The game is very good, yes. You've heard all the positives by now anyways (in case you missed it, I'm talking about soundtrack, artstyle, characters, gameplay and level design), so I'm just gonna mention the small things that keep a very solid JRPG from being a 10/10 in my books.

The most apparent flaw in the game in my opinion is the pacing and how the story sometimes unnescessarily drags on just for the sake of padding the game's length. Sometimes the dialogue goes on for ages, just to resolve a matter that could've been solved in two or three sentences. Oh well.

Now the next issue is how the developers treat the Royal-only girl Kasumi Yoshizawa. Unlike many others, I don't believe that she feels shoehorned into the story and never overstays her welcome. Of course she's going to get screentime, but that's because she's one of the main additions to Royal and NEEDS that screentime to shine and stand out among the rest of the cast. Like I said, this wasn't an issue for me, but rather how they integrated her into the gameplay. I'm not going to spoil anything specific here, but I'll just say that she unfortunately joins very late in the story and you can't use her in your party any earlier. Really a weird choice if you advertise her so much, feels like Atlus just didn't bother enough to rewrite the story to include her earlier, since that would be very possible given the in-game circumstances.

With the main complaints out of the way, there isn't really a lot I could list as a negative. Atleast not enough for me to substract a whole star. As I mentioned in the beginning, the game is really good and the third semester in one of the best written arcs in the franchise, so I'd recommend anyone to play through this game atleast for one time - it doesn't matter if you've already played Persona 5 or never touched a JRPG in your life, the first playthrough of this game is magical and absolutely worth your time. Thanks for reading :)

Persona 5 Royal has sat in my library for a while now. I bought the PS4 version of the game literally a month before the PS5 version was announced (thanks for not allowing upgrades, Atlus), which is discouraging enough, but the capital-C Conversation that has raged over Persona 5 since I first played the base game back in 2016 has continually left me exhausted and unwilling to "start the show." The mere invocation of this game's name is enough to summon at least one ardent defender and one detractor who is very excited to let you know how much they hate Joker's stupid face. Want to start an argument on the Internet? Easy. Talk about Persona.

Coming off the heels of Final Fantasy XVI - a game which is already generating its own debate - I figured now's as good a time as any to slide into another 80-hour RPG. Nearly a month later, my in-game time is sitting near 140 hours, but my PlayStation 5's internal clock says I've only been playing it for 60. One head tells the truth and the other lies... But no matter how much real-world time I put into this thing, I can confidently say Royal adds a substantive amount of content, and that it would be difficult to go back to the base Persona 5 given the sheer quantity of valuable gameplay tweaks I'd be giving up in the process.

I've heard it argued that Royal is the "true" Persona 5, the game Atlus always intended to make but couldn't get to market back in 2016. I think this is a little ridiculous. The original version of Persona 5 already feels significant in scope and narratively complete, and its development troubles are so well-documented that we know precisely which characters and features were cut. They certainly weren't Kasumi, Maruki, or the whole of the third semester - Royal's most impactful inclusions. Indeed, the third semester itself feels almost comically wedged between the original's climax and epilogue, and it actually got a laugh out of me when I saw how quickly it resolves in order to return to the status quo so the game could end.

Just because the seams are apparent doesn't mean the third semester feels entirely contrived, however. In fact, I really enjoyed it and found it to be the strongest part of the game. The process of finding a shitty adult to target, bumbling into a deadline, and subsequently changing their heart and gaining a new team member starts to feel repetitious in the main game. It doesn't even seem like Persona 5 is all that interested in presenting compelling villains past Madarame, and despite several characters making the case that the Phantom Thieves are criminals themselves, the moustache-twirling villainy of each target doesn't encourage self-reflection on the part of the player. Some of the characters who disagree with the Phantom Thieves' justice end up turning on a dime later because the bad guys are just that bad.

In contrast, Royal's final palace ruler is cast in a far more sympathetic light. There are parts of his plan that are actually agreeable even if the means in which he's enacting it is not, and the trauma which informs his actions is made crystal clear. Both the Thieves and the villain are practicing their own brand of societal reform, but the enforcement of their will on others is not so different, and this in turn calls into question your actions throughout the game in a way it largely failed to do up to that point. I wouldn't go so far to say that it fixes some of the issues I had with the plot of the core game, but it did leave me feeling far more satisfied by the time the credits rolled.

I'm talking around who the final palace ruler is in consideration of those who may not want the end of the game spoiled, but honestly, I wonder how many people don't know who it is by now. Persona 5 is frankly inescapable. Atlus has been busy these past seven years as they work to exhaust whatever brand power Persona 5 has, turning it into a franchise unto itself with countless sequels, spin-offs, shampoos, clothing, toys, comics, stage shows, and an anime. I bet there's a radio drama in there somewhere. At this point, I can't blame anyone for developing an intense dislike for Persona 5 purely through burnout. I loved Strikers - more than Royal, even! - but I'm tired. Too tired to care about Tactica or whatever dumb mobile game they're currently working on, and far too tired to give a damn about the Phantom Thieves ever again.

The conversation around Persona 5 is every bit as omnipresent and tiresome. It is far too easy to provoke, and seeing as every conceivable criticism has been aired in the court of public opinion, it is also circular. The looping nature of the discussion gives way to petty arguments, and valid criticisms of how Persona 5 confronts real trauma inevitably dissolve into pointless sessions of politely nodding while people express violent discontent over Morgana's voice. I am waiting in breathless anticipation of the day Atlus and everyone else is ready to move on from Persona 5. Then we can all get mad as hell about Persona 6. Namaste.

IS IT A SUMMAH GAME?

It is a little known fact that I - the Magistrate of Summah - have declared Persona 5: Strikers as the quintessential Summah game. After all, it is set during the Summah, it is concerned with the Summah, and so it hath become Summah.

But is Striker's immaculate Summah vibes so strong that they reflect in its predecessor? To find out, I conducted a blind playtest. I enlisted the help of nine vagrants I met under the boardwalk and tasked them with playing a bit of both games, then had them provide feedback as to which reminded them most of Summah. So, how did Persona 5 compare?

The results were inconclusive as a surprising 100% of participants complained that they couldn't see either game through their blindfolds and became irate when I told them I could only compensate them for their time in In-N-Out gift cards which I am embarrassed to say were expired. Two of the participants proceeded to cause excessive amounts of property damage which my insurance company refuses to indemnify because I was a "significant instigating factor."

Nevertheless, I have awarded Persona 5 Royal an 8.5 on the Summah index scale. While not as strong a contender as its sequel, Persona 5 excels at capturing a similar Summah mood through its use of vibrant colors, jazzy music, and focus on spending time with your friends. The adventure only ends when it starts to cool off, and as the pain of parting makes your chest feel heavy, the weight is lifted when you remind yourself that you'll see each other again soon - and then you'll have a Summah.

Confidant who is hyperfocused on burning ants: Alright Joker... it's a deal then... I'll be your ant burning friend from here on out
*flashback animation*
My sexy hag prosecutor: You must have had some kind of insect combustion expert on your team.. who was it!! TALK!!!!
Me, popping a stiffy so hard I'm about to pass out: i think i hauve mental shutdown syndrome

Great game, ultimately still strictly worse than the other 2 modern Personas if you care about anything else than presentation. Concept is great - who doesn't love silly Lupin heists? The story immediately drills into the core of Planet slop at the start of the Medjed arc and doesn't recover for more than brief moments of JRPG cheese (I like the gooey cheese though). All the Social Links (that's what they're called man) are pretty good, but none are really great unless it's like the two that I missed. The soundtrack? It's great. The UI? Okay this might get assassins sent after me but to me it's very busy for a UI and I think it's a bit overrated in terms of being the be all end all of design for that reason. It is beautiful though.

I really like the additions to the combat system, despite it all feeling a bit overtuned - I died like three times in my entire playthrough and 2 of them were due to not having high enough damage and 1 of them was me nuking myself on a reflect. The baton passing, extra elements and Social Link buffs really help One More stand out as Not Just Press Turn But Worse (it still is worse, but you know, it helps, and it's fun).

Honestly after P3 the whole time management system and Social Links kinda feels tacked on to the other Persona games. Like it was meant for that game in particular and makes total sense with the theme whereas here they are just... systems that surround a JRPG. If that makes any sense. If I'm crazy you can shoot me in the head.

I stopped at the third semester. "Why"? I shouldn't have to justify that. Why didn't you? You should explain yourself. The story is over. If you continued to play for 30 hours you don't care about story do you? You don't give a shit about storytelling at all. You just care about characters and seeing them interact in little set pieces. You're a poser. You just want to play with dolls in your head because the cast functions as premade OCs for your fanfiction when you can't write your own. You're having the Phantom Thieves step in for real relationships in your life. You're pathetic. Sorry.. sorry about that. I don't know what came over me. Forgive me.

