Atlus Persona 5

[perfectslumbers]

Mods are here btw:

Hopefully hardmode mod soon

 

[Tyrr]

Mods are here btw:

https://gamebanana.com/games/16951

Bedhead Becky

 

[Duraframe300]

Finished Royal btw. As is the case with Golden, writing wise Royal content is pretty garbage and if anything drags the original content down. YMMV.

 

[Tavar]

The English translation feels off to me: First, there is no reason to use the Japanese "endings" like "chan", "kun" in English. Second, statements are often very harsh, e.g. people are frequently called "useless" or "pathetic" which is quite rude in English. This seems odd to me: Aren't Japanese people rather polite? Is this a translation mistake?

 

[InD_ImaginE]

First, there is no reason to use the Japanese "endings" like "chan", "kun" in English.

This is heavy point of contention in Anime styled, or Japanese media (and to some extent Korean, Chinese, and general Asian) translation. Honorifics play greatly to Asian culture, especially East Asian, that in general place heavy emphasis on social standings and relations. Some can be easily translated such as -sensei to Mr./Mrs. for teacher, Dr. for Doctor, etc. But interpesonal one is a bit more iffy. There are a lot of people who is in favor of removing them to localize it, but in the past years more fans of the genre put more emphasize to keep them. Instead of translating "into an English game" it is more "translating for non-Japanese that happen to use English". That being said you can just chalk it up it being a weeb thing as well, but this discussion is pretty heavy in Anime/Manga/VN (and lately Wuxia) community.

Not to mention lately "localization" has been getting a very bad rept for essentially changing a lot of stuff from original material text (e.g. meme with Ace Attorney, but more serious example in 3DS Fire Emblem games). Not to mention entering western political stuff in it (even in Persona 5 Royale they censor some stuff to better "localize to wester audience", a mod in the mod website changed it back). This kinda put the bucket of "localization" or "translation" even more complicated.

 

[Terra]

I recall when I played the original there were many complaints (and I noticed/felt it myself) of the translation being overly literal. At least with P5 vanilla, there were definitely more than a few... awkward/stiff lines, for want of a better term. Playing through Royal myself now and it looks like Sojiro's early dialogue is still a bit stunted at times, so perhaps nothing has changed on that front between versions.

But I definitely felt that P5's localisation was rushed and not on par with P4's by comparison.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Persona 4 is excellent. Teddy verbal tick (~kuma) is impossible to translate well in any way and localizing it as beary good pun is an excellent choice. It is probably one of the best example in favor of good localization.

 

[perfectslumbers]

Is this a translation mistake?

The cruel name calling is on purpose, there's even a poorly written side arc about it

 

[Caim]

The English translation feels off to me: First, there is no reason to use the Japanese "endings" like "chan", "kun" in English. Second, statements are often very harsh, e.g. people are frequently called "useless" or "pathetic" which is quite rude in English. This seems odd to me: Aren't Japanese people rather polite? Is this a translation mistake?

A good translation is difficult to pull off, especially if languages are very different from one another (Japanese for example doesn't have proper nouns). This isn't helped by the fact that there's a number of official translators who want to keep all the honorifics and Japanese phrases, go way too hard on translating things the western audience might understand or can outright tell are translated (eat your hamburgers, Apollo), or worse the translator just straight up changes things to fit their political agenda (some of the recent Fire Emblem games did this). There's also the ideas behind words that can't be translated easily: the phrase "this is unforgivable" carries a lot more weight in Japanese: if they say that they actually mean it. Then there's the word kisama, which just means "you" but in a really impolite way. Think you see someone, you squint your eyes, you tense your body and say "You.". It's basically never used outside of media, as well.

The long and short of it is that Japanese puts a whole lot of cultural baggage behind a lot of words and turns of phrase, and if you don't know that it just sounds really weird.

Eat your hamburgers, Apollo

 

[Tavar]

First, there is no reason to use the Japanese "endings" like "chan", "kun" in English.

This is heavy point of contention in Anime styled, or Japanese media (and to some extent Korean, Chinese, and general Asian) translation. Honorifics play greatly to Asian culture, especially East Asian, that in general place heavy emphasis on social standings and relations. Some can be easily translated such as -sensei to Mr./Mrs. for teacher, Dr. for Doctor, etc. But interpesonal one is a bit more iffy. There are a lot of people who is in favor of removing them to localize it, but in the past years more fans of the genre put more emphasize to keep them. Instead of translating "into an English game" it is more "translating for non-Japanese that happen to use English". That being said you can just chalk it up it being a weeb thing as well, but this discussion is pretty heavy in Anime/Manga/VN (and lately Wuxia) community.

Not to mention lately "localization" has been getting a very bad rept for essentially changing a lot of stuff from original material text (e.g. meme with Ace Attorney, but more serious example in 3DS Fire Emblem games). Not to mention entering western political stuff in it (even in Persona 5 Royale they censor some stuff to better "localize to wester audience", a mod in the mod website changed it back). This kinda put the bucket of "localization" or "translation" even more complicated.

Thanks, that was very insightful. I understand now why they have decided to include it. However, it sounds very weird with a western character name. If I had known it in advance, I'd have chosen a Japanese name for my main character

Is this a translation mistake?

The cruel name calling is on purpose, there's even a poorly written side arc about it

Let my add some examples so that everyone knows what I mean: Makoto gets called a "useless mouth" by her sister which is incredibly rude and hurtful. Also, Rijuy gets called "pathetic" by Morgana if he misses in combat. The interaction between Makoto and her sister can be seen as in character, but Morgana bashing Rijuy like that seems odd given that they are team mates. But maybe all this makes sense after I have finished that quest you mentioned.

 

[Palomides]

Perhaps you're a tad sensitive to such things. Don't you call your friends and siblings by such insults from time