I've been a fan of the Persona series since 3, and P5 is definitely a worthy heir to the title. This review's going to focus on what's changed since P3 and P4:
-You don't fight generic shadows anymore - each shadow is the same as a persona you can fuse. The Negotiation system from early Persona games and other SMT games is back as well, letting you convince them to join you or to give you items/money. There are also special shadows called Treasure Demons which exist purely as high-grade fusion fodder, but are unusable in combat.
-Dungeons now have pre-set layouts. This makes them more interesting than the random mazes of Tartartrus and the TV World, although it's not without its flaws. Each dungeon has puzzles in it, which are fun at first but each type of puzzle seems to overstay its welcome by an area or two. The dungeons also get pretty long near the end, and the layouts make it hard to run through without fighting most of the enemies along the way. There is one randomly generated dungeon, but it's mostly there so you can grab any personas and treasure demons you missed during the plot dungeon(since they now go away after beating them).
-There's a cover mechanic which lets you ambush enemies more easily, or avoid being seen entirely if you can manage it. Unfortunately this is probably the new mechanic that shows the least amount of polish - you have a very restricted camera range in cover mode, and it can be hard to tell why you can't jump to another cover spot that should be in range. It's also easy to accidentally leave cover, leaving you vulnerable to being ambushed.
-Social links(or "confidants" as they've been branded in P5) now have mechanical benefits other than fusion xp. Some are more useful than others, but only one link's benefits really feel like a waste to me. You also get social stats from hanging out with some links. Between the time-saving benefits of some links and the stats from others, this is the first Persona where you might be able to max all the links on your first run without a guide!
-The s-links themselves are more enjoyable than the ones from P3 and P4. Even the weakest ones here would have been seen as one of the better links in earlier games. And instead of sitting through boring non-scenes when hanging out without a level-up, you can now bring them to places you discover in Tokyo for a more interesting hangout scene(and possible decorations for your room).
-A new battle mechanic, Baton Pass(which lets you tag in another party member after downing an enemy, raising their attack/healing power at the same time), makes battles flow even better. The one downside is that characters after the first dungeon don't really start with it, which can leave them feeling a bit lacking during their intro dungeon.
-Each party member has a good use on your team. This is partially because of how easy it is to change party members mid-dungeon, and partially because their specialities don't overlap the way they did in previous games. There's arguably an optimal party, but you won't suffer too much if you deviate from it.
-The UI is absolutely *gorgeous.* Even the menu screens have an incredible amount of detail and love put into them.
-The translation gets...interesting...in a few spots, but most of it is solid. It's also obvious they had someone who's seen the internet in the past 5 years on the writing team - there's a "Phan Site" which is basically a popularity poll and a stream of 4chan/reddit/whatever comments you see during loading screens, and everything there is plausible comments section posting.
-The plot was satisfying. It dragged in the middle, but that's par for the course in Persona games.
-Some parts of the game have a problem with repeating what just happened/what the current problem is/etc so much it started to feel condescending. It gets particularly bad towards the endgame, where the writers apparently don't trust you to piece together what's happening without everyone repeating it ten times.
-The difficulty curve is definitely front-loaded. Thankfully, you can adjust the difficulty mid-game. Series veterans will probably want to switch to Hard after the first dungeon if they want things to stay challenging.