Nitpicky Rant Minor Spoiler Asshole Lightning Round:
- I think JRPG creators have realized 60% of people only play the first act and that's why a lot of modern JRPGs are frontloaded nosedive halfway in. Much research to be done here.
- Morgana has decided 30% of my nights simply can't be used for anything
- Please do not give me insanely overpowered DLC items for no reason you crazy bastards
- Why are we still pretending Persona protagonists can be self insert? Please just name him next time. He's stuck in this weird limbo where he's an unvoiced blank slate but also randomly will have lines. Give it up Atlus.
- Could not fuck Akechi Goro
- Morgana cat form? Cute. Cuddly. What a little guy. Love him. Morgana Metaverse form? I'm going to kick him over a building.
- Ban all localization from saying "kek"
- Having the optional dungeon turn mandatory in the final act is insane, it didn't affect me but for those it did I am so sorry
- The in media res flashback structure contributes absolutely nothing other than to do a "Ohhh I actually forgot crucial details" plot twist, it's basically just there to be there
- "The Councillor" Tarot? Really? Come on.
- The final dungeons(s) are basically completely disconnected from the theming of the rest of the game which makes them seem really out of nowhere and lame
- Like 3-4 instances of Japanese being spoken but no subs anywhere. "Just play in English" Haha, no, obviously. Don't be fucking stupid
- Demon negotiation is actually just SMT But Lame
- We have yet to find a good way to hide elemental weaknesses and then show them later and this is no exception

i am not immune to akechi goro or kitagawa yusuke

can't tell if it's just the time between me playing p5 initially as a teenager and playing royal now or if there are that many changes to the experience (playing with the female protagonist mod probably helped a bit), but royal made me fall in love with persona 5 again.
the game still has its issues; ann and ryuji are treated terribly, morgana is still not nearly as compelling of a character as the game seems to think he is, the okumura arc is still not great, and haru/makoto are still without much substance, etc. etc. likewise however the game still hits a great stride with sae's palace onward, and the new third semester content makes that stride even better.
akechi was already the best character in base game and giving him more of a spotlight was one of the best choices atlus has ever made. maruki and the story and themes of the third semester in general are also some of the best work atlus has put out in a long time as pretty much anyone will tell you, but sadly yoshizawa does not hit that same mark at all. she's definitely at least somewhat compelling near the end of it all but i really don't think she was important enough to be like the biggest head on the boxart and i do think i would've preferred her as just a female protagonist option or something.
playing royal honestly made me stop feeling insane seeing people i know talk about how great persona 5 was after my impressions of vanilla made way for me not really caring all that much, and while it isn't the best persona game (it isn't even the best out of the modern trilogy lol) it's a really great time and i'm glad i wasted 100+ hours of my life again on this one. you really just have to take modern persona for what it is instead of what you want it to be and you'll end up enjoying yourself a lot, i think

I already played the original for 100 hours the first time, I wanted to go fast and see the new stuff. How did this still take 130 hours?? Wtf???
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You know, I feel like Ive softened on Persona 5's issues over time - so playing again did have a nice benefit of getting reacquainted with the things I like about the game.

Im gonna try and focus on the Royal-unique qualities tho:

- Royals rebalancing of the core systems and the new / reworked perks all makes for a much more interesting and enjoyable JRPG experience. Better use of status effects for more necessary use of Technical attacks, unlimited bullet refill, as well as adding components to “work on” at the Darts and Billards hall. Extra teammate skills, more Confidant benefits, Tag Team moves - with enough hard work there can be so much going on that it starts to approach the border of having the JRPG play itself (and thats good, tho maybe a strange condemnation of whats “fun” about JRPGs tbh)

- I think the "Bonus Semester" is written like its a "sequel" to the base game - and that sort of sucks when you have to play 80-100 hours of the base game in order to even access the Bonus Semester. I think this has some unavoidable impacts on the experience - why is the game still going after the climax? Why is there a second climax? Its like cheering a band on to do an Encore after they just did an amazing set and then they play like 10 more songs and have like a whole other second concert. Maybe its, like, entertaining but you feel the loss of the closure.
For me,
personally,
I feel like this should have been some sort of standalone DLC, maybe similar to Persona 3 FEZ’s “The Answer” mode (tho, obviously, actually good). I can appreciate the slow integrated build up of Kasumi and Maruki in the base experience but nowhere near enough to pay 100 hours of fatigue for it, especially when it invites all these pacing issues into the game. I probably shouldnt be feeling “god Im so ready for this to be over” during the most intriguing part of the experience for someone who was already a Persona 5 fan.

- Royals new characters still sort of suffer the "character development arc speed run" thing that alot of characters suffer in Persona 5 base game. Maruki is a very intelligent character, a trained professional in psychology (and even magical psychology), and he is taking on an endeavor that violates alot of peoples sense of agency and self-determination in pursuit of, he hopes, a richer, happier existence for everyone involved. What inciting incident puts him down this path? Well he accidentally wrote himself out of his girlfriends memories. Why? ….. Shrug? His existence wasnt an essential change, he couldnt change it back? He couldnt, you know, just re-meet her? It feels very “It Happened This Way Cuz The Plot Needs It Too” and I feel like it denies me a much more engrossing and captivating experience that would only take just a lil more diligence in the writing - much like MANY characters in the original game as well. Marukis a professional therapist, and during his Confidant its clear he understands emotional regulation - so youre telling me he doesnt see how ruining peoples self determination would be a very bad idea? You cant just skip over this, it doesnt “just work”.

- Due again to the weird “sequel” nature of the Bonus Semester, the details of this conflict are also difficult to follow. Maruki needs some sort of special “Discord Perms” from Yaldabaoth and Mementos? But also his Persona just has some unique functionality anyway? But the merging of Mementos and the real world is important? How do these altered realities work anyway, does this disinclude all future possible misfortunes as well? How are people “brought back to life” but history isnt also fundamentally rewritten? I feel like this is very overwritten and it didnt need to be.

- Outside of these technical gripes tho, I think the premise behind Marukis conflict here distills Persona as a concept and as a series to its best qualities. As a game centered on emotional intervention and growth and introspection, an arc focused on examining “What If People Could “Undo” Trauma?” feels incredibly apt and especially potent. Persona as a series is uniquely positioned to take on things like “The Bad Guy Relentlessly Wants People To Be Happy”, where the ultimate conflict is “Who Cares About People More” and “Which Of These Prescriptions Help People The Most”. To me the series is always the best when it represents real emotional insight and I really really hope they figure out how to go down this path even more.

- The Akechi thing is a stroke of some meta-brilliance. Of course, on the surface level, its a good twist. “You dont like these manipulated realities? Well Youve Been Playing In One This Whole Time.” is some classic stuff. Whats really smart here, is that Persona 5 also gives this to the Players directly by granting them some fan service - people get to indulge themselves in more Akechi, who you also get to include on your team in his previously not available Bad Guy Form. This is sort of the “secret unlockable character” experience and it feels fun and entertaining - and this means the Players are directly placed in Jokers shoes when given the ultimatum of accepting or rejecting Marukis offer. Not only is Joker giving up an alternate reality where his boy still exists, but the Players are giving up an alternate reality of Persona 5 where Akechi is playable. Very smart, very good, primo design right there.

Eu joguei esse jogo por um ano, foi uma longa jornada e eu sequer sei se sou capaz de escrever uma review sobre algo tão marcante e que fez parte da minha rotina por um ano, pouco a pouco a cada dia eu me aproximava mais desses personagens e gostava mais deles, o final me atingiu pois soou como uma despedida de ensino medio, em que eu fico feliz por ter acabado, mas eu não queria dar Adeus aos meus amigos, a sensação foi essa.

Não dei 5 estrelas pois houveram alguns momentos na jornada que para mim foram maçantes, mas o todo e os pontos fortes desse jogo me impactaram muito mas, enfim é uma experiência para ficar na memoria pra sempre.

List of mods I used available on my pastebin post here. I should also note that “Mastered” in my case means getting all the achievements, leaving out a handful of Thieves Den Awards that become active or otherwise easier to nab in NG+.

For an RPG I heavily played well over a month, fresh and pampered from revisiting Persona 3 in its original and remade form prior, as well as the hot button topic it’s become over the years, you expect I'd have a lot to say about Persona 5 Royal. Well... I don't, really. All I can think about in my sleep deprived state is how my 200+ hour venture - and that's generously ignoring the idle times that're inflating Steam's counter acclimation - is how woefully underwhelming the package was save for a few bright spots, and how dispassionately apathetic I became after finally finishing and scouring out for the light.

