LogFAQs > #896966458

1. Persona 5
Atlus
PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3
Released April 4, 2017

It's interesting that I post this as I start my second play through of Persona 5 to get the platinum trophy. Spending a little less than eighty hours playing this game in 2017 was nothing short of amazing, and it is my game of the year for 2017.

Persona 5 stars a high school student that is framed for assault after saving a woman late at night. As a result, he is put on probation and sent to live with Sojiro Sakura in Tokyo and attend Shujin Academy for the school year. Along with other students he meets,he forms the Phantom Thieves and is tasked with entering the Metaverse and stealing treasures from people's Palaces to reform them in today's society.

As with the more recent Persona games, Persona 5 has a number of social links called Confidants to pursue. Unlike Persona 3 or Persona 4, I found that all the social links in Persona 5 were written extremely well, some definitely in contention for the best links in the series, especially Sojiro's and Yoshida's, among others. Only one confidant can be somewhat annoying at times, but they are important in the story as well. There's plenty of activities to take part in during free time as well, such as fishing, hitting in the batting cages, and video games within the video game. Still somewhat annoyed at how hard the fighting game input was, but a lot of the activities are fun to partake in a few times.

The dungeon crawling in Persona 5 is highlighted by the Palaces as opposed to the random dungeons in 3 and 4. Each Palace has its own distinct layout that does not change. Despite some questionable placement of safe rooms in some palaces and the last palace's gimmick, most of the palaces are fun to explore and surprise the many Shadows within each. Instead of confronting the boss at the end of a Palace run, instead once a route is secured to the treasure in each Palace, a calling card is sent to the person in the real world and the boss is fought during the next day, allowing for more tools to be created and to be healed up for the fight. Some bosses are definitely challenging enough to make this necessary and it's a welcome difference that makes sense within the story.

The battle system also gets some new advancements despite retaining the same gameplay as previous games, some coming from the main Shin Megami Tensei games. Negotiation can be initiated when all the enemies are knocked down, allowing for new Personas to be obtained easily. The party members also carry guns and the protagonist can utilize different skills with the guns after advancing in one confidant. Also, party members can perform a Baton Pass after knocking down an enemy, giving another party member another turn and boosting their stats by a small amount. While the four elemental spells return from Persona 4, two come back from earlier games in the series to make six different elements (one for each party member, not including the protagonist). It makes for a little more strategy involved than the previous games when dealing with the Shadows.

This writeup wouldn't be complete without talking about the amazing music this game has to offer (and I've highlighted a few tracks below). The normal battle theme never gets old, even in the second play through that I'm currently going through. It's nice to see some of these tracks come on the CD that was included in the collector's edition.

I'm eagerly awaiting going through the game again right now, finishing up the Confidant stories I didn't manage to complete, and defeating the bonus boss for the platinum trophy. You should too, if you haven't already. It's definitely one of the best games released in 2017, and my Game of the Year.

OST links:
Last Surprise

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFVj0Z6ahcI
Rivers in the Desert

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaIo82uT0qs
Life Will Change

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk2eUGISZpk
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