"Superhero story without supervillians"
That's probably the way I would describe my biggest problem with this game: Themes, but in particular, delivery of those.
Outside of "jrpg final God boss", all the villians are just... Actual people, that you could encounter in your own life. Hell, I too had a PE teacher that was glancing at highschoolers. The topics Persona 5 touches are real and serious, in vacuum you could say that the game might be the "darkest" out of all franchise.
But the game treats it in the most immature and lackluster way possible: you simply brainwash the villians and everything goes back to normal. It sucks. It's boring. It's superficial and fake, unlike the villians themselves.
The game asks you to rebel, to break the chains, to desire emancipation, yet it doesn't portray the struggle of the rebellion in meaningful way. You just get a magic wand to fix all your problems.
You could argue that "Palaces" are metaphorical portrayal of the struggle, but... In Persona 4 "shadow world" served as a battleground for the game's themes, while you and antagonists were +- on the same terms(the guy kills people via TV and has Persona, you save people via TV and have Persona). Palaces are just one-sided beating, you never deal with actual problem, you never really fight in real world, all the consequences barely leave the Metaverse. You don't find the evidence(which was done with Madarame and it was GOOD), you don't try find the blackmail material, you never protest, you never actually rebel.
It's physically impossible to take the game seriously that tells you to magically brainwash someone's mother instead of making her fix the relationship with her daughter.
Make the fuck up your mind, whether you want to tell a serious story about delicate subjects or an MCU knock-off.
That's probably the way I would describe my biggest problem with this game: Themes, but in particular, delivery of those.
Outside of "jrpg final God boss", all the villians are just... Actual people, that you could encounter in your own life. Hell, I too had a PE teacher that was glancing at highschoolers. The topics Persona 5 touches are real and serious, in vacuum you could say that the game might be the "darkest" out of all franchise.
But the game treats it in the most immature and lackluster way possible: you simply brainwash the villians and everything goes back to normal. It sucks. It's boring. It's superficial and fake, unlike the villians themselves.
The game asks you to rebel, to break the chains, to desire emancipation, yet it doesn't portray the struggle of the rebellion in meaningful way. You just get a magic wand to fix all your problems.
You could argue that "Palaces" are metaphorical portrayal of the struggle, but... In Persona 4 "shadow world" served as a battleground for the game's themes, while you and antagonists were +- on the same terms(the guy kills people via TV and has Persona, you save people via TV and have Persona). Palaces are just one-sided beating, you never deal with actual problem, you never really fight in real world, all the consequences barely leave the Metaverse. You don't find the evidence(which was done with Madarame and it was GOOD), you don't try find the blackmail material, you never protest, you never actually rebel.
It's physically impossible to take the game seriously that tells you to magically brainwash someone's mother instead of making her fix the relationship with her daughter.
Make the fuck up your mind, whether you want to tell a serious story about delicate subjects or an MCU knock-off.
mikaroca
30 days ago