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From the manufacturer
Reviews with images
Fine Tweaking the Persona Formula
If you played Persona 4 before there's not really a drastic change to the formula; you're still dungeon hoping while trying to balance your social life, but the changes made makes this the best and easiest Persona game to jump into.-StoryYou're a high school student moving to a new town trying to change the hearts of corrupt adults thus making society a better placeThe game is split into days where you try to balance your life in the real world and meta-verseIn the meta-verse or the dungeon aspect of the game, you face shadows or enemies made by corrupt adults which guard their evil heart in palaces (or evil manifestations of a person)Once you enter a palace you have a set number of in-game days to complete it before the corrupt adult does something to ruin societyOnce you defeat the boss in the palace you'll change their hearts forcing them to turn themselves in to the authorities in the real worldIn the real world, you spend time with friends getting to know their darkest secrets and may romance them if you further the relationship far enough. Along the way you build stat upgrades which you can use during your dungeon crawlingThe story, dialogue, voices and character interactions are very good, making it an addictive game where you want to level up and progress to further the story. The story also involve real world topics that deals with mature themes such as abuse, crime, rape, blackmail-GraphicsVery stylish with its anime art design/cutscenes, jagged comic book speech bubbles, very colorful backdrops and varied characters personalities . Even the UI has a stylistic flare to it. All transitional screens and menus are well animated. Very nice presentation overall as it looks very slick, edgy and modern.-Gameplay:In the metaverse, you sneak through palaces and stealth hit/ambush wandering enemies for a leg up in battleOnce battle is initiated it's your typical jrpg turn based system but with a twistIf you hit an enemy with move that's super effective against them, you'll get an extra turn to attack until your combo gets large enough where you get an optional all-out-attackAn enemy can sometimes do an 'Hold Up!' prompt where you can spare their life for money, item or have them join you as a Persona summon.For the latter you get a multiple choice question answer segment where you have to convince them to join you with a successful choice dependent on the enemies personality. You can then fuse personas and make stronger onesOnce a palace is conquered you are not able to return, but you can get mementos or side quests from random NPCs to further level up if you want toIn the real world there's a lot of micro time management. You may be overwhelmed with activities that you cannot do all in a single day and some activities are only open on particular days . Thus you have to pick and choose what to do to build up your stats (like eating burgers, reading on the train station, studying, watching movies, etc) or build relationships with a friend. For the latter, building relationship further increase their persona in battle and similar persona types that you capture/make join your teamAll activities level up 1 of 5 stats: Knowledge, Charm, Guts, Kindness, or Proficiency. These stats once leveled up open new activities and opportunities to level up in the meta-verse and improve social links furthering the story.They're a lot of interlocking game mechanics in play that the tutorial may last you a couple of hours depending on how familiar you are with the series. Even though the game handholds you for a couple of hours, it's very natural and you don't feel lectured most of the time. After those few hours, you get invested very easily as the world opens up to you, and you can easily sink in 100+ hours into this game.Overall best Persona Game I've ever played and for those who like a narrative driven story where a lot of your own choices predicts an outcome, this game is a must buy.
Top reviews from the United States
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Reviewed in the United States on May 11, 2017
Platform For Display: PlayStation 4Edition: SteelBookVerified Purchase
Reviewed in the United States on April 9, 2017
Platform For Display: PlayStation 4Edition: SteelBookVerified Purchase
Top reviews from other countries
HadesClover
Un Excelente y un envió bueno.
Reviewed in Mexico on April 23, 2017Platform For Display: PlayStation 4Edition: SteelBookVerified Purchase
BiTS Game
Persona 5 Review
Reviewed in India on April 29, 2017Platform For Display: PlayStation 4Edition: SteelBookVerified Purchase
BiTS Game
Reviewed in India on April 29, 2017
Amazing, breathtaking, wrapped society, emotional and personal. These are just some of the words one could possibly use to describe Persona 5. Persona 5 is a game developed by Atlus exclusively for Sony’s PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 systems. Persona is a sub-series of Atlus’ Shin Megami Tensei Series of video games. Persona 5 is the 13th game in the persona universe, even though the game is titled as the 5th in the installment. This is mainly because previous titles were re-released in portable form or as special editions with a couple of titles even receiving spin-offs.
STORY 10/10
The game puts you in the role of a Japanese high school teenager who gets transferred to Tokyo on probation after he was falsely accused and sued for assault and expelled from his school. Once in Tokyo, you uncover that a whole other world exists known as “The Metaverse”, which was formed through the distorted desires of man and while in the Metaverse you could cause a person to have a “change of heart” if you manage to steal their “treasure” which is the object which caused them to have the distorted desires. The main theme of the story centers around the idea of “Freedom”. Throughout the entire experience, there wasn't a single moment where we felt tired of playing the game and our first playthrough managed to clock in around 103 hours. The story managed to remain engaging to the very end with a more than satisfactory ending. Among all the persona games, this has to be the best one in terms of story.
GAMEPLAY 10/10
This part of the game is the most difficult to explain, since the game does not just stick to a single genre. It plays almost exactly like the Shin Megami Tensei Series except for the social simulation aspect. your daily life acts as a social simulator where you do what your average high school students do, attend school, make friends, study, take on part time jobs, watch movies, play videos games etc. It also plays a bit like a visual novel. But once you transcend into the “Metaverse”, the game plays like a dungeon crawler, turn based game with certain elements similar to the Pokemon series.
Combat is present while in the Metaverse and it is turn based. You can not only use physical attacks, but also elemental attacks by summoning “Personas” A persona is the physical manifestation of your inner most desires, hence the name “Persona”. To put it simply, your inner personality molds the form which your persona takes. All personas are based off religious, mythical or fictional characters. So say, you are a person who loves to help the poor and believes in justice, one possibility is that your persona could end up being “Robbit Hood”.
