If luigis mansion was an FPS

It was a bit cliche but it was very solid, like a lot of the characters. Like the idea of wrapping psychological horror round the concept of "writers block" and how it gets to you and your relationships.

Graphics idk, fine for 2010 but the faces are a lil uncanny. Combats fine just a lil repetitive towards the end.

Other than that super super solid.

Heard a lot of praise from indie horror fans about this but left feeling a bit disappointed.

The way the graphics done is neat, and generally the world building is pretty damn good. They at least try to keep the walls of text in environmental storytelling to a minimum. Did find myself wanting to learn more about the MCs relationships and the world itself. A lot of the escape room style puzzles we're really neat too.

However, the biggest problem with this game is inventory management. Why oh why in the loving mother of god would you put inventory management in a Silent Hill style puzzle game. It just made me not want to use half the items and weapons in the game as I feared I'd have to backtrack to empty my inventory to pick up 5-10 key items to progress the game. Some of these items shouldn't even have to be items either, a lot of them are just keys for another key for another key and so on.

It's like they were deliberately taking the piss towards the end, in the Nowhere dungeon they throw 3 rings, 3 dolls, an ammonia bottle, incense stick at you, alongside ammo for 5 different guns (1 of which you haven't even obtained yet). So you constantly have to backtrack to an inventory management box while accidently stepping in rooms containing bosses and hordes of enemies.

I cannot stress how much the inventory takes away from the experience. You throw in the inventory backtracking alongside enemies randomly getting up after dying and it can get very tedious.

Plot was fine for the most part but went a tad off the rails with its Evangelion inspired visions towards the end.

TL:DR A misinterpretation of the Silent Hill gameplay formula with inventory management and confusing endings.

If BotW was the tech demo then this was the full game. Nintendo really capitalised on the areas of missed potential from the previous game. Looking back you can tell the blood sweat and tears went into getting BotW to work and feel "next gen".

It's a testament to the importance of building a solid framework for your games. With good foundation comes the ability to make an infinite amount of Valve esq physics puzzles.

-Big fan of how they've leant into the creative sandbox aspect with Zelda, works weirdly well
-that freeze block ability from BotW was pretty shit looking back on it huh
-Shrines allowing you solve them in stupid ways is great, gets players thinking about the "right" way and the "funny" way
-on the whole puzzles/temples a massive improvement from BotW
-the whole Rito Village chapter was probably the closest 10/10 experience I've had with a game in a long time
-glad they made Ganon into an actual character again instead of some vague shadow thing
-enjoyed the 1v1 sections vs Ganon

-Like everyone else I did have framerate issues from time to time, most notably when using the special abilities near a cliff of a sky island (and the game rendering literally everything below)
-combat still kinda sucks? still pausing to eat mid fight instead of having a hotkey like literally every other game
-water temple once again was the weakest one
-underground got a lil tedious after a while
-lynels still much more fun to fight than half the bosses
-gibdo survival bit was a good idea but could have been done better
-optional giant maze dungeons was a good idea but its a shame they recycled them 4 times

Overall just happy that in a world of disappointing triple A shite Nintendo can still lead by example.

(SPOILERS FOR P3, P4 AND P5)

Jotted down a few things while playing the game, here are some observations:

Good:
-Starts with a bang. The FF7 style opener works surprisingly well for P5. You're already in the first dungeon by Day 3. On top of that the real gameplay (i.e palace/social links) starts 4 or 5 days into the game. Massive improvement on P3/P4.
-Music/Graphic Design/Style is all perfect
-Ambient whispering and dialogue boxes helps make the city feel massive.
-I'd go as far as to say this game has the best "First Act" out of any game I've played, the entire Kamoshida arc was perfect and makes you really hate him.
-Overall Dungeons are so much better than previous games, big emphasis on making it feel like "infiltrating a base"
-lot more interactive with enemies, talking/negotiating etc.
-3 collectable Will Seeds in each dungeon encourages exploration nicely
-lot of references back to the palace owners desires builds character, really helped with Kaneshiero.
-It really feels like you're "infiltrating" bases, pulling off Heists.
-Ryuji is a way better "best friend" character than Yosuke/Junpei.
-Similar to how Devil May Cry is basically Jojo, the clear inspirations of Death Note are interesting with the L/Light Joker/Akechi parallels.
-Incorporating Request function into Confidants makes them more compelling while slightly predictable
-Cast is very charming, in particular Yusuke adds a funny awkward Peep Show-esque dynamic that really adds a lot to the dialogue.
-BIG fan of the Mishima confidant twist. I'd maybe go as far as to say it's the best Confidant in the game alongside Akechi's
-Better use of Nostalgia, toned down out of place references to older games, while having old battles themes play depending on Jokers costumes is a really nice touch.
-No need for grinding in this game is a good addition
-Kaneshiero's Palace is excellent
-Sae's Palace might be the most fun I've ever had in a Persona dungeon

