Persona 5 Review

The long awaited sequel to the main Persona series has finally arrived, and boy is it Japanese. Sorry, I thought I was going somewhere with that… The well-loved school-’em-up series has been running for 20 years, and despite many spin-offs (and a re-release) to Persona 4, people have been eagerly awaiting Persona 5 for a number of years.

In case you’re new to the series, there’s no need to have played any of the past titles (which is good, since I’m only five hours into Persona 4 Golden). Each one is self contained, though as mentioned there are spin-off titles and, of course, various anime. The gist of them is: you take control of a Japanese guy as he has to contend with running his school life, and fighting evil. You have to manage your time -- studying, meeting with friends, going dungeoning, working part time jobs...

Persona 5 kicks off with your character being arrested because you couldn’t escape the police. You’ve been playing for ten minutes and already been arrested, you suck! Fortunately, it turns out that was supposed to happen, and after some police brutality the story begins in earnest as you choose your name and begin telling the story of the Phantom Thieves…

Joker in his Metaverse outfit

Yes, the game is told through flashback. If you hate that plot device, avoid this game. I’m not averse to it, personally, so I happily continued on. You find out that your character -- he’s often referred to as Joker, so I’ll go with that -- was sent to live in Tokyo on probation, after he assaulted a man to protect a woman. Despite the students at his new school, Shujin Academy, all finding out about the assault (and apparently none of the details past ‘Joker hurt someone’), he is soon making friends and hangabouts.

You’re under the care of Sojiro Sakura who runs a local café, Leblanc. If you cause any problems for the next year, you'll be kicked out and sent to juvie. You meet Principal Kobayakawa and your teacher Sadayo Kawakami, who was not happy about Joker joining her class, who let you know one wrong move and you’re out -- and sent to juvie.

Eventually you are pulled into a world of Shadows -- the Metaverse -- where people’s perception of reality take shape. If you believe your distorted reality strongly enough, it will create what’s known as a Palace, which are accessible to certain individuals. It's hard to explain, but for instance if you thought of yourself as king of the office, your Palace would be a castle where you are monarch. The person is unaware that such a Palace exists within their heart, but certain things done in the real world can alter the Metaverse: things such as opening doors.

Your three closest confidants are Morgana, Ryuji Sakamoto and Ann Takamaki. If Ann wasn’t modelled after the Batman villain Harley Quinn, I’ll eat a snack. Ryuji is the classic Japanese ‘tough guy with a heart of gold’. Morgana doesn’t get a surname as he’s a human in the form of a cat, and can also alter his shape in the Metaverse because Japan. The characters may start off a little archetype-y, but they get well-rounded, and I really cared for them as the game progressed. Not Joker, but that’s because he’s a silent protagonist.

Seriously - Harleen Quinzell right here

You do obtain other confidants, and I use that term rather than ‘friends’ because the game does, but some of them are optional or can’t be unlocked until you meet certain criteria. They are people you meet and build up a relationship with to earn their trust. Levelling relationships grants you extra abilities, and is usually done through simply spending time with them and doing what they like. For instance, Take Takemi likes you taking experimental medication (she’s a doctor), and Igor likes you merging Personas.

Personas are what give you special abilities in battles. They do spells and attacks which cost SP or HP. They gain new attacks by levelling up (which they do as well as the characters themselves), but are generally one type -- such as fire or wind -- and like Pokémon are weak against a counter type. Joker is the only person who can use multiple Personas, meaning that you can change which element he is weak against. You get more by talking to shadows during a battle, and can make different ones by merging them in Igor’s Velvet Room.

I’d apologise for taking this long to start talking about the battle system, but Persona 5 is still giving you tutorial messages to explain the new concepts added 20 hours in. This is over six weeks into the game! I can understand not wanting to overload people, but it’s a little ridiculous…

One of the mid-game confidants

Anyway, the combat system is turn-based, and the person who has the first turn seems to be random which is confusing. There’s no speed stat, just sometimes it’s Joker, other times it might be someone else depending on who is in your party of four. Any extra characters “follow at a distance”, ie: catch up for relevant chats but aren’t useable in battle. The obvious way to win fights is through killing the attacking shadows, but that’s not the only way. If you know (or can work out) what they are weak to, such as a fire move, then it will stun them and the one who used the move will get to go again.

If you stun all of the enemies, you’ll begin a Hold Up which, as the name implies, has your characters aiming guns at the downed shadows to extort them. You can talk to them to get power, money or items depending on type of mood they are in. Some shadows -- like bosses -- cannot be spoken to, and your only option is to do an All-out attack, which has your whole party attack rapidly for big damage.

Speaking of guns, each character has a melee and a ranged weapon -- some enemies are weak to elements, others are weak to gunshots. Your options in a battle are attack, block, shoot your gun or use your Persona. As you explore a Palace, you will probably run out of ammo and unfortunately, you can only reload by leaving the Metaverse. If you’re running low on health, however, you can restore it outside of battle using a single button press, which is a feature I absolutely adore.

Igor's Velvet Room is very different to the one in Persona 4

You can use items to do the same, but those aren’t exclusively outside of battle. In the real world you get healing items from vending machines, shops or the Shopping Channel on Saturdays. Of course, there are other items that you require for crafting lockpicks and a few other items, which take time out of your day.

As is tradition, time is a resource in Persona 5. You have a certain amount of days to steal treasure from Palaces, but up until the deadline you can do whatever you want. Spend the whole time sleeping if you wish -- it will result in a game over, but you can do it. You have to make a choice between making enough money to keep your weapons and accessories up to date, spending time with confidants and keeping your stats up. Luckily most of the jobs do increase your stats, which are often required to acquire certain confidants, or increase their levels.

It’s quite a challenge knowing what you should do, as on any given day a confidant might want you exclusively. If you tell them that you’re going to spend time with them, you can’t do anything else -- it increases their level much faster. If it’s raining and you planned on going to the bathhouse, you’re going to have to choose. Some confidants are unavailable on certain days, too, so if you miss a chance to spend time with Ryuji, you might not get another one for a few days.

The male version, Incubus, is wearing less clothes...

I do have a couple of problems with Persona 5. They’re not game ending, but it’s worth bearing in mind that despite the great graphical style, it appears that they designed Joker’s hair before his face, and weren’t willing to change it. His eyes are too far apart, which you can only tell when he moves his hair, but it’s weird. Why didn’t they just remove some of the hair and move his eyes closer? When he's wearing his mask in the Metaverse, it’s not noticeable, which really makes me wonder why his real world face has it.

Also, if you’re hoping to jump in for a quick session, you can only save at certain points. There is a lot of talking, and reading, to sit through, and when you’re dungeoning you can only save at the entrance or at a safe room.

The final thing I’ll touch upon is the soundtrack, which is great. Lots of boppy J-pop, with some fun post-battle tunes and enjoyable incidentals. I found myself humming the battle victory tune a couple of times, around my kids.

That speech bubble means they want to spend time with you, rather than just chat

All in all, Persona 5 is a very enjoyable game. Weighing in at over 100 hours of gameplay, with very little chance of being overwhelmed by tutorial messages (because they’re spaced across the hours), it’s one that you will want to spend time with. Brilliant voice work, a decent translation and solid gameplay mechanics make this one of the best RPGs I’ve played in a long time.