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Oh yeah now that I've played both, the SMTV/Persona 5 comparison reviews really are ridiculous. SMTV has a very lonely and somewhat alien atmosphere while P5 is set in a bunch of cities with your friends always with you.
I just did Akechi's Rank 8 and boy howdy did that have some subtext lmao
They're very different games, but ppl make the comparison bc the fundamentals of the combat system (and the demons) are shared across SMT and Persona. Having played 60 hours of SMTV and 80 hours of Persona 5, the most notable comparison point I'd make is that SMTV has 0% of the style/flair of Persona 5 in terms of animations, menu interactions, cutscenes, and combat, and I think the game suffers from it.
I'm not going to suggest that a SMT should adopt the entire Persona gameplay loop, but it's shocking to me that both games came from the same studio (especially when Tokyo Mirage Sessions also exists). Going from Persona 5 to SMTV feels like going from Windows to MS-DOS.
They're very different games, but ppl make the comparison bc the fundamentals of the combat system (and the demons) are shared across SMT and Persona. Having played 60 hours of SMTV and 80 hours of Persona 5, the most notable comparison point I'd make is that SMTV has 0% of the style/flair of Persona 5 in terms of animations, menu interactions, cutscenes, and combat, and I think the game suffers from it.
I'm not going to suggest that a SMT should adopt the entire Persona gameplay loop, but it's shocking to me that both games came from the same studio (especially when Tokyo Mirage Sessions also exists). Going from Persona 5 to SMTV feels like going from Windows to MS-DOS.
Yes I am, decided to 'take the deal' to what the bad ending would be first. Then went back to correctly choose.
It was really good, I find that the 'even' palaces are my favourite (Madarame, Futaba, 6th palace). There was some backtracking but nothing major, the pacing felt good and it just naturally elevated itself. The lesser palaces have this clear feeling of "here's some random crap we made for you to deal with" while this felt like natural progression!
Yes I am, decided to 'take the deal' to what the bad ending would be first. Then went back to correctly choose.
It was really good, I find that the 'even' palaces are my favourite (Madarame, Futaba, 6th palace). There was some backtracking but nothing major, the pacing felt good and it just naturally elevated itself. The lesser palaces have this clear feeling of "here's some random crap we made for you to deal with" while this felt like natural progression!
Phantom Thieves: We can't let Shido know you're still alive, so lay low!
Joker: How bout I stay at Leblanc where Akechi knows I live and look at Shido's face in person
Phantom Thieves: We can't let Shido know you're still alive, so lay low!
Joker: How bout I stay at Leblanc where Akechi knows I live and look at Shido's face in person
Phantom Thieves: We can't let Shido know you're still alive, so lay low!
Joker: How bout I stay at Leblanc where Akechi knows I live and look at Shido's face in person
It's a gameplay practicality thing obviously, but it's not like Akechi has any reason to go looking for you, as far as he's concerned, he shot you in the head personally. It's not like he left you in some trap like an idiotic James Bond villain
It's a gameplay practicality thing obviously, but it's not like Akechi has any reason to go looking for you, as far as he's concerned, he shot you in the head personally. It's not like he left you in some trap like an idiotic James Bond villain
At least the mice are cute! And they were worse in the original, believe it or not. I didn’t mind them too much in Royal but I remember them dragging on a LOT in vanilla
COOOOOLLLL I JUST LOST AN HOUR AND A HALF OF PROGRESS FML
I beat Akechi earlier, got to the treasure room, got back to Leblanc... and closed my game thinking I'd saved when I hadn't. I NEED TO DO THE CLEANER AND BOTH AKECHI FIGHTS AGAIN IM GONNA CRY WHY IS THERE NO FUCKING AUTOSAVE
edit: THE STUPID THIEVES DEN UPDATED AFTER AKECHI WHY CANT IT GO FEOM THERE
COOOOOLLLL I JUST LOST AN HOUR AND A HALF OF PROGRESS FML
I beat Akechi earlier, got to the treasure room, got back to Leblanc... and closed my game thinking I'd saved when I hadn't. I NEED TO DO THE CLEANER AND BOTH AKECHI FIGHTS AGAIN IM GONNA CRY WHY IS THERE NO FUCKING AUTOSAVE
edit: THE STUPID THIEVES DEN UPDATED AFTER AKECHI WHY CANT IT GO FEOM THERE
Phantom Thieves: We can't let Shido know you're still alive, so lay low!
