Robaota

Disagree. I played Persona 3 _after_ Persona 4: The Golden, and it held up. Sure, the systems were clunky, but I liked the characters and the world/setting a hell of a lot. Persona 5 just felt flat compared to either of them. (Hell, I'm psyched for the Persona 3 rhythm game to come out, just because I enjoy those characters in that world. P5D I'm far less interested in). I've beat P3fes twice, and P3Portable twice, but I'm dreading replaying parts of P5, which I think is telling.

The big problem for me with P5 is that it hinges _everything_ on the main narrative, and it just isn't that great. You're on a tight schedule with the dungeons, and, unlike in P4, there's little to no character investment pushing you through them (it's not a case of "we must go rescue <party member>") so they end up feeling like more of an annoyance that has to be gotten past. The puzzle dungeons in the latter half of the game don't help either - they are incredibly tedious. At least in P3/4, you could just zone-out, get to the top, and fight the boss. Here, you've got to be paying attention to get through, but even when it does something interesting it repeats FAR too many times and just becomes boring (the Cruise Ship being particularly egregious).

It also feels like everything you do is in service of that main thread; there's no respite or downtime. In Persona 3 and 4, you had moments that were wholly unrelated to the overall picture (e.g. the school trip in P4, or the beach in P3), and there are social links that aren't tied to the central plot (e.g. daycare in P4, or the kid at the park in P3). You have some downtime, so even when the main story isn't particularly engaging, there are fun character interactions off to the side and you can take some time not really doing anything important. That's lacking in P5 - all of the story beats are part of the same narrative, most of the social links are tied in with it as well (and even when they are, it feels like they are only there to provide additional skills etc.), and the characters aren't as interesting (the way they are writing is just flat and come across as one-dimensional). It's wearing to not have that downtime, and the quality of the main narrative in P5 certainly isn't good enough to warrant that singular attention.

It doesn't help that the payoff to the main narrative is just uninteresting. For what should be a power-fantasy moment, the game just goes "here's a boss rush, and here's a monologue that might as well be carbon-copied from the ending of P4". There's no sense of payoff - it's just done.

There's _so much_ I love about P5 (the music, the style, and the combat are all fantastic, and some of the characters are good) that it might well end up being both one of my favourite games of the year, whilst also being one of the most disappointing games.

Didn't have time to read everyone's posts, I'm at work. Sorry if this has been said.

The Waypoint gang were discussing the growing trend toward individual voices in criticism vs. institutional reviews. In general, they were fine with whatever experience the critic had with a game as long as it's disclosed to the reader. I agree completely. If you say upfront, "I didn't finish Nier but here's what I think of it..." I don't think there's anything wrong with that. You can take that opinion with whatever grain of salt you wish. I also don't think there's anything wrong with having another opinion or seeking out the opinion of someone who did finish it if that's important to you. There's no dearth of video game voices out there.