Game of the Month #95 (December 2022) - Persona 5 Royal

Finished right before the end of the month.

Right so EoW and month update. So I did a power run of the game in the last week but still was not able to reach the end before the end of the month. Got a good 80 hours in so i'm bout 3/4 of the way through going by time. Oh well here's my update from the discord thread:

— 12/26/2022 11:39 PM
well damn just had one of the longest sessions in a game in a while. Whole day so 8 hours:

So I started my investigation into the drug smuggling ring taking over the school which Niijima wanted me to do. She got wound up and basically put herself in a tricky situation but thanks to that we got access to the targets palace which was floating above the shopping district. Turns out it's kameshiro's bank and i've now started my infiltration. Just reached the third elavator and faced the three demon's. I'm kinda out of sp but will see if I can or should push forward

— 12/27/2022 11:45 PM
Another long session for me:

Kemeshiro's bank has been infiltrated and kameshiro has been defeated. With that done exams came ahead and the firework festival was ruined by the rain. Medjed has denounced the phantom thieves but alibaba has contacted me about information on medjed if I do a target for them

— 12/28/2022 11:03 PM
just a measly 7 hours this time:

So alibaba ended up being futaba and the target for the next palace. I think I've reached the end of the palace now but just going to doing some farming as I still have alot of sp left in this current session

— 12/29/2022 11:11 PM
10 hour session today so big update:

Finish futabas palace as well as the summer holiday. Back to school now but we heading to hawaii
Got my first max rank as well The sun that politician you can speak to

— 12/30/2022 11:16 PM
so this is prob going to be the last real long session for me. I prob prep for NY tomorrow and fix my bike on NY after that I should return to my normal schedule:

So had the hawaii trip and spent the last day with Makoto. Reached the factory palace now though and at the disposal line

— 01/01/2023 12:14 AM
I'll see how I feel tomorrow but won't be prioritizing P5 as much so it'll be bck to the shorter play sessions though. With the end of the month yeah i wasn't able to beat a 100 hour long JRPG still got 80 hours in at least:

Was able to complete the factory palace on a single day. Found some really useful items for managing sp and being utilizing them to crawl through the dungeon. Hopefully be able to do the same with the next upcoming palaces. still the factory palace is done and the boss out the way so was given time to max out the doctor and mishima's confidant. I'm close for ryuji and makota as well. Still I reached the end of the deadline and while the standard call out was taking place the target had a mental shutdown. This was due to the fact that after I had completed the factory a assassin killed the shadow version of the factory confidant

I think I've finally landed on a 10 for this game. This is an excellent game with great variety and excellent mixture of RPG and slice of life elements. It is always adding new things and keeping you on your toes. It's biggest issue basically can be attached to the whole genre (save areas instead of anywhere, long sections of doing nothing, etc)

I've only managed to play through the first month and thus the first castle of Persona 5. I think it's going to take a while for me to finish this, as I'm really only playing short sessions of it every week. Didn't help that I restarted my playthrough half-way through the month because I decided that I wanted to use a guide for the daily activities.
It's a great game, with great characters, awesome music and it looks freaking awesome. I'm looking forward to finishing this someday, but it's going to take a while.

I’m curious about something. I loved playing Persona 5 and had a blast right to the end. However, I feel like the themes of the rest of the palaces were not as bad as the first one. I’m not saying that they were tame, but after the “shock value” from the implications of the first palace, the others didn’t get to that level. If I think about it there are some moments/implications from Sae’s and Okumura’s palaces, but still not quite. There’s even some stuff that was omitted from the final version that can be seen in the cutting room floor. I do realize that a large part of this is due personal opinions though.

Is there a palace that you felt was stronger then the rest?

