Overcoming Hardships: The Mysterious Adventures of One’s Psyche

*Warning this article has massive spoilers for Persona 5 and the remastered game Persona 5 Royal

Persona 5 Royal Box art: https://gameir.ie/news/listen-to-the-talent-behind-persona-5-royal/

Overcoming Hardships: The Mysterious Adventures of One’s Psyche

One of the best modern JRPG games to date

By Carissa Wong

“…You are held captive. A prisoner of fate to a future that has been sealed in advance. This is truly an unjust game… Your chances of winning are almost none. But if my voice is reaching you, there may yet be a possibility open to you… …I beg you. Please overcome this game… and save the world… The key to victory lies within the memories of your bonds—the truth that you and your friends grasped. It all began that day… when the game was started half a year ago… For the sake of your world’s future… as well as your own… you must remember…” -Lavenza

Intro

Persona is a series that I had come into contact with in 2020 due to the release of the popular JRPG Persona 5 Royal. I decided to watch a playthrough of the game which led me to fall in love with the characters such as the first-year gymnast, Kasumi Yoshizawa, and the young velvet room attendant, Lavenza, who was split into two beings, forming the twins that you see at the beginning of your journey. Today I’ll be talking about the superb Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal.

Summary

The story takes place within Shibuya where the nameless protagonist (also known by his codename Joker) is transferred due to an incident involving a man and a woman. He lives with a man named Sojiro Sakura, who owns a café that he lives in. He later discovers that he has the power of the wildcard which allows him to use multiple personas (the other persona main protagonists have it as well).

After meeting an individual dubbed Morgana, the protagonist goes on this adventure along with their group known as the Phantom Thieves to reform society and get back at the nasty adults who are ruining other peoples lives. What I enjoy about this story would be that they are considered to be the ‘bad guys’ to the public however most of the adults who the Phantom Thieves change the hearts of are ‘good’ in society’s eyes.

The story has a lovely but dark theme about the difficulties within life for a lot of the individuals and how they overcome them. All of the main characters experience different types of conflicts within the game and that is how they all awaken to their personas. I really like experiencing the main characters rise up from the bottom to the top. Atlus makes a lot of the individuals within the story relatable and I’m able to relate to some of the characters such as the technological Futaba Sakura and the gymnast Kasumi Yoshizawa.

I overall liked the story that Persona 5 Royal provided to me and seeing some of my favourite characters overcome and obtaining that freedom from the chains of their roles in society. Though there were dark moments in the story, there are some comical moments as well with the dialogue showing its funny moments through the characters interacting with each other.

Personas are the manifestations of one’s psyche and in Persona 5 at least, the main characters awaken to it due to rebelling against the situation they were brought into. For example, one of the main characters, Ann Takamaki, is stuck between rejecting her sexually abusive teacher and having her best friend off of the volleyball team. Another would be Yusuke Kitagawa with his art teacher (Sensei) who steals ideas from his pupils and ruins their lives if they were to leave or rebel against him.

This is also part of every Persona game but the way that they summon their Personas are different. In Persona 4, they use the Tarot Cards belonging to their Social Link which are the same as the Confidants in Persona 5 and the Persona 3 main characters use Evokers.

Great Gameplay and Combat

The overall gameplay is split between a social sim (as people call it) where you as the main character who you are to name (Ren Amamiya is the correct name) and the fighting which is in dungeons known as Palaces. Overall, there are nine palaces within the game (I’m talking about Royal). I’m also including Mementos which is also a palace but not like the palaces that they infiltrate.

In my opinion, I am not a fan of Mementos and there are multiple others who agree with me. Mementos manages to change the dungeon’s layout every time you are to enter, getting lost within the mini dungeon. It is also where the side quests take place.

The social sim part of the game, you [as the main character] have a choice to up the something known as a confidant which is the same as the social links in the past games. This has you go and get involved with some characters around Shibuya. All of the confidants go to stage ten except for Kasumi who I won’t talk a lot about due to huge spoilers. I also advise people to focus on maxing out the confidant for a school councilor named Takuto Maruki, a detective named Goro Akechi, and the gymnast, Kasumi Yoshizawa. Maxing those allows you to access an optional dungeon at the end of the game which means more content!

Not only are the confidants there to learn more about the characters, but you can also romance them as well (only the females). My go-to romance option has always been Kasumi as she is the one that I feel is close to Joker and I personally ship them. In the ninth confidant, Kasumi literally confesses her feeling to him and she is the only one who does that.

Not only do you get to roam the streets of Tokyo, but you also get to go to school (Yay!). School is from Monday to Saturday with Sunday being a day off where you can roam the streets in the morning instead of the afternoon. While you are in class, however, you have to answer questions based on different information from history to random facts. This can up your knowledge skill.

