Topic: Persona 5

@Th3solution Yeah I agree with the dragging and pacing bits, I'm actually taking a small break from the game because I've been playing nothing but P5 for about 3 weeks xD. I'm definitely going to play Strikers after completing this game, and sounds like we're in about the same place. I'm somewhere between 80-85 hours. I'll definitely keep you posted, happy gaming friend!

Been taking Royal slowly. I'm mainly in it to see the third semester stuff tacked onto the end anyway, since I beat the initial version upon release. 65 hours in and haven't even started Haru's dungeon yet lol.

It's going to interesting playing Royal in tandem with Strikers.

@Ralizah I bought Royal a while back but I have so many games in my backlog that I haven’t spent 70 hours on previously. I’ll get round to it eventually!

@Ralizah Make sure you meet the requirements to do the final semester. I played through Royal recently and missed it, costing me the plat.

@Bentley-Ma- Thanks. Yeah, I looked up the requirements ahead of time. I'd be livid if I missed out on it, considering seeing it is one of the primary reasons I'm playing again (I'm also introducing my young nephew to it, since there's nothing in this game that he's not hearing about in the news every day, and he has wanted to play P5 since it released in 2017).

I'm now up to the fifth palace (Okumura's) in Royal, which has taken me a lot longer than I'd have liked. My progress this month has been glacial. The changes and additions are rather well integrated and I like that Akechi's social link is now a full one, rather than being automatic.

@Ralizah Gosh, I'd probably weep if I miss the extra term, given how long the game is. What does your nephew think of it? Is he the one you played The Thousand Year Door with?

@mookysam Yep. Same nephew. He's actually been doing more of the actual gameplay than I have. For the most part, I take care of the social links/reading dialogue out loud/etc. and he traverses the dungeons, although he has let me kill most of the dungeon bosses. We're playing on the hardest difficulty setting as well. Since we agreed we'd both have to OK decisions, there has been a lot of bickering about fusions in the velvet room, but, overall, we're on a similar wavelength.

I think I'll take over for the third semester, though, since I've never played it before.

He loves it, although he has admitted there's a bit too much talking for his liking. He kind of zones out during those long visual novel-y sections, although he's been quite engaged with any of the dialogues involving Futaba.

After P5R, we'll do P5 Strikers together (after I play it on my own, because Royal is going to take several more months to get through with him, lol), followed by a few more of the Paper Mario games (Color Splash and Super Paper Mario, in particular), and, purely on his request, the Switch version of Miitopia (I'll never understand his love for that bland game, but whatever).

@mookysam I just completed that palace (I’m playing the vanilla version though) and it was pretty fun. I liked the door switch puzzles, mostly. It got a little carried away at the last level, but was never too difficult.
The enemies were kinda dull, but the theme was at least unique.

However I spent most of the day today trying to do the Strength Confidant. I’m at level 50 so I can do pretty much the whole thing and it’s nice because time doesn’t elapse with the twins. But I absolutely have relied on a guide to help with all these fusions. Even with a guide it’s quite a chore and a lot of resource allocation of time, thought, planning, and money to extract all the persona needed to fuse. It’s much tougher than I remember similar task list being in P4. I have grown to like the Twins through the process though.

I can tell I’m heading toward the latter part of the game and I was glad to see some background story advancement here after this palace.

@Th3solution I remember the fifth palace being quite long in the original with quite a difficulty jump over the previous one. The themes of the palaces are quite cool, especially Futaba's Pyramid. The Strength confidant would be quite difficult without a guide, especially the later fusions. In Royal there's actually some new interactions with the Twin Wardens outside of the Velvet Room, which have been quite funny so far. The story is definitely a slow burner - certainly more than Persona 4. I really like the themes of the game, but the story doesn't really start heating up until after the sixth palace. That said there's actually quite a bit of subtle foreshadowing that I didn't really notice the first time round. It's always interesting to see these things on a replay.

@Ralizah It's awesome that you play these sorts of games together, plus I think gaming can be very educational Futaba's a great character, I can see why she'd be popular with kids. How far does he understand the wider themes? My four-year-old niece is obsessed with unicorns, so I don't quite forsee playing a demonic Japanese RPG with her down the line! Perhaps Miitopia will be a game that has you zoning out in places.

Just eclipsing the 100 hour mark now. And I don’t think I’m near the end. I’m about to enter the 6th palace and the date is mid November. Just had Akechi join my squad. He’s alright I guess. These last two team members (him and Haru) have been pretty ‘meh’. There’s something annoying about each of them, in their own way. But the prospect of Niijima’s casino palace does look pretty good.
I’ve maxed out all 5 attributes, and have maxed a few confidants already. I’m dating about 3-4 girls. I’ve lost count. I like how the game warns me before I start cheating on my previous girlfriend — “I’m already in a relationship with another girl. I should choose my response carefully”, or whatever it says. 😂 I’ve been dating Ann from the beginning, but I haven’t spent time with her in ages. Surely she’s onto me by now.

