Okay I’ll be honest, TECHNICALLY speaking, it was not a 100+ hour game… it took me 98 hours but it’s close enough (I played on easy mode). That being said, I’ve played many JRPGs before, Fire Emblem, Octopath Traveler etc. and I always drop them at some point. Not cuz I’m not enjoying them, my adhd brain just finds something else new and shiny to hyperfixate on. So the fact that I not only finished the game but also played it everyday for a month until I finished it is literally mind blowing to me. I also proceded to spend $100 on steam to get person 3 reloaded, persona 4 golden, persona 5 royal and persona 5 strikers (I already had tactica on my switch). My wallet thanks steam winter sale.
CAUTIONThis review will contain some spoilers for the game, if you’re just wondering if you should try it the answer is 100% if you like turn-based games that are heavy on the story, also you should go in blind!
That UI is BEAUTIFUL
I’ll get this out of the way since most people will agree, that Persona 5s UI is absolutley AMAZING. The colors, the special transitinos that hide loading times, the cool effecs everywhere, wiggly boxes and busy experience was my cup of tea all the way. Now is it easy to read? Eh, personally I thought so but I know for most people it can be very busy and hard to keep up with, but thankfully since this is a turn-based game where you have all the time in the world to look at the UI it works out fine. I never saw the UI as too busy but that could just be my adhd brain liking all the extra stimulus all the time.
Heck, I liked it SO much that I’m looking into recreating the UI myself in Godot. I’d actually like to just recreate the entire game one day, but I really want to learn how to make UI that looks like that so maybe you can expect a few Persona 5 UI tutorials in the future 👀 I’ve already started taking inspiration on the UI layout for my game I’m working on. I just started so it’s very bare bones, but I’ve been toying with UI layout ideas and have already created the first verion of the players health bar as well as the dialogue box.
The Characters
Listen, I absolutely LOVE characters in games, they’re sometimes the best part of the game to me. Fun bantering dialogue is what I love and games like Persona 5 and Honaki Star Rail accomplish this goal really well in my eyes. There’s so many characters to build relationships with, it’s impossible (from my understanding) to get them all done before the game is over, hence why I plan on replaying the game and focusing on characters that I didn’t get to max out the first time around. I can’t speak to all the characters since there were some I rarely spent time on, but I’ll talk about the characters I did max out or get far in.
Death Confidant - Takemi
When I started her story, I had partially done it to get better medicine but also because you could gain guts with it, so I killed two birds with one stone. But I quickly became invested in the story with the girl she was trying to save with her medicine that we had become test bunnies to. It was also the first character where I realized you could go into the mementos for them, the idea of progressing one of the characters stories by taking someone down that had wronged them in the mementos had somehow not occured to me but I enjoyed all of them. While I didn’t make a huge use of her medicine sales (I usually just used Morgana or Makoto for healing), I did really like the character story as well as the UI, seriously I think the way the UI looks like pills and the vibrant blue colors were super cool.
Temperance Confident - Kawakami
When the whole maid scene started, I’ll be honest it DID NOT go how I expected 😅 That being said the perk you get once you max her out is well worth it and I totally should’ve focused on her more to get it quicker if I had known. I thought her storyline with the parents were rather interesting and it was cool to see how she changed to become a very dedicated teacher at the end. Although her being dressed as a maid and calling you master was… interesting… I’m just glad that eventually stopped.
Hierophant Confidant - Sojiro
Alright, Sojiro, one of my favorites. I’m a sucker for found family so it’s no wonder his storyline was one of my favorites. Seriosuly seeing him slowly like the character more and more was my favorite and creating curry or coffee with him was always fun, plus free kindness points! The curry also came in clutch with it’s better and better SP recovery options, since those are what I used most in my playthrough. Seeing Sojiro claim you as his son at the end was one of my favorite parts 😭
Hanged Man Confidant - Iwai
This was, unfortunately, not a storyline I could complete but is the first on my chopping black when I play Persona 5 Royal. If I had known his was also a family storyline man I would’ve been all over it. It had taken me a while to get the gun, also I had waited about the guts for a while, having not used the guns much during gameplay I didn’t see it as a priority at the time, kinda regret that now but it’s okay I can always just do him next time. That being said I did get over halfway, just not enough to finish. His storyline with his son and the yakuza history was interesting to follow along and I liked how he warms up to you as it progresses. Iwai, I’ll come back to finish you!
Tower Confidant - Shinya
Can you see a pattern? Another found family vibe storyline. I didn’t know ahead of time, just stumbled upon it but this was another I couldn’t finish in time. I was super close too, I believe just one or two more levels. I had gotten to the point of helping his mom by defeating her in the momentos. He is a useful one to talk to if you need more kindness points for Sojiro, since he awards kindness when you hang out with him. Of course I did most of his storyline after I had done Sojiro which means my kindness was already maxed out so not of much use gotten out of that. I loved the brotherly dynamic between the two though and can’t wait to go back and properly finish the whole storyline.