Joker: How bout I stay at Leblanc where Akechi knows I live and look at Shido's face in person
they literallly talk about being phantom thieves on public spaces
with hundreds of people around
communicating via unencrypted phones
straight up just incompetence on the police's part that they havent caught them but cops are all incompetent anyway so lol
Now that I have finished Octopath Traveler 2, I have started to get back into P5R.
Well, for now, I'm mostly getting into the batting cages. In case anyone was curious, it stops counting hits at 999, but you can keep going if you want to...
About to fight the fourth palace boss, and wew alarm Persona fusions are CRAZY in this game. I got some insane shit from those and I set off the alarm like four times in this palace alone.
Also I said this in another thread but I really didn't like how traps were handled here in Royal. You'll have the floor breaking and shit without warning and it's so loud, it makes my heart jump out of my chest.
COOOOOLLLL I JUST LOST AN HOUR AND A HALF OF PROGRESS FML
I beat Akechi earlier, got to the treasure room, got back to Leblanc... and closed my game thinking I'd saved when I hadn't. I NEED TO DO THE CLEANER AND BOTH AKECHI FIGHTS AGAIN IM GONNA CRY WHY IS THERE NO FUCKING AUTOSAVE
edit: THE STUPID THIEVES DEN UPDATED AFTER AKECHI WHY CANT IT GO FEOM THERE
I'm gonna finally get back into this game this week after 2 months of hiatus. I'm nearly done with TOTK main story which took over all my game time. Now that enough time has passed, I can recover from The Incident
About to fight the fourth palace boss, and wew alarm Persona fusions are CRAZY in this game. I got some insane shit from those and I set off the alarm like four times in this palace alone.
Also I said this in another thread but I really didn't like how traps were handled here in Royal. You'll have the floor breaking and shit without warning and it's so loud, it makes my heart jump out of my chest.
Oh yeah fusion alarms can be crazy good. It's one reason (among many) why I definitely recommend playing Royal on Hard or Merciless unless it's your first Persona game or something, there are just SO many tools and weapons available to the player to become powerful if you know what you're doing.
IIRC there's not a separate volume slider for Music/SFX/Voice like there is in most games, which is a huge bummer since it meant if I wanted to crank the music (obviously) then I have to randomly deafen myself with loud sound effects.
I've been posting my thoughts in the RPG thread, but I started the third semester tonight and I'm REALLY loving the story direction so far. Can't wait for more.
I've been posting my thoughts in the RPG thread, but I started the third semester tonight and I'm REALLY loving the story direction so far. Can't wait for more.
I can hardly believe we're approaching the one year anniversary of the Switch version and I still haven't played through the game. xD
My gaming time has really dwindled down to a bare minimum. Even the Switch is only of limited help as a hybrid.
I can hardly believe we're approaching the one year anniversary of the Switch version and I still haven't played through the game. xD
My gaming time has really dwindled down to a bare minimum. Even the Switch is only of limited help as a hybrid.
Same here, P3P (through PSP bc) and P4G on Vita were my introduction to Persona, and the series has firmly been a handheld one for me ever since (well, the same is true for pretty much any RPG these days). Getting through P5R on Switch is my best shot, but it's not going super well regardless. That's not due to the game itself... well -- partially, it's just too damn long. :'D
But overall I've enjoyed my time with it so far.
I played both 3 and 4 on playstation 2. Now that I think about it it's wild that we had to wait so long for 5 and now for 6 and in the past devs were releasing whole trilogies in a gen. Anyways, I had p5 in gamepass, but I prefer to play jrps on handheld, so it's good they also released in on switch. Great game.
