Current Events > Persona 5 came out a year ago today. It was good, but kinda disappointing too...

(+) Yeah! (+)

It's hard to write in a paragraph, so I'll just make a list:

The Bad:

-My biggest problem is definitely the pacing. It's all over the place, especially towards the end. Sometimes the game just drags on between dungeons and even during dungeons like 5 and 8. But the last part after palace 7 until the end of the game just takes FOREVER to do. They really should've ended the game at Shido. Instead, right about when we are supposed to get the climax, the game blue-balls us and is like 'Hold up ho! You gotta wait like 10 more hours before you can do that lulz' It just meanders and drags until the final boss before it lets go my junk and it legit made me really frustrated. I just wanted the game to end already at that point and it left a bad taste in my mouth.

-The group just doesn't feel as close as the other 2. Ann basically is in the background after Makoto shows up and Haru barely has any time to integrate herself into the group since she shows up so late. She literally doesn't even get properly introduced into the plot until like the last like 20% of the game, where they just dump all her shit on you at once. She still fely a stranger to me at the end of the game and just didn't feel like she belonged. Even Akechi felt more natural to the party because we interacted with him throughout the game beforehand and in his dungeon, he was a team player and interacted with the party a lot, while Haru literally just opens 1 door in her dungeon and then doesn't do jack shit for the rest of it lol. I'd still fuck her tho and she does have nice tits >_>

-The texting is really poorly handled. It's so tedious to read them all and most of the time it's just a repeat of everything you already talked about. The worst is the when you complete a dungeon and literally every text EVERY NIGHT is 'I wonder if their heart will change?' 'I guess we'll find out...' x20

-The 'shenanigans' cutscenes are awful in this game. They start off strong, like the buffet and infiltrating Yusuke's house were great, but after that, they took a nosedive and none of the events are fun to watch. The beach, Hawaii, Culture Festival,and Destinyland were all boring as fuck and barely anything fun happens in them. P4 and maybe even P3 had more fun scenes to bond the party members together.

-Morgana telling you to go the fuck to bed between dungeons is frustrating. "Oh you had a 10 minute convo with your friends after school? Better go to bed, you must be tired!" They honestly should've removed that restriction and bumped up all the requirements a tiny bit to compensate. It feels really restrictive on free time when you're not in a dungeon.

But it did have some good things too:

-The social links were still aight. The Gun Dealer and Sadayo were top quality links and a lot of fun to do. The only one I didn't really like was Ryuji, but everyone else was fine.

-The hubworld is the best one so far. There's a ton of stuff to do in it and just walking around looking for something to spend time on was legit fun on its own.

-The battle system is better than Golden and is very fun. Even just grinding was fun.

-The music is 10/10 like the rest of the series. I still listen to the music on occasion.

-You can fuck mad MILFs. And the waifu quality is great. Sadayo, Tae, Makoto, etc. are top tier >_>

-The style of everything is on another level. 3 and 4 were stylish, but 5 is fucking stylish

- Most of the dungeons were fun. No more random generated crap, they felt like actual dungeons now. Even the not so good ones had a few moments I liked.

-Overall they did a great job with the whole 'Thief' theme of the game. The theming is well put together throughout the game.



I did have a lot of fun with the game and even plat'd it, but I felt like after the 2nd half, all the problems just started compounding.

Do you agree, CE? >_>
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I didn't like how much easier it was compared to 4 and especially 3. After a while it's a cake walk, and nome of the characters are as interesting as past games.

However, goddamn does it just ooze style. One of the most visually pleasing games ever.
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I think my chief complaint, if I condensed it all into one sentence, is that the developers set out to make a 100 hour game right off the bat, instead of making a lot of content and saying after the fact "oh look, this game is 100 hours long!"

i dont think there is anything inherently wrong with that, but it's really hard to keep a consistent pace and tone throughout 100 hours and persona 5 suffers for it. but from a gameplay perspective it's a lot of fun.
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Are you the guy who said that 3 was better than 4 and 5?