It’s funny I mentioned my time investment a bit off the heels of a discord within FF7 Rebirth’s activities and planning, cause it should be mentioned (and emphasized) that it’s actually pretty easy to focus and fine-tune your palette into whatever it is you desire. No one except yourself, and perhaps foolish pride, is forcing you to do all of those activities after all, unless they’re particularly easy to nab off the beaten path. That is, of course, neglecting the key component: the focal point where all points are stitched and huddled around, an area P5R constantly falters over. Already saw a flashback sequence? Fret not, you’re gonna be subjugated to it not 10 minutes after. Got a good grasp of the ongoings of the story, be it by themes or event details? Alright, but you’re gonna have to bear the condescending attitude as you watch the character(s) exposit these things anyway. Grew a form of investment over a beat and how it unfolds before and during the main show? Slow your roll there bucko, you haven’t heard about the overly unnecessary and outright damaging undercurrent that ruins it! Sure, it sounds like hyperbole, and as you go along many of these detriments are either quelled or nulled, but it doesn’t change the fact that they’re present, nor does it alleviate their weight of bloat and the meekish presentation of what are honestly some pretty simple themes. The fact it took my entire first session of play to get to the initial true Free Time event on the 18th, whereas P3 - both versions, might I add - give me that freedom within just a few short hours and P4 about half, is appalling.

The writing woes extend to the Phantom Thieves themselves, which I suppose isn’t a Hot Take or anything since there’s been a bit of a debate surrounding them over the years. To dispel some common points, I don’t believe the notion that they are “centered” around Joker - on the contrary, not only is this running along the recurring theme of “kinship through displacement”, there’s already a bit of an established line between Ann and Ryuji, Futaba and Sojiro, and, though faint and dubious, Makoto and Haru. As a group, there’s a rather believable sense of friendship and camaraderie developed and finalized throughout the course of the story amidst the hustle and bustle of urban civilization, which is a bit of a surprise since I was pessimistically expecting the opposite. What did come true, unfortunately, is the lack of individualism and the expression that's delivered from it. The handling of Ann and Haru are criticized enough that I don’t think I can add anything to the former’s blobby mold of an archetype and hypocritical implementation of her supposed freedom of self-expression, and the latter’s seed of growth taken away due to the already mentioned bloat plaguing the game; same with Ryuji and how his (great) Social Link about reliance on others and strength through teamwork is routinely undermined by him being treated as a joke within the main cutscenes. Futaba is ostensibly headcanoned as one under the Autism umbrella, and while the intent is competently delivered and well-handled, the amount of #GAMER allusions are poor and clumsily handled, leading to a bumpy state of her psyche. Yusuke, who’s SL arc revolves around the dichotomy of man and their drive of passion within the hobbyist and professional mindset, is often treated as The Quirky Oddball One of the group with superficial understanding as to what art is since they did this like, twice before I guess and believed third time is truly the charm, which is also why they made Morgana have the same arc as Teddie and Aigis but without any of the things that made those two compelling. Of the group, Makoto is the one with the fewest weights holding her down; her arc is straightforward, explored to its fullest in her SL with little downplay within the narrative, and her importance in the group is always front and center. Her straight-edge nature can be too plain at times, granted, as are her connecting points regarding resolve and resolution, but compared to everyone else? It’s way easier to swallow. To reiterate, however, my main issue isn’t with the characters themselves, honestly I only truly despise Morgana and his obnoxious (albeit small in intensity) demeanor - it’s just kind of hard to truly feel connected with the group when the game seems to treat them more so as dolls for amusement than actual people, something even P4 never fully succumbed to during its outing.

I kind of wish I had more to say, really, cause it’s not as if I totally hate P5R or anything. There’s some good bits in here, like the full exploration of escapism as a theme finally being done here thanks to the “Royal” part of the game desperately giving the endgame a sense of closure, some of the non-essential confidants like Hifumi, Mishima, Chihaya and Yoshida being great to explore despite the drawbacks, and the superbosses being a fair bit of fun to go over. But, like, I’m not really sure what more I can add unfortunately. I’d sort of just be repeating common talking points and, compounded by the fact I’m facing burnout from both writing and my aforementioned time allocation, it just feels fruitless to go over? Like I don’t want to be the umpteenth mouthpiece going over how ridiculously easy this game is even excluding Merciless’ baffling(ly hilarious) modifiers pertaining to player favor and the constricted dungeon design making it so that ambushes are a rare, if ever present, occurrence one can face, cause everyone already discussed that. Did you know that, even in the original team, there were some Etrian Odyssey battle planners? Really makes me wonder how the hell it ended up so milquetoast in engagement, dungeon layout, and the us v them nature of gameplay routing when EO1’s first two stratums already had more going on. It’s also why I’m hardpressed to mention my adoration with Third Semester, cause I can’t quite word it in a way that isn’t already brought up by the people, what with Maruki, Akechi, and Kasumi being the ethos, pathos, and logos of Joker’s - and by principle, Yuki and Narukami’s - Wild Card slot and the reflection they face should his life be altered ever so slightly. I dunno man, it’s like… expansion aside, this is the RPG that got a lot of people into the genre now? The Atlus mega-hit? I’m a lot cooler on the problems than others seem to be, and I wouldn’t cynically berate others over this cause that’s stupid and rude, but it does leave me scratching my head and wondering what else I had missed in my long, long journey as an urbanite Fool.

CW for a very brief mention of self-harm toward the end of the “Deja Vu” segment

Okay please bear with me until we get to the hook here I promise I'm working my way up to something. (this writeup is about fanfiction)

I’ve got a flavor of depression called dysthymia, which is just like, when you’re just kind of a little bit depressed all the time, ambiently, forever. I had more immediately obvious emotional issues and more attention-grabbing family members growing up, and ours wasn’t the kind of family that acknowledged this sort of thing in the first place really, so this went undiagnosed until I essentially shut down altogether as a functioning person during my first year of college and had to drop out of school and move back in with my parents. Even then, I didn’t get consistent treatment for a few years after that. BUT, my mental health has never been as bad as it was that year, real low point for me.

A cool thing that can happen when you’re dysthymic though, is that you can still be prone to the big, fuck you depressive episodes that characterize major depressive disorder. This is called Double Depression when it happens, that’s the official medical terminology, which IS very funny. So that happens to me in a way that lasts for a couple-ish weeks usually maybe two or three times a year.

Alright so PERSONA 5 is IMO a like, vacuous game. Completely empty of themes and ideas at best, contradictory of its purported ideas and deeply mean-spirited at its worst. Fails entirely to capitalize on almost every seed it plants, uninterested in plumbing the depths of almost any of its characters in an interesting way beyond their introductions (and sometimes even during them). (Don’t argue with me in the comments if you think this game rocks that’s not what we’re doing here just keep reading I promise I’m doing a thing here.) But it IS a compelling game in your hands. I’m by no means immune to the charms of Persona, even if my feelings towards the modern iteration of the series are lukewarm. I played Persona 5 on its initial release and didn’t particularly enjoy myself. I caught Royal on a MASSIVE discount sometime since it came out but never really had it in mind to play it until one of my mutuals did a few months ago and was tweeting a lot about it, in such a way that reminded me of the kind of fun there is to find in these games if you’re willing to take them as they are and not as you wish they were. So right at the end of August I booted up Royal to see if I could find that. And I did! I’ve had a pretty good time with it over the last couple months. If nothing else, Persona 5 is an incredibly smooth game to play at all times, and Royal even more so. Goes down easy.

Then at the beginning of September my brain just like completely fell apart. I entered the worst depressive episode I’ve experienced in over a decade, since that time when I was 18 that I mentioned earlier. All kinds of weird brain shit that I haven’t had problems with for years and years has been coming back to me and it’s been hitting hard. And I don’t even know why! No apparent trigger. And it’s still happening! This is a very long time for me to be like this dude it sucks. I can’t get in with my doctor until the end of November, hopefully we can figure something out man idk.

All of this is to say that Persona 5 became a weird thing that I have clung to for these last couple of months; the game’s looping structure makes it easy to indulge in “one more day” thinking, punctuated by long stints of very relaxing, methodical dungeon crawling. There’s a rhythm to it, and enough depth that I could really sit down and crack the thing open to engage in the challenge content after a certain point. Max out the compendium, all that shit. As much engagement as you want it to be, but never any friction.

I also, have read, uh, somewhere between 6 and 7 million words of Persona 5 fanfiction since the beginning of September. I think this game’s cast, widely, is pretty easily my favorite in the series, or the IDEAS of them are. As I’ve mentioned, I think almost everyone in this game is an incredibly compelling SKETCH of a person, and that Atlus has almost across the board fudged the details in coloring them in. So I was like damn I bet there’s some good fanfic for this game. And there is, of course. P5 is one of the most popular games around, especially with the kinds of people who write fanfiction. And bro I sleep like four hours a night at absolute maximum right now, I have needed a lot of shit to get me through those hours without thinking about, y’know, anything else. So that’s what I’ve been doing with almost every moment of free time for ten weeks.