Moon Confidant - Mishima
Even though Mishima was not someone I was hugely attached to, I will include him just to say that I loved the way his mementos was taken care of. Going into the momentos, finding him and not fighting him, instead trusting that he will fix himself was such a nice storyline to have in there.
Hermit Confidant - Futaba
Last but not least Futaba. As you can guess the whole sibling-like relationship the build up was something I liked although between everyone else (and racing to max my kindness for Sojiro) I didnt’ get very far. I think only level 4 or 5? That being said the short bursts I did have were fun and her benefits are actually really good, so I really should’ve gone farther if not for the storyline for just the benefits themselves.
Justice Confidant - Akechi
Ah Akechi, I totally thought youd be back after getting “shot” in the metaverse (although I think he does comeback in Persona 5 Royal with semester 3 addition). That being said I completely distrusted him the entire time, after all I’ve played enough games to know when someone will betray you. But… at the very end, they made me second guess what my final feelings on Akechi are. Akechi being jealous of Rens (the main characters) life was an interesting view point considering they were both wronged by the same person. And the final dialogue with him was rather intense and had be listening to every beat. I look forward to his storyline in Perosna 5 Royal to say the least.
As for the other characters, some of them like Ohaya I thought were interesting I just don’t have too much to say. All of his friends were cool, I got to level 7 with Ryuji and Ann and level 5 with Makoto and Yusuke and… Haru was like… 3? I hardly did her to be honest kind of forgot about her (sorry Haru). I was just too interested in the others and while I enjoyed the storylines I wasn’t as into them as the others, so yeah. They’re cool, but not much to say ¯\(ツ)/¯
You might’ve noticed I didn’t mention romance at all. The romance option really isn’t necessary and is just for extra fluff and fan service, but I just wasn’t interested enough to focus on that, instead I was more interested in other character stories and many that I was interested in just wasn’t an option or was a… I guess in Japan technically legal option, but that didn’t make it any less uncomfortable of an idea. The fact that you, a minor and a high school student can date adults and even your own teacher is definitely weird. It’s pretty easy to just ignore though, simply chose the friendship option at the ends of their storyline. I think I’ve read online that the team seems to regret putting those options in there but I’m not 100% certain on that, I can just hope it doesn’t appear in Persona 6 but it doesn’t push it on your in my opinion, so it wasn’t a huge deal.
That being said I may do a romance next time just to see what happens. Although hanging out with Ryuji (and also Yusukue if I had gotten far enough) on Valentines day was pretty funny tidbit lol.
The Combat
I honestly don’t have too much to say on combat. It’s more or less standard, charcters have weaknesses and strengths and even repel and drain and a persona has a bunch of moves you can use like a Pokemon. That being said the persona fusion COMPLETELY threw me off guard. Like seriously, watching personas get guillotened was not something I was expecting like… at all. Needless to say I watched it once and then skipped it everytime after that. I didn’t even use the training grounds, I felt too guilty 😭
Even though I thought the combat was fine, the baton toss and extra help chances were pretty cool, the one hit moves, I hate. I hate one hit moves in everygame. Why? Cuz not once do I think, ah man could’ve played that better! No no no, I just think that’s bullshit, especially cuz if Joker dies you just lose. Let me tell you having to redo a part of Futabas pyramid because of that made me just stop for the day, same thing happened later on in the dark rooms of the Casino. You can’t convince me that ont hit deaths is just a stupid mechanics that I don’t think should really exist in games, neither for the enemies to use or the player.
That being said the artwork for the all out attacks were amazing 10/10
The Palaces (Bosses)
I thought all of the palace designs were pretty neat, and the castle as the school was a great start to the game. Really threw ya in the deep end and made it clear from the start Persona will go into hard topics (which since I had zero clue about this game besides it had cool UI before hand, was a surprise to me). My personal favorite is probably… the casino. I liked all the colors na having Akechi along to use was nice even though I knew he was gonna beray us lol. I did get stuck on Okumara twice, I had to look up help for opening up those doors after floating all over the place for a while. Futabas pyramids had those one hit guys, who I again hated, so when it was over I let out a sigh of relief to say the least.
Final Thoughts
Overall, Persona 5 has quickly become one of if not my favorite game and my new hyperfixation and probably will be for a while. After all a month long hyperfixation?? That almost never happens to me. My hyperfixations come and go quickly, usually only lasting a week maybe less or a tad more. So this has been an interesting experience for me and I can’t wait to play the other entries in the series after playing Persona 5 tactics and strikers… and maybe Royal. I am quite invested into these sets of characters already. And say what you must, but I love myself a good angsty edgelord thief character. If you haven’t already, I definitely recommend playing the game. I played vanilla Persona 5 because it was on sale at Best Buy so I just randomly bought it, but I’m not sure you can even get it on steam since I think they only have Persona 5 Royal, which is just an adjusted and added onto version of Pserona 5 so it’s probably better to just go straight into that one if you have yet to buy the original.