EoW update:

— 01/01/2023 11:09 PM
So the New year starts and the grind continues. Sessions are back to normal levels for now:

As predicted the phantom thieves are being blamed for the death of the previous target as well as the principal who we never did a palace for. Keeping our heads low and doing the exams. Just completed the first day of the school festival now though

— 01/02/2023 8:43 PM
School Festival is over and Akeci is now blackmailing me about being a phantom thief. Soroji is also in the know about phantom thieves now. I have now just reached sae's casino

— 01/03/2023 9:56 PM
welp back to the old grind no more hols:

Started the infiltration of sae's casino. Reached the first save area then went and fused my persona's

— 01/04/2023 10:10 PM
So finished the first floor and the dice room. Looking for the green panel now in the slot room

— 01/05/2023 10:59 PM
Reached the high risk floor and made my way through the dark room only to be killed by a inst kill move

— 01/06/2023 11:18 PM
Finished sae's casino. Calling card needs to done at the last minute this time so just building up my relationships until deadline

— 01/07/2023 at 11:10 PM
So still working my way to the day I can send my calling card but for now i've maxed out the confidants of makoto, ryuji and yusuuke. I'm currently in memetos dealing with 4 requests. Only currently done the first

Just about to head into Haru's palace. Just hit the 50 hour mark in 42 days, and been excited to get up and play every morning lately. Having so much fun and while I'm not enjoying the story as much as I remembered from vanilla, there is always something fun to be doing and the vibes are awesome.

— 01/09/2023 10:01 PM
All 4 requests done in mementos. Bout 2 days away from sending the calling card

— 01/11/2023 10:15 PM
So got my teacher to full rank and reached saes boss fight unfort I wiped at the end

— 01/12/2023 10:56 PM
Just finished niijima's palace. Which lead me back to the beginning of the game. In the end it turned out that akechi was a traitor but ultimately we already knew due to the fact that he noticed morganna's voice far earlier then he said. Knowing this a plan was put into motion to catch akechi out when he comes to assassinate me. I just got to the reveal that his assassination failed so hopefully get a few more details coming that explains it more in details

— 01/13/2023 at 12:03 AM
Got details of the plan. In the end we tricked akechi into sae's palace where he killed my cognitive self thus faking out murder. In the end I was able to move onto the last target as morganna has stated and that being Shiido who was the one who got me sent to prison at the start of the game and is currently behind all the mental shutdowns. I've already started my infiltration and have reached the pool

— 01/14/2023 at 11:04 PM
So have to say that Shido's palace is rather long spent a good 3 1/2 hours in it and i'm 3/5 letters down. Atm I've Now gone full circle and returned to the start of the palace but headed back to the side deck so I can reach the IT expert in there room

— 01/15/2023 at 10:06 PM
Shido''s palace is done thus that means Akechi and Shido have been beaten. Now just increasing the levels of my confidants. I also need to increase my guts to max level as my last skill needing to be maxed. I doubt i'll finish them all up but i'm close to finishing and few and the lowest rank is got currently is 4

Completed the game with Royal True Ending last night. I haven’t spent this much time in a game per day in awhile. Only averaging a hour a day in the first month, then ramping it up at the end significantly. 10 hours yesterday. There is just so much to do and it’s so fun. I also wanted to get to P3P sooner than later, tbh.

Ended up with 17 confidants, Level 94, and all stats maxed, playing on easy mode. Surprised I didn’t need to go down to story difficulty, but I did do a lot of grinding and preparing.

Eow update:

— 01/16/2023 10:07 PM
So just more confidants talking today. Was able to max out hiero, lovers and star. Looking at it I might get lucky and have only hanged, tower and devil which will not be fully levelled up. I've now head into mementos as I have 4 requests to do

— 01/17/2023 9:53 PM
so very small update from me. Me and my mate ended up beating broforce instead. I just completed 1 of the 4 requests in mementos. Will continue again tomorrow

— 01/18/2023 10:21 PM
Still in mementos. Done 3 of the 4 requests though

— 01/20/2023 11:42 PM
So ended up completed the confidants I wanted and maxed out all my skills. Was able to complete the fortune teller, futaba and haru. I've now reached The Depths of mementos and am about half way through it

— 01/21/2023 at 11:26 PM
Reached the holy grail at the bottom of the dungeon but it kept healing I could do nothing about it. In the end I lost and my existence was erased. In the end "igor" announced my execution for the failure only for justine and caroline to turn him and merge. After that it was turned out that the igor i've been talking to was a fake and actually the holy grail itself. It offered me the ability to return to the previous status quo but no one would have freewill so yeah I rejected him. I pulled back the team back together and now heading to face the holy grail

— 01/22/2023 at 10:13 PM
Looks like I defeated the last boss and destroyed the metaverse should be done soon as I'm playing the base version not royal unfortunately. Likely tomorrow or Tuesday

And thus i'm also finished the game. I'm in agreement with erictbar this is an excellent JRPG and overall 10/10 game. It mixes slice of life style gameplay with great and imaginative levels as well as a rewarding and elegant battle system. I'll write a full review in the coming days.

