do here. Combat feels super slick and rewarding, especially when you're doing ambushes, alk out attacks and then being rewarded extra money for wiping out all enemies in the first turn.

@drilbey: This is my first Persona game and I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed the combat. I initially thought about putting it on easy since I haven't played many JRPGS, but I'm really glad I didn't. I find the loop of "find weakness, knock everybody down and all out attack" really satisfying! It hasn't gotten old after 135 hours.

@poobumbutt: P5 is my first Persona game and I don't think I could love it more. I will be stunned if anything beats it for my GOTY.

Never played Persona 3 or Persona 4, but I've seen the entire Endurance Run, so I was very excited for my first Persona game.

For the first time in many years (just done with studying) I got an entire summer without 'part-time-gone-full-time' work or school to hinder me from playing a long game. While not perfect I must say that I really like this game, and I'm enjoying it alot. I've been having a schedule of playing about 4 hours of it every night for the last week, and I'm about 30 hours in by now. The combat is so-so, but I don't mind it too much since I like the package as a whole a lot anyway. Each night when I'm done I'm looking forward to the next session, and wonder what will happen next, so I feel that i'm having a good time. First time in probably six years where I can take my time with a long game and enjoy it as it should be.

Guess people have their own opinion on this, but for me it's been a blast so far :)

While I wholeheartedly agree, GOTY will probably go to Breath of the Wild, because it's, well, Zelda.

My big problem has been the writing. At times, it feels like a game written for children with literally zero attention span who lack literally any ability for critical thought. Characters will constantly remind you of every little fucking thing all the time. Like, I can't decide what's worse, finishing a palace as soon as possible or taking your time. Finish quick and every other day, you'll get a text conversation wondering if the target will really have a change of heart. Try and take your time and your party will constantly blow up your phone because they're worried you'll run out of time.

This also bleeds over into the actual story as any and all subtlety or nuance is wasted on the fact everyone under the sun repeats the same shit over and over so you're hardly ever surprised at what happens next because it's practically laid out in advance:

• "We're getting too popular! This is scary!"
• "lol Akechi is so useless! Who needs him when we have the Phantom thieves!"
• "Are we really doing the right thing here, guys?!"
• "Haha, let me explain my evil plan again just in case you didn't catch it last time!"

Oh, and for fuck's sake, don't even get me started on the Mementos targets. Who the fuck signed off on those? There's one that involves a man beating his girlfriend and when you find his shadow, it's quite literally like "I'm so angry! My life sucks! Where is my girlfriend so I can beat her! I need to take my anger out on you!" Like...great fucking job there, guys. I get they're supposed to be small, one off things, but no one in the history of the world talks like that ever.

The main bosses/targets suffer from the same thing if I'm being honest. It's like the game doesn't trust you to understand their motivations so they have to spell it out for you repeatedly and in great detail just so you're clear. Every time you come across the tiniest bit of intriguing imagery in a palace, the game makes sure to stop, have everyone focus on it, explain to you what it means, play that sad music, and remind you how sad it all is.

I'm tempted to let Kamoshida slide since it's the first palace, but again, every time you come across anything, the game halts and is like "this must be how he views the volleyball members!" or "this must be how he sees the female students!" or "this asshole thinks he runs this school!" Yes, game, I fucking get it. All I ask is for a little bit of trust that I understand what you're trying to convey. I don't need or want characters to point out every single detail.

Who did they write this game for? This is like some cringey C-tier anime shit.

Other than that though, I love the game.

@babychoochoo: I think a lot of that is the crutch of being an 80+ hour JRPG that its story has to be spread out on, so its main story beats need to be re-emphasized and don't have the luxury of a 12 hour game's moment to moment immediacy. And Mementos targets are small 5 minute sidequest that have to have their story reduced to a couple of lines of dialogue, hence their simplicity. It's not great but I understand why its like that.

