Post by lordofshadow on May 29, 2017 6:02:20 GMT
Just finished Persona 5, and I LOVED it. It's one of my favorite JRPGs ever; only Persona 4 and Chrono Trigger really compete. In a year without Breath of the Wild, it'd be my game of the year.
For the neophytes, the Persona series in a nutshell: You're a teenager going to school in Japan in a coming-of-age manga by day, with a splash of dating sim. By night, you fight people's inner demons by fighting literal demons, with a splash of Pokemon. While dressed up as a gang of Phantom of the Opera thieves on heists within people's souls, in P5's case.
Crucial to the game is the characters: you spend a lot of time building up relationships and talking with people in the game, which often translates to direct mechanical benefits. And it works because, like P4 before it, the cast of characters are fantastic: by the end of the game I felt like they were a group of friends I'd just grown up with, and I loved them all dearly.
The game takes place over a year of in-game time, and you've got a bit of a time limit throughout the game: each day is split into day and evening portions, and you take actions that use up that time. You're constantly making hard choices about your priorities within somewhat unpredictable schedules. It gets you really invested in your choices, and they have real consequences - there were a few characters I wasn't able to max out my relationships with by the end of the game (it's nearly impossible to avoid that unless you follow a guide).
P5 is also the most stylish game I've ever played. It's got a high contrast, bold, colorful aesthetic that oozes from every pore and detail, from visuals to writing to soundtrack. It's got a very in-your-face theme of teen rebellion - all your party members have been wronged by society's systems, and phrases like "spirit of rebellion" and "selfish adults" are thrown around a lot. But it works because it takes itself seriously enough that it crosses the melodrama event horizon into great storytelling and you buy into it completely. Like a good Final Fantasy game, but way better. It helps that they have a great framing device: The game starts with you in police custody, and most of the game is a retelling in an interrogation room - which sets it up for some great narrative tricks.
The UI is gorgeous and they put a TON of love into it. Some art director over there was really meticulous about making sure every tiny detail helped sell the aesthetic. It's got the biggest and most impressive collection of screen transitions I've ever seen, every shop has a custom UI, every loading screen has a custom animation.
Which brings me to my last bit of gushing: this game's soundtrack is mind-blowingly good. Shoji Meguro outdid himself. There are elements of j-rop, j-hip-hop, house, industrial, and jazz. The composer has described his inspiration as "acid jazz", but it's not as mellow as that genre. And unlike most modern games, it isn't afraid to have strong foreground themes 100% of the time. It's really, really good. I've got 17,000 MP3s from hundreds of game soundtracks, and this is among the top five. 32 tracks from the soundtrack have made it onto my "top rated" list, more than any other OST.
It's only got one flaw that bothers me: it's too long. My final save says 99 hours, and I think they could have chopped out 20-25 of those hours without losing anything. But it's a minor complaint, and I was still sad when it was over. I've been listening to the soundtrack, looking at the art, and writing this post as a cathartic way of stepping down from the high.
It's good, you should play it.
For the neophytes, the Persona series in a nutshell: You're a teenager going to school in Japan in a coming-of-age manga by day, with a splash of dating sim. By night, you fight people's inner demons by fighting literal demons, with a splash of Pokemon. While dressed up as a gang of Phantom of the Opera thieves on heists within people's souls, in P5's case.
Crucial to the game is the characters: you spend a lot of time building up relationships and talking with people in the game, which often translates to direct mechanical benefits. And it works because, like P4 before it, the cast of characters are fantastic: by the end of the game I felt like they were a group of friends I'd just grown up with, and I loved them all dearly.
The game takes place over a year of in-game time, and you've got a bit of a time limit throughout the game: each day is split into day and evening portions, and you take actions that use up that time. You're constantly making hard choices about your priorities within somewhat unpredictable schedules. It gets you really invested in your choices, and they have real consequences - there were a few characters I wasn't able to max out my relationships with by the end of the game (it's nearly impossible to avoid that unless you follow a guide).
P5 is also the most stylish game I've ever played. It's got a high contrast, bold, colorful aesthetic that oozes from every pore and detail, from visuals to writing to soundtrack. It's got a very in-your-face theme of teen rebellion - all your party members have been wronged by society's systems, and phrases like "spirit of rebellion" and "selfish adults" are thrown around a lot. But it works because it takes itself seriously enough that it crosses the melodrama event horizon into great storytelling and you buy into it completely. Like a good Final Fantasy game, but way better. It helps that they have a great framing device: The game starts with you in police custody, and most of the game is a retelling in an interrogation room - which sets it up for some great narrative tricks.
The UI is gorgeous and they put a TON of love into it. Some art director over there was really meticulous about making sure every tiny detail helped sell the aesthetic. It's got the biggest and most impressive collection of screen transitions I've ever seen, every shop has a custom UI, every loading screen has a custom animation.
Which brings me to my last bit of gushing: this game's soundtrack is mind-blowingly good. Shoji Meguro outdid himself. There are elements of j-rop, j-hip-hop, house, industrial, and jazz. The composer has described his inspiration as "acid jazz", but it's not as mellow as that genre. And unlike most modern games, it isn't afraid to have strong foreground themes 100% of the time. It's really, really good. I've got 17,000 MP3s from hundreds of game soundtracks, and this is among the top five. 32 tracks from the soundtrack have made it onto my "top rated" list, more than any other OST.
It's only got one flaw that bothers me: it's too long. My final save says 99 hours, and I think they could have chopped out 20-25 of those hours without losing anything. But it's a minor complaint, and I was still sad when it was over. I've been listening to the soundtrack, looking at the art, and writing this post as a cathartic way of stepping down from the high.
It's good, you should play it.