Each individual can only have a single persona, but the protagonist has the ability to wield multiple personas. Meaning you can have more than one. This is where the game plays like Pokemon. Each persona has a different set of attributes, skills, strengths and weaknesses. The enemies you meet are called “Shadows”, they appear in the form of Lost Personas, you can battle them in a turn based manner and kill them or try to recruit them. Then you can combine different personas you’ve recruited to a create even stronger persona through the process called “Fusion”. You can even inherit skills from the personas used to fuse the new one.
There are a lot of Personas in the game… a lot and collecting them is an option as the game gives you an item called “The Compendium” this is a log book which keeps track of all the personas you've unlocked. It also acts as a device where you can back buy a persona you lost to a fusion.
Every persona is categorized into a groups collectively called “Arcana”. Groups include “Justice”,”Fool”,”Lovers”,”Devil” etc. These Arcanas represents “Confidents” which are the bonds you create with people while living your daily life in-game. Each Confident is a AI in-game character who you can spend time with. The more time you spend with your Confidents the higher the level of the Confidents gets, which in-turn helps you fuse even stronger personas.
If you max a confident (Max is level 10) you will unlock the ability to fuse the strongest persona of that Arcana.
You even have “Social Stats” which are “Charm”,”Guts”, ”Knowledge”, “Proficiency” and “Kindness”. You can level-up or increase your social states by reading books, studying, watching DVD movies, going to the movies, answering questions in class etc. Increasing your stats is mandatory to Max out your Confidents. You also need to max it out to do certain actions such as stand up to someone or be in a relationship with someone.
The games takes place within a year so you are limited in time. Efficiently using your time is important.
Reading all this might make the game seem cluttered but trust us when we say that isn’t the case. The gameplay is well balanced and paced. But we will admit that completing everything in the first playthrough is impossible. Luckily the game provides new game plus.
VISUALS 9.5/10
The game was originally intended to be a PS3 exclusive. It was a year after PS4’s release that the game was announced for release on that platform as well. So almost all of the development was done with the PS3 in mind and later ported over to the PS4. This in-turn limited the graphical quality it could have had if it was developed on the PS4. But considering the art style which the team was going for, it looks pretty good. The game was always intended to look like a Japanese anime in a shell-shaded format and never was intended to compete directly with games like Horizon Zero Dawn or Uncharted 4. But the game still does suffer from poor textures on certain objects, lack of detail on non-central characters and NPC pop-ins. That aside when it comes to style, the game is simply oozing in it, graffiti designs with some vibrant colors really make the game pop. Even the title screen to the menu options are stylish beyond comprehension.
Now, let’s talk about the technical aspects of the game. The game runs at 1080p@30fps on PS4 and 720p@30fps on PS3. The game is visually identical when in all other aspects if compared. Where there is a difference is when it comes to frame-rates. PS4 manages to keep the game locked at 30fps while on the PS3, it's not as stable. It keeps moving from 30 to 25fps and back up again. It's nothing you would notice but is still worth mentioning. Another aspect we should take into consideration is that on the PS3, there are screen tears occurring while rotating the camera around. This issue is not present on the PS4 version of the game. There are no PS4 Pro benefits.
AUDIO 10/10
The game boasts superb audio work. Voice acting is masterfully done to the point where it could manage to put some triple-A titles to shame in that regard. Even the music is something to behold. The Persona series always managed to provide an exceptional OST (Original SoundTrack) and Persona 5 is no exception. The game manages to blend in j-pop mixed in with jazz into the gameplay in a way that both synchronize superfluously. Sure the music won't be for everybody, but for this game, it works really well.
OVERALL SCORE
STORY 10/10
GAMEPLAY 10/10
VISUALS 9.5/10
AUDIO 10/10
TOTAL SCORE 39.5/40
98.75% approval rating
CONCLUSION
Atlus has always managed to make each new iteration of the Persona series better than the latter that there hasn't been a Persona title that ended up being inferior compared to it’s past entries. With 1.2 million worldwide sales in the first month of Persona 5’s release, Atlus might finally receive the international recognition they deserved since the first Shin Megami Tensei game back in the 90’s.
(We would like to point again that our initial playthrough took 103 hours to beat. To put it into retrospect, we managed to 100% complete Final Fantasy 15 in 98 hours, that includes beating Adamantoise, who it takes 2 hours of to beat. So this game demands time. But it will be a experience you will not easily forget. It might be possible to complete the game sooner on lower difficulties. So don't let the length of the game intimidate you, it really is a great game and our Game of the Year for 2017 so far.
The review was conducted on a standard PS4 with PS3 performance collected through secondary data. As of writing this review the game does not have any sort of update or day one patch)
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Danny G.
