In stark contrast to the slow burn of epic-length cutscenes that greet you in previous Persona games, Persona 5

Loading

“ Persona 5’s sense of scope is staggering compared to Persona 3 or 4.

Loading

“ Seeing HD versions of long-time enemies like Jack Frost is a treat for longtime fans.

Persona Review Scores 14 IMAGES

“ Missions like these were surprisingly moving in some cases, or ended with unexpected humor in others.

Social Climber

Loading

“ Persona 5 gives every decision a fantastic amount of weight.

Tokyo Jungle

Loading

“ The very act of exploring Persona 5’s Tokyo is a delight.

In what’s by far the series’ strongest story to date, Persona 5 puts you in the capable shoes of a high school student who spends his evenings saving the world. By day, you’ll attend class, answer quiz questions, and live the life of a typical teenager, but after school you'll see the clever concept of invading the minds of corrupt adults who are up to no good and battling psychological demons in order to change their hearts.These stand-out dungeons take place in “palaces” created within the mind of each target, and Atlus takes advantage of this to set them in diverse and outlandish places. Unlike the procedurally generated halls of Persona 3’s Tartarus or Persona 4’s Midnight Channel, Persona 5’s labyrinths are fully hand-built and feature unique puzzles and mechanics that vary with the theme of each dungeon and never repeat. A museum, for example, has very different security measures than a Medieval castle, and you’ll find very different enemies in a pyramid than you might in a spaceship. Assembling pieces of secret codes to solve a bank vault’s cryptogram or positioning tiles to interpret hieroglyphics feel almost like entirely different games. This gives each palace a sense of identity tied to the target and provides some smart, unpredictable story moments and challenges.While chemistry between the characters never quite reaches the heights of Persona 4’s Scooby Gang vibe, Persona 5’s more cohesive main story does allow each character to shine in individual moments instead, exploring troubled pasts like the loss of a parent to add weight to present day scenarios. This series has never shied away from exploring serious subject matter, and here it shines light on abuse by teachers, drug sales, suicide, and a host of other issues that are handled well and are at times extraordinarily moving. Each character’s motivation for joining you is relatable and unique, and even each palace’s target has believable conviction. An unrepentant drug dealer, for example, reveals an origin that doesn’t necessarily justify his crimes, but fleshes him out into more than just a bad guy caricature.Battle in Persona 5 is a familiar turn-based formula, with melee attacks, ranged weapons, and magic attacks based on one of eight elements. A bit like catching Pokemon, you collect Personas that you’ll use to fight, and each has its own unique set of skills as well as its own set of strengths and weaknesses. While each of your party members has one permanent Persona to use, the protagonist has the lone ability to hold multiple Personas at once. This means that you can acquire additional Personas to use as you progress, and collecting multiple Personas with different abilities is a fun way to tailor your play style to the type of combat you prefer. You can also fuse combinations of Personas to create new ones, which allows you to inherit certain skills until you’ve created the Persona that’s right for you.Exploiting enemies’ elemental weaknesses is pretty standard fare (ice is weak to fire, etc.), and swapping between multiple Personas to keep up with the ever-changing vulnerabilities of foes you encounter helps keep combat from becoming too repetitive. The ability to swap between Personas allows you to choose the right element for any given occasion, which becomes important in battles against enemies who are invulnerable to all but one type of attack. As combat becomes more challenging and exploiting enemy weaknesses becomes imperative, smartly using the new Baton Pass ability can allow for devastating chains and exponential damage increases that completely turn the tide in battle. Baton Pass allows you to hand off your turn to another party member after earning an extra battle action by hitting an enemy’s weak point. That gives you the opportunity to chain together multiple passes, adding a new element of strategy to combat. This is a game changer, as you not only have to make sure you have a Persona with the right element to take down an enemy, but also that you’ve selected party members with skills that can keep the chain going.Of course, like any good JRPG, Persona 5 needs a place to allow you to grind to higher levels by fighting enemies over and over. While you can’t return to palaces once they’re complete, you can continually return to a (singular) area called Mementos. Mementos is a large, separate dungeon that returns to the format of procedurally generated hallways like in previous Persona games, and new, deeper levels are unlocked as you beat more palaces. It’s a welcome change of pace in that it provides straightforward battles with no puzzles in between, which is a nice break after working through a particularly challenging dungeon. Since you can’t return to palaces, Mementos also serves as a great place to recruit Personas that you may have missed in previous dungeons. Personas you previously encountered will begin to turn up in new layers of Mementos after you’ve beaten the palace where they originally appeared. Combined with the ability to fuse Personas into new combinations, this thankfully prevents any Personas from being truly missable.Persona 5 is a solid modern turn-based JRPG first and foremost, but it also quickly becomes a captivating time-management simulator. When you’re not saving the world, your time after school is your own. You’re able to visit hub districts within Tokyo for activities like training at the gym, fishing, working a part-time job, batting practice, seeing a movie, or just heading home to study, play a retro game, or read one of dozens of books. These activities are a gigantic improvement upon the comparatively limited amount of things to do in Persona 4, and a fun way to expand your personal stats like Charm, Guts, or Kindness.On top of social activities, you also have 20 Confidants to spend time with, forging bonds with fellow students or other citizens of Tokyo. As you level up these bonds you’ll earn relevant stat increases and gameplay advantages that are surprisingly robust. Spending time with a speech-giving politician, for example, might help your negotiation skills, while training with an arcade’s light-gun expert helps your expertise in ranged weapons, and a local board game champion will give you new strategies in battle. Balancing Persona 5’s many activities with maintaining these social links (each of which can only be advanced on specific days) is a welcome challenge and will require methodical notetaking for anyone who wants to maximize each day of the calendar.By offering so many options and only a finite amount of free time, Persona 5 gives every decision a fantastic amount of weight. Choosing to work part-time might give you extra cash to buy better weapons, but it comes at the cost of ranking up a Confidant or increasing your stats. Spending time with a specific Confidant might help you learn a skill that fits your play style, but it means sacrificing learning more about a different character whose story you might be more interested in. Maximizing the skill you’ve been grinding away at or finishing a side story after multiple in-game months of watching it progress are tremendously rewarding experiences, and even lamenting the opportunities you missed adds a unique layer of replayability that makes starting a New Game+ all the more enticing.Aside from the dozens of activities available, the very act of exploring Persona 5’s Tokyo is a delight. From city lights at night to crowded subways during your school commute, every part of this world is bursting with vibrant color, and every detail feels meticulously thought out and eerily accurate to real-world Tokyo. The anime-like art style is complemented by full animated cutscenes that are absolutely gorgeous and help to punctuate major story events.Each area of Tokyo feels completely distinct, with the major hubs of Shibuya, Shinjuku, and Akihabara each offering aesthetic differences on top of locations reminiscent of their actual real-life counterparts. Shinjuku features a seedy dive bar in contrast to Shibuya’s family-friendly diner, and Akihabara is home to an arcade and shops for buying games and electronics. As the subway-themed map begins to fill in, you get a sense of just how much there is to do in Tokyo compared to Persona 3 and 4’s relatively tiny Tatsumi Port Island and Inaba.It almost feels strange to highlight since the incredible style is immediately apparent after looking at it for even a few seconds, but I can’t overstate the number of times that I marveled at the gorgeous effects like ambushing an enemy and flowing directly into battle, or went out of my way to explore on a rainy day to appreciate weather effects or small touches like pulling out an umbrella as you leave a building. Persona 5’s dynamic acid jazz-inspired soundtrack also helps to highlight everything from quiet moments to bombastic boss battles, helping to tie together an overall experience that feels truly special.