Its been roughly two years sense I first played this game and became enamored with the Shin Megami Tensei franchise. I've outlined the tale of how I got into the SMT franchise before, but to summarize: the Persona series was a franchise that I had an interest in checking out from its Anime Aesthetic and word-of-mouth , but was hesitant to try thanks to it being a spinoff and not being readily available on a Console that I owned. Pokemon announces Dexit and so I try to get into other JRPGs to fill the void and commit to the boycott (apparently one of the few to do so) and it serves as the gateway I need to play other games in the Persona series and later on mainline as well, with the most recent game that I've played at the time of this writing being Devil Survivor 2.
this leads to the question of whether or not Persona 5 holds up now, is it as good as I remember? Does it hold up as one of the best SMT titles? To answer these and a few more questions that I have I've put Devil Survivor 2 on hold for the time being to replay Persona 5 and document my experiences a I retread the familiar first in the series for me, and yes, to clarify, I am playing the original Persona 5 because that is the version that I first played, and thus have a connection to, despite me also having, but having not yet played Royal as of this writing. As such I am playing on a newgame+ and making it my mission to achieve everything that I failed to do in my first play-through of this game. This means that I am primarily aiming for and prioritizing the Confidants that I failed to max out the first time through, unlocking all of the remaining trophies and conquering all of the mini-games that this game has to offer.
For context, the social links that I had maxed out on my first play-through were the Sun, Moon, Death, Devil, Chariot, Strength, and Emperor; as well as the Fool, Justice and Magician if we include the ones that progress as the story does.
A cold open reveals the trickster as he carries a brief case out of a casino while cops swarm the place. While this opening is still great and makes me excited to play, I'm honestly in a bit of a hurry to get to Kamoshida's Palace as it was my favourite in my first play-through and I was excited to see if it still held up. So I mostly skip this early section of heavy-dialogue, but do catch a few interesting tidbits that make me appreciate this game all the more, such as the title menu be less stylized before the first heist begins, but I'm just speeding through the whole game until I get to choices and making use of my increased social skills to be able to be more blunt when questioned by igor and make funnier comments such 'you jelly' when I first enter the metaverse with Fyuji in my Kaito-Fuku.
Finally I get to the part of the game where the story really begins, and was the part that really hooked me into the game, and by extension the franchise. The first heist deals with themes of sexual abuse, corrupt authority figures taking advantage of the uneven power dynamic to force relationships of abuse and control upon others, the coddling of said abusers for the benefit of systems and institutes, how reputational and merit-based rewards can be used to exploit, and how ignorance of ongoing travesties creates a systemic institution that rewards conformity, silence and tolerance towards such things at the expense of the very virtues claimed to be upheld. This part of the game still feels relevant today in a world and still sends a message that sometimes it is worth it to speak up and say no, regardless of whatever benefit the perpetuation of said system offers.
Though story-wise this part of the game remains strong, honestly I expect this to be the most tedious part of the game because of my own impatience, a lesson that I've sense learned after recording this down. I remember this dungeon specifically being my favourite of them, as a tutorial it takes its time to flesh out both the world, premise, and duality of the gameplay between turn based action combat and visual novel inspired slice of life-simulation by having different battles serve as different tutorials to explain the different mechanics in a way that doesn't feel rushed or overwhelm the player with information.
As a first time player in the whole of Megaten this was what hooked me and got me excited to play the game and steal Kamoshida's treasure. Coming back to it, I found myself impatiently waiting to get into the castle proper, with the tutorial itself feeling unnecessary and dragging far to long. Especially sense this was a newgame+ run, where I was looking forwards to be challenged on hard-mode and with the new challenge that it would bring. This whole stretch bored me and now I wish that future Persona titles would make it so that this sort of tutorial portion is skippable at least for newgame+.
The sheer tediousness of needing to go through this prolonged tutorial all over again, (even repeat it twice sense I actually died during during one of the aforementioned battles which only fed my growing impatience of needing to once again skip the same-exact cut scenes over and over again) and speeding through dialogue options that I already knew was just a waste of time. It took me four hours to finally get to the part of the game that I was excited about really drained a lot from me once I finally got there.