@mezmero: I mostly agree. I'm someone who likes the grind in games like this, because it allows me to watch other stuff while doing so (like the P4 ER!). Also, I've thought quite a bit about how I feel on others' criticisms of the game and I think this might just be a game I'm fine with enjoying without putting too much thought into "why" or what it could have done better. Maybe that's a shitty outlook to have, but it just makes me so happy that it exists that I'm happy to just say "P5 was everything I wanted. Any shortcomings are made up for by what it nails. End of thought."

That said, I can put aside this mindset to say that the combat system and strategy has been around since 3. I wouldn't mind a change-up in that regard for sure, even if personally I would still want dungeons to take hours to complete.

Regarding Morgana: While some of the "you have to go to bed" reminders are forced — if memory serves, they're the ones that come when Protagonist is automatically loaded into his attic bedroom — there is an S.Link you can max out that will allow you to go out and about at night even on those days when you go into a Palace or Mementos. That's why after leaving the Metaverse, it will kick you into Cafe Leblanc's main room instead of automatically forcing you into a sleep sequence: there's a way to get out of it.

Regarding NG+: you don't have to do that, you know. (And it's probably due to playing on a PS4 vs. the PS3, but having just cracked the 100-hour mark, I don't think loading times were bad or even noticeable.)

Alright, so I'm at the 110 hour mark now and at this point I'm just angry haha.

This game is really too damn long. The best parts are the social sim stuff which is legitimately wonderful, even if the characters have almost zero growth and you see every character the game has to offer halfway through. The combat stuff has devolved into a grindy mess of watching two meters go up and down, and it has barely changed since 4. Or 3 for that matter. P5 has actually made me look back on the previous games less favorably. I played P3 on the PSP over a looong stretch of time and it was a great game to pick up and grind a little before bedtime. P4 was propelled in large part by the endurance run commentary for me, but now in P5, towards the end of the game every skill is in its ma variety, and the possibility space for actual tactics is ultra thin. It's truly puddle deep stuff. Shido's palace and everything that has come after it has been an absolute slog, dozens of hours past any sort of plot development in its ludicrous main story and every social link I could care about maxed, and it just goes and goes with endless combat. Oh cool, a boss that can summon 2 others that will heal it completely, has no weaknesses and does almighty damage, SUPER FUN: I found myself just turning off the PS3 out of sheer exhaustion. It's way too much. P5 rewards your 30 minute slog through a boss fight with a dozen more just like it. It really has zero excuse to be 100+ hours deep, and if anything the same complaint can be leveraged at the previous games too. The combat just isn't very interesting beyond the Persona collectathon, the skills begin repeating halfway through, and the plot is a flopping half-dead fish by the end. It's an amazing varial kickflip into an awkward stumble.

A week ago this was a strong 4-star game for me, held high by generosity of content and fantastic music. It's now uncomfortably at 3 and that makes me genuinely sad. It's like having thrown a party and it was super fun but hey it's been 11 hours now please leave people oh god who is that in my bed why is there coke all over my kitchen table I never asked for this

I finished my playthrough at just over 123 hours and have just begun my New Game +.

I had a very similar reaction to the bolded statement of yours, albeit on PS4, but that turning it off was actually a godsend: even though I was doing other things in my life, a small bit of my brain kept mulling over this puzzle, as that's really what it is. The next time I played it, I realized it was just a matter of eliminating one of the two summoned creatures and then keeping the other one off-balance by exploiting its weakness. With proper buffing and debuffing, eliminating the boss and then the health of the remaining henchman was pretty easy.

Makoto's madiaraman (sp?) is also mad useful; though it burns SP, that really hadn't been an issue since I had amassed nearly 100 of the soft drinks that restore 5 SP each by buying them weekly at the various vending machines.

That fight is very easy, once you know what to do. The two healing angels are week to curse attacks, which includes instant kill curse attacks. If you use an attack that has a chance to instantly kill all enemies with a curse attack, it will pretty much never miss. This makes every turn the enemy summons backup almost a wasted turn. When it comes to the enemies in that area, I just kept making myself invisible so I could just fight the bosses. You're darn close to the ending, so keep going.

After playing several hours of Persona 3 and hating it, followed by playing several hours of Persona 4: Golden, and hating that too...I've passed over Persona 5 altogether. The series simply isn't everyone's cup of tea, and THAT'S OK.

