I can't say anything about anything specific to the Royal version seeing as I haven't played it but I didn't really enjoy my time with the "vanilla" version of Persona 5 all that much @Thrillho despite enjoying the previous 2 entries done in the same sorta style.
I was pretty hyped for Persona 5 so you could attribute some of my disappointment to overinflated expectations... But even then there's still a bunch of things that just did not work for me.
The first twenty or so hours was great and the first villain, along with the events that transpire, was quite hard hitting and perhaps a bit too real with what goes on. But the villains after that felt more like a mustache twirling Saturday morning kids show villain which just did not work for me at all.
Didn't really gel with the cast a whole bunch either. There were some characters I liked (Mainly secondary/side characters like the doctor, the politician, your homeroom teacher) but... Yeah I didn't like the phantom thieves all that much.
I found them either a bit bland or similar to characters that had already been in the previous two entries. The voice acting is pretty decent at times but... Eh.
I found the script way too repetitive too and the story as a whole just didn't particularly grab me either to be perfectly honest.
One of most subjective points then anything else but the soundtrack didn't do much for me. I'm admittedly not the biggest fan of jazz and unfortunately I'm just not particularly fond of the vocalist featured in the soundtrack. Unsurprisingly the best tracks to me are the instrumental ones.
The turn based combat is pretty nice and enjoyable with the various persona/demons based on mythology and various move sets with you being able to create new persona and alter/fine tune their movesets via fusion. The presentation of the game as a whole is very slick and the anime cutscenes are very nicely done.
But yeah... That's all I got.
If I remember right @kyleforrester87 wasn't a fan of it either? For similar-ish reasons I believe and @Th3solution is/was halfway through a playthrough of it too if I remember right with slightly more positive thoughts?
Of course if you want some opinions from people who did actually enjoy it then I'm sure Ralizah, nessisonett or crimsontadpoles (among many others) can give ya their thoughts too 😄
@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy Thanks for that. It just felt like this game has been universally loved so I’m still not sure whether I should get over my reservations and give it a go.
Knowing it could well be another 100hr feat also puts me off slightly.
@Thrillho It’s one of those games that people who’ve played earlier games in the series have more reservations about than those who play the game blind. I might prefer Persona 3 or 4 for certain things but 5 is a fantastic game in its own right. Haven’t played Royal yet but I do own it. Just not sure when to set aside 100 hours for a game that I’ve beaten for the most part!
@Thrillho
Like @Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy says, I’m in a weird position as it relates to Persona 5. I don’t dislike the game. In fact, I quite like it... but I can’t seem to get the motivation to finish it. I’ve made it through about a third of the game, I think. I liked Persona 3 and Persona 4 very much. And I even played the rhythm games for both of these, having really enjoyed the characters and music immensely. All that Foxy said about P5 is correct, although I’d say I like the cast probably a little more than she does.
If I try to analyze what my gripes with it are, I think I just don’t like the palaces and combat as much as the dungeons of the former games. The gameplay is similar, but the demon recruitment mechanic is pretty frustrating to deal with. I much preferred the card system in P4. The responses and dialogue choices to try to recruit a demon feel ridiculously random and frustrate me to no end. The palaces themselves are interesting enough stylistically speaking, but they’re overly complex as far as layout, and there’s not enough save rooms for my taste. As a result, the palaces require a large time commitment for each play session, because you could be running around fighting random demons for several hours before you come to a save room. It’s a stark contrast to the other part of the game doing daily life activities which you can save really easily and regularly most days between activities with your confidants.
I suppose it all comes down to the time commitment and also that there doesn’t seem to garner enough curiosity about the storyline to make me come back for more.
I still plan on finishing it, but each time I consider it, another game shines brighter in my field-of-view to dominate my attention. As I look at the next 3-4 games I have planned to play, I just don’t feel like P5 is going to knock any of them off my “on deck” backlog.
I wish I could have played Royal since it sounds like an improvement over the base game, but the thought of starting over does not appeal to me. With dozens of hours already invested, I’m not inclined to go backwards to the beginning again. And perhaps that’s telling.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
@Th3solution Thanks. A poor saving feature is a bit of a red flag for me these days as a fair bit of my play time is in the evening before bed so I don’t want the choice between playing for loads longer or losing progress!
Persona 3 is one of my favourite games and Persona 4 is a pretty great time... So it's all the more disappointing to me not liking Persona 5 @Thrillho.
I believe @Ralizah is playing Royal so they might be able to tell you about some of the added stuff in that... Perhaps it has better save features too? They did rework quite a bit of the game to my understanding.
Never had a problem with saving personally in the original Persona 5 but it is a game you need a good few hours of time for too.
@Thrillho As one solution for P5, someone on here (I think it may have been KratosMD) suggested to me to leverage the PS4’s suspend feature to make effectively make it a “save anywhere” type of situation, since you can pause the game and put the PS4 into rest mode at anytime and come back hours or days later and resume where you left off. I’ve tried that a few times, and it is effective, but if your life is like mine, sometimes you can go a long time between play sessions and so I don’t know how you feel about leaving a game suspended for days on end. For me, it is a great feature for the Vita which I use commonly if I get distracted in the middle of a game session, but for PS4 it makes me a little nervous. I have had a power outage once a few years ago when my PS4 was in rest mode and it corrupted some stuff and required a complete hard reset of my console and I had to wipe my HDD and reload everything. It didn’t happen while I had a game suspended, but apparently it happened when the console was downloading an update file overnight and it just screwed everything up. Thankfully it didn’t brick the console and it’s worked fine since the restore. Anyways, now I only leave my PS4 in rest mode for a couple nights tops, and never during a rainstorm.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
@Thrillho So, the life sim elements are definitely there, but it's not like it's a dating sim. You don't even have to date, and dating doesn't really change much about the game. Studying is just an activity to raise one of your stats (knowledge). A big part of the game is the way your daily life impacts your dungeon crawling.