I didn’t initially intend to review Persona 5 here – I think it’s a game that’s been pretty thoroughly discussed over the years - but I thought it might be fun to recommend some of the fics that I’ve enjoyed during this very bizarre chapter of my life. Of course, in talking about what I like so much about a lot of these stories, there’s going to be a lot of natural comparison to how the game handles parallel ideas, so evaluation of the game is going to be peppered throughout. This isn’t a comprehensive review by any means, just a small sampling of stuff that I’ve read recently and stuff that’s really stuck with me since I’ve started my reading. Most if not all of these should be tagged pretty well and a lot of them are good about giving content warnings at the top of individual chapters if there’s tough shit in them. I didn’t include anything here that’s just porn but a few of these have sex in them at some point, AO3 has a whole rating system, you can’t miss it if you don’t want to see that stuff. Okay so let’s get into it:

Actually, I have to disclose first that I fuckin hate when people have personas talk to their persona users inside their heads, nobody has ever done it in a way that I didn’t think sucked ass but it IS gonna be in some of these and I think those stories are cool anyway but bro I need you to know I don’t condone that practice okay now we can get to it.

This is a very small sample size of only a few fics that I quite liked off the top of my head, in no particular order:

--------------------------------Take Your Time---------------------------------------------------

One Year On Probation by FlOrangey 44 chapters, 214k words, last updated June 2020

My favorite kind of fanfiction for stories like this has always been the sort that removes the supernatural elements. My favorites of these stories are always conduits for human drama, so foregrounding that sort of thing always appeals to me. A project like One Year On Probation is especially interesting, because where most fics that I’ve read that do stuff like this will put characters and perhaps versions of their canon conflicts into mundane scenarios (including some I’ll recommend further down), this one aims to retell the events of the game, just, without the superpower bits.

It makes for an interesting thought exercise when you take a scenario that is to some degree about offering powerless people the power fantasy of being able to exert influence over abusive elements of society that are otherwise untouchable and take that catharsis away from them. But if we’re still adapting the narrative beats, how do these kids handle the people hurting them? I think FlOrangey does a good job here of not letting those answers feel cheap or easy, especially not for the Madarame story, which this fic, seemingly long abandoned (dropped for two years in 2018, a few chapters in 2020, and nothing since), comes so close to finishing that you can see the outline of where it’s going.

The removal of the metaverse has other ripple effects – characters tied closely to it lead very different, more stable lives, particularly Futaba and Akechi. Without the narrative out of just showing it to him, Yusuke’s wake-up call is longer and colder. Morgana is, obviously, a regular cat. And this interpretation of Joker is just a guy tryin’ to get by, dealing with a pretty bad anxiety disorder that he’s at least developed since the events leading up to the game, but it’s implied he could have exhibited signs of earlier. Author’s notes suggest that FlOrangey is writing that stuff from experience and it does read like it. While that becomes a big part of Akira’s character here, and you might expect it to given his circumstances, he’s not like, a conduit for trauma, he’s a pretty roundly written guy.

These are very warm iterations of these characters without feeling like they rely much on you being a fan of the game to like them, which is always nice. You can tell it was being written with that really long plan in mind, and Makoto, despite being essentially the secondary main character by the time the fic stops, is definitely the character who feels the most like “ah damn yeah I bet this version of her would really go places if this writer had gotten the chance to get to the parts of the story where she’s center stage.” As it is though I don’t think this fic feels terribly incomplete, even if it does abruptly end like 9/10ths of the way through the second part of a like eight part story. It’s very long as it is, 215k words, and there’s a lot of good shit here to dig into.

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Black & Red by Alexilulu, 18 chapters, 126k words, last updated April 2020

Another one loosely adapting the events of the game that gets cut off midway through the Madarame story arc, Black & Red’s method of shuffling the story around is by being entirely from Haru’s perspective and moving her whole central story up to take place during and after the initial story arc of the game. It’s nice to have a story that makes the main character transgender but doesn’t have her constantly thinking about that, tbh, even though I have read other fics where trans characters ARE thinking about it all the time and that can be good too, I like diversity in my t-slur representation. It’s also an interesting choice to make her the perspective character and putting the focus on her burgeoning relationship with Joker without actually having her get involved with the Phantom Thieves.

There’s not NOTHING else happening but this fic is pretty heavily focused on Haru and Joker coming together, and a big part of that early on is them being edgy teens smoking on the high school roof in the rain, him clearly wanting to let down the walls of his goofy Dangerous Delinquent persona that he’s built up so people don’t approach him and he can be a Phantom Thief in relative solitude, while also trying to keep her at arm’s length because obviously being a Phantom Thief is scary and dangerous, and Alexilulu does interpret their adventures more violently than average, and without the conveniences of extreme healing magic a lot of writers adapt from the games. This could all be fine on its own but it reflects really well on Haru’s character – Alexilulu really emphasizes an anger that is present in the game but never really explored. As someone who is in a genuinely horrific abuse situation, having it made pretty obviously clear that she’s being fucked around with by one of the very few people she’s been able to open up to leads to a lot of really good scenes of the teens Sitting Around And Talking About How Fucked Up They Are which is one of my favorite kinds of fanfic writing.

The elements of Haru’s story that are fleshed out are pitched well too – it’s easy to write her abusive fiance really over-the-top and Alexilulu occasionally rides that line but never in scenes where it really matters. Essentially too, they give Haru’s father some more, uhhh, I’ll say believable notes of humanity, without making him sympathetic (I think he is actually more evil than he is in the game, on a personal level, by the time he makes his final appearance in this story). Elements of Haru’s family history and social link story also get folded in here and complicated in ways that the game simply isn’t interested in and they all make for a richer personal tableau; there was a lot of meat left on this bone, should the fic have continued, but given that it didn’t, it’s good that Persona 5’s inherently clean, arc-based nature got us through the one so heavily focused on the fic’s main character. There’s some sense of closure even without a resolution.

Alexilulu has written a lot of Persona 5 fics, mostly one-shots and most of them porn. I’ve read several of them and like pretty much everything I’ve read of theirs, but I might particularly also recommend What I Want to Say (Without Saying ‘I Love You’), about post-school-aged Ryuji and Ann and their nebulously defined sexual relationship as they feel like they’re kind of adrift in that ennui of being an adult with no direction and no sense of future, surrounded by peers who are Doing Stuff and Going Places (10k words) and A Garden For Traitors, two stories about Ann and Haru getting together, both short one shots, both very sweet. Alexilulu seems to have moved on from P5 writing but they did have a great voice for these characters.

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i wanna kiss your silhouette by wtfoctagon, 5 chapters, 35k words, complete

My favorite thing about fanfiction generally speaking is the way writers naturally bring out and emphasize different aspects of characters they’re writing about. Maybe someone is gonna hit a character pitch perfectly the way they’re portrayed in the original work, but I’m a lot more interested when you see people’s inclinations drawing stuff that’s already present in a character and sharpening it. Persona 5, having most of its characterization be so scattered and messy throughout, has a lot of potential for this.

wtfoctagon stages this fic as a romance between Ann and Makoto (imo an EXTREMELY underrated pairing), and it is, and it’s a really compelling one too, but it’s also a pretty thorough look at a side of Ann we don’t see much after the opening hours of the game – the one who is contemplative, keen, and empathic. The Ann in this fic is the Ann from that scene where she sees Yusuke’s painting and feels the honesty of intention behind it, and touches him with her comments, and knows intrinsically that Madarame can’t be who he says he is. This is a good look for her, and it comes through without losing the way that she is also easily flustered, easily bored, compassionate, and quietly the emotional rock of her friend group.

The dialogue is really sharp but a lot of this characterization – for both girls — comes from the prose. The narration from Ann’s perspective carries a loose, casual vibe but communicates strongly her ability to perceive every small detail about Makoto: her anger, her insecurity, her practiced way to use body language to hide herself in plain sight. Something that’s not really emphasized in Persona 5 but makes for great food for fanfiction writers is that almost any combination of main characters in that game can relate to each other on some level via their bad experiences. The specifics of their hardships don’t always align but portions of them do, and the ways people react to trauma can. Ann and Makoto both know what it is to feel small, to wish to not be seen at all, and to have that contradictory feeling of simultaneously wishing to be seen on their own terms. They both know what it is to be lonely, and to be powerless, and to be angry.

It’s also just, genuinely, a really romantic story. Lovely writing. Other good stuff by wtfoctagon includes i’m just feeling low, feeling low, a one shot where makoto and akira commiserate over their respective bad days on the roof for 1500 words, and several Tales of Berseria fics that you know I gotta shout out because I’m a huge ToB head over here. Mostly their stories are shipping fics between Magilou and Eleanor but wtfoctagon does seem to know in their heart that magilou/eleanor/velvet is a true OT3 and I respect them hugely for this. They run the gamut from real world AU stuff to stuff set during the game to an 80k word post-game story that I haven’t gotten around to but I’m saving for a rainy day. Big fan of this writer's voice.

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a storm is coming in by canticle, 6 chapters, 40k words, complete

A fic that takes place the summer after the events of the game, where Ryuji goes to visit Akira for the entire break. It’s evident that Ryuji is depressed and that he’s avoiding SOMETHING that’s happened in Tokyo since the game ended but it takes a long time for Canticle to get around to disclosing that stuff. This is a very slow-paced fic, very much more about soaking in the vibe of a bad summer than the catharsis of a horrific revelation. The revelation isn’t horrific either, it’s really mundane, and so is the depiction of Ryuji’s depression. He’s just really tired, he doesn’t want to do stuff, he avoids talking to his friends. His time with Akira is fun, sort of, but it’s also a form of harmful escapism, even as they figure out a routine, and even as things get……….a little bit homo.