I never would've gotten this far into the game if it wasn't for the Switch's handheld mode, I like handling a few side quests or Mementos days on the go.
I've finally got it and am still quite in the beginning (just started second palace), but being able to play in short busts here and there even on days that I don't have that much free time make a total difference.
I never would've gotten this far into the game if it wasn't for the Switch's handheld mode, I like handling a few side quests or Mementos days on the go.
I played vanilla on PS4, I did my time. Being able to play this long ass game on my Switch Lite is such a godsend, there’s no going back for me. Even just playing it in different rooms is sooooo nice.
Just got to the 5th palace's arc in my replay of Royal and man I forgot about how poor the direction of the plot/characters in this bit is, in addition to being a pretty big pacing killer IMO.
Just got to the 5th palace's arc in my replay of Royal and man I forgot about how poor the direction of the plot/characters in this bit is, in addition to being a pretty big pacing killer IMO.
I'm in the fifth palace in my playthrough, and it's a lot of "the treasure must be through that door!" and that door keeps leading to another huge room with bland puzzles.
Just got to the 5th palace's arc in my replay of Royal and man I forgot about how poor the direction of the plot/characters in this bit is, in addition to being a pretty big pacing killer IMO.
I'm in the fifth palace in my playthrough, and it's a lot of "the treasure must be through that door!" and that door keeps leading to another huge room with bland puzzles.
It gets some points for being such a different looking place (spaceport, more tech-y music, etc.) but yeah the arc leading into it and the fifth palace in general just isn't great (I admit I kind of like the airlock puzzle, though!). Thankfully that annoying section with Morgana etc. isn't all that long, and the end of the fifth palace leads into the best section of the game.
On the third semester I feel like if you've maxed the Night Confidants and stats there isn't a lot to do lol. I'm just taking party members to the jazz club.
On the third semester I feel like if you've maxed the Night Confidants and stats there isn't a lot to do lol. I'm just taking party members to the jazz club.
I still don’t fully understand the color puzzle towards the end of the final dungeon but I got the last Will Seed and got the hell out of there… I was going on 30 minutes without a checkpoint and I was in a car ride while playing so I just beelined to the next Safe Room as the car was coming to its exit.
The new dungeon was overall pretty interesting, think I’m close to the final boss now. It’s a little bittersweet that I’m near the end but I just hit 125 hours so I’m ready lol
Also this was the first time I ever did a dungeon with a bunch of green Shadows. Mementos was the same way in the third semester, was almost all green Shadows towards the end. Made it easy to grind and collect Personas.
Being able to play this game portably has been a godsend, let me tell you.
I still don’t fully understand the color puzzle towards the end of the final dungeon but I got the last Will Seed and got the hell out of there… I was going on 30 minutes without a checkpoint and I was in a car ride while playing so I just beelined to the next Safe Room as the car was coming to its exit.
The new dungeon was overall pretty interesting, think I’m close to the final boss now. It’s a little bittersweet that I’m near the end but I just hit 125 hours so I’m ready lol
Also this was the first time I ever did a dungeon with a bunch of green Shadows. Mementos was the same way in the third semester, was almost all green Shadows towards the end. Made it easy to grind and collect Personas.
Being able to play this game portably has been a godsend, let me tell you.
Oh man, you're nearly to one of my favorite parts of the entire game now. I liked the final dungeon too, but I'd probably rank it fairly middle of the pack compared to the rest of them overall.
And that is one problem with the end of the game - it's pretty easy if you've been keeping up with your confidants/stats/levels, there are just so many tools at your disposal by that point that it's hard for it not to be kind of a cakewalk. But that's also not entirely bad, either - it feels almost like more of a victory lap by the end, which is fitting in a way.
one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of
one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of us one of
This damn puzzle was one of the few time I needed to look up the solution of a puzzle for that game. It's just something that absolutely eluded me
Also, fwiw, I didn't hate the 5th dungeon, probably because I really dug the whole concept and design, the leadup to it is a low point of it though, I agree. Also that damn boss almost made me quit the game.