Persona 5
Completion January 23, 2023
Main+Extras 121h 40m 38s
Notes Makoto romance. bout 70% personas. full social skills. Missing confidants Devil, Tower and Hanged
Review
+Fantastic art style and music play throughout the game
+Invigorates the turn based style with weaknesses and stand off’s
+Merges the slice of life elements into the them with extreme ease
-Does not allow to save at any point
-Long stretches of the game where you don’t interact with the game
-Mementos can get grindy
Overview:
Persona 5 is a fantastic RPG which invigorates it’s turn based style with the ability to hit enemies with weaknesses and the ability to stand off and negotiate with the enemy. With the possibility of taking there power, money or items with the right negotiating skills. It gives a lot more willingness to experiment and gives a lot of depth to it’s gameplay. It is also helped along by the slice of life elements which are merged extremely well into the game and allows for depth to added to each of the characters which the player can interact with. It does this all with a huge sense of style with the UI popping out in very imaginative ways and a cool sense of jazz running the background. The only issues I had really with the game is the elements which are found in most JRPGs (not being able to save anywhere, grind and long stretches of little interaction) but none of this took away from the game.
10/10

An amazing JRPG. The soundtrack, gameplay, and story make this truly one of the best that I have ever played. If only I could get to experience it all over again for the first time.

I haven't revived the GotM threads for games I've played because it seemed a bit pointless. However, I'm giving it a shot for Persona 5 and seeing how it goes. So if you're (still) playing the game, join the conversation. I'll mostly talk about how much progress I'm making, what's happening in the game and some general thoughts/theories. It's going to take a while to beat so I'll probably post every 2 weeks.

Currently in June at the start of the fourth case, I stopped playing today right at the start of Futaba's palace. My stats are everything at 3 and knowledge at 4, which I think is pretty good for this part of the game. Confidants are pretty equal in terms of rank although my favourite characters are definitely Mishima, Akechi and Kasumi. I thought the palace formula would be the same, so I was surprised by the variety of having to clear a non-evil person's palace. I didn't think that Sojiro would get that much development in the main game either, very nice to see.

Theory:
I have a hunch that the final boss of the game is going to be the vice president of Japan as he was having some shady conversations with the SIU director. I also wonder how Akechi is going to deal with the Phantom Thieves, per Sae's request. I'm writing this down so I can use it as a future reference and see how my theories turned out later.

I haven't revived the GotM threads for games I've played because it seemed a bit pointless. However, I'm giving it a shot for Persona 5 and seeing how it goes. So if you're (still) playing the game, join the conversation. I'll mostly talk about how much progress I'm making, what's happening in the game and some general thoughts/theories. It's going to take a while to beat so I'll probably post every 2 weeks.

Currently in June at the start of the fourth case, I stopped playing today right at the start of Futaba's palace. My stats are everything at 3 and knowledge at 4, which I think is pretty good for this part of the game. Confidants are pretty equal in terms of rank although my favourite characters are definitely Mishima, Akechi and Kasumi. I thought the palace formula would be the same, so I was surprised by the variety of having to clear a non-evil person's palace. I didn't think that Sojiro would get that much development in the main game either, very nice to see.

Theory:
I have a hunch that the final boss of the game is going to be the vice president of Japan as he was having some shady conversations with the SIU director. I also wonder how Akechi is going to deal with the Phantom Thieves, per Sae's request. I'm writing this down so I can use it as a future reference and see how my theories turned out later.

I’ve only finished the original version; Royal is on the backlog for another time. I know a fair bit about the changes that were made though. There’s also a character among your pick that I never liked much. They’re pretty popular with the fans but it just never worked out for me. My favorite characters would probably be Futaba, Makoto, and Iwai because of what happened with his story, but Sojiro is really great once you get to know him better.