Not to open THIS can of worms, I PROMISE I don’t mean anything by this I’m JUST more familiar with the girl shit, but the whole romance carries the vibe of a soft yuri, one where all the moves on both ends are hesitant. The most like, romantically forward thing anyone does before they’re kissing is when Ryuji starts sad wearing the hoodie that Akira wore when he was pretending to be dead during Persona 5, without commenting on it, which could be perceived as a power play but could also just be like, a weird thing to do. Mostly it’s a lot of increasingly gay cuddling, falling asleep with his forehead pressed against Akira’s which is NORMAL FOR BROS. When you’re sad it’s normal to wear your bro’s hoodie all week.

There’s a bit in this fic where Akira helps him re-bleach his hair, and afterwards Ryuji can’t stop thinking about how he LOOKS the same as he always does after he does his own hair but he FEELS different because it was Akira putting his hands on him and it was like, in a way Akira marking him and holy SHIT dude that energy is nowhere else in this thing. Just the tiniest hint of the kind of shit I like but I was hooting and hollering. I know I can get that elsewhere in P5 fandom and I can probably even get it from canticle but to do so in an m/m situation you pretty much HAVE to be willing to let one of the boys be Akechi and I am simply NOT INTERESTED.

This one’s really pleasant though. Eventually all the other Phantom Thieves come to hang out and Ryuji gets scenes specifically with Ann and Makoto, who are always good characters to pair him with. Ryuji and Makoto are another one of those duos who Just Work that basically nobody is really tapping into, but when people do it rocks. BUT HEY HOW ABOUT ANOTHER ONE ABOUT AKIRA DYEING RYUJI’S HAIR BUT THAT’S THE ENTIRE THING THIS TIME

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Dyeing To Kiss You by Mysecretfanmoments and Suggestivescribe, one shot, 9k words

This one really only aims to be a romantic moment of an initial getting together between Ryuji and Akira, and it does that well, but there’s more meat on the bone than I might have expected going into it. Both boys are really well characterized, especially when they’re being described from the other one’s perspective (something I always like to see, I’m realizing as I write about these various fics), and there are little hints at the deeper layers to each of them – specifics about Ryuji’s relationship with his mom, hints at Akira’s sensitivities about how much living at Leblanc actually would suck and how fragile his pre-Tokyo relationships turned out to be.

But the really great shit here IS the stuff centered specifically on the romance. Ryuji only realizing his feelings are romantic like forty minutes into being actively aroused by his buddy having a degree of intimate control over him while they go through the steps to bleach his hair really just rules, and when things to escalate to acting and, later, talking, the authors do a good job at keeping Ryuji sounding gruff and inarticulate without making him sound stupid or cartoonish, which is something a lot of writers struggle with for him and characters like him.

Likewise I think the authors are really great at just like, describing the sensation of touching? Of how good it can feel to touch someone and be touched by them in an uncomplicated way, especially when it’s in places that people don’t normally touch each other (i’m not even talking about sex stuff!), and the sense of romance is palpable without omitting things like pauses to negotiate how they want to go about stuff once they are going. This kind of writing isn’t easy to do as well as they’ve done it here but they make it LOOK easy which is about the highest compliment I can think to give.

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The Lonely Fortune Teller’s Club by petaldancing, one shot, 14k words

I have found that other than the shockingly high number of Joker/Iwai fics, there really aren’t very many out there that focus on the adult cast members of Persona 5, and even fewer that are like, actually very good lol. Takemi and Kawakami and Iwai to a lesser extent are often PRESENT because so many stories try to adapt the events of the game and those three have prominent early roles in a logical progression of the story, and they’re well-liked characters for sure, but it’s rare to really get to see these people as actual people beyond the limits of what the game gave them, and even rarer to get inside their heads. This is one of the few stories I’ve seen that’s not porn that’s focused on Chihaya and I think petaldancing does very well by her.

Chihaya is one of my favorite confidants in Persona 5, kind of existing in a middle space of age and maturity between the teenaged characters and the rest of the adult cast. As with most of them, her story gets a little goofy in the details and is let down thematically and in its resolution by Being In Persona 5 but in the broad strokes I think it’s pretty affecting and she’s characterized in a really charismatic way throughout it.

This story takes place in the year after the game, and manages to make Chihaya getting a job working the desk at Takemi’s clinic seem entirely un-contrived, which is a genuine feat, and while this is a story about the two of them making a romantic connection, and it indulges in my least favorite romance story structure (a long tease out and then ending with the acknowledgment of feelings when it feels like there are a lot of depths to plumb still, were the actual relationship to be explored), the story really reads more as a character study on Chihaya, a what-if story about what her life would logically have to look like after she blows it up at the end of her social link, which was a good thing that she was right to do, but did leave her at a crossroads that the structure of a Persona game is unprepared to address. In that regard I think petaldancing does everything right here; they nail the voice, they nail the beats, they say what they want to say and get out in a relatively succinct little story.

Petaldancing has one other Persona story called But Even Iron Trembles, another long oneshot from Hifumi’s perspective in a version of the game events where her mother has a full-blown palace that the Phantom Thieves draw themselves into in the time between stealing Kunikazu Okumura’s heart and the press conference he calls to resolve that story arc. It’s got a backgrounded Hifumi/Makoto romance built entirely off of the supposition that those two would hit it off and start hanging out after that scene in the game where you might run into Hifumi while hanging out with Makoto in the neighborhood with all the bookstores, and that stuff is good, but it’s also the best fleshing out of Hifumi’s family life and her feelings about her situation that I’ve read, which there aren’t MANY of (Hifumi another character I would have expected to be more popular with fanfic people tbh) but like, I’ve tried them all lol. So I recommend that too.

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Fate Written Into Stone by KindredTea, 24 of 26 planned chapters at time of writing, 394k words, ongoing haha oops nevermind I’ve been writing this document for so long that she actually finished the fic while I was working on it, 26/26 chapters, 405k words

This one feels a little bit like cheating because at first glance it’s much more a Persona 3 fic than a Persona 5 one. I AM about to spoil Persona 3, which due to its upcoming remake is presumably about to get a lot of first timers but the premise of this story is like entirely predicated upon the ending of that game so if you care that’s the heads up.

FWIS takes place ten years after P3 and three after P5, opening with an extremely frail, malnourished, 28-year-old Kotone Shiomi (the official name for Persona 3’s female player character) being found on the side of the road by Ann from Persona 5, and it’s immediately clear to the reader that this is not a coincidence, but that Kotone, who by all means should not be alive, was placed deliberately in Ann’s path by someone who knows the identities of all of the Phantom Thieves and is deliberately fucking with them. It doesn’t take long for the Thieves to find out Kotone is a Persona Protagonist and take her under their wing, but it also doesn’t take long for all the guys from Persona 3 to figure out that she’s mysteriously alive and also presumably not in place over the Great Seal, which does herald the return of the Dark Hour and apathy syndrome and all that other bad shit from Persona 3, so very quickly the questions are raised of How Did This Happen, Why Did This Happen, Does Kotone Need To Sacrifice Herself Again, Are We Willing To Seek Another Solution While Things Fall Apart, and also Is Kotone A Human Person?? We did, after all, cremate her body ten years ago.

That describes maybe the first like, six? Chapters of this story, which is dense with plot and is constantly twisting and turning with big new ideas and huge swerves, which I mean in a complimentary way. I usually find really plot-heavy stuff that’s entirely original kind of boring or unconvincing when it’s trying to build out the existing supernatural elements of the work, but KindredTea has it down pat dude. She’s doing a ton of stuff in this fic that feels like it fits right into the shared world of these games but more importantly has kept me on the hook for hundreds of thousands of words beyond a desire to get to the next set of character interactions.

Those are great too, though, don’t get me wrong. KindredTea makes a fascinating Kotone here; it’s not unusual to interpret this character as one who wears a mask of really overt cheerfulness to cover some combination of depression or anger or loneliness (she is the protagonist of Persona 3 after all lol, but also dialogue options in the game support this) but KT’s Kotone is eventually fleshed out into someone who WAS like that as a kid, grew into genuinely being cheerful and fulfilled by her experience in Persona 3, and is now faced with the dilemma of having to choose to die again, alone, and confused, and without the support of the people who she loves dearly, all of whom feel really differently about her after she’s been dead for ten years and they’ve done varying degrees of moving on.

All of the P3 cast’s characterizations kick ass in this fic, and they all respond differently to the idea that some version of Kotone may be alive, but the real star of probably the entire story is Yukari. In KindredTea’s telling of Persona 3, Yukari and Kotone were a couple, and she both had the hardest time moving on from Kotone’s death and the most virulent reaction to the idea that she could be alive again (and also may need to die again too). Yukari is a character who is in a lot of ways defined by grief – throughout all of the games she appears in, and I think KindredTea does a really great job of not simplifying the complex weirdness of this scenario for her.

