Was Persona 5 exactly what you wanted?

[Tokitoki]

Well, I'll give a topic a try!

Overall I very much enjoyed Persona 5 and give it a 8.5/10.  However, after I finally finished it after 100-some hours, I realized it was almost want I wanted, but not exactly.  I'd probably say the main issue for me was replayability. 

The long loading times for and after battles, the slow daily loading screens, and the absence of Haru until later in the game.  Idk if it was just me, but watching Mr. Main Character running in circles after every battle while a random teammate kneels (I still don't understand why they do that) was painfully boring after 100 times or so. 

I also felt that Haru got the short end of the stick cast wise.  Apparently Hifumi was mean to even be in the game, and Haru was added in as a last ditch effort to "give Westerners something to relate to" (according to a dev article I read that I can't seem to find) and Hifumi was scrapped entirely to save time.  At least in Persona 3 and 4, the late game characters were in some way related to the story. Haru didn't seem to add anything at all to the story.  They called her the "Polar Opposite of Mitsuru", and I was excited to see how she was presented.  In the end, she was hardly presented at all.  

Still I really loved Persona 5.  It was undeniably an JRPG masterpiece that was polished to a gleaming shine, and definitely one of the best JRPGs I've played in a long time.  I enjoyed the huge twist at the end, the characters (apart from one of them...), the graphics, the music, and the setting a lot. 

[Yukiko]

For me it is also a 8.5 or rather a 9/10 was almost 100% the game i wanted.

The after battle loading screen to hide the loading times yeah became boring and repetitive kinda quick.

For me a big minus was the missing Hifumi main Char, after you meet here the first time it seems like she is the perfect Char for combat strategies. But you wait and wait for her to join but it ain't happening and you see she is only side char

Like you mentioned with Haru it seems she was either cut because of the Shogi thing or they feelt the game was gonna get to long

 

A thing that you haven't mentioned but was a big annoying factor for me was Morgana i thought it will be like Teddie from Persona 4 which was fine by me but was i wrong.

The whole thing with Morgana being always around with the MC uhh "You can't do this,Not now,No ,No" JUST STAPH PLZ 

Compared to Persona 4 where you got so much freedom Persona 5 felt like you where forced into doing stuff Morgana wants. 

 

That would be the main things i have on my mind now i am sure there a few other things that i can't remember now. 

For me also the best JRPG of the last few years i would say Music,Setting,Style all fits so good.

But tbh the Persona series has never really disappointed me.

[Tokitoki]

Hehe, Morgana was the one character that I mentioned that I didn't like..I know he has a lot of fans so I was treading lighting. :3 Morgana drove me INSANE!  I missed Teddie and Koro-chan as my animal persona pals.  I never played much of P1 and P2, I heard they are dreadfully difficult though. P3-P5 changed my life though.

[casual_scrub]

It's a 9.5/10 game with excellent presentation and atmosphere. I'm sure this will be an excellent game to compare everything else to.

Poor balancing though. I was running around with a LV99 Zaou Gongen with LV51 MC at 5th Palace Boss. Confidant abilities are too powerful if you manage your time well.

@Yukiko Hifumi was originally planned to be a party member, they have changed it in late development. Here's a fanart for you:

[Tokitoki]

I agree the game was too easy. I think it was to attract a larger audience. Doubt many people can handle the brutally of the older Persona games.

[Axeo30]

I agree and disagree on it being too easy. I agree that it wasnt the typical persona difficulty. However the true ending final boss made the difficulty spike through the roof. 

[Tokitoki]

Surprisingly the final boss didn't seem hard for me, and I'm notorious for quitting games at final bosses because I never grind. After Nocturne though, I tend to play VERY defensively, relying on de/buffs and status effects, cures, etc. so my damage usually is terrible but I can survive a lot.

Persona 5's physical skill sets are mostly a joke, it's all about magic attacks.Hopefully they remove the HP loss mechanic because it's really stupid in my opinion. There is literally no downsides to nukes since the game gives reliable SP regen as long as you build a relationship with the doc lady (and who wouldn't?).

Consistently throughout the game I was using nukes only. Ryuji and Yosuke were so unreliable since they kill themselves while attack. I just covered ice/lighting weaknesses (before I discovered how broken despair was lol) and really had no use for them.

Without a doubt though I think despair is the most overpowered debuff ever made in any game. Also, what were they thinking when they combined doom+paralysis+mana sap all in one debuff?! Once I got White Rider and fused him with Lamia, the game was literally a cake walk since Despair NEVER misses with despair boost+ailment boost. I didn't even plan it, the game threw it in my face. But that's okay, SMT/Persona taught me to fight dirty because I know their monsters sure will!

I suppose I could of made the game harder by purposely not using the skills available to me, but I think in some way I enjoyed getting back at the Personas for giving me a hard time in Persona 3 haha..

I did enjoy P5 immensely however, much more than 4 but not as much as 3 (Aigis's character development was just so good!).

[Axeo30]

Ravenstorm you make a lot of good points. Maybe my build wasnt good enough i was around lv. 70 when i beat the final boss. My personas were varied and i used Ryuji and Yosuke despite them being glass cannons do to them having masochistic attacks. For the game itself imo i give it a 9.5 a great game overall. It was asthethically pleasing the characters were great and the story felt solid despite a few complaints I had. The ending being my biggest gripe. Then again im a sucker for a happy ending which in gaming seems to be less and less lately. Well the ones I play that is. Then again everyones interpretation of an ending being happy or otherwise will always be different. Anyways back on topic, The combat was a call back to older personas and the inclusion of the nuclear element really shook up the status quo. This game is on my top 10 for a reason. It felt like a all in all fulfilling experience, because despite it being a unrealisitic situation you could really embrace and suspend your disbelief. Everyone felt so relatable. It isnt the best Persona i have ever played but its up there. P4 will always hold the crown there for me. But thats a story for another time.

[carmen]

The gameplay in P5 was excellent, but for a game that emphasizes story so much, they didn't do enough to create consistency in the translation.  They used eight editors and that just meant nobody knew the whole material.  This made for a lot of cringe moments.  For example, artist modeling isn't sexual, and Ann would know that... but she might be upset at being put in a situation her friends clearly think IS sexual, since she's been through so much on that front.  She's supposed to be Scandinavian, which typically is culturally less uptight about nudity anyhow, and she's a model, but even she's acting like going to pose for an artist is a sex thing.  I've been drawing live models since I was in kindergarten (artist household) so I know how that situation would have played out, and it would have been stronger (and funnier) if Ann had just shrugged and gone "sure, let me strip off and let's get going", and Yosuke goes "there's a dressing gown in the change room, I'll be setting up" and the guys are the ones that are upset because they're out of their element.  If you're going to have a game with this much text, you should have more respect for it.  Especially a game where they'd obviously put so much love and care into every other part!  The movement in the game was so fluid, and it had tremendous style.  It easily could have been a masterpiece and it's disappointing that they didn't make that happen.  

[Tokitoki]

Yeah the story was definitely all over the place and became predictable. My biggest gripe still remains that Haru was neglected and added purely as an supposedly "relatable Western character". As always the Persona games suffer greatly from having too big of a cast. Only the first 4 characters got any serious development, and the rest were very forgettable.

Still P5 remains my favorite all around. I rarely get hooked on games these days, but it had that jrpg "magic" that I haven't felt in years.