It was around two years ago when I first decided to give the Persona series a try. I had heard and read many positive things regarding the series, and with the announcement of Persona 5, and the excitement from the series fan base for Persona 5, I decided I would jump into Persona 3 during the traditionally dead month for games, January.
I knew absolutely nothing about the series or what the gameplay was like. It didn't take long for me to fall in love with Persona 3 and eventually the series. For a good two months I played Persona 3 on a regular basis. I loved the mixing of the high school sim and the dark RPG gameplay systems, the characters were well developed and I wanted to know more about them, as well as the story, and lastly the music was awesome and it fully ingrained itself in my brain, to this day I can still easily recall the music from both Persona 3 and Persona 4 cause of how catchy and great the soundtracks are.
I never did finish Persona 3, for whatever the reason (I must have been sidetracked by a new release or something), but it is on my must do list at some point. Persona 3 was a great experience and it didn't take long for me to get hungry for more from the series. A few months later, I believe in May, I bought a Vita. The number one reason was for Persona 4 Golden.
I got completely addicted to Persona 4 and would stay up late into the morning playing it, I would repeatedly say to myself, "Alright, let me just play one more day (Referring to the day in the game), okay maybe one more, one more, okay last one," and before I knew it It was hours later. It was both great timing and horrible timing, since at the time I was depressed and stressed out and needing something to gravitate to, but I also got fully addicted to the game during finals week, so, not a great way to focus on studying.
I finished Persona 4 Golden and I enjoyed it every bit as much as Persona 3 and probably a little bit more. The same things that I loved about Persona 3 were still present in 4, but something clicked with me and that game better than with 3. A series that I had no experience with a few years ago, quickly became my one of favorites, and Persona 4 became one of my ten favorite games of all-time.
After the excruciatingly long wait for Persona 5, the game has finally released, and, in the same way that I fell in love with both Persona 3 and 4, I've become enamored with Persona 5. It still is too early to say whether I like it more than 3 or 4, but it's definitely a fantastic game.
When I was trying to think up a topic for this weeks blog post, I knew I wanted to write about Persona 5 (I mean it is the only thing I've been playing since it released), but I wasn't sure what to write about. I was kicking around the idea of discussing my favorites things about the game, but I found that to be more challenging than I thought to narrow down specific elements about the game that I love. With all of that in mind I thought I would offer a little bit of my backstory with the franchise, and then just discuss some general thoughts about the game.
Like I mentioned above, I love the soundtracks from Persona 3 and 4, Persona 5 on the other hand though, I have somewhat mixed feelings about. It's still a great soundtrack, don't get me wrong, but I've been a little disappointed by the battle themes up to the point I've played. It's tough to compare it to the themes in the previous entries, which I consider to have some of the best battle themes in the RPG genre, but while I like the battle theme in Persona 5, I don't love it. On the flip side however, I think the everyday/walking around music in Persona 5, is probably my favorite in the series up to this point, it's catchy as hell and is about as perfect of a "taking a nice walk during a spring day" music as you can get.
I'd be hard-pressed not to mention the ridiculous amount of style that the game gushes from the screen when you're playing it. The game has so much personality that it can be overwhelming at first, but in a world where many menus and games in general tend to follow a certain layout and style, Persona 5 sets itself apart from just about everything else. Persona 5 just displays an essence of "cool", and whenever I play it I feel some of that "cool" essence rub off on me and for a brief moment I feel cool, only to be brought back to reality that I'm me.... eh whatever I playing Persona 5 so whatever.
On the topic of personalities, I've played around 60 hours of the game up to this point, and I think that the confidants (Social links), mainly the side characters you can interact with, may be the most well done and interesting in the series. I'm regularly struggling to decide who to spend time with when it comes to non-party members and I'm genuinely interested in most of their stories that are ongoing. I'm a little less sold on the party members themselves, but Makato, Morgana, and Futaba, have been my favorites at this point. Overall, I think the cast is good but there's still a lot more game left for my opinion to change.
Alright, here's my last two points before I send off. Leave Morgana alone! I've seen people complain about Morgana telling them what to do and when to sleep, and I get you don't want to be told what to do but Morgana is basically replacing the inner monologue of the player in the previous games, it's nothing new. So don't blame Morgana, he's a cool cat who hangs out in your school bag, the animation is adorable. Lastly, adults are real jerks in the Persona universe. I get there is a bigger theme going on, but I really can't stand most of the adults in Persona 5. Kids rule! (Note I am technically an adult since I'm 24, and I can verify that adults are generally not great.)
Got anything you want to say about Persona 5? Feel free to comment below, and I'll probably be back soon with more thoughts on Persona 5.