I lied when I said she’s the star though the real star in my heart is SAE NIIJIMA, a character who I think is very cool, like at least 60% because I think she’s cool LOOKING, but another one who I think is just really underserved by the Persona 5 Fanfic Community. Sae is often treated as a cartoonishly evil character, with people just like grossly overdoing her mistreatment of Makoto (I think the way Sae is abusive in the game is actually generally well handled – passive aggressively, mostly quietly screw-turning in a way that just never really lets up, it’s so normal – just not very present due to the way the game is structured), or, in works set post-game, she’s usually just Nice. And that’s fine for what it is I guess; these stories are rarely ABOUT Sae, but I guess I just wish that they were! She’s cool! You could do a lot with her! And guess what mother fuckers FWIS does! Sae may be a good person now but she’s also portrayed as deeply lonely here, someone who turned her career around to suit her idealism but that didn’t like, solve any of her personal problems, it just made her a Good Person. She’s still a woman ambiguously in her late 20s with no social life because she had one friend who was really a coworker she didn’t like and he’s a dead teenager. When she meets Kotone she kind of throws herself at her, romantically, but also because they both immediately pick up that the other is really aching for a connection with someone their own age who gets what they’re feeling. And this new, kinder, gentler Sae isn’t a different person either; some of the best writing around her comes from when she gets hurt or other people fuck up around her and she reflexively snaps into the cold, mean personality she carried in Persona 5. Easier than being hurt again, easier than admitting that you can be suckered into feeling so bad about people leaving you, again.

I haven’t mentioned that the other pillar of this fic is the long-term romantic relationship between Makoto and Ann? And it’s great? This story is technically a sequel to two fanfictions KindredTea previously wrote, Whim of Rebellion, a huge oneshot following Makoto and Ann figuring their shit out over the entire course of P5, and I didn’t compromise just for the love, which does something similar for P3, intercut with scenes of Yukari grieving Kotone in the year following her death. All of these stories are good, but I do think FWIS is the crown jewel here (and it even adapts the P3 portions of I didn’t compromise late in its run). KindredTea is a deft plotter, and has come up with a really fun premise and multiple really fun twists to go along with it, but I think her biggest strength as a writer is how good she is at understated character writing. It’s an underrated skill in fanfic writing to be able to say a lot with a little, or to strongly communicate what characters think and feel without coming out with it, but KT’s got that down hard. There’s a bit in chapter 8 of this fic that I’ve shown like four people, two of whom don’t even know what Persona is, I just can’t stop thinking about it. Good fic. I like it. I still need to read the last six chapters lol but I really want to post this writeup at some point.

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Deja Vu by Daxiefraxie and JaneTheNya, 101 chapters at time of writing, 645k words, ongoing

There’s a somewhat popular subgenre of video game fanfiction called New Game + fics, where the main character is forced, usually by some supernatural means, to relive the events of the game with all of their memories and usually all of their powers or abilities or whatever that they had at the end of the story, as if they were experiencing a new game plus of their story but like, y’know, applying the logic of that to them being a real person. The idea is usually that things will play out somehow differently, or they might try to make them play out the same way but the effects of their knowledge and power will ripple out until things go off the rails irreparably. I find this type of story to be almost uniformly uncompelling, either because the writers trying to take this format on don’t seem to really have any ideas on how they want to make the story particularly different or more interesting for having the wrinkles they’re introducing, or because the ways these experiences affect the characters going through this time travel often boil down to the subject feeling TORTURED and ANGRY about it in a very rote, juvenile sort of way, the way you think of when you’re being really mean about fan fiction.

I haven’t fucked with a lot of Persona 5 NG+ fics, largely because, having dipped my toes into a few, I’ve found my opinions to be largely validated, but in running my filters by things like “SHOW ME STORIES WITH TRANS CHARACTERS” (don’t make fun of me), Deja Vu did just keep popping up until I gave in and checked it out. Being awake all night every night means anything THIS long warrants at least a look for me. Deja Vu’s trick is that rather than the standard P5 NG+ tactic of having Joker return to the beginning of the game upon being killed by the traitor in the bad ending, the writers simply have Ren receiving packages with letters and items from a version of himself in the doomed future of a previous timeline, something that’s it’s suggested has actually happened to many Rens over hundreds of cycles. Eventually he starts seeing memories belonging to the previous Ren too, intrusively, and it’s all pretty fucked. This creates a lot of drama without making our Ren knowledgeable or powerful or out of place in his own story, and the variables that the authors introduce right off the bat and continue to introduce throughout the story, including the casts of Persona 3 and 4 (ALWAYS DICEY but it pays off here in a big way) make this plot feel like it could be anything, even when it’s still adhering fairly strictly to the tenants of Persona 5’s story arc before things do eventually fly entirely off the rails.

While I do think the balancing act that Daxiefraxie and JaneTheNya manage with their plotting is really impressive, I’m certainly personally here for the character work. There are some clear objectives in Deja Vu when it comes to how the characters are approached: the first is to make much more explicit their social vulnerabilities. Every Phantom Thief is somehow queer now, many of them are transgender in ways that profoundly affect their experiences, and disabilities and mental health issues are given serious consideration in how everyone is written throughout. The second is to emphasize the ways these kids are trauma survivors, and in this story that means pretty much universally digging a lot more deeply into the effects of their experiences than the game did, and occaionally making things explicit that were left to implication in the canon story. Everyone’s stories are tweaked, with Ann and Ryuji getting a lot more detail and time spent on their feelings during and after their spotlight arcs, Yusuke and Haru’s stories see significant additions, and Kasumi and Makoto’s are reworked entirely - Makoto’s in a way that brings her experiences more in line with the rest of the crew’s and, I think, reflects the authors’ contempt for the police as an institution (rightly lol get Makoto’s cop shit from the game OUTTA MY FACE please, every writer who makes Makoto be like “what the fuck was I thinking I am not going to be a cop actually” is a hero).

There’s certainly a way about this story where just by describing the kinds of things that happen in it, or going by its tags, or by its very careful chapter-by-chapter content warnings, that would make it easy to write it off as over the top in its darkness, as edgy, and it’s definitely true that this is pound for pound the most intense story I’ve got on this list. But it’s not about rolling around in that, and it’s certainly not GRAPHIC when it gets into this stuff. It’s a lot more about these characters opening up to each other and finding a sense of solidarity together; the hot pot scene from early in the game becomes a recurring moment in this fic, where every time a new thief joins the group they share a meal and let each other in on their baggage, give the new person space to do that or not at their discretion. There’s a lot of careful attention paid to how even though the supernatural power to force the immediate change you need IS cathartic, it doesn’t FIX you the way you might wish it did or feel like you need, and the lingering effects of everyone’s experiences are present thought the narrative.

I think maybe the best, most obvious example of all of these factors together is the way Akechi is handled. While he pretty much retains his characterization and role from the game for most of this story, and certainly he’s a sicko and a turbo murderer, there’s also an acknowledgment that he was an abused child who was groomed into being basically a serial killer by the adults who had complete authority over him?? And regardless of his own motivations and how complicit he may be and how he may feel about his own actions, a kid in that situation simply can’t be fully responsible for the person he’s become and the shit Akechi’s done. But it’s not treated in such an open-and-shut way either. He’s a lot closer to being an adult than a kid at this point, and he’s not stable, and him having been manipulated isn’t gonna un-murder Futaba’s mom. There’s an entire story arc dedicated to the problem of What To Do About Akechi, and exploring how the very large cast feel about him as individuals, with a lot of characters arguing for and against how sympathetically he should be handled, and a wide gradient of feelings across both sides of the debate. Even when things are made more severe and more explicit in Deja Vu, they’re also treated with a degree of nuance that the game isn’t interested in. Here, exploring that nuance feels like one of the driving motivators of telling this story.

Daxiefraxie told me in a comment reply that they were using both authors’ first and secondhand experiences to inform all of the hard stuff in the fic, and I think you can feel that here. There’s a lot of shit in this story that I also have firsthand experience with and while it can be an emotionally intense read, it’s never been an overwhelming one for me; this is one of the only stories I’ve read, particularly in fanfiction, that deals directly and extensively with cutting that hasn’t triggered me, which I think says something about the approach the writers have taken given the active intrusive thoughts I’ve been having over these last couple months.

So yeah idk I think the whole package is pretty good. I’m maybe ten chapters away from being caught up – I stalled out on a lot of these really long fics when I got close to current with them because I hadn’t finished the game yet, and I do think that having the events of the game in mind has been good while reading these stories. Not that all of them feel like they rely on you knowing the plot of the game to fill in gaps – I would say any good one that aims to retell the story of the game doesn’t, for example – but knowing where we came from helps me appreciate what we’re doing now. So I’m eager to go back and catch up fully. These might be my favorite takes on Ann and Haru especially.

