Persona 5 Review

Instead, player agency comes from negotiating with demons to join your party. This increases your number of Personas, who can then be fused together to form even more badass forms or wacky alterations. It’s a little like Pokemon’s ‘gotta catch ‘em all’ mentality and battle system, with these monsters expanding your potential damage output and gaining experience and levels of their own. There’s a really deep system in the Persona fusions, but luckily it’s all explained and introduced at a very smart pace, meaning you’ll never be confused by the wide array of choices given to you when it comes to tweaking your team. Your Persona’s are also where the two sides of this game cross over and influence each other the most. Each Persona is part of a Tarot card family – Death, The Hanged Man, The Empress, etc – and by getting to know their respective social links in the real world, you can give massive boosts and benefits to your squad.

This is Persona’s most compelling gameplay loop, and it’s still as addictive today as it was when I first played Persona 3.

Presentation:

I don’t think I’ve ever played a game as perfectly put together as Persona 5. There’s a slickness and fluidity to everything here: from the menus to the loading screens and every scene transition in between, nothing appears on screen that isn’t an absolute joy to look at. Persona 5 boasts a distinct style that is striking and cohesive throughout, its red and black palette brings everything together and its seemingly limitless expression of Japanese culture is wrapped up in a poppy, snazzy, far-too-cool-for-school package that never stopped surprising me throughout it’s lengthy campaign.

Having just returned from Tokyo myself, exploring the city once again in Persona 5 brought me back in a big way. There’s a great balance of down-to-earth representation and ever-so-slightly over the top Japanese wackiness to really sell this as a living, breathing, and enjoyable city to explore.

As anyone who’s played a Persona game before will attest, the soundtrack (and voice work) is absolutely paramount to the lasting success of these games. I’m thrilled to say Persona 5 delivers in spades. Every single track on the OST is catchy, hummable and wholly unique compared to anything you’ll find in other games at the moment, and its not something I’m going to be able to adequately put into words so I’m not going to attempt it. I’ll simply say this: you’ll sing along to every track every time it comes on. Even the tracks I wasn’t sure about the first time round, on their fiftieth I was absolutely smitten. The music in these games commands a serious following, and Atlus seems to know it: there’s DLC already available to add in previous fan favourites from past Persona games, and I’ve bought them all.

The voice acting is also great, with every main character delivering a nuanced and emotive performance. I understand some people are sensitive to dubs, especially American ones, and some simply prefer to listen to a game or movie in its native tongue, and for you guys there’s a free downloadable Japanese language pack available. Whilst there’s no way for a non-Japanese speaker like myself to know for sure, I’m comfortable in saying that to my ears it sounds great as well.

Conclusion:

As a stylish, slick and sexy videogame, “Persona 5” is without equal. This polish extends to the title’s various mechanics, with nothing in this game feeling like a rough spot on its mirror sheen. This isn’t to say the game has no faults – indeed, I’d have liked a little more freedom in the battles and a little more comradery between my teammates – but these issues (both of which are very subjective) never stopped me from falling in love with Persona 5. There’s a lot here that is completely unmatched in the genre, and I’m confidant most of that will go unmatched until Persona 6.

So bring on Persona 6.