At certain points in the game, there are exams which consists of the things that you answered in class plus other information that was not covered in class (fun!). Exams, I feel are useless as the only thing you really get from it is the increase on the charm stat and it takes all of the time during those four days so you can’t get confidants up during that time.

The combat is turn-based. You have four characters that fight in the battle which the other Phantom Thieves are off to the side. Joker always has to be in your party as the only way to get a game over is when Joker loses all of his HP (Hit Points). You’re able to switch the characters but you had to have started the confidant with a Kosei student by the name of Hifumi Togo. The first part of the confidant allows only Joker to switch out the party members on his turn but when you get to ten, anyone can switch anyone out.

 

Introduced in the Royal version of the game, there are these special moves called Showtime attacks which allow two of your party members to do a specialized attack. Overall, everyone in the  PT group gets two each except for Futaba who doesn’t fight, Akechi, and Kasumi.

Catchy Music

The music is one of the best things about the game. The Jazz, the rock…it’s some of the best video game music I have heard. Between Life Will Change and the slow rendition of No more what ifs, the music doesn’t have any bad moments and allows me to listen to them consistently without ever feeling tired of hearing them. My favourite beats consist of the boss theme, Rivers in the Desert, the quiet Hymn of the Soul (also known as Aria of the Soul), the opening to the original Persona 5, Wake Up, Get Up, Get Out There, and much more.

The music is one of the best things to listen to within the game and I highly recommend listening playing the other Persona games for their music as well. Persona 4’s music is considered to be the best out of the Persona music but for me, all of the music is equal. Also you can check out my other blog post showcasing my favourite gaming original soundtrack (ost) and I inserted some Persona 5 ost so you can give that a listen.

Awesome References

I love how there are multiple references to the past persona games referenced all over the game including Persona 4 main characters, Rise Kujikawa and Naoto Shirogane (with the former having her own poster hanging around which you can hang up in your room). There are also very vague references to characters such as Akihiko Sanada, Yukiko Amagi and Tohru Adachi which are nice to see. There are also actual references to real life such as movies, songs, and different types of products such as ‘Second Maid.’

One of things I enjoy seeing within each of the Persona games would be how the personas are actually from different literature and myths like Titania and Oberon from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Athena from Greek myth, Thor and Loki from Norse Myth, etc. I like how I can see some of my favourite mythological creatures and characters in the game (we must protect Jack Frost, hee ho!). I would also like to point out that Persona is a spinoff of the Shin Megami Tensei series which also includes these.

Reviews/Reception 

Persona 5 along with its rerelease Persona 5 Royal demonstrated to the public that they were one of the best games during this generation. Multiple review platforms complemented it and giving it a high tiered score such as NintendoLife  and its sister site, PushSquare giving Persona 5 Royal a beautiful 10/10 and IGN giving the original Persona 5 a 9.7/10 and Royal a 10/10. With it now rightfully released on Nintendo Switch, the groups of people who didn’t get to play it due to only owning Nintendo consoles, get to play this masterpiece.

Persona 5 and It’s Spinoffs

The Persona 5 (series) consists of the original, Royal version, Dancing game, and Strikers. Persona 5 Royal is the enhanced version of Persona 5, Persona 5 Strikers is a sequel to the original, and Persona 5 Dancing in Starlight is a spin off that plays as a rhythm game.

Persona 5 Strikers takes place after the original Persona 5 and has Joker, who had went back to his hometown, coming back to the city to see his friends during the summer break. He finds himself in trouble again once he and his best friend, Ryuji accidently get sucked into the Metaverse. As at the end of Persona 5, the Metaverse/Palaces are supposed to be gone. They realize after meeting a young AI girl by the name of Sophia (Sophie is her code name) that they are in a place called a Jail.

I liked this story as we got to see the journey that Sophia went through from not knowing much about the human heart to actually having a Persona herself which are suppressed feelings being released. 

The dancing game is more straight forward with it being a rhythm game with them just tasked with a dancing competition with the Velvet room siblings (Elizabeth and her group). With both Persona 5 Dancing and Persona 3 Dancing releasing at the same time, both are somewhat linked to each other.

Conclusion

Overall, the game is one of the perfect games for me. It takes place in modern time, the main characters are teenagers, there are tragedies and drama within the game, and they have lots of references to literature. Those kinds of tropes are ones that I enjoy. The game also has wonderful characters who have amazing character growth and how they interact with each other doesn’t seem forced and weird. The game’s combat is awesome and how they got rid of issues that were present in the original P5 like how your gun would be refilled after battle. I enjoyed experiencing the adventures and hanging around the Phantom Thieves.