The worst thing that was withheld, in my opinion, however was the stealth mechanic. On instinct and/or habit I found myself constantly pressing the X button to try and hide to get to an upcoming enemy to ambush them and failed because it wasn't unlocked yet. The stealth mechanic is not unlocked until entering a room later on in the castle after the tutorial has ended, and after Ann has been recruited into the party, something that made a few of these early rooms that were filled with more enemies than on normal difficult, and I got spotted a few times in doing this habit. Granted its not like P5 has the most fleshed out or nuanced stealth system ever, and I can still sneak up on enemies by simply walking up behind them while their backs are turned, but it was still a bit of an inconvenience that soured my enjoyment early on. All this I believe, created a disconnect with my enjoyment compared to where I was when I first played it, and makes me curious to see that if I practice more self-control and caution when I play royal how my enjoyment will be.
However so far this game doesn't hold up as well as I would've liked, with the only positive thing I've so far noticed is that I can summon all Personas and related-information from my first save, which I immediately summon to get the needed skills to hit weaknesses and fuse the Personas Obariyon and Koro kguru. Things related to this being a newgame+ playthrough over how well the dungeon itself holds up. Not helping is the lack of anything to do in-between the dungeon crawling during the day, with just-about everything I attempt to do such as read on the sofa or in the library is not availible this early into the game, not the diner, arcade, or Scarlet the DVD rental store. Ann and Ryuji's social links had begun earlier but cannot progress beyond the first point going by my memories as when I first played this game I noticed that I never was able to progress team member social links with a deadline apporaching leaving only the scant social links available this early, like Sojiro's and Takemi's, the bathhouse, batting cages, and doing laundry. Most nights I can't even make coffee because LeBlanc is still open, and I can't leave the general area at night. Technically I can also study in the library where I notice that Makoto makes an early cameo, but my Knowledge stat is already maxed out, and my guts stat will increase naturally with Takemi's social link, so their really isn't any point.
Now the reason for this is obvious, the developers want you to spend multiple days trying to navigate Kamoshida's palace, needing to exit in order to replenish SP, and make more infiltration tools to go forwards and don't want you to prioritize anything that can interfere with the strict deadline. However I spent the first day that I am able to freely explore the dungeon fully successfully made my way to the treasure meaning that the dungeon is mostly done for me except for a small caviot that I now need to work around. Going into the palace I only had one availible lockpick, the one made when infiltration tools are introduced, but their were a total of four locked chests in the castle which means that I need to now sit down and make some lockpicks to get those items. Sense I can only do this at night I try and see if their is anything that I can do that day, run into the problem that I mentioned above, and settle on the batting cages, though by pure luck actually hit a home run, earning a trophy. That night I plan on making the needed lockpicks but I notice that Sojiro's social link can be ranked up, I do that instead, spend the next day, trying to find something to do, and settle on studying to increase my guts even though its pointless when my guts will raise to max soon anyhow, and than make the lock picks when I get home. Just before I sit down at the desk to make these however, I give the plant in the room upstairs some nutriants I increased my kindness to angelic, so at least I've now maxed out one more stat. Fortunately because of my proficient stat was maxed out from my first playthrough I am able to make five lockpicks and a thing of stealthanole, though I doubt that I will even need it for a while.
To kill two birds with one stone, so to speak, I send the calling card, and make my way to secure the three locked chests. Battles here are a joke, sense I'm good on SP and have attacks that can quickly knock down enemies and allow me to finish them off with all out attacks, and in a bit of a hurry I rush to unlock the first two of the chests, but for some reason I have difficultry in trying to find the third, the one located at the bottom of a spire and guarded by a knight. I guess the wrong spires from the map, try again, loose needless health and SP, use some of my SP healing items so that I have some if I need to to go up against the boss, but after about an hour of trial and error I manage to get to the chest and make my way back up to the nearest save room so that I can quick travel to the throne room.
Thanks to this detour Palace security has decreased to %70 percent, and I only have 50SP on my main character. Despite this handicap however I still beat the boss on my first attempt, and I actually think that I had an easier time of it here than when I first played on normal difficulty. Chalk it up to experience with how opwerful buffs and debuffs now, Ann's Tarunda more than halves Kamoshida's attack, while I focus on attacking with buffs provided by Ryuji and a Mokoi that I have on hand. Another thing that made this fight super easy was that I now had Obariyon, who resists phys, which only served to further reduce damage, and has Snap, a medium damaging deal gun attack which consistantly does the most damage this fight. My plan is to have me and Ryuji used buffed physical attacks while Ann and Morgana focus on healing and doing the occasional paltry damage with Agi and Garu.
