You are a slave, want emancipation?

The above was written on the first promo material I saw for p5, quite possibly the first promo art released. It featured 5 chairs with ball and chains attached, a red background. The image remains one of the most effective marketing ads I've ever seen.
The persona games have been, in modern times, tied to a colour and that colour to a theme. 3 being blue and blue being death, 4 being yellow and yellow being fear. 5 is red and red is rebellion, and I think everything about it stirs to the inner firebrand. The game has a fire about it, has a lot to say about abuse and power and fighting back. Beyond that, it's one of the most effortlessly cool games I've ever seen. A paradox, as games are designed so every inch if this game is filled to the brim with effort. The cast might be the strongest in the series, morgana is a relatively harmless mascot- a problematic mainstay of 3 and 4. Giving Joker more of a personality was an inspired choice, and i can yap for hours about how Ryuji is the platonic ideal of the best friend persona archetype. The music slaps, Royal makes everything better, and it made me want to visit Tokyo so, so bad. A must play.

This game is brutally iconic and groundbreaking.

Not my favourite Persona, but still one of the games I love the most, the soundtrack is out of this world, the gameplay is very fast, well done and stylish, and the menus and interfaces are the craziest i've ever seen in any videogame.

The whole idea of the story is really cool, but the pacing really hurts, and i think that the quality of the narrative decreases in every arc, although its never too bad.

Its quite a pain hearing all these teenagers yapping about how this game is the best JRPG ever, but I can't judge them at all, as I thought the same back then. What is undeniable is the extreme quality of the game, and how good it performs in being everyone's first JRPG in this generation, just as FF did back then.

I hope all of them give a try to some other games of the genre! And if by any means, you haven't played P5 yet, dont wait any longer!

Este foi o meu primeiro contacto com um jogo Persona e devo dizer que foi um bom começo.

A história agarrou-me desde o começo e ao longo do jogo é possível ver uma preocupação em criar e continuar uma boa narrativa, contudo nem tudo é perfeito, há algumas partes em que temos diálogo muito extensos para aquilo que acrescentam ou chegam mesmo a repetir o que já foi dito.

Todos os personagens são necessários para o grupo funcionar como um todo, por exemplo, o Ryuji não deixa com que o grupo se torne demasiado sério, o Yusuke traz a sensibilidade como artista que é, a Makoto a racionalidade e a frieza e por aí adiante.

Não desgostando do género de combate por turnos este jogo incorpora funcionalidade que encaixam bem, como o baton pass, criando assim novas estratégia de combate.

As mecânica dos pontos de relacionamento pode trazer uma Replayability interessante ao jogo, mais pela curiosidade de saber mais sobre algumas personagens do que propriamente pela forma de completar a história principal.

Os Palaces têm o cuidado de ter elementos que ligam ao personagem que representam, e isso, para além da aparência de que um, faz com que a repetição dos níveis não seja tão sentida, isto porque não vai muito para além de lutar contra monstros mais fracos até chegar ao boss final, com alguns puzzles pelo meio.

Sendo um novo integrante na franquia existem mecânicas que o jogo não teve grande preocupação em facilitar como é o caso da criação e treinamento de Personas, e o melhoramento de alguns Social Stats, chegou a uma altura em que alguns do relacionamento com os personagens demoravam bastante tempo a evoluir por falta do Social Stats correto.

O maior ponto positivo neste jogo é a banda sonora. As músicas estão sempre presentes ajudando a estabelecer o ambiente nas várias situações e localizações no jogo. Tantas vezes que dei por mim a cantarolar a Beneath the Mask no meu dia a dia.

Persona 5 compre naquilo que se propõem a fazer, é um jogo desafiante o suficiente para garantir que a diversão da história e do combate não se torne em frustração. Com personagens interessantes e uma banda sonora ainda melhor que ajudam a ignorar algumas partes um pouco maçadoras desta grande aventura.

I have played this game 3 times now and this is my first time FINALLY beating it (I may have a skill issue) the first time I just played casually without thinking much of anything and then the 2nd time I tried doing more than what I did.