Bad:
-Morgana. I really don't understand why they had to have an entire dedicated to not just pure Exposition/Explaining the rules of the metaverse, but a character that is a constant nag to the player. Did playtesters really have little to no clue what was happening?
-Character motivations for going after Madarame are a bit weak. They offset this slightly in future targets such as Futaba having a personal interest to cooperate with Phantom Thieves outside of "lets get random Big Bad"
-Futaba's Palace: Ho boy this was not good was it. Very tedious repetitive palace theme, as well as extremely boring puzzles. The metaverse rules we're very ambiguous compared to previous palaces. Changing the rules for the sake of plot
-Party feels more like a main-protag harem than previous games, P4 felt like a group of friends while P3 they we're awkward dorks who grew to like each other
-Please develop characters without having dead parents. Its fine for one or two characters but its literally everyone in this game. (The new "my mother collapsed")
-P4s trip to Persona 3 setting was way more charming than Hawaii.
-Morganas Post Hawaii meltdown
Alright, first off the gang had EVERY reason to be doubtful over using the number 1 voted Okumura as a target. Everything was based on sketchy rumours and press. The fact Morgana spit the dummy here is incredibly dumb.
-Okumura twist was obvious, why doesnt the phantom thieves just put out a big press statement on their big website saying they didn't do it? (More dead parents fucking hell) Also Haru doesn't react like a normal human to her father dying.
-While this game does have some good villains (Kamoshida, Akechi, Shido, Maruki) I don't think they really hold a torch to Adachi.
-What was the researcher/shady cia guy thing about with Sae?
-A lot of the combat sequences in boss fights are a bit messy. They just sort of throw random sequences together instead of exploring the games mechanics. They push in random extra mechanics or gimmicks to draw out fights or make them different. In P3/P4 while having simpler combat it felt like it was using its mechanics better.
-Madarame/Okumura's boss fights could have been done way better
-Unspecified Deadlines on Confidants is big Zzzz
-P3s/p4s "last semester" themes are way better than p5s.
-End game pacing is weaker than P3/P4
-Fast Travel: this is a weird one, but while convenient, does it make the game feel less immersive? Like instead of wandering around Tokyo you spend most of the game looking at your phone. Lack of worth in exploring the overworld really.
-The rumour mill compared between p4 and p5. It works better in a small town like Inaba. Whereas a massive city like Tokyo its a bit more far-fetched.
-Yaldabaoth: The "God" cop out doesn't work as well as P4. In p4, Izanami is pulling the strings from the very beginning with the Gas Attendant. Whereas P5 he just kinda appears.
-How did Maruki know Morgana didn't want to be a cat?

What I'd do differently:
-More incentives to explore Persona overworlds
-Some more Personas based on notorious criminals and vigilantes would be nice (seriously where tf was Jack Ripper?)
-Futaba Arc: They could have EASILY had some sort of hacker villain instead and have Futaba come in from the outside to support you, this hacker group could have been responsible for leaking her mothers research to the government and getting her killed.
-Shido's Palace is very cool. Though everything being cognitive is a little wack, would have been more creepy to see the real corrupt VIPs making use of the metaverse, ESPECIALLY after they did it with the police force in the Casino
-The whole mementos depths thing comes a little too quickly after shido, no time to celebrate, I would have gave the player the satisfactory shido moment but then crept in societies ambivalence in the new year to overlooking shady shit again.


Gameplay: 9/10
Graphics/Art: 10/10
Music:10/10
Style:10/10
Story:9/10
Characters:8/10
Dungeon Design:8/10
Bosses:8/10

Overall: 9.5/10 (rounded up to 5 stars for Backlogged)

Persona 6 and beyond:
-Now the interesting thing is, I really don't know where Atlas goes from here. They will have a new Director for P6 who has said that there will be no Calendar system. On top of that long term Composer Shoji Meguro will no longer be making music for Atlas. So Persona 6 on paper is going have a completely different vibe and feel. But with the nature of the Persona formula they theoretically have an infinite number of plots they can work with.