Excelente juego, muy buena edición.
Reviewed in Mexico on May 8, 2017Platform For Display: PlayStation 4Edition: SteelBookVerified Purchase
Un comprador.
¡El mejor JRPG en años!
Reviewed in Mexico on April 6, 2017Platform For Display: PlayStation 4Edition: SteelBookVerified Purchase
Un comprador.
Reviewed in Mexico on April 6, 2017
Persona 5 no hace otra cosa que mejorar lo que ha establecido en anteriores entregas (que ya eran muy buenas). El combate por turnos al puro estilo de los juegos de Rol Japonés hace acto de presencia con una magnífica, intuitiva y divertidísima implementación. No obstante, no todo es batalla sino que tenemos a disposición todo un mundo de interacción social para nuestros personajes dentro de su vida diurna como adolescentes estudiantes, creando así una mecánica narrativa profunda que te tendrá atado durante horas.
¿Por qué menciono la parte de la interacción social? Porque va completamente de la mano con el desarrollo jugable de nuestros personajes. El crecimiento de sus estadísticas de frente a los combates será mejorado o menguado dependiendo de la interacción en el trabajo, la escuela y lo que hagamos en su tiempo libre. Cabe mencionar que esta “simulación social” también fortalecerá vínculos entre los distintos protagonistas.
El estílo gráfico/ visual de Persona 5 está bellamente presentado por un colorido Cell Shading lleno de interacción y con cada uno de sus recovecos perfectamente pulidos y bien diseñados. En este punto me gustaría hacer una mención especial a esos convenientes momentos en duotono (negro y rojo) de los que constantemente se apoya el apartado visual de persona 5 y que son simple y llanamente increíbles. Vamos, al grado de que el Merchandising y la Publicidad del juego giran en torno a la perfecta disposición y combinación del negro con el rojo. Para ello basta con mirar el Steelbook (precioso por cierto) que en su parte exterior integra dos colores más el acabado plateado, en contraste con el interior en donde predomina la combinación de los colores reales de los protagonistas del título de Atlus.
No mencionaré nada de la historia, por obvias razones, pero si les puedo vaticinar que los tendrá pegados al mando de la consola por buenos periodos y con ese ánimo de querer descubrir más y más en cada sesión de juego. Además el fuerte componente social, de una u otra forma, pone al jugador a reflexionar en la manera en que el individuo ve la realidad y cómo, con base en sus deseos, la deforma. Al final ¿qué sería de un buen juego sin un buen argumento? Persona 5 conjuga las dos cosas de una manera MAGISTRAL.
La música es el último de los ingredientes que mencionaré, pero no el menos importante. El componente auditivo de Persona 5 es camaleónico a más no poder; en él encontraremos desde Lounge y Disco hasta música clásica con Cantos Gregorianos. A diferencia de otro tipo de juegos, no predomina un género o una composición melódica en particular, sino que somos arrastrados por un amasijo musical tan versátil y con saltos tan abruptos como el juego mismo. En pocas palabras, la Banda Sónora de Persona 5 es una Montaña Rusa que sirve a la perfección al momento jugable en el que nos encontremos.
Bien, no me queda otra cosa que mencionar que, sin duda, éste es un título fuertísimo para el catalogo de PS4 en 2017 y que los seguidores de la saga (y los que no) quedarán más que fascinados y pegados al televisor por más de 80 horas si desean dedicarse a obtener el 100%.
Respecto a la edición “Special Limited”, que es la que adquirí, puedo decirles que vale totalmente la pena. El Steelbook está increiblemente bien manufacturado, lleno de detalles y viene perfectamente protegido por su O-Sleeve Packaging (cubierta exterior deslizable).
OJO: El juego viene en inglés y hay opción de bajar las voces en japonés, no obstante no tiene ni idioma ni subtítulos en ESPAÑOL. Esto puede ser determinante para algunas personas a la hora de adquirirlo aunque tampoco se requiere un nivel avanzado de inglés para ir comprendiendo el desarrollo argumental. En mi opinión, si cuentas con conocimientos básicos del idioma, no tendrás ningún problema. Por otro lado, la instalación del juego ocupa un mínimo de 20 GB que en comparación con otros juegos (como DOOM) es una cifra bastante decente.
El servicio Prime de Amazon, como siempre, impecable. Hice mi reserva y el juego me llegó al día siguiente de ser lanzado en perfecto estado.
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Cliente de Amazon
Excelente juego.
Reviewed in Mexico on April 5, 2018Platform For Display: PlayStation 4Edition: SteelBookVerified Purchase