I started skipping all non voiced dialogue at the 70 hour mark. Game is way too long for its own good, especially with the attack sponge bosses.
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I was about to play it but then backed off when CE told me it was 100 hours long

So I played Thief and Soma instead.
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The game def has pacing problems, 'n not just towards the end for me. There's way too much repetitive dialogue throughout the thing, 'specially now that they've added the group chat feature. Ya wake up'n get told yer mission, ya have a lil convo at school about yer mission, when ya get home ya get texts about yer mission, etc. Then when ya finish yer mission ya get told you'll have ta wait 'til the target wakes up, ya have a lil convo at school about waitin' for the target ta wake up, when ya get home ya get texts about waitin' for the target ta wake up, etc

I actually don't think they did the thief thing well at all, 'n wish they went more in on it. In my head I imagine like an actual group'a like, savvy, suave, confident phantom thief archetypes'n the party doesn't live up to it most'a the time. They have their moments like the heist in palace 2 (I think it was that one)'n the cute lil twist with the traitor trope, but other'n that they're just another batch'a anime high schoolers. If the entire game lived up ta those moments'n the menu style it woulda been killer

I've heard a lotta peeps say they don't feel the group's as fun as the P4 gang'n don't get up ta the same hijinks or whatever. I 'on't really like that kinda party personally so it never really bugged me. But I can see where they're comin' from

I'd still put it as the best in the series, mostly through it just bein' the formula with a lotta money'n passion put inna it. It does everything well enough, even if a lot of its components're better in other games (mainly P3)

I do hope they change it up with the next entry though, cuz it's clear they're never gonna surpass what they did with 3's like writin'n shit if they keep stickin' ta the formula like they have been

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BlazeJordan648 posted...

Are you the guy who said that 3 was better than 4 and 5?

4 > 3 > 5
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NeonOctopus posted...

BlazeJordan648 posted...

Are you the guy who said that 3 was better than 4 and 5?

4 > 3 > 5

Really? A year on 5 is still my personal favourite but at the same I completely understand why someone would prefer 4/4g but 3 has aged so poorly. Even before 5 came out I tried to go back to 3 and I couldn't bring myself to finish it

Mako_Sharknado posted...

I've heard a lotta peeps say they don't feel the group's as fun as the P4 gang'n don't get up ta the same hijinks or whatever. I 'on't really like that kinda party personally so it never really bugged me. But I can see where they're comin' from

More me personally, those hijinks moments were always some of my favorite parts of the game because it took a break from the main plot to let loose and have fun >_> Operation Babe Hunt in P3 was amazing and P4G had Kanji getting naked on a beach, the culture festival talent show, the camping trip, and a bunch more. But P5 really dropped the ball on its hijinks imo >_>

They go to a beach, but literally nothing happens there (they go try to pick up chicks, but there's no dialogue or anything unlike P3 and then just stop after 10 seconds), they go to Hawaii but all they talk about is serious Phantom Thief shit instead of having fun. Same with the culture festival in that game, there's 1 single joke and the rest of it is serious plot shit. They even go to Destinyland and do NOTHING there but more serious plot shit. The best hijinks in that game was only in the first 2 dungeons and that sucks for me.
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Romulox28 posted...

I think my chief complaint, if I condensed it all into one sentence, is that the developers set out to make a 100 hour game right off the bat, instead of making a lot of content and saying after the fact "oh look, this game is 100 hours long.

Yep
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5>3>4

4 > 5 > 3

Persona 5 is simultaneously disappointing but still pretty dope.
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I loved it, great game
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I liked it, for the most part, until the burger palace.

at that point, I just quit at the boss fight and read the rest of the story online.
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boxington posted...

I liked it, for the most part, until the burger palace.

at that point, I just quit at the boss fight and read the rest of the story online.

