Persona 5

Persona 5 is a model of efficiency. This is an ironic observation about a game that easily creeps across the hundred hour mark, but it’s also an comfortably defensible declaration. Every aspect of Persona’s contemporary history has been observed, considered, and improved, creating a level of refinement that will have ensnare its audience’s attention with features pedestrian as the game’s menus. Ultimately, Persona 5 builds on a foundation established by Persona 3 over ten years ago, only it’s so exhaustively and aggressively refined that it achieves a singular level of role-playing purity.

Basic definition remains unaltered. Persona 5, like Persona 3 and Persona 4, is a careful fusion of dungeon crawling, monster recruitment, and a social simulation. You’ll spend as much time bashing shadows (read: monsters) and participating in turn-based combat as you will forming a close-knit team of misfits and establishing relationships with eccentric characters across Tokyo. These seemingly disparate pieces always reflect onto each other; earning experience in battle is as vital to survival as helping the local nurse practitioner sort through her infamous history. Persona 5, usually for better and occasionally for worse, is an adrenalized and dexterous rendition of a familiar, beloved performance.

Despite a fierce allegiance to its heritage, certain facets of Persona 5 feel driven to toward distinction. This is evident from its cold open, which projects your silent protagonist extraordinaire and his band of Phantom Thieves in middle of a massive heist. The operation goes poorly, and soon you’re whisked away to an interrogation room to begin Persona 5 in media res. The story unfolds through an orchestrated series of flashbacks that compose the game’s story. It’s a simple framing device, and one that’s used heavily through all forms of media, but it feels unique inside of Persona’s traditional trappings.

Modern Persona is defined by the classic fish-out-of-water premise. In the case of Persona 5, your main character chose to intervene during a clear instance of sexual assault. The predator was a person of power, and thus you (and your ruined reputation) were sent to live in the shit hole attic of a family friend’s bar in Tokyo. In Persona 5’s busy world, word travels fast that you’re a criminal and any chance of finding friends (or respect) at your new school is eliminated. Thankfully, there are other ostracized students at Shujin Academy. And they’re all anxious to change the status quo.

Persona 5’s opening is also one source of internal conflict. Its rearranged delivery is the product of an impulse to change and the need to establish a different focus. How it unfolds afterward, however, is the same disorienting slog atypical of the remaining 95% of the game’s routine. Establishing your character’s circumstances—his living situation and his social standing at his new high school—and setting up Persona 5’s premise takes an enormous amount of your time. Persona 5 is ultimately a game about managing time across a vicious structure, but the first six or seven hours are spent building the machine.

This is where Persona 5 is most likely to lose newcomers. Word of mouth from Persona 4 (and its iterative PlayStation Vita follow-up, Persona 4 Golden) is ripe with tales of making friends around rural Japan and slaying monsters to your heart’s content. No one lionizes the grind of the opening hours, and Persona’s reputation betrays reality of its ponderous opening. This isn’t necessarily Persona 5’s fault, and I have no idea how Atlus should solve this problem, but it’s something to be aware of if you’re going into a Persona game for the first time.

The force behind Persona 5’s narrative is another source of change. Rather than focus on solely on the id behind a villainous ego, the scope is widened and you’re contending with total societal disintegration. Persona 5 separates its dungeons and its villains into community-spanning dilemmas, pushing issues like bullying, sexual assault, extortion, isolation, and suicide through the eyes of Japanese high school students. This is an ambitious undertaking, and it reinforces the protagonists’ much desired reputation and redemption as civic heroes. Your team from Persona 3 and Persona 4 operated in the shadows while those from Persona 5 desire a public measure of social change.

Persona 5’s group dynamic shifts to accommodate their civic duty. The Phantom Thieves (or whichever moniker you choose to rename them). Everyone’s “persona” in the shadow world is a figure of rebellious import, like Captain Kidd for Ryuji or Ishikawa Goemon for Yusuke. They also adopt codenames to conceal their identity, like Panther for Ann and Joker for whatever you choose to name the main character. Even the actual personas are now represented by masks the characters wear, feeding into the Phantom Thief motif. It’s closer to Persona 3’s SEES squad than Persona 4’s Investigation Team, but the Phantom Thieves still represent a considerable shift in series parlance. Thematically (and mechanically) they’re more of a coordinated team than ever before.

The conceit for exploring dungeons and wasting shadows is justified through a mixture of Jungian psychology and, well, creative fiction. Those who committed gross infractions against their community all have their own “palace” haunted by demons. The Phantom Thieves explore this palace literally through a contrivance that isn’t worth explaining. Scouring through palaces is a mixture of puzzle solving and turn-based combat, all of which culminates in the Phantom Thieves stealing their mark’s treasure and, later, confronting him or her in a climactic boss fight. In each case, the palace must be completed before a certain extremely well marked date rolls around on the calendar.

Persona 5’s palaces are its most substantial deviation from the classic formula. No longer composed of procedurally generated hallways populated by idling shadows, each palace is purposely designed and deliberately occupied with prowling enemies. Each one has its own theme, incorporating natural obstacles like security cameras alongside surreal puzzles like hopping through different sets of paintings. Enormous bank vaults, Egyptian tombs, and nightmare casinos are complimented with multiple floors, save-point friendly safe spaces, and their own contextually appropriate puzzles.

