Persona 5 means a lot to me. It was the first M-rated game I bought by myself and it was my favorite game for a while. A lot of the appeal for me was the gorgeous style and the simulated Japan you could immerse yourself in and on a replay, both hold up extremely well. This game has the best UI design (artistically) that it makes all the usually monotonous JRPG menu scrolling fun. It's also served as an influence for many games after it, with the remake for Persona 3 and Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth taking certain aspects from Persona 5's style. The style is such a godsend, I cannot emphasize that enough. Having played the Like A Dragon games, I can see how one could argue Persona 5's lens of Japan is a bit limited in its scope but they aren't aiming to do the same thing so I believe otherwise. The Like A Dragon games really go all in on the virtual tourism while Persona 5 focuses on RPG-ifying certain aspects of Japan. Back on topic, another pull was the game's story.

When I first played it, I thought this game was perfect. All of the characters engrossed me and I genuinely cared about the world and its characters. Upon replay, this did not hold up. Now, the story isn't bad, it's honestly pretty good (if not redundant for the Persona franchise at this point.) My main issue is with how the story is told. The game is rated M for Mature though it's catering more towards a teenage audience if anything. I mention this because the story feels the need to hold your hand like a parent guiding a newborn baby. There is not a single point you get to think about. All of the information is told to you when its needed which killed the mood for a lot of story beats on my revisit. If the story was told better, I wouldn't be grilling it this much.

Will be doing a separate review for the third semester (the Persona 5 Royal exclusive content.)