I figured I'd never play one a Persona game, but here I am after taking up a friend's recommendation. Was definitely better than I thought.
First off, this game is LONG. It takes four hours of prologue just to get into the actual game, and I put in 100 hours of gameplay to get to the true end. Naturally, this review is going to be pretty long, considering how much ground there is to cover.
The game is split into a "social" half and a "dungeon-crawling" half. The social half has you exploring your hometown of Inaba, talking to your party members, family, people around the town, and notable individuals whom have a "social link" (the game's way of saying becoming friends with them), which in turn give you insight into these peoples' lives and allow you to rank up an Arcana type, allowing you to make stronger Personas to use in battle. I really do love the tie-in here between the two worlds, it helps prevent the game from feeling like two isolated halves.
The social links vary in how interesting they are. Yosuke's is a pretty convincing display of grief, whereas a character like Yukiko's more or less feels like just hanging out. Nothing wrong with just being buddies, but sometimes the characters feel a little basic. That's one of the game's flaws - it feels like it really wants to SAY SOMETHING about people, but oftentimes feels too shallow. Sometimes it does decently, sometimes there's cool subtext, but again, generally shallow. I feel this the most within the first half of the dungeons in this game, where you see these characters' deepest, darkest parts of themselves they vehemently deny, and then after a battle, they just sort of go "actually, I accept my other half I've denied for possibly years" and voila, dungeon complete. Specifically, Kanji, Rise, and Naoto all have some pretty serious, deep-rooted themes in their character that gets really plainly addressed. It felt cheesy, like it was the end of an episode in a kid's show. Which is a shame, cause you could make some very interesting dialogues about all three of them.
At the very least, I enjoy how many social links there are in the game. I was in the last part of the game and I was STILL finding new social links I hadn't discovered before, and even after beating it, I know there are some I fully missed, like the Tower and Hanged Man arcana social links. At the same time, it kinda felt like a hassle running around town all the time looking for people to level up, especially considering I didn't know when I would be locked out of leveling them up (I was SO close to getting Adachi to a high rank before being locked out of it). This is a very busy game. You have to rank your social links up, fill out your compendium, read books, go fishing, go to work. Of course, I tend to love games like that, but this game's system of limited days and being limited to 2 time-passing activities per day really puts pressure on the player to get all this shit done.
Alright, I've talked enough smack. Why did I even rate this four stars? Well, despite all those gripes, I still love those pars. I enjoyed the various Social Link dialogues for the most part, the characters in this game are pretty loveable, except Yosuke, who's only tolerable during his Social Link cutscenes. The major cutscenes in this game - all the Junes outings, the festival, going to the beach, the culture festival, a lot of things you'd see in a Slice of Life anime now that I say it out loud. They're charming! Of course, anime humor will be anime humor, this isn't exactly a funny man's game (it did get some laughs out of me though), but it's enjoyable watching this little group of friends live out their very ideal lives (despite the murders).
The dungeon crawling is, for the most part, pretty fun. There's like, eight or nine dungeons or so, each around 10 floors. Occasionally they'll introduce a shitty gimmick like having to backtrack for a key, but mostly they're linear. The only good gimmick was the second-to-last dungeon, (you have to be on the True Ending route to access it) which was such a crazy place I absolutely loved it. I even got a tiny teeny bit emotional seeing it. I didn't cry or shed a tear though, I haven't done that in many years. Though I wonder when the next time I will will be. It'll probably be something major.
I had a small dislike of them around the middle-ish point of the game, but I think that's cause I got a tiny bit fixated on this game and kept playing it all day every day, so it felt nauseating going through these halls trying to find the exit again and again and again. The enemies of the dungeon are pretty chill, it's like Pokemon where you just use the move type that they're weak to, except that in this game, you can do All-Out Attacks if everyone got hit with a super-effective move (or crit) which can end battles faster. It felt like a chore sometimes, but that's just how it goes. I did really enjoy the overworld shadow system though, I love juking those dudes and running circles around em. However, I will say I got annoyed when later in the game, most enemies were just recolors of old ones, with new ones being a rare sight. I can't blame them that much considering just how many detailed 3D models were made for this game, but still.
The Persona aspect was really neat, combining them was very fun, even if it took me a bit to get everything about merging them. Izanagi, Jack Frost, Rakshasa, Black Frost, Siegfried, Kaguya, Scacath, Trumpeter, Zaou-Gongen, I will remember you all. You all served me well. Which reminds me, I love all the move types in this game, the scaling of them is quite smooth and customizing movesets ended up being very enjoyable. Getting that card during Shuffle Time that ranks up a skill was always a mixed bag, but damn it really came in clutch sometimes. Filling out the compendium was one of my favorite parts of the game, but then again, my favorite part of Pokemon is filling out the Pokedex, so maybe' that's just me.