Stealth elements, aside from being a natural extension of a thief’s abilities, help the guide the player through Persona 5’s palaces. A snappy cover system at predefined points protects you from the wandering gaze of shadows, and shifting between cover is a breeze. This allows you to sneak attack shadows—insuring that you party gets the first shot at attacks—and is essential to managing your time in palaces efficiently. Stealth’ing across cover can get sloppy, especially when the camera won’t cooperate, but it helps Persona 5 justify its Phantom Thief motif.

Mementos, a procedurally generated, enemy-laden, myriad-floor dungeon, is Persona 5’s solution for extraneous shadow bashing. Under the guise of side-quests—taking out minor foes to solve miniscule problems—you can choose to invade Mementos and scour its confines for specific enemies. The rest of its floors are populated with wandering enemies, item crafting pick-ups, and treasure chests. I found Mementos to be a good place to grind out some extra cash for the always-too-expensive equipment, but I still much prefer the structured style of palaces.

Combat falls in line with Personas past. Turn-based battles capitalizes on discovering an enemy’s elemental weakness and applying it to every one of them on the field. Figuring out weakness is the product of experimentation and, thankfully, instantly remembered by the game’s user interface. Finding out Sandman is weak to electric, for example, will be remembered forever and highlighted in the user interface. Pressing R1 expedites this process, performing the correct attack for you. All the traditional elements—physical, wind, fire, ice, electric, bless, and curse—return, but they’re bolstered by long dormant additions. Nuclear returns from Persona 2 and Psychic is reprised from Devil Summoner. A gun, with limited ammo and generally employed for potshots or to exploit weaknesses, is also present but feels like a secondary thought.

The expanding cast of Phantom Thieves arrives with elemental specialties that complement the current dungeon. When Makato joins, it’s no coincidence that her nuclear skills are a perfect fit for Kaneshiro’s Bank’s hoard of nuclear-weak monsters. Your main character, in traditional form, transcends traditional roles. He can wield a menagerie of personas (hey, that’s the name of the game) from a small collection, assuming he’s managed to acquire them inside of dungeons or forge them in the Velvet Room. Pokémon is an apt comparison, albeit somewhat misguided given Shin Megami Tensei’s older age.

In fact, dormant elements of Shin Megami Tensei are responsible for Persona 5’s “new” method of acquiring persona. Demon negotiation makes a fiery return from Persona’s estranged progenitor, and thankfully operates under the guise of logic this time out. Speaking to weakened monsters opens up a dialogue with three different options. Four different classes of monsters—upbeat, timid, irritable, and gloomy—respond differently to serious, vague, or kind replies. Matching your replies to their disposition opens them up to recruitment. Of course, you’re also welcomed to pump them for extra money or collectively vanquish their existence. Shin Megami Tensei’s demon diplomacy hasn’t had the greatest track record with regard to clarity, but it couldn’t have been easier under Persona 5’s basic set of rules.

Persona 5’s brand of turn-based combat has been field tested for nearly two decades, creating little room for iteration. Abandoning the whole thing would be silly—outside of Final Fantasy I doubt anyone has enough resources to start over every time—but Persona 5 impresses with a few of its own flourishes. Depending on your affinity with different party members, they can come to your aid outside of turn in specific instances. Stepping in during failed negotiations, blocking a fatal attack, and curing status ailments are a godsend. Along similar lines, the “baton pass” mechanic is brand new, allowing party members to hand over their turn to others with a more immediately applicable skill set.

With all of this in mind, it’s still possible to get completely wiped out if you’re the least bit unprepared. Stumbling upon an enemy with instant-kill attacks like mudo or hama, or one with an elemental attack that corresponds to your current weakness is a recipe for frustrating disaster. Party members can (and will) die with frequently, but if you main character is wiped out, the game ends. Persona 5 has some checks in place to correct this—generous “restart battle” and “restart dungeon” options work well with frequent save points, not to mention your confidant’s abilities—but there’s still ample opportunity to get MegaTen’d by random fits of bad luck.

Exploring palaces is one way to spend time in Persona 5 and, frankly, you should be doing it as infrequently as possible. Once the game settles into a groove, you’re able to do what you want with your afternoons and evenings after school concludes. You can work at the flower shop and make a little extra money, and earn a few points toward your Kindness. The bathhouse is open in the evenings, which will boost your Charm. Studying while drinking coffee boosts Knowledge and Charm, while reading Pirate Books might boost your Guts. Five different personality traits demand to be fed points, and different levels of these traits gate your relationships with different Confidants. Everything in Persona 5, in one way or another, feeds into itself.

Making friends around the city is Persona’s third pillar. Over the course of the story you’ll run into some characters scattered across Tokyo. A journalist with a drinking problem, a fortune teller with dubious business contacts, and a personal “maid” with a tremendous daytime job. Hanging out with your Confidants burns time, but builds a ten-part story arc and creates helpful game-affecting bonuses. The fortune teller, for example, can boost the cash you earn from battles while the nurse practitioner will give you a discount on healing items. Once again, it’s all connected.