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Aces High and Queens Wild by SpellStruck, 3 chapters at time of writing, 21k words, ongoing

This is a VERY new story, which seems to post a chapter every couple months so far, but it’s very COOL so I wanted to include it here. Will it continue? Idk. Will it finish? Who can say. But it’s got a sick opening.

There’s a popular type of story in Persona fanfic called Arcana Swaps, which uh, is what it sounds like. In the games all the important characters have a Tarot arcana associated with them which usually offer some narrative relevance to the themes of their personal stories, and in arcana swap fics the author will shuffle those arcana around, which can mean a lot of things, but always means familiar characters assuming the narrative roles of other characters in the stories. Sometimes this means also bringing with them elements of their own stories, sometimes it means pasting them into an adapted version of the original story for the arcana they’ve stepped into. If the writer is trying, or they’re good, they will still take the narrative significance of the arcanas into account when they’re writing the new stuff. Lots of ways this can play out.

So in this story our main character, our Fool, is Ann. She’s joker in this story, coming to Tokyo on a train to live with a guardian she doesn’t know after doing some kind of criminal assault that we don’t get the full details for. Her guardian is Maruki rather than Sojiro, and he is recognizably Maruki, but we get to see a side of him we don’t see in the game – his personal home, his neighborhood, his job before going to Shujin. He’s Maruki though, and he’s friendly, and welcoming, and tries to be really openly communicative with Ann. A human Morgana is the Ryuji, Yusuke is the Ann, and Madarame is the Kamoshida. That’s about as far as these early chapters take us.

It’s just really well-written, I think! I think I’m pretty on the record at this point as an Ann Liker, and to see an introspective, maybe insecure, definitely uncertain version of her trying to feel out her place in a new world is really stimulating, especially her interplay with Maruki, a type of adult she very clearly has no idea what to do with. There’s drama just pulsing through the establishing moments of this story in a way that makes me wish it was a no metaverse thing because I’m just like that BUT as it is I’m just happily waiting for whatever we get, whenever we get it. I really do hope that SpellStruck keeps posting chapters, it’s off to a sick start.

--------------------------------Take Your Time---------------------------------------------------

Not Enough Time by SpaceCakes, 29 chapters, 102k words, complete

Finally, I am closing it out (more because I am tired of writing this document and want to get this thing out the door than because I have run out of Persona 5 fanfiction to talk about), with one for the heterosexuals.

This is another of my precious No Metaverse AU stories that follows a college-aged Haru who, in this telling, has managed to stave off her arranged marriage until after she finishes her university education. The story begins right at the end of her second of three years, and she’s starting to really keenly feel the time slipping away from her. The key difference between this story and canon, besides the lack of supernatural elements, is that Haru didn’t know any of the other characters in high school, and at the start of this story is only friends with Makoto, who is her ONLY friend, actually, and whom she met in college. This is a romance between Ren and Haru, and that’s good, I like the mellow but sure characterization he gets here, and think it pairs especially well with this somewhat rattled, insecure version of Haru, but I do think Haru’s internal life is the good shit in this fic.

This is a pretty grounded take on Haru’s situation, and in that sense it can be a tough read without ever becoming explicit or graphic in content. She’s a woman who has learned, desperately, how to manage the men in her life, but who knows she can’t walk that tightrope forever. She’s bargained a tiny amount of freedom from her father – single life for a couple extra years, and an apartment to live in while she’s in school – but it’s all conditional. She has to answer her phone quickly enough and often enough, she has to answer questions in a satisfying way, she has to wear the right clothes and say the right things and of course, she has to marry a man that she and her father both know is vile. Sugimura too, is a constant presence who has total power over her and knows it, constantly pushing the already paper-thin boundaries between them, held at bay more by his own ultimate disinterest in Haru as an object than by a belief that he couldn’t get away with anything he wanted to. And the moment she’s out of line all of the freedoms she’s bargained for herself as insulation from these pressures could disappear isntantly. They’re going to disappear anyway, in a year.

That’s why Haru only has one friend, and hasn’t told her about her upcoming marriage. The plan is to quietly cut contact with Makoto and assume Makoto cares a lot less about Haru than Haru does about her, not enough to really care where she went. And selling this oppressive atmosphere of resignation is what makes it feel like such a relief when Haru does start hanging out with Makoto’s friends (and not only Ren either), something that takes a surprisingly long time to happen. It’s scary, too, though. The other shoe is always ready to drop.

This is, of course, a fluffy romance story with a sex scene at the end, so things do resolve sweetly, but they don’t resolve cleanly, which is something I always appreciate about good Haru stories. And the sex scene at the end is good! Shoutouts to the heteros. See? I am a fair and balanced media consumer.

--------------------------------Take Your Time---------------------------------------------------

Edit 12/17/23: Even as I have finished the game and I quickly approach the end of a couple of the spinoffs I find that my appetite for P5 fanfic hasn’t really left me, so I may turn this review into something of a living document, come back and add stuff to it as I read new things that really catch me, and I have read a couple of really good ones since I initially posted this so that first one may come soon. My hope is that this thing will be like a good pu’er tea, y’know - it’s good if you drink it right now but it will probably continue to improve with age. Thanks for reading!

I thought Persona 5 was massively overrated until I played it in 2022. But the game was amazing, it fixes a lot of the gripes that I had with Persona 4 Golden. It had way better pacing, introduced a lot of gameplay elements from the SMT mainline games, and massively expanded the life sim elements. Being someone who enjoys SMT, I still find Persona 5 to be easy, but it's way more enjoyable than 4. Bonus points for having acid jazz as the main music genre.

The Royal Edition included one of my most favourite villain archetypes in gaming.

Really good game. But it's not really the masterpiece I've been hearing so much.

Sure, it's great in the gameplay department but it's a tan lame with it's history and some characters being for the most part walking steriotypes compared to P4 which had better characters that felt more special and unique.

The combat is great. A lot of spectacle and little effects. Demon negotiation is here for some reason, it's more basic than in the SMT games but it opens for some interesting possibilities. The social aspect is here and greatly expanded from the past games.

It may be the best in the series, but it's not my favorite.

Enjoyment - 9/10
Difficulty - 3/10

MORE PERSONA 5!

Since I already played Persona 5, I decided to play on HARD which was a nice challenge. Even on HARD, it was still fairly manageable.

Fantastic game. Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal opened my eyes to a great series that I previously ignored. Must buy, must play!
🏆

A game that really stole my heart. I loved the characters because of how well they were written. The music was amazing and at times just really hyped me up for what was going on in the game. The song that plays in the café just calmed my mind and prepared me for my next challenge. The backstories of the characters you related to just make you cry - it's just super well written and connects you to the characters so easily. The turn based combat feels fresh and engaging - chaining attacks feels super good and the finishers always made me feel good. The game is pretty long but it's super worth to experience it. Only thing that leaves to be desired is Joker - wish we had some voice acting or just more character development because from what we do get from him he would be an amazing character. It's a shame he is just a self insert.
The game is an awesome rebel story - and pretty unusual for it to fight against the corrupt society we live in. Persona 5 and the content of Royal really just felt like a breath of fresh air to gaming.

EU AMO ESSE JOGO

irei expressar meu amor por este jogp. A dificuldade, ou a ausência dela, é algo que me irrita profundamente. Parece que não há desafio real, mas ainda assim, as lutas contra os chefes conseguem apresentar momentos únicos para cada batalha.

Os "Social Links" neste jogo estão notavelmente melhores do que no jogo anterior. Os personagens de fato amadurecem, e cada um tem sua própria história cativante. O jogo ainda recompensa com novas habilidades. O momento em que você prepara café e Sojiro o toma, logo após ele te da um resumo das características do café como acidez, corpo e pais de origem, é um dos meus favoritos.

A cidade é absurdamente viva, onde a cada esquina há novas descobertas, e os NPCs, com o passar do tempo, revelam suas próprias mini-histórias, alguns até virando quests.

No entanto, minha única reclamação séria em relação ao jogo se encontra na parte "Royal". É como tentar encaixar um círculo em um quebra-cabeça, uma sobreposição forçada que parece destoar da essência central do enredo. Cria-se uma sensação de artificialidade que não faz sentido levando em conta que o final estava basicamente fechado.

futaba best girl

The updates within this rerelease makes this the definitive version of Persona 5. The core story, while mainly remaining the same, has had some new inclusions that make the character interactions a little better and give a bit more screen time to characters who were introduced later. The new 3rd semester was a blast and arguably peak story telling within the persona series. The new characters were fun to meet and interact act with. The new gameplay additions made the game feels 100 times more smoother than how the original release felt. The thieves den was a nice addition to spend some time in. My only gripe with the game is that with all these new additions, the game felt a little too easy. Other than that, peak game

Sadly its peak. Atlus are a bunch of pussy ass bitches for writing the game like that though bc why are you tryna appeal to gooners and write a touching meaningful story at the same time. This game made me gain 900 followers on instagram and almost gave me carpal tunnel from drawing too much. Akechi gave me like genuine unironic. Completely serious brain damage like I wish he wasnt in the game at all

Ann Takamaki my goddess the love of my life I never took her off my team named us the diamonds romanced her and refused to stray from my path. Greatest character in the history of gaming and I am not joking about it.