If I had to give the game props in one specific area, it'd be music. As most game music is, (with some exceptions, like the great Tim Follin) it's pretty whatever unless you actually play the game where it's from and get context for it. That remains the case for this game, but it's something to say about it, cause running around the town, school, and floodbank with the game's soundtrack was an absolute joy. It's phenomenal background music, even if it had a limited number of songs, they were so good that I absolutely did not mind listening to them on repeat. The battle music and dungeon music, as well as cutscene songs, were also super good. Definitely a big point in favor of the game. In particular, I loved it when the background songs changed with the season. During summer, the game stops playing music in exchange for background ambience of cicadas, which, my God, was so fucking beautiful. It just really brought me back, it was so peaceful and relaxing and just... GREAT! And then, when Winter came around, the song that plays is so good, it was the one other part of the game that got me a teensy weensy bit emotional (DID NOT CRY). In short, it's stated from the beginning of the game that you'll leave next Spring, so the song in Winter is about getting ready to say your farewells. It's very lovely.
Alright, I've gotta conclude this wall of text sooner or later. Basically, the story, while nothing too crazy or insane, (well, the main twist did surprise me) held my interest to the very end. I enjoyed all the little things you have to do in this game, although I wish I started fishing earlier. Didn't manage to get a River Guardian, very sad. I guess that's one small gripe I have, there's a bunch of little time-based things that will just go away after a while, and you have no real way of knowing what or when it'll be. One other gripe I have - Rise was crying to me, and I clicked the option to comfort her, because what the hell am I going to do, stand there and stare? And then from doing that, the game was like "ah, you're in a relationship with them now" and it's like MOTHER FUCKER I'm already dating Yukiko why did you force that on me. I guess I'll write it here for archival sake, but the reason I dated Yukiko was cause I was ranking up her social link and the game said I felt hints of love toward her (or maybe it was the other way around?) so I was like "alright, sure." And then Rise had the nerve to act all sad on Valentines, like we're not like that!! Calm down!! Anyway I got off track.
It's a good game. Would recommend, although it is quite long, and having some hints about how to get the true ending is recommended. I enjoyed my time with this one!
Kanji x Naoto for life...
First off, this game is LONG. It takes four hours of prologue just to get into the actual game, and I put in 100 hours of gameplay to get to the true end. Naturally, this review is going to be pretty long, considering how much ground there is to cover.
The game is split into a "social" half and a "dungeon-crawling" half. The social half has you exploring your hometown of Inaba, talking to your party members, family, people around the town, and notable individuals whom have a "social link" (the game's way of saying becoming friends with them), which in turn give you insight into these peoples' lives and allow you to rank up an Arcana type, allowing you to make stronger Personas to use in battle. I really do love the tie-in here between the two worlds, it helps prevent the game from feeling like two isolated halves.
The social links vary in how interesting they are. Yosuke's is a pretty convincing display of grief, whereas a character like Yukiko's more or less feels like just hanging out. Nothing wrong with just being buddies, but sometimes the characters feel a little basic. That's one of the game's flaws - it feels like it really wants to SAY SOMETHING about people, but oftentimes feels too shallow. Sometimes it does decently, sometimes there's cool subtext, but again, generally shallow. I feel this the most within the first half of the dungeons in this game, where you see these characters' deepest, darkest parts of themselves they vehemently deny, and then after a battle, they just sort of go "actually, I accept my other half I've denied for possibly years" and voila, dungeon complete. Specifically, Kanji, Rise, and Naoto all have some pretty serious, deep-rooted themes in their character that gets really plainly addressed. It felt cheesy, like it was the end of an episode in a kid's show. Which is a shame, cause you could make some very interesting dialogues about all three of them.
At the very least, I enjoy how many social links there are in the game. I was in the last part of the game and I was STILL finding new social links I hadn't discovered before, and even after beating it, I know there are some I fully missed, like the Tower and Hanged Man arcana social links. At the same time, it kinda felt like a hassle running around town all the time looking for people to level up, especially considering I didn't know when I would be locked out of leveling them up (I was SO close to getting Adachi to a high rank before being locked out of it). This is a very busy game. You have to rank your social links up, fill out your compendium, read books, go fishing, go to work. Of course, I tend to love games like that, but this game's system of limited days and being limited to 2 time-passing activities per day really puts pressure on the player to get all this shit done.