Yeah, dungeon 5 was terrible. Dungeon 6 was good though, but then it nosedives again and becomes crap for dungeon 7 and 8.
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I heard about the pacing and padding issues, but some Persona 5 fan still consider it the best JRPG game ever. I'm not sure if it's just blind praise, or if they haven't played that many JRPGs ever.
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Maybe P5 was their first Persona game? It was pretty popular and sold more than P3 and P4. But if you played P3 and P4 and then played P5, you can see the flaws and pacing problems more clearly when you compare it to the older games >_>
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P5 is a GOAT JRPG. Loved every minute of it
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snesmaster40 posted...

I heard about the pacing and padding issues, but some Persona 5 fan still consider it the best JRPG game ever. I'm not sure if it's just blind praise, or if they haven't played that many JRPGs ever.

I am absolutely not a JRPG fan but I felt like Persona 5 fixed a lot of the things I didnt like in the genre that typically turned me off
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Blue_Inigo posted...

P5 is a GOAT JRPG. Loved every minute of it

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I held 5 up in a pedestal for the longest time, but the pacing issues are definitely detracting.

I think the gameplay of 5 is the best out of the 3 of them. Especially since the dungeons are real and not randomly generated.

But shit like the text messages pissed me off. I found out early on that they were totally fucking useless, so I just skipped them. Like someone else said, Atlus set out to have a 100 hour game in the beginning just so they can say that they have a 100 hour game. It's just padded to all end.
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Yeah, after dungeon 3, I literally just skipped all the text messages. It's the most pointless thing ever >_>
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P5 is like Bleach. It's really stylish and that's what it does well. It does not hold up great over time and the last arc is extremely polarizing/bad plus it probably should have ended earlier. That said, they are both excellent when they are at their best and I'm glad they exist.
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I was also not a big fan of the Phantom Thieves/rebels concept. I thought it was particularly cringey and embarrassing to play as a teen that larps as a gentleman thief.
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What weird timing to see this topic and release date today. I just beat the game for the first time myself.

I just have to say it's an excellent game, but damn there really are pacing problems. I felt like the game had a pretty organic ending with Shido , but then it just kept going. I know it needed to explain the bottom of Mementos but I feel like that just took way too damn long. The game really went off the rails here IMO, and I was just ready to finish the game.

Despite the end it was still one of the best JRPGs I've ever played. It took me like 4 months to beat it though. You really can't just pick up this game and play it. You need to set aside at least two hours for a session.

Edit: I also want to agree with the texting being a time wasting fluff for the game. I missed a damn side quest by skipping them though.
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Another thing I didn't like is that most of the romance scenes are pretty samey. The only waifus with different (a la good) scenes were Kawakami and Futaba.

I am glad that you can still raw dog all 9 chicks in 1 playthrough and get a funny scene on V-day cuz of it lol. I always gotta do that in a Persona game >_>
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still triggered that i couldn't romance yusuke
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Started with 5. Adored it, went and spent last summer playing through 3 and 4 and recently platinumed 5.

5 is just too bloated and kind of starts to drag at a point. Outside of that I think it's pretty damn awesome. But like palace 5 just was not good. Palace 7 was too damn long. So much, I guess unnecessary dialogue at points. I loved that they put in puzzles, but then they hand hold you through them, like what the fuck is the point?

3 shows its age hard. No party member control, some of the mechanics with the social links, the social stats system is pretty much broken. Still adored everything else, though. Honest to God if they remade 3 with 5's combat system it might be my favorite game.

4 I do not like. 4 sucks gorilla dick outside of the cast. Dungeons are bad. Combat is no better than 3. Story sucks ass. Lol at the ending. The cast is really awesome and is the only reason I didn't drop 4.
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Yeah, no party control for 3 sucks, but the atmosphere of that game is really damn good imo and the final boss was one of the best parts of that game >_> If they made a Golden remake that had thr stuff from P3P in 3D, that would be amazing
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I'm a shop shifter

parkman32 posted...

I'm a shop shifter

Shap Shefer
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Still haven't beaten it.
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Pics_nao_plz posted...

Still haven't beaten it.

You should finish it just to say you have >_>
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I haven't played it but the teacher should be older. I was annoyed when I found out shes only like 22. she's not a real milf. she should be 30

She's still best girl, regardless >_>
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Kawakami > Makoto > Ann > rest
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i loved persona 4 and 3. i even played through them recently.

I couldnt get through 5. I appreciated a lot of 5's gameplay mechanics, but god damn the story and characters were awful

NeonOctopus posted...

-My biggest problem is definitely the pacing.

this is probably what's gonna prevent me from ever playing the game.

i don't care much about how long a game is, but if i'm not entertained at all times when literally playing a game, that alone makes the whole thing worth skipping.

at least movies with horrendous pacing only last around 2 hours on average.
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5's story has peaks and valleys, but the peaks are dramatically higher than the valleys. And it wasn't like 3 wasn't similar with its enormous stretches of jack shit happening for the first half of the game, or 4 where the characters were occasionally acting to frustratingly stupid about obvious plot developments that you wanted to reach into the TV and slap them.

Overall I'd say it's the best in the series, and definitely the best JRPG in recent years
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NeonOctopus posted...

You gotta wait like 10 more hours before you can do that lulz' It just meanders and drags until the final boss before it lets go my junk and it legit made me really frustrated. I just wanted the game to end already at that point and it left a bad taste in my mouth.

This so f***ing hard, the end of the game dragged so much, granted I did force myself through it but that was because I just wanted it to end already. I think it peaked for me at 40 hours in maybe, during one of the longer dungeon breaks, like it just felt so comfortable, the plot was building up at the most interesting and high stakes rate, it was just really relaxing at that point, like excited for what's coming, but also very calm, the calm before the storm. I remember taking a break at that point because I didn't want to advance pass this sweet spot.
NeonOctopus posted...

-The texting is really poorly handled. It's so tedious to read them all and most of the time it's just a repeat of everything you already talked about. The worst is the when you complete a dungeon and literally every text EVERY NIGHT is 'I wonder if their heart will change?' 'I guess we'll find out...' x20

I kinda liked the texting, made you feel like a group.

Aside from that I really liked how you had the main plot building with the president guy over the entire game, but in the back of your mind you also had the mystery of mementos, constantly making you wonder. I liked how you were talked about the news and at school, and the fact that you could do the requests. The whole website thing was really good as well.
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But how about the fact that Ryuji shouts his mouth off about you being the phantom thieves every time you meet in the subway, what's up with that.
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Tae is bae.
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@ultimate reaver posted...

the peaks are dramatically higher than the valleys.

All peaks are higher than valleys, that's what a peak is.
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I like Persona 5 better than Persona 3 or 4. Yeah it has it's pacing issues, the texts are annoying, Morg's annoying, and some of the characters are stupidly undeveloped, but I think everything outshines.

I also think there should of been better QoL improvements like the compendium upgrades from SMT4A should of been in game. Also I feel that you should of been giving more information about date requirements for confidants. Like how early on you can quite easily max out your progress Sojiro, but the game doesn't tell you that so you can easily waste your time hanging out with him for no reason.

I thought the game tells you that you can't progress with him after a certain point until something happens (ie: Futaba joins the party)
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NeonOctopus posted...

I thought the game tells you that you can't progress with him after a certain point until something happens (ie: Futaba joins the party)

Nope. I spent so much time learning about coffee.
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NeonOctopus posted...

I thought the game tells you that you can't progress with him after a certain point until something happens (ie: Futaba joins the party)

I don't think it does. I completed his confidant late on my first playthrough so I already had Futaba and didn't hit that block, so on NG+ I knew that it can't progress until after you have recruited her and the game totally doesn't tell you, lol.
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