Anyway, Persona 5 (and Royal, which is a slightly improved Persona 5) represents, to me, the peak of that particular series. Every previous game I've played had deep, fundamental issues with mechanics and dungeon design. Persona 5 addresses virtually every problem in previous games: negotiations are back and actually fun, unlike in the first two; guns are back; dungeons are actual, specifically designed, and thematically fascinating locations filled with story and setpieces, as opposed to randomly generated chains of hallways; the soundtrack has a lot more range to it; battles are the best they've ever been, even if I think the battle system is still too easy and exploitable (but that's true of the last two Persona games as well, and battles in P1 and P2 just suck); sections of towns and cities you explore and larger and denser than ever before; etc. I love it.
The only real issue I have with it is that the game restricts your freedom at points by not allowing you to engage in side activities for extended periods of time when plot stuff is going on, which can be frustrating. Royal is a little better about giving you more freedom in general, but important story sections still lock you into linear sequences that restrict what you can do.
For the record, I've had no issues with saving. You can save every night before you go to sleep, you're generally allowed to save after big story sections, and safe rooms, where you can save, pop up throughout the dungeons. Of course, there are extended periods of times in dungeons where you won't find new ones, and will have to choose between going back to save or pressing on and risking death. It's a very old-school, PS2 style of game design. With that said, it's still more forgiving than the save point distribution in something like Dark Souls. You also have items that can take you back to the entrance of a dungeon AND you can use safe rooms to fast travel around dungeons. Also, since the game doesn't have random battles, you don't have to worry about getting ambushed and killed before getting back to a safe room. And even if you do get careless and allow an enemy to sneak up on you, the game isn't filled with instant death attacks like some other Atlus games I could mention.
But should you pick up Royal? I mean... you say it looks "a bit too JRPG" for you, which makes me think you're reacting negatively to genre mechanics, the anime stylings, or both, and, in either case, that sounds like you're fundamentally unwilling to open yourself to this type of experience. P5 Royal is an incredible game, but, I mean, you have to have some level of interest in it to begin with. If you're not looking for an unapologetically Japanese JRPG, then you're probably not going to like it.
EDIT: Also, yes, the game is insanely long. The original P5 took me 115 hours to beat, and Royal has an extra school semester, so it's likely even longer. Don't get it if you're not prepared for an epic story and long sections of pure storytelling.
you say it looks "a bit too JRPG" for you, which makes me think you're reacting negatively to genre mechanics, the anime stylings, or both, and, in either case, that sounds like you're fundamentally unwilling to open yourself to this type of experience.
@Thrillho If that sounded judgey, that wasn't the intention.
Anyway, another thing regarding the length, since it sounds like you bought it. While it's an incredibly long game, it's also a very... segmented one. Both in terms of gameplay (going back and forth between story sections, life sim sections, and dungeon sections) and in terms of overall structure. The game isn't chapter based, but it FEELS like it is, so it's probably easy enough to squeeze in some smaller games without feeling like you're interrupting the flow of the plot.
For me Horizon: Zero Dawn, the archery combat is just beautifully done, I find the combat/action gameplay in the other games that you have mentioned mediocre to poor. The other games are still great as overall packages though with The Witcher 3 in particular having an unbelievably deep and amazing game-world as well ‘the best side-quests in gaming’ tm.
If you’re into action-playability H:ZD, if you’re into a great multi-layered narrative The Witcher 3... if you fancy a mixture of both but with a pinch of naval combat AC: Odyssey. All three are great though.
What are some good PS4 games I can get for under $30 on Amazon? I’m thinking of kingdom hearts: the story so far, but I’m wondering if there’s anything else I might want.
Kingdom of Amalur: Rereckoning and Remnant from the Ashes were both around £20 the last time I checked... both are meant to be hidden(ish) gems. I’ve bought them both but don’t know when I’m gonna be able to fit them in.
Damn it @Arugula, I think you’ve done just enough with that explanation that I now have to add yet another game (which I imagine is also a major time-sink) to my already gargantuan backlog. I hope you’re proud of yourself! 😜
Wanting to buy either Cuphead or Super Meat Boy, which game is more accessible? which is the better game?
"Preoccupied with a single leaf, you won’t see the tree. Preoccupied with a single tree, you’ll miss the entire forest. Don't be preoccupied with a single spot. See everything in its entirety...effortlessly. That is what it means...to truly "see." "
Just watched a few reviews of KC: D after your suggestion and I’m glad you brought it up as it does look to be something that I would really enjoy. Just ordered the Royal Edition, so I just need to find myself an extra 150 hours for a platinum play through and I’ll be golden... oh and probably another 100 hours or so for the Danganronpa trilogy which I also ordered off of the back of joining this forum 🖖
@Draco_V_Ecliptic I'd say Cuphead is the better game. The old fashioned cartoony visuals are wonderful to look at, and it's very fun to play. Each boss will be tricky at first, but they're usually not quite so bad once you're used to their movement patterns.
In terms of accessibility, there is an easier mode for the boss fights. However, it's restrictive in that you can't battle the final bosses unless all the previous bosses have been defeated on the standard difficulty.
It's been years since I've played Super Meat Boy, but I remember it being quite fun. Can't remember if that had difficulty options or not, but I think the regular difficulty is tougher overall on SMB then Cuphead.
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