Confidants, like the Social Links that powered Persona 3 and Persona 4, compose the soul of Persona 5. They temporarily transform the game into a de facto visual novel, complete with limited input regarding your responses to their questions. All of the Phantom Thieves double as Confidants, essentially providing individual b-stories to run alongside the overarching plot. You’ll spend hours with all of your new friends, and long after you’ve left Persona 5 behind, they’ll last in your memories longer than combat and customization.

While strongly written and totally unique in their field, Persona’s social systems are starting to get a little creaky. Persona 5 can’t sway a conversation or a storyline off its tracks (which feels slightly behind its peers), and while the game doesn’t need this, it often feels like it doesn’t matter what kind of response you give. The conversation will proceed ahead as planned. The same goes for the sheer amount of text and conversation available. You’ll find yourself in text chats that instantly recap an event that just transpired, or nag you about entering palaces day and night. Basic conversation, while admittedly fueling character development, is anything but productive. This is the only area where Persona 5 doesn’t feel streamlined into 2017.

Mechanically, you’re building relationships with Confidants to further your abilities in the Velvet Room. In English, this translates to the bonuses acquired with fusing different persona together. Each Confidant and each group of persona correspond to a particular tarot card, and you’re able to receive outrageous stat bonuses by fusing a persona matching the highly-invested Confidant. Fiddling with persona in the Velvet Room can be an obsessive, time-consuming activity, but I found paying minimal attention to it (i.e. only fusing insane persona when I was getting utterly destroyed in a failed boss battle) to be sufficient for managing the game on normal difficulty.

Everything you do—outside of the Velvet Room where time is always free—burns time, and Persona 5 contains a finite number of days across a real calendar. How you spend your time is ultimately up to you, outside of a few natural progression gates. At its best (or worst, depending on your personal obsessive tendencies) Persona 5 is an efficiency management simulator, pushing the player to minimize activity as an investment for a maximum return. There are guides to facilitate this style, (and a great network option to crowd source what everyone else did, day by day) but I found greater peace just going with the flow. I didn’t finish all of my Confidants when the credits rolled, but I got what I needed from the ones I cared about.

From a raw technical perspective, Persona 5 is a slightly better looking version of its PlayStation 3 counterpart. It’s an illiterate point of view, however, because every aspect of the game is draped in style. An accurate point of comparison is the difference between Okami’s prototype versus the stylized wonder that eventually came out in 2006. Photorealism is admirable, but ultimately unsustainable and susceptible to time. Highlighting it all with inspired fantasy, however, means that it will remain attractive forever. The Legend of Zelda: Windwaker, Jet Set Radio, and Okami have a new contemporary in Persona 5.

There’s no better place to illustrate this point that the post-battle sequence. It lasts fewer than six seconds, but speaks with authority. Every character drops in place and flashes a pose while Joker takes off running, all to this evocatively victorious slice of music. You will see and hear this happen one thousand times and somehow remain transfixed at every opportunity. Shoji Meguro remains a gifted composer, and his contributions to Persona 5 are consistent with the rest of his exceptional work on the series.

A month after Persona 5’s release, it’s hard to remain aloof over some of its major criticisms. I read Kenneth Shepard’s article about its dated measures of homosexual relationships. I’ve also read through Molly Lee’s take on the seemingly rushed localization. I don’t disagree with either of them, and I empathize with people personally affected by decisions from both the development and publishing arm of Atlus. It’s impossible not to think about this, and what Persona 5 could have been with an additional level of accountability.

The rest of the game, however, exudes confidence and care, and makes these aspects feel like a gross oversight in an otherwise accomplished product. Someone thought about almost everything in this game and then polished it with a level of dedication exclusive to projects with six year development periods. The menus and the transitions between them are the most stylish and gorgeous displays I have ever seen in a videogame, and their endemic of the entire project. Entering a subway car, getting lost in Shibuya, and just sitting in Leblanc and listening to Beneath the Mask repeat are all ways to fall into Persona 5’s surreal authenticity. Persona 5’s strengths don’t make me forget about its shortcomings, but they affect its balance. It’s a wonderful game.

Persona 5 can last from 80 to over 100 hours. This is a lot of time. A majority of it was everything I wanted and everything I didn’t know I wanted. I made friends, I destroyed enemies, and I indulged in some of the finest art I have ever seen in a game. The end is a bit of a drag (Persona still doesn’t know how to properly end or begin a game) but the journey is what mattered. It took a month of my time, but I will keep the memory of playing it with me indefinitely.

It comes down to this: Persona 5 will be beautiful forever. Meticulous thought and consideration has been applied to Shin Megami Tensei’s durable model of dungeon crawling and Persona’s paragon of social simulation, creating a brilliant pulse visible through (almost) every aspect of its performance. Keeping this pace across a formidable timeline is Persona 5’s most impressive trick, ensuring it will steal your heart without wasting your time.