If you’d like a spoiler-ish hint on your theory, you’re headed in the right direction but some things may have been missed. You’ll find out eventually.

[

It's been 2 weeks so time for another update. My playtime is currently 103 hours, in the middle of September and I just beat Okumura's palace. At the rate I'm playing, I think I'll finish the game with around 150 hours and I'm not even sure if I'll finish it in June anymore. (I want to play other games, this game's length is holding me hostage.)

Futaba and Haru seem like very promising characters, although I have yet to do a good amount of their confidants. Currently, my date picks are between them and Kasumi, so I'll have to narrow it down to one at some point. I liked the story arc of division within the group and Morgana leaving for a little bit. Okumura's storyline was also interesting although I saw his death by the other metaverse user coming. However what I didn't like at all was the incredibly annoyingly difficult boss fight. The only way you stood a chance at winning was by using an incredibly specific strategy. I hope that the future bosses aren't nearly as hard.

Theory:
I'm guessing that the last case of the base game will be against the prime minister of Japan/SIU director and the seventh case will be against the other metaverse user. However I have no idea what the sixth case could be about, so I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

Update time! My current playtime is 128 hours in the latter half of November right after beating Sae's palace. So far my pattern of one palace every two weeks is holding up. At this rate, I'll finish near the end of July! Let's hope I pick up the pace a little bit because that's an entire month and a half of pretty much only playing Persona in terms of single-player games.

My date pick ended up being Futaba. Haru wasn't quite on the same level as Kasumi and Futaba and I chose Futaba over Kasumi because I didn't want to wait until I reached the third semester to be able to date her. I'll leave that to a second playthrough if I ever do one. (I won't.)

Now for the important part, the story. Akechi, why no! I didn't see the plot twist coming at all. I was really hoping that Akechi would decide to join the team permanently after the palace. I did like the rival dynamic with Joker but I was hoping that it would turn into a friendship in the last two confidants. They put so much effort into him as a party member that I didn't think that he would only stick around for that one. (That just shows how incredibly high-quality Persona 5 is.) I wasn't expecting the SIU director to die either, although I think that he was talking to Akechi as well as Shido. I still can't believe how Akechi was Shido's right-hand man this entire time.

Character speculation on Shido: I'm not sure what Shido's goal is. Is it merely to rule Japan or is he hoping for world domination or something else greater? Why would Shido ruling Japan be "ruin" as Igor states? There has to be something more to it. Shido also stated that the Phantom Thieves were getting in the way of their plan. What is their plan? Why were they causing mental shutdowns around the city and why did they kill Wakaba for her research? This is building up to something great.

TLDR: I'm so invested in the story and I can't wait to play more.

Big update this time! My current playtime is 177 h which is almost 50 hours in two weeks and double what I've played in the previous updates I've given. (Look I'm just trying to finish this game as fast as possible.) I managed to do the seventh and eighth palaces, beat the base game, and am currently nearing the end of the Royal content. I'll probably finish the game in a few more days.

Story: I didn't expect Igor to be fake and that he was the God of Control. The eighth palace came out of nowhere and felt like a huge plot twist but ultimately I think it made sense. For Royal, Maruki's palace is the best. It has the best puzzles, probably music and most definitely the best villain. Maruki has layers to him, not just evil like most of the other palace rulers. I can somewhat see where he's coming from. Sumire's plot twist was also very engaging even though I saw it coming. (might've seen a few spoilers)

oh how I wish I could join this one, sadly too expensive. But it's definitely been on my radar for a while. I hope you guys enjoy your journey with The Phantom Thieves!

nevermind didn't realize the post date FailFish

SPOILERS AHEAD!

Now that I've finished the game I'll post some of the tier lists I've made on the game as a GotM forum exclusive. You can see my review of the game on the "Post Your Wins" forum. What are your thoughts on these tier lists? (Tagging the tier lists as spoilers doesn't seem to work, so if you haven't beaten the game I would strongly avoid looking at them.)

Starting off with a general palace tier list:


Then a palace music tier list:


As you can see I really like Maruki's palace and I don't really like Okumura's.

Lastly a character tier list: