Persona 5 - PlayStation 3 Standard Edition

Persona 3 and Persona 4 are two of my favorite video games ever made, and I love video games. I was a kid when those games were first released on PS2, and I caught up with them as an adult, but when Persona 5 was announced, delayed, and delayed again, I was right there on the hype train with everybody else. I bought this game three times: this preorder on Amazon, and then twice on PS4 on release day. That should give you an idea of how excited I was for this game. It didn't live up to 100% of my hype, but my hype was astronomical anyway and Persona 5 can still stand proudly above 99% of other games available on modern platforms.As the set-up of this game was detailed before release by Katsura Hashino, the director/co-writer of Persona 3, 4, and 5, it sounded like Persona 5 was taking on a more caper-like tone, downplaying the heavy slice-of-life that Persona 3 and 4 are known for. This is accurate, as Persona 5 feels less like a bunch of teens attempting to lead a normal life in between fighting monsters, and more like a bunch of very determined young men and women dropping everything to fight for good with their new power. Make no mistake, Persona 5 is very much still a Persona game, and so it's still much, much more meandering and slower-paced than the average JRPG, but the strokes are less broad than those of its predecessors, and I welcome the slight change of pace. The most exciting part of Persona 5's release is seeing how many new fans are being introduced to the series, and the tighter focus on being a vigilante superhero is surely part of the reason this is the most accessible Persona game yet. Seeing all of the new young folks falling in love with this game because it's so radically different and more mature compared to the multitude of generic otaku fantasies out there is proof to me that Persona is still the best, even if the previous two games are closer to my heart.One example of this tighter focus I'm talking about is the Social Links, which have been renamed "Confidants" in this game. In Persona 3 and 4, Social Links were often as simple as hanging out with a friend and occasionally having "deep talk", but while Social Links did have game-play benefits, Confidants are even more complex and rewarding. Entire game-play (combat and time-management) mechanics are locked behind Confidants in ways that feel slightly forced, but logical and great fun to discover (hanging out with a shogi player allows you to figure out how to switch party members mid-battle, for example). A part of me wants to say that making each Social Link beneficial in a unique way can undermine the idea that the player should follow Social Links solely based on how much they like the character behind it, but I'm probably just a curmudgeon. Get off my lawn.One area which I can definitively say is better than it's ever been is combat. The combat UI is masterful in how expedient it is. No other turn-based RPG feels this slick. The brilliant "One More!" system is still here, and it's still electrifying in a way that no other JRPG is. I do miss the three types of physical attacks from 3, but while 4 had only one, this game has two - and the other is guns! Sick! On top of that, there are now two more magical elements, and the elements Bless and Curse are no longer composed solely of low-accuracy one-hit-kill skills (which never worked on bosses anyway). If your top priority in a Persona game is the combat, rest assured that Persona 5's combat is superlative among JRPGs. (However, the battles themselves don't feel as challenging as they did in 3 and 4... noobs are still getting their butts kicked, but for series veterans, the challenge is downplayed and that's disappointing.)My top priority in a Persona game is the story, and while I never expected Persona 5 to touch me as deeply as 4 and *especially* 3 did, there are even still things that got in the way of my enjoyment of the story. For the record, none of my problems are with the premise. From the very beginning and all the way to the end, Persona 5 is a story about not being afraid to stand up against a system that's fine-tuned to beat people into submission, and even if this can be described in other words as "rebellious teen-agers", which is nothing new, I had full confidence that Hashino and his team were capable of writing a story of this tone that was still nuanced and mature. And you know what? They did! Persona 5 is a game about a bunch of horny Japanese teens fighting yellow-eyed specters of the adults they hate with Pokemon borne from their emotions and rebelling against society with the literal power of friendship - and it has a talking cat in it - and it still manages to be more intelligent and mature than the vast majority of video games. Ever since it spun off from the Megami Tensei franchise in 1996, Persona (if you can't tell by the title) has been influenced by Jungian psychology, which portrays people as being basically formed from archetypes, and being interconnected through the "collective unconscious" - which is literally name-dropped in the game - so maybe this psychological angle is something that Persona 5 borrowed rather than earned, but it's still great at portraying a society controlled by corruption at every level, even the personal. If you want a really cool take on the "rebellious teen-agers" story, look at this game.Like I said though, I had problems with the execution of the story. The game begins with a cold open, which sets up a whodunit that you'll have your eyes and ears peeled for through the story, but the pay-off is not much compared to the time you spent looking out for it in the many, many hours up to this point. In a way, it sorta has the opposite problem of Persona 4. Persona 4 was also built on a whodunit, which I felt was handled very poorly, but when the culprit is revealed to be the villain they are, they become very compelling. Persona 5's whodunit is barely even a "mystery" in how simple it is, and when the lid is blown, for a minute the game actually seems to be making fun of poorly-executed mysteries, which is funny in a twisted way, but it doesn't change the fact that the game pretends it's a real mystery for a very long time. Then, when the culprit is figured out, they kinda drop the ball. Actually, they're more interesting after this point, but they were mind-numbingly dull before, and their character as a villain is pretty half-baked. I would've preferred for it to not be the open secret that it ends up being.Speaking of characters, for the first time in a Persona game, I actually disliked some of the main characters in this game. Persona 3 and 4 were astonishingly good at characters, to the point where even if I disliked a character, it was just because they were the type of person I don't get along with in real life. The main casts of both games felt like real kids, kids that I might have been friends with if I had spent more time in high school getting out instead of playing video games. In Persona 5, an alarming number of the Phantom Thieves felt utterly dispensable to me, which is a crying shame. This is perhaps the biggest blight on this game's complexion to me.One last issue I had, sadly, is the localization. I want to make it perfectly clear that I have nothing but respect for everyone at Atlus USA for taking on such massive projects as they do, and delaying the North American version of this game fully aware of the Internet backlash they'd incur. I'm certain they care about delivering a quality product and take pride in what they do, which makes me all the more uneasy to say that I didn't like this game's translation. I don't speak Japanese, but I do speak English, and people in this game kinda don't talk like people do. It's like everybody in this game has one inflexible way of saying something, which definitely feels like a translation from Japanese that wanted to be "accurate" without taking the liberties that a good translation actually MUST take in order to translate the spirit - not just the words - of the original. Persona 3 and 4 have great localizations, and while those were done many years ago, it's still sad that I look at a couple of PS2 games and then look at Persona 5 and see it as a step backwards. I think Atlus USA were scared of taking liberties because anime fans seem to actually prefer these kinds of stilted, so-called "accurate" translations. For my money, it makes people sound like robots. Persona 3, in contrast, made the actual robot character sound too human!I've spent a long time talking about problems I had with Persona 5, but it's because I care. I'm long-winded when it comes to things I love, and I love Persona. Like I said much earlier, new fans of the series are being made with this game, and I think that's wonderful. Persona 3 and 4 are not perfect either (... okay, Persona 3 is), but they are extremely tough acts to follow, and Persona 5 is a worthy successor for a new generation. I recommend it to anyone looking for an RPG of truly epic length and ambition.

