Persona 5 Royal [PS4]

[wakka]

I'd forgotten that as it's a pretty long time since I played P5 (well before the Royal release).

Doesn't surprise me though. I really do love Persona 5, and I had a blast playing it, but it is bloated. They should have taken the editing scalpel to it at the planning stage. I think the story would have been more impactful that way, too.

I haven't played Strikers. Should give it a bash really.

[dazza_cole]

Am playing through Strikers right now. Combat, although musuo style, uses a number of the key Persona elements. As a massive fan of the series I am enjoying it, the interplay between the characters remains brilliant.....and of course there’s a beach! The only annoyance for me in the game is the bosses are ridiculous damage sponges, and so the fights are very repetitive.

[Golgo]

Did the

->Open Spoiler<-

Okumura

boss fight yesterday, after about 12-15 hours of meandering narrative and shopping since the previous boss. God it really had it all, in a bad way: time limit, enemy teams who retreated and came back at full health if you didn't knock them down quick enough/all at once, insta-kill sacrifice attacks, lots and lots of repetition. Basically it was not an actual boss, but instead a gauntlet of all the level's palette-swap grunts lined up and made cheaply annoying. And when it looked like a real boss character was appearing, it just ended. Beating this was kind of fun if playing for spite is fun, mostly due to counter-gimping the buff/debuffs that were being thrown everywhere, but it lacked imagination and spectacle in a major way. The first three bosses were awesome. Four and five: rubbish, grindy. I was glad to read, afterwards, that the general consensus seems to be that this boss sucks. Anyway, the plot has taken a really interesting turn now, so I'm hopeful it picks up again.

[fuse]

In terms of battle mechanics, yep, that fight was the worst part of the entire game for me. Getting angry just thinking about it. I think they managed to make it worse in Royal too, if memory serves from when I was also googling to see if it was as loathsome an experience for everyone else. From memory I think I used (free, overpowered) DLC personas in the end?

[wakka]

Yeah, that boss fight was annoying. Way too grindy and repetitive.

[importaku]

As this was my first ever persona game i struggled with a couple of the bosses the one mentioned above been one of them the final boss been another but when i failed i went back and levelled up some more in the subway. Sometimes the game can be pretty unforgiving you really need to know how to use weaknesses against them something i'm not very good at but i took it slow i never tried to play in huge blocks in a rush to the end. When i got frustrated i just went to level up some more and complete other side bits, even now the story is what kept me going by the end i found the payoff totally worth it. On my journey with all of them i became invested in their lives, it still holds the award of been my most enjoyed rpg i have ever played, maybe it arrived at the right time in my life & it just clicked in every way but i loved it all at the end the story genuinely had me on the edge of my seat.

My only advice is to keep going, if you have come this far def see it through.

[Golgo]

Oh, I'm definitely not giving up, despite these occasional lowpoints (like bad bosses and filler). I agree about the story and characterization. I find it really gripping.

[importaku]

There's one part of the story with joker & you'll know when you get to it but when that part happened i literally jumped with shock, i never expected it to happen and i was sat like "no way is this how the story ends" but i had absolutely no idea how it would go from there. Then the rest of the story started to fill me in twisting & turning as it went and i was sat there totally awestruck it was SOOOO cool.

I don't throw out awards lightly but yup in 30+ years of gaming this is one of the best rpg games i have ever played.

[Golgo]

On the December boss/dungeon now and enjoying it. Had a thought about the stats, though. Do they seem almost pointless? Yesterday I maxxed out my Kindness, which I needed to do to advance a confidant/questline. I then did the next bit in this questline and was rewarded with a boost to...kindness, which flashed up as 'MAXXED!'. This has happened with other stats too. I think the maximimalist approach of this game causes it to fall over itself when it comes to personal stats and persona stats. There are so many opportunities to boost everything in this marathon of a game that it hardly matters what choices you make day-to-day. I grind though my roster of persona like crazy, never letting one hang around long enough to get attached before I recycle its abilities into the next. Apart from their wonderfully distinctive appearances they are practically empty repositories for whatever attacks you might want to pack into them. And as you have up to 13 available in battle you're bound to have every eventuality covered with little need for serious strategy/prioritising. Anyway, the story/characters are still great. Onward!

[importaku]

There will be a point in the story where all the people you fully maxed out will pay off regarding the story. It's a really nice touch, the ones that you got really close to will help out. It made me feel that taking the time to get to know them all was worthwhile plus the rewards carry over to new game+ as there were a few i missed on my first playthrough so on my replay i concentrated on the ones i didn't get to do the first time around.

[Golgo]

NG+? On a game this size?! Sir, are you quite mad?

[importaku]

This is how highly i rate it, even with it's crazy time sink playtime i felt compelled to go back in and replay it to get the handful of confidants i couldn't in my first playthrough plus all the social skills you max out carry over so all the time wasted before studying and other stuff you no longer need to do leaving you with a lot of free time for friend making. Even after finishing it there's still a lot to do if you so wish, i had no regrets going back in but i appreciate it's not for everyone to devote that amount of time in yet again but i didn't binge play on my 2nd playthrough i took my time playing here and there in small blocks.

[Golgo]

It's funny how even on the loading screen the game says "take your time!"

[Golgo]

Finished this last night, clocking in at a fraction over 120 hours. I've played longer games, but none have ever felt longer than this.

I think in conclusion I'd say I really loved the first 40 hours, especially hours 10 to 40 when the tutorial wheels came off and you got stuck in to three really great boss villain stories, and after that it was more of the same - so very much more - with diminishing returns.

The last 30 hours was filled with your friends moaning on about how it all seemed so very endless. I don't know if this was ironically intentional or not, but it was spot on. By the end I had come to feel less like I was playing the game and more like I was being asked to be patient and should just allow my time to pass within it.

"Take Your Time!" the loading screen says. You don't give us a choice, mate!

The amount of time given to do everything felt, to me, that there was ultimately little urgency in planning or prioritising your interactions or working on a set of persona 'builds'. In time, everything would just unlock, so it often felt inconsequential; rather like the vast majority of conversations where response choices had no impact at all, even on the flow of the conversation itself. I think only 3 or 4 conversations had story-related impacts, and the right answers here were telegraphed massively.

In terms of lack of consequence: occasionally I couldn't be bothered to go out and interact to level up this or that stat, so I would go to bed early and effectively blow an interaction slot. But had I? No chance: the game would have me 'dream' about a certain character and would level up a stat that way. Complete auto-pilot.

I was also not blown away with the combat, which amounted to: exploit the weakness when there is one and buff/grind when there isn't. The flashiness of the combat presentation masked this.

That said, I did enjoy it overall. The characterisation, artwork and script were really excellent, and the way the personal stories of so many characters were woven into the larger narrative was genuinely fantastic. That's the reason I kept going with it, to be honest. I would like to spend more time with these characters but in a different format, so I'm tempted to try Strikers at some point.

Finally, the music. This was like being locked for a month in a freight container with Jamiroquai, and if I never hear another note of acid jazz for as long as I live that will be just fine.

[fuse]

Congratulations! I know you enjoyed it - I did too - but I also know how it feels to finally be over the finishing line. I know the standard expectation for sequels is for more content, but I'd gladly see P6 go the other way and figure out how to compress the good bits into a game half the size of this.

Finally, the music. This was like being locked for a month in a freight container with Jamiroquai, and if I never hear another note of acid jazz for as long as I live that will be just fine.