Alright, I've talked enough smack. Why did I even rate this four stars? Well, despite all those gripes, I still love those pars. I enjoyed the various Social Link dialogues for the most part, the characters in this game are pretty loveable, except Yosuke, who's only tolerable during his Social Link cutscenes. The major cutscenes in this game - all the Junes outings, the festival, going to the beach, the culture festival, a lot of things you'd see in a Slice of Life anime now that I say it out loud. They're charming! Of course, anime humor will be anime humor, this isn't exactly a funny man's game (it did get some laughs out of me though), but it's enjoyable watching this little group of friends live out their very ideal lives (despite the murders).
The dungeon crawling is, for the most part, pretty fun. There's like, eight or nine dungeons or so, each around 10 floors. Occasionally they'll introduce a shitty gimmick like having to backtrack for a key, but mostly they're linear. The only good gimmick was the second-to-last dungeon, (you have to be on the True Ending route to access it) which was such a crazy place I absolutely loved it. I even got a tiny teeny bit emotional seeing it. I didn't cry or shed a tear though, I haven't done that in many years. Though I wonder when the next time I will will be. It'll probably be something major.
I had a small dislike of them around the middle-ish point of the game, but I think that's cause I got a tiny bit fixated on this game and kept playing it all day every day, so it felt nauseating going through these halls trying to find the exit again and again and again. The enemies of the dungeon are pretty chill, it's like Pokemon where you just use the move type that they're weak to, except that in this game, you can do All-Out Attacks if everyone got hit with a super-effective move (or crit) which can end battles faster. It felt like a chore sometimes, but that's just how it goes. I did really enjoy the overworld shadow system though, I love juking those dudes and running circles around em. However, I will say I got annoyed when later in the game, most enemies were just recolors of old ones, with new ones being a rare sight. I can't blame them that much considering just how many detailed 3D models were made for this game, but still.
The Persona aspect was really neat, combining them was very fun, even if it took me a bit to get everything about merging them. Izanagi, Jack Frost, Rakshasa, Black Frost, Siegfried, Kaguya, Scacath, Trumpeter, Zaou-Gongen, I will remember you all. You all served me well. Which reminds me, I love all the move types in this game, the scaling of them is quite smooth and customizing movesets ended up being very enjoyable. Getting that card during Shuffle Time that ranks up a skill was always a mixed bag, but damn it really came in clutch sometimes. Filling out the compendium was one of my favorite parts of the game, but then again, my favorite part of Pokemon is filling out the Pokedex, so maybe' that's just me.
If I had to give the game props in one specific area, it'd be music. As most game music is, (with some exceptions, like the great Tim Follin) it's pretty whatever unless you actually play the game where it's from and get context for it. That remains the case for this game, but it's something to say about it, cause running around the town, school, and floodbank with the game's soundtrack was an absolute joy. It's phenomenal background music, even if it had a limited number of songs, they were so good that I absolutely did not mind listening to them on repeat. The battle music and dungeon music, as well as cutscene songs, were also super good. Definitely a big point in favor of the game. In particular, I loved it when the background songs changed with the season. During summer, the game stops playing music in exchange for background ambience of cicadas, which, my God, was so fucking beautiful. It just really brought me back, it was so peaceful and relaxing and just... GREAT! And then, when Winter came around, the song that plays is so good, it was the one other part of the game that got me a teensy weensy bit emotional (DID NOT CRY). In short, it's stated from the beginning of the game that you'll leave next Spring, so the song in Winter is about getting ready to say your farewells. It's very lovely.
Alright, I've gotta conclude this wall of text sooner or later. Basically, the story, while nothing too crazy or insane, (well, the main twist did surprise me) held my interest to the very end. I enjoyed all the little things you have to do in this game, although I wish I started fishing earlier. Didn't manage to get a River Guardian, very sad. I guess that's one small gripe I have, there's a bunch of little time-based things that will just go away after a while, and you have no real way of knowing what or when it'll be. One other gripe I have - Rise was crying to me, and I clicked the option to comfort her, because what the hell am I going to do, stand there and stare? And then from doing that, the game was like "ah, you're in a relationship with them now" and it's like MOTHER FUCKER I'm already dating Yukiko why did you force that on me. I guess I'll write it here for archival sake, but the reason I dated Yukiko was cause I was ranking up her social link and the game said I felt hints of love toward her (or maybe it was the other way around?) so I was like "alright, sure." And then Rise had the nerve to act all sad on Valentines, like we're not like that!! Calm down!! Anyway I got off track.
It's a good game. Would recommend, although it is quite long, and having some hints about how to get the true ending is recommended. I enjoyed my time with this one!
Kanji x Naoto for life...