Persona 5

9/16/2021: Might be the first game I intentionally platinumed and single-handedly got me back into JRPGs.

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4/11/2022
Wow what an insanely short review for a game that almost immediately became one of my top 5 games of all time. While I don't want to go into too much detail on what makes this game a masterpiece because it's quite a well critically received game and that can be looked up online, I'll try to summarize what made it amazing to me.

First of all this was my first Persona game and my first Shin Megami Tensei game. Though I had read about Nocturne and SMT IV being really good but just steered clear of them because I wasn't in the market for any new JRPGs. I had dabbled in Final Fantasy, Etrian Odyssey, and Dragon Quest and that was enough for me.

Coming in I was very confused. I didn't understand the mechanics. But what I did know is the style was fucking phenomenal. The music which I still listen to outside of the game, the character designs and the visuals of the world in their striking cell-shaded style, down to even the punchy, bright menus. Jesus, a game that makes you notice the menus is a marvel to behold.

And then you start meeting the characters and learning the story and you're already like "Wow this is a great game." And you haven't even started the dungeons. And then you go into the dungeons and you hear the battle music playing-- I still remember being really excited to get into battle just to hear that fucking tune-- and you start collecting demons and then they allow you to fuse them and then you learn how to get items that enable you to stay in the dungeon forever and you learn about the press turn system and how to just destroy all the enemies. God it's all so good.

It's such a chaotic mix of gameplay elements that are all so refined and play so well off each other it takes what for anyone else would be a fucking up putrid mixture and turn it into a beautiful medley. A beautiful medley you want to play forever. In my case about 150 hours. What's insane is I was hooked for almost all of those hours (only excepting the end where I was just grinding out achievements for a platinum). I can think of maybe 3 other games that hooked me for that long (that isn't an MMO) and that's Elden Ring, Dragon's Dogma, and Morrowind. Maybe.

And it makes sense that it's so good. Because since then I've gone back and played P4 and P3. And I've played SMT 4 and SMT 3. This is a formula that has been being refined for like 2 decades and god DAMN did they get it right.

Just an absolute masterpiece.