Man, this game is really special. It has its faults, for sure, but there's absolutely no denying the boundless style and spectacular vibes that Persona 5 Royal is drowning in, from its world and combat to the way the UI is designed.

I've never really been one for turn-based JRPGs, but P5's combat and menus are so fast-paced and rewarding at literally every turn that it practically removes it of any possible tedium that could generally be found in JRPG combat systems. On top of that, there are so many individual layers of battle mechanics that you can tweak and experiment with that there are probably still new things to discover about it even at hour 80 of your playthrough.

The social aspect of the game is also incredibly rewarding, both from a gameplay and narrative side, granting you unique abilities and buffs for yourself and your companions each time you reach a new level of affinity with them. Each member of the Phantom Thieves, as well as (some of) the side characters you meet around Tokyo, are easy to love, platonically or romantically (you can’t romance Ryuji, sadly). It's an excellent cast of characters to spend a ~100-hour supernatural Tokyo crime caper odyssey with, complimented by great writing and character development across the board.

Then again, the social side of P5R wasn't one I was in any way sceptical of sticking the landing going in, as I already had experience with Persona 4 Golden. To improve on that game, all Persona 5 Royal really needed to do was have the gameplay at least match the strengths of the narrative and social systems, which, thankfully, it very much does this time.

However, there are parts of P5R that I do take issue with. While, thematically and as a whole, I truly enjoyed what Persona 5 Royal's narrative presented, there was one glaring issue for me that makes the whole thing kind of shaky: the romances that Joker can pursue between Kawakami and Takemi; the former being his homeroom teacher and the latter being his local doctor.

For a narrative that hinges on how 'shitty adults' in positions of power can abuse it and endanger the lives and futures of the younger generations, to then turn around and allow you to pursue romances with the responsible adults in Joker's life AS A MINOR is just not it. The game seems fully aware of this too, with the two even commenting that dating Joker seems irresponsible and dangerous, not to mention criminal, yet they proceed anyway.

Perhaps this is all hypocritical of me to say so but honestly, if it weren't for the rest of P5R being so incredibly good around this, it'd get docked major points from me.

Beyond that, I wasn't the biggest fan of Mementos, though I certainly didn't hate it by any means. It's an inspired way to grind for levelling and looting, as well as take care of any side quests to lengthen game time while tying into the story, but I would argue there's just a bit too much of it overall in comparison to the rest of the game.

The third semester that Royal adds is still great in and of itself but the final act of the base game is so strong that, by comparison, the additional arc that Royal adds kind of just feels like a separate side-adventure rather than something that feels intertwined with the core narrative and messaging of the base game story.

Regardless, I truly loved Persona 5 Royal again, despite its faults; some of which are more egregious than others. I realise that the current string of P5 spin-offs has people pissed that Atlus is milking a cash cow but with characters as great to be around as these and gameplay foundations as solid as this, it's milk I am more than happy to drink.

9/10

I’ve had Persona 5 in my library for way over a year now, and playing it has been a long time coming. I was honestly somewhat apprehensive to, I really disliked Persona 4, so even though I’ve heard nothing but great things about Persona 5, I was afraid something similar would occur. My main motivation to playing Persona 5 in the first place was that one of my friends started playing it, and I didn’t want to be spoiled. This entire preamble is to lead up to this; for the past 8 days I have done nothing but play Persona 5. 104 hours total, beginning to end. My perception of time has been fundamentally altered because I was so engrossed and invested into Persona 5, these past 8 days have all blurred together into some amalgamative mass. If it isn’t already obvious by all of this, I absolutely loved my time with Persona 5.

Way before getting into where this game just absolutely works, I love how much style is put into this game. UI, animation, music, everything in this game has this particular style to it that’s addictive. Even when I’m 20, 40, even 60 hours into the game, I hear certain music tracks, or see certain animations, and I get that same level of excitement that I do seeing them for the first time. And in a similar vein, the game’s UI is absolutely stellar. It took a little bit of time getting used to each button being a battle command, instead of having to scroll through a list of actions, but once I got used to it, it really felt great.

I also absolutely love Palaces. They feel like properly planned out and designed dungeons, and I love how they’re able to fully and completely fit the theme they’re going for. I’ll try to avoid comparing Persona 5 with Persona 4 as much as I can, but I want to highlight that I really didn’t like how the main dungeons of Persona 4 were all procedurally generated, it made Palaces such a breath of fresh air. I love the stealth mechanics, being able to hide from enemies and ambush them from the shadows always felt great to do. I would say most palaces are rather good, with only one not being as strong as the others, but that’s mainly because the puzzles in that palace are rather basic. It might be contrarian to what I mention prior, but I also really love Mementos as a dungeon. It is procedurally generated which would make it seem like I would dislike it, but I think it’s the balance between Palaces and Mementos that allows me to actually enjoy Mementos. It’s a dungeon you can take at a sort of piecemeal way, as you’ll be able to slowly gain access to lower parts of Mementos as you progress with the story. You can then alternate between Palaces and Mementos, allowing for a sort of balance between them, which I really appreciate.

I’m also really enamored by the combat system of Persona 5. This is the first MegaTen game I’ve played that doesn’t feature the standard Press Turn system, so it was definitely another thing I had to get used to. Even then, Persona 5’s gameplay system is absolutely masterful. Persona 5 does sort of feature a press turn system, though not in the exact same way. One More functions about the same as a Press Turn, but of course it only activates when downing an enemy. There’s also of course a specific turn order in battle, instead of player and enemy rounds. But going back to One More, it leads into one of my favorite mechanics in the entire game, Baton Pass. Baton Pass works basically as a free switch to an ally to use their action, but you can chain it up to a total of 4 times. Increasing power, recovery, and even lowering the cost of skills if you chain it high enough. It becomes an absolutely addictive system that I love both utilizing, and in a way, abusing.

And this leads me into what I think is what kept me playing all this time. What allowed to sit through and play 104 hours total of this game with only sleep being a break. That of course is none other than the game’s story. Immediately before the game even gets going, it has absolutely one of the best cold opens I’ve seen in a game, and it serves well as a tutorial section too. It sets up so much intrigue that made me want to see more and more of what is going on in the game. As well, the character writing is so good. The main party’s dynamic is really good, and it feels like they’re a proper group of friends. As well the villain of each arc can at times be cartoonishly evil, but I think that exemplifies the world and the themes that Persona 5 is trying to go for. This idea of young rebels fighting against a corrupt society that allows for these cartoonishly evil villains to avoid punishment, and forcing them to realize their actions and live with the understanding of what they’ve done. It’s something immaculate. There’s also just so much else I could talk about here, though I won’t as I don’t really want to spoil anything specific here. The last few arcs of the game are amazing, I love the Royal story content, and the end is absolutely perfect. Persona 5’s story is everything I really hoped it to be, and more.

Goro Akechi

Unlike in Persona 4, where I went only for the Social Links of the main party, I actively engaged with as many social links I possibly could in Persona 5. I’m not going to go into elaborate detail into all of them, that would be the absolute death of me. I would say for a good majority of them, they were really good, and I love how some sort of tie into Mementos and doing Mementos Requests. Its nice that the game opens up a lot of night options to allow you to try to at least get 2 social link rank ups in a day if you plan well. There were definitely some characters I didn’t feel as strong about, but there were few, if any characters I actively disliked. I tried my best to get as many social links done as I can, and I’d estimate I probably got about 90% complete. I completed 18 social links, but I was pretty high in the other ones, ranging between ranks 5-8. I also really like the bonuses that some social links give, some of them are absolutely busted too. One of Ryuji’s bonuses particularly became the perfect level-grinding method. Though it does feel weird examining the mechanical reasons to raise Social Links, it feels good to raise social links not solely because of the mechanical boons, but because I care about these characters.

I’ll say this as well, but I wish I was able to really compare the differences between base Persona 5 and the content exclusive to Royal. While the last major arc of the game (if you unlock it) is Royal exclusive, there’s noticeably differences solely based upon certain characters existing. Maruki and Kasumi are Royal exclusive characters, but they exist through nearly the entire main storyline of base Persona 5. What is it like when those characters aren’t there, what changes? This thought makes me wonder what other changes exist in Royal, and since I don’t have a way of playing the original Persona 5, I have no way of comparing. I should specify I’m not saying this as a negative, it’s more just a thing I’m curious about more than anything.

It feels weird being done with Persona 5. Yet again, I must reiterate, I have done nothing but play this game for the past 8 days. I really do feel like for me, Persona 5 is an unforgettable experience, not only because of the game itself, but because of the environmental circumstances around me that not only brought me to play the game, but while I was playing the game as well. I don’t know if I can bring myself to replay the game anytime soon, it was over 100 hours long after all, but maybe a few years from now I’ll revisit it. I’m glad to have played a Persona game I ended up absolutely loving.