I really don’t know, there are sections of the game when I think it’s brilliant. But then there are sections that drag. For example, I’m not sure why we have a team meeting, discuss all the things going on with the current situation, make a plan, debate it amongst all of us, finally come to a conclusion, ...and then immediately have another group text with everyone where we rehash it all over again. The more people added to the group, the larger the phone text group, and the longer these conversations end up going. I’m getting to where I barely even read them because often they aren’t pushing the story forward much.

But outside of that, it’s a great game. The fact that Royal adds more characters actually makes me worried that I might enjoy it less. I think the squad is about as full as it needs to be now.

@Th3solution You dirty dog! Joker’s meant to steal hearts, not play with them! Can’t believe you’re dating every girl you can get your hands on 😂😂

@nessisonett Not to mention among them is my teacher, my doctor, and a drunk reporter that I hang out with at the bars at night. 😂.

...

Ha ha I actually did the same though @Th3solution Though swap out the reporter for the fortune teller and Ann for the shogi girl

How are you only at the Casino and pushing 100 hours?!?! Good god Sol you'll be at like 160 or something by the time you finish the game!

I REALLY do hate how much the game treats you like an idiot and constantly keeps telling things you already know... It's such a minor problem I know in the grand scheme of things but it really got under my skin how it just drones on and just actively made me not give a damn in the slightest.

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy Oh, don’t worry. I have the fortune teller and the shogi player on my checklist to get around to eventually. Also still have to find time to charm the class president . 😂

As far as Akechi, I guess he just grates on me because he has the understated smugness and windbag of an attitude. I’m warming up to him a little, but I feel like he’s prone to stab me in the back. But yes - he is much less bland than Haru. Gracious she’s annoying. Would have been nice if Chihaya or Hifumi could have been playable instead.

I didn't date anyone when I played Persona 5.

In P5R, we've entered a relationship with Ann, and we'll not be straying. Although I am making sure the teacher's social link is maxed out this go-around so we can escape the cat's enslavement a little more often.

It's too bad P5R didn't have a Fem MC option, because there are a few of the guys I'd like to have dated.

I'm finding it hard not to quote nessisonett again in response to this @Th3solution

Yeah I totally get that in regards to Akechi and where you are at the moment in the story (Not that I think you'll find your feelings toward him improve) but to me and how lacklustre overall I found the story and cast... He was one of the few who stood out to me personally. I totally agree about Haru too... I would say more about her (Which ties into how uninspired and unoriginal I find the characters and writing in this) but it'd revolve around spoiling her social link so I wont. It doesn't help she gets near no screentime and introduced so late into the story that she just feels needlessly added on to an already bloated feeling game.

Bit unrelated but I made a Japanese PSN account to have a go of Persona 5 Strikers seeing as it's now released over here and we never got an english demo.

As if I hadn't already made it clear enough I'm not really all that fond of P5 but I hoped I could maybe look past that and just enjoy the gameplay.

... But I can't. I actually found the action gameplay rather boring and terribly button mashy.

It was a demo admittedly of the start/tutorial section and I wasn't able to try any other characters (At least I don't think I could. I can't read Japanese but I did press every single button and wasn't given the option to take control of Ryuji, Morgana or the new one) so I have to give it some leeway... But it just felt the same as a warriors game to me just with Persona elements slapped on it.

I'm not sure how much Omega Force did with the game but if you told me they only did the gameplay I wouldn't be surprised as it does feel like an actual persona game just with that brand of action combat... But I don't find it very thrilling mowing down hundreds of enemies that just stand there doing basically nothing for the sole purpose of getting hit by you.

The boss was a bit better gameplay wise... But it still was pretty weak to me honestly.

I dated Makoto and didn’t stray. I try to stay as monogamous as possible in games, even in games like Skyrim. Mjoll the Lioness is the only one for me!

Whenever I play games like Persona etc. I always try to pick the romance option that I think makes most sense for the story. I'm weird with my story in games and always have been. So like when I'm playing Persona 5, there's mad ones that will never get a look in. The teacher etc. It just seems odd. Not even considering the age thing. Doesn't seem likely. They ended up with Ann when I played 5 vanilla and then Makoto when I played Royal. Nee cheatin' because my main character has class.

86 hours in and just beat Okumura, lol. God, this is going to be 150+ hour playthrough when all is said and done, isn't it?

I'd just like to reiterate how insane it is that merciless difficulty is vastly easier than hard difficulty in this game. Okumura is borderline impossible on hard, but manageable on merciless. This game has the worst difficulty balancing, I swear to god. And, of course, no matter what difficulty you're on, the normal fights are baby easy.

I am having a lot of fun, though, aside from that one horrible boss fight. Never actually focused on ranking up Kawakami in the original, but, I have to say, she's a force to be reckoned with after maxing out her confidant, between the backrubs negating the time wasted by visiting dungeons and her calling other teachers out of class to allow me to catch up on my reading.

I'm 11 hours in, it's still a little confusing. If Morgana's assessment is correct, I should be about halfway through the first palace. The game's positively weird and sometimes even a little disturbing but quite captivating.