Persona 5 was one of my all time favorite games upon first playing it. From the intro I was instantly hooked and put in 100 hours in a month. Years later, I've now completed Royal. There is always the fear of revisiting a game you love that it won't hold up as well. While I'm more attuned to notice the game's issues regarding writing (especially how often exposition is repeated), it still resonated for me and the Royal gameplay enhancements made it so much fun to revisit. Even something like Mementos becomes so much more enjoyable in Royal. All of the new music is fantastic as well, but that goes without saying.
So all that said, let's talk third semester.
I think the biggest thing that's difficult to avoid is that the third semester feels very bolted onto a story that already had its narrative and emotional climax. It ends up feeling like a DLC story - which is fine, but I can definitely see it being jarring for first time players. I liked Maruki and thought he was an interesting villain - I liked his lowkey, affable personality, and the scene where he and Joker talk in LeBlanc is one of the game's best moments (especially when Joker casually tosses the calling card to him). I also really liked that Maruki isn't an omnipotent god but someone trying to boil down the complexities of social interaction to a science - it's obvious everyone still is unhappy in his new reality. He's a good contrast to the other Palace villains who were generally over-the-top mustache twirlers. Akechi is also fantastic in this arc, becoming a character I didn't think much of in the original to being one of my favorites. I loved the odd mix of Joker/Kasumi/Akechi infiltrating the Palace in the beginning, great stuff. And I'll never forget the feeling of stealing the Treasure while I Believe plays - I even went and collected some last minute Personas from some Shadows just to soak the music in.
That said, I think the handling of Kasumi could have been better. The twist of her being brainwashed comes so late, I feel it could have been set up better in the game, maybe established that she is heavily co-dependent on Maruki and he has her come in frequently (which we would later learn is for brainwashing sessions). The way she's integrated into the ending is also very awkward in general. I also found the final boss to be structurally awkward - it's three phases but the first one is the most challenging (despite still being pretty easy) and the latter two feels like glorified cutscenes (and the punching scene later on pretty much was a glorified cutscene). It made the fight feel very start-and-stop, where I wasn't sure when it was actually ending.
Going back to the ending, I have to say I definitely preferred the original one. The hard shift from beating Maruki to "Joker's in jail actually" is very jarring and I much preferred the game ending with the party road tripping with Joker, to Joker having a contrived final meeting with Maruki and bumping into Kasumi. Overall, I felt the ending in the original was more thematically coherent and satisfying. It can make the game feel bloated, like you've just finished a great meal and you're stuffed, but someone put a cake in front of you to eat. That said, I still overall really enjoyed the third semester and am glad I played it, especially for how it handles Akechi who gets a huge glow up in Royal between his Confidant and the third semester.
So while I am mixed on certain story choices in the third semester, I would still consider Royal the definitive version of P5 due to the gameplay enhancements. I will definitely do NG+ down the road, but I also might even finish my NG+ on vanilla someday just to re-experience that version of the story. All in all, it's still a top 5 video game for me, top 3 on a good day. I've said it before, but for all the game's flaws, of which there are many, it kept me entertained for 132 hours and that's the highest praise I can give a video game.
Persona 5 was one of my all time favorite games upon first playing it. From the intro I was instantly hooked and put in 100 hours in a month. Years later, I've now completed Royal. There is always the fear of revisiting a game you love that it won't hold up as well. While I'm more attuned to notice the game's issues regarding writing (especially how often exposition is repeated), it still resonated for me and the Royal gameplay enhancements made it so much fun to revisit. Even something like Mementos becomes so much more enjoyable in Royal. All of the new music is fantastic as well, but that goes without saying.
So all that said, let's talk third semester.