The game would have to drop the whole highschool simulation and fictional relationship building for me to take a second look...but, would it even be a Persona game by that point?

I'd completely forgotten about that ability! Thank you for reminding me!

There were several gameplay mechanics I (nearly) completely skipped over, like the various stealth tools and giving gifts to Confidants. I need to try them out on this new play.

The biggest problem with P5 was also present in P4 and P3. That is, when your main character dies the whole party is wiped. This combined with insta-kill spells is just stupid. I consider it a bug. Do you waste a spell to protect the main guy from insta-kills every time you fight a new enemy or one you know can insta-kill? I know I don't because it would be tedious and mostly ineffective. Party was wiped twice by this in my 110 hours of P5. Considering the number of battles, that is a low enough percentage and with frequent saving isn't a huge deal. It is just stupid that I have to replay anything because of this. I rage quit P3 the first time this happened to me when I was not prepared and had not saved for a few hours. It is a testament to how good the rest of the game is that I kept playing these in spite of this crap.

In P5 it seemed really important to always get the jump on enemies (with Ambush) or at least not let them get the jump on you. If you do it seems like the battles are mostly a cakewalk, but if you don't it can go really bad for you even with easy enemies. For example if they can cast Despair on your party and there are 5 of them and they all get to go first. (I could kill them with a glance, but I never got a chance!) I don't remember having the advantage being so important in P3 or P4. But my memory of combat in them is not strong.

To be fair, this is kind of the point of the whole SMT series and the press turn system.

You need to ensure you have the upper hand. If you do, you could very easily wipe them....but it goes both ways. regular SMT games are brutal with this.

I agree the game should let your party members revive the main character though. That's always been a problem

I think dungeon 4-5 are really bad, 5 being hot garbage in terms of, 'oh lets throw enemies at you that are resistant to everything but one weakness, have fun guessing!' I just finished dungeon 6 and honestly that whole sequence was fucking awesome. I wish they gave a certain human fount of pure happiness that is the late game more time, I'm fucking rushing to max her out to date her. I think despite the 2 bad dungeons, this is my favorite persona game and one of my favorites of all time ATM. Trying to finish it before i go abroad in 3 days to japan for a month.

I just started i'm only on my first palace, but I like what I have played and the character I have meet so far. While Persona 4 was a nice game it, in retrospects the characters came off as more like tweens than teens. I think I appreciate these characters having a feeling of complexity under their surfaces. Weirdly, it feels like a more brutal game, which is weird, because if we were to compare it to game where kids put guns to their heads or are hung execution style from towers PS5 is probably no more or less brutal. This one just feels a bit more more sober and aggressive about the deaths and what is going on, even while what is being shown is very highly stylized.

Like I said, I'm just enjoying it. I think you can get lost in the weeds comparing it to the first four Personas because they are reused and retooled tropes over and over again. The above does not make this one less enjoyable for me...maybe that just me.

In doing my New Game Plus, I realized another reason why the game loads you into the room and not directly into bed/sleep: it gives you a chance to save your game after exposition dumps.

Finally finished after 91 hours. I'm not sure it reaches the same heights at P4: I don't think the special group segments in P5 are as good (the whole Hawaii bit was such a missed opportunity for me, and they're nothing compared to the P4 bathhouse scene for instance) and the Palaces ranged from awesome to really fucking annoying (See: Okumura's Palace). Still really, really love the game though.

Honestly, the biggest problem is how many times the game cuts to a shot of the street or a train station and shows people talking about the Phantom Thieves. Eventually I just started watching these on fast forward, because these are EXCRUCIATINGLY long otherwise, and they all say the same thing. Those scenes are completely superfluous with the Phansite poll on the calendar every day.

I'm guessing you had the dialogue set to auto-advance? Otherwise, you can just button through those parts at normal-human-reading speed. Those sections were the main reason I turned that feature off.

@spunkyhepanda: Oh wow, I had no idea that affected those scenes. Very silly that you can't button through those when auto-advance is on, but now I know this for NG+, thanks!