Finally it gets to the part of stealing the crown from King Kamoshida's head. Like many players I'm sure, I liked to send characters with a personal vendetta to do these boss gimicks, and sense the last time I sent Ryuji, this time I try to send Ann, while me and Ryuji keep doing damage. However Kamoshida notices that Ann has gone missing, forcing me to send Ryuji anyway, while I stick to my strategy otherwise. Having Ann and Morgana either heal or due minor damage, while I buff myself and focus on doing physical damage with Snap. Ryuji takes the crown, Kamoshida becomes dejected and innitiate an all out attack.
I actually do watch the cutscene as Ann scares Kamoshida senseless and forces him to return, and get some catharsis from it proving that the story still held an emotional core that appealed to me, but otherwise I feel like I have a lot more pieces of criticism aimed at this title than praise at this point in time. Their was too little to do in this first portion of the game because the developers wanted me to spend, multiple attempts trying to figure out Kamoshida's palace; which while true the first time I played this game, leaves much to be desired when I've secured my route to the palace after one day, and want to have something to occupy me without feeling like I've wasted any time, especially in a game where it can feel like every time spent needs to be worthwhile.
But this part of the game still isn't over yet. The next day, Kawakami informs Ren and Ryuji that Kamoshida is absent in a cutscene that I don't think I saw last time because I waited until the final day to take Kamoshida's treasure and his change of heart occured the next day. I've cleared the dungeon on the 23rd, meaning that I still have to go through this portion of the game without much to occupy me.
however now at the very least Ann and Ryuji's social links are now workable, and sense I didn't max out Ann's last time I'm now going to try and make hers a priority, but I also get Ryuji's to 3 so that he's a bit better in combat going forwards. To accomplish this I go to the velvet room in Shibuya, unlocking the ability to now quick travel to that location, and summon personas of the hierophant, lovers and chariot arcana in order to increase the points that I get when I do them. But things don't go as planned, for somereason I can't seem to find her in the underground mall, which is concerning, but thankfully the days are fairly well occupied, Takemi calls me out twice which allows me to advance her social links, and on a whim I do check to see if Scarlet will now rent me DVDs, which it does, and by watching the first of these my charm is now maxed out, and I also go to the movie theatre to watch the first movie. Nighttimes meanwhile are now preping coffee to advance Sojiro's social link if not the confidant itself, which I manage to advance to stage 4, and if I can't brew coffee than my time is dedicated to watching the DVDs, which I also do the days that I'm off from school. During this time I also stumble upon a new thing to do in the game on accident, crosswords. Apparently in the cafe their is this crossword where the trivia applied by Sojiro's social link work to fill in the blanks. Though obviously I cannot increase my knowledge sense its already maxed out, I still enjoy doing crosswords and it gives me something extra to do in the game, and its mere existance makes me wonder just how many throw away mini-games or social activities may lie hidden within this game that I have yet to experience.
Finally the deadline comes, Kamoshida admits his crimes, things look up and we sell the gold medal to Iwai, which triggers the event to elude to his soon-to-happen social link, and head off to a hotel to have our celebretory feast, briefly crossing paths with the all important aspiring Prime Minister Shido in the process.
After all is said, thus far this game is a mixed bag, and its too early to give an concrete answer. On one hand I'm a bit disappointed that this first dungeon wasn't as fun as I remembered from my first play-through, the tutorial drags, the puzzle with the books was actually so forgettable that I forgot it until I found the library and had already gotten all of the books ignorant of their importance, and though it could be the fault of playing on newgame+ hard-mode is far to easy for my liking, and the exp gained is so miniscule that I worry about levelling up to fuse higher-level personas and finish the compendium. That all said once I stopped rushing through cutscenes and dialogue options I began to enjoy the dungeon for what it was and re-experience what first hooked me on this game to begin with. The story is still strong and thematically relevant, and does actually make me excited for what else the game has in store moving onto Madarame's Art Gallery.
To be Continued ...!