I think the biggest thing that's difficult to avoid is that the third semester feels very bolted onto a story that already had its narrative and emotional climax. It ends up feeling like a DLC story - which is fine, but I can definitely see it being jarring for first time players. I liked Maruki and thought he was an interesting villain - I liked his lowkey, affable personality, and the scene where he and Joker talk in LeBlanc is one of the game's best moments (especially when Joker casually tosses the calling card to him). I also really liked that Maruki isn't an omnipotent god but someone trying to boil down the complexities of social interaction to a science - it's obvious everyone still is unhappy in his new reality. He's a good contrast to the other Palace villains who were generally over-the-top mustache twirlers. Akechi is also fantastic in this arc, becoming a character I didn't think much of in the original to being one of my favorites. I loved the odd mix of Joker/Kasumi/Akechi infiltrating the Palace in the beginning, great stuff. And I'll never forget the feeling of stealing the Treasure while I Believe plays - I even went and collected some last minute Personas from some Shadows just to soak the music in.
That said, I think the handling of Kasumi could have been better. The twist of her being brainwashed comes so late, I feel it could have been set up better in the game, maybe established that she is heavily co-dependent on Maruki and he has her come in frequently (which we would later learn is for brainwashing sessions). The way she's integrated into the ending is also very awkward in general. I also found the final boss to be structurally awkward - it's three phases but the first one is the most challenging (despite still being pretty easy) and the latter two feels like glorified cutscenes (and the punching scene later on pretty much was a glorified cutscene). It made the fight feel very start-and-stop, where I wasn't sure when it was actually ending.
Going back to the ending, I have to say I definitely preferred the original one. The hard shift from beating Maruki to "Joker's in jail actually" is very jarring and I much preferred the game ending with the party road tripping with Joker, to Joker having a contrived final meeting with Maruki and bumping into Kasumi. Overall, I felt the ending in the original was more thematically coherent and satisfying. It can make the game feel bloated, like you've just finished a great meal and you're stuffed, but someone put a cake in front of you to eat. That said, I still overall really enjoyed the third semester and am glad I played it, especially for how it handles Akechi who gets a huge glow up in Royal between his Confidant and the third semester.
So while I am mixed on certain story choices in the third semester, I would still consider Royal the definitive version of P5 due to the gameplay enhancements. I will definitely do NG+ down the road, but I also might even finish my NG+ on vanilla someday just to re-experience that version of the story. All in all, it's still a top 5 video game for me, top 3 on a good day. I've said it before, but for all the game's flaws, of which there are many, it kept me entertained for 132 hours and that's the highest praise I can give a video game.
I agree with nearly everything you said here. Royal is a big improvement in pretty much every way even if you ignore the third semester. And while it feels a bit tacked-on, it’s hard to think of how it wouldn’t I’m some way or another given the structure of the game and then not wanting to change too much. I too, though, prefer the original ending and the original climactic section a bit more than Royal’s even if I still like Royal’s too.
Re: Kasumi:
I don’t love her character overall, but I actually thought the twist with her and her sister was fantastic. Something feels a bit… “off” about her throughout the game. Like, why is she so overly nice and overly perfect all the time? It feels almost artificial, and like you don’t get to know the real her at all, which the player can easily write off as either iffy writing due to them shoehorning her into the original plot, or that they’re trying too hard to make her likeable especially to Joker, etc.
But then the reveal comes, and it fits perfectly because you realize that that was all intentional because she was artificial and basically a fake person entirely. Even her confidant reflected that, since it stops at rank 5, at a point where you can be friends but not really get to know the real person at all because at that time you literally can’t.
I still don’t think she’s a great character but I did love that element.
Tomorrow is the day Im gonna beat what I think is the final boss of the base p5. How long is the royal content? Does magic become progressively weaker the further we are in the game or is it just me? charged physical multi hit attack just wreck mini bosses and makoto's nuke does nothing
Tomorrow is the day Im gonna beat what I think is the final boss of the base p5. How long is the royal content? Does magic become progressively weaker the further we are in the game or is it just me? charged physical multi hit attack just wreck mini bosses and makoto's nuke does nothing
20-30 hours for the Royal content, depending on how much you engage with the side stuff.
You get access to some new spells that dish a massive amount of damage soon (plus some new elemental spells too) but the SP costs for the former are massive.
EDIT: Post 1,000! Wow! What a long way this thread has come, and what a wild ride Persona 5 on Switch was!
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