In Persona 5, this had to be the feature I liked the least but it doesn't get in the way of the story. Romance - There is a large sub-genre of games in Japan that revolve around romance visual novels or romance games. While these are rare, I would have loved it to have seen more.Ĥ. Once in a while, about once per palace, you will be treated to a cutscene that is fully voiced and have extra effects. Some of these choices do impact the game, as responding in certain ways will impact the growth of your bond between characters, and a couple choices can lead to alternate endings. While you only get 2 or 3 choices, and these choices rarely affect the course of the game, but just reading the options had me laughing out loud, and characters would respond differently to your choice.
During the game's dialogue and exposition, the game gives you choices on how to respond to your teammates, similar to a game like Mass Effect. Each character's voice is perfectly cast and keeps the tone of the game serious.
The more important story focused scenes incorporate full voice acting, which is one of the game's strongest features. The game recycles many of the facial animations and I can see some scenes dragging on if the story wasn't as engaging as it was.
This is similar to many JRPGs that feel like visual novels, with a portrait popping up to show who is talking. The majority of the game will use text boxes with the characters face next to it so you know who is clearly talking. Dialogue - There are 3 types of scenes in the game. This gives you the feeling that everything you do in the game makes you stronger in combat.ģ. Not only does increasing the bonds with confidants give you special abilities in battle, but you will also help them through a personal conflict and also get access to an ultimate persona once you reach the max level bond. The five social stats, which can be increased by a variety of different methods, ranging from a part-time job to studying library, include Knowledge, Guts, Charm, Proficiency, and Kindness. There were times where you can't progress increasing your bond with a character until you attain higher levels of certain social stats. I loved the period between deadlines as you get to know each character, which would often reward you as much as, if not more, than spending the time grinding experience or money. As you spend time with characters or as a result of progress in the story, your bond with these characters, called "confidants", will grow to unlock special ability used in or out of battle. Character development - The game also excels in creating a large cast of characters who get their own story arcs and optional story development. For example, you can plan to utilize a Persona mainly for support spells while forgoing attack, or the other way around.Ģ. However, you do have an option to relearn forgotten skills and I feel these choices ultimately help cater to your play style. At first, I thought that the 8 skill slots were too restricting, as you have to erase other skills if you have more than the eight you can hold. When creating Personas, the new ones have the ability to inherit skills from the original two so a lot of thought can go into which skills you plan to inherit. This mechanic is extremely deep and when I finished the game I only completed about 50% of the Persona library. You can level up Personas the traditional way, by equipping and using that Persona in battle, or you can choose to create new personas that begin at higher levels. Each persona has its own strengths and weaknesses, which you have to consider when in battle. The main character you control, Joker, has the special ability to harness and switch between multiple Personas. Each character has a unique Persona that gives them access to different attacks and spells. In Persona 5, your party can contain up to 4 party members, one of which has to be the main character. Similar to games like Pokemon there are many games that incorporate capturing, training, or combining monsters/familiars to fight alongside your team.