Eres un adolescente que a lo largo de la historia, vas haciendo muchas amistades, pero también adquieren cualidades para enfrentarse a la corrupción de las personas y erradicar la maldad de sus corazones, aquí es donde ellos son llamados "The Phantom Thieves"De buenas a primeras, es un juegazo, la banda sonora, la historia, el estilo artístico y los personajes resaltan a lo largo del juego, tiene una duración de por lo menos unas 80 - 90 horas de juego. Si te gustan los JRPGs que tienen mucho texto, ve por el, totalmente recomendado.Jugué la versión mejorada de este juego en PC y quedé encantado, lo compro para la PS3 porque quiero disfrutarlo de como fue en sus inicios y también conservar una copia ya que no es tan sencillo encontrarlo.Todo en orden con el juego cuando me llego, una compra asegurada.

It's been a long time since I've bought a game that is as polished and unique as this one. They take the thief theme and follow through to every aspect of the game - gameplay, UI, story, thematically, costumes, side quests, movement - everything. I love the amount of sheer detail and thought that has gone into making this game so fun to play and just so amazingly complete, which is rare for video games these days. It takes a familiar and rarely used game mechanic (turn based battles) and make them fun and dynamic again after we've been tricked into believing that there was nothing interesting about them anymore. Turns out if you execute well enough, even the most "outdated" of mechanics can feel fresh and satisfying. Oh, and the music is *fantastic*. It was almost a decade between P4 and P5, but for me it only reminded me that if a company takes its time, then we can actually get something frickin amazing from them. For Persona fans, is this better than 3 and 4? Personally, it's better than 4, to me, really close - maybe on par - with 3. That's saying something, since 3 is one of my all time favorite games. Ever. The soundtrack is definitely up there with 3, much better than 4 imho.Honestly, if you like video games, try this one out. Even if you're a call of duty, realistic graphics only player, or even if you're a casual mobile video game player - give it a chance. We haven't had anything like this in a long time and it's worth giving a gander even if you don't normally go for turned based rpgs. It's a real experience, one that doesn't come along in gaming very often.

Easily my favorite J-RPG of all time, previously it was Persona 3. The quality of this game is unreal, with all the crappy AAA titles these days with only a handful of decent ones it was a breath of fresh air to be able to play such an incredible game. The art style is freaking awesome, really pops out and is fun to look at regardless if you're in battle or just hanging out with friends. The music is unique in a good way, I love it and it's not something you hear very often when playing a video game, it makes just wandering around town or exploring a palace come alive in a really fun way and memorable way. It's turn based combat with it's own twists that make it stand out compared to other systems. My only 2 negatives about this game are that 1. The english dub cast tends to mispronounce some of the Japanese names (only a minor thing but there it is) and 2. The new voice actor for Igor really bothers me, if you're new to the series you won't even notice but if you've been playing the games since 3 (my introduction to the series) then you'll most likely hate it. All in all this games story unfolds in a really awesome way and the pacing is excellent. If you have even a mild interest in J-RPGs you should pick this up!