And now this last playthrough I put more time into grinding and I beat the reaper once in flu season that helped a bit, but this game was really great personally even tho it took me since 2021 for me to beat. I can really feel the emotions through the music and voice acting and I feel very connected to these characters that at times you just might get some tears, again the soundtrack is sooo well done and it stands out very perfectly.

The theme/story of freedom in this game is well done as well.

I possibly don't know what would be wrong with this game but it definitely does everything right in all areas. If you like turn based games I'm sure you'd love this.

I genuinely don't think there is a single moment not overflowing with soul in this game. You can feel the love and care poured into every single moment of your play session. I've been thinking about it for a while but the way the controller vibrates like a heartbeat when a shadow passes by your hiding place is what pushed me to write this review.

Regarding the theme, I believe that people who think it boils down to "adults bad," in any sense, genuinely have zero media literacy and/or need to watch YouTube essays to understand any piece of media beyond the surface level.

this was the best video game i have ever played in my life

every character felt like a real person who had actual goals and all the characters felt like real friends

the story was incredibly well written, especially for a game this long, nothing felt like it was padding, every action you do in the story leads to something major in the story

the music was also incredible, genuinely one of the best video game osts out there, every song was great

i’d say the weakest point of the story is the way haru was introduced, that was a bit odd but right after that palace you get into the most exciting story i have ever experienced in a video game

one thing i didnt like was the difficulty, this was probably because i dont have much experience with rpgs but i found the game incredibly hard on easy mode, so hard that i had to switch to safe mode at around the 5th palace but other than that, the game was basically perfect

this game was a masterpiece and as soon as i finished it i already missed it. please play it if you haven’t, you are really missing out

Terrible story, extremely badly written characters and a dragging pace made this exprience very much unpleasant.

Game-wise, there is nothing terribly offensive. The game is very much eyecandy, with a good soundtrack (as always in this series) and impressive visuals, especially in the UI front.

However, the main point of the game, the story, storytelling and characters (as should be in any jRPG) seems to have been written exclusively for maladjusted, edgy and barely literate teenagers. It's corny, it's full of self-aggrandizing and righteous bullshit and treats anyone who isn't an entitled child as the Devil walking the Earth. The pace is terrible and the game eats at your time with badly written dialogue and plot twists that are as predictable as death and taxes. In fact, both are preferable to playing this steaming pile of dung.

A stylish game with and incredible artistic direction and soundtrack.
The story is good enough, but it really feels like It was written by an angry, edgy teen. The whole "All adults bad, society bad" felt cringe to me when I was barely 16, and playing the game again as a 21 years old dude just made me feel the same.
Persona 4, the game that was criticized for being too "happy" and "friendly", ironically had a much more mature plot and message.

My biggest complaint with the game is the heavy walls of text you have to go through to actually play the game.
I appreciate a good story, but Persona 5 feels more like an interactive visual novel with some JRPG elements put here and there just to make you feel like you're actually playing the game like a classic Megami Tensei. The previois titles in the Persona series were also heavily text-based, but not nearly as much as this one.
After 15 hours of game I was barely at level 14 and had been in Mementos (the game secondary dungeon) only once, without counting the tutorial.
Talking about tutorials, I feel like the game tends to guide the player too much. The game is already ridicolousy easy (to the point where I could just put Auto Battle on for any enemy, despite playing in Hard mode) and it refuses to let you think without Morgana or some other character guiding you in any situation: the dungeons were cool, but ultimately felt not much more interactive than Persona 4 randomly generated ones, since any puzzle's answer was handled to you before you could even try to solve them alone.
I mean, how can you make a character say the puzzle's solution in the finale dungeon? Just don't put the puzzle in there, at this point.

The narrative was really strong at the beginning, but became stagnant After the second Palace.
Luckily, It became interesting again towards the end, but the emding felt rushed and inconclusive.

Overall, I enjoyed Persona 5 and I think it's probably one of the most interesting experience for anyone who loves a good visual novel/JRPG, a game with a strong identity and clearly a lot of love put into it.
But if you're looking for a challenging game or are not fan of reading for literally HOURS just characters talking about the same things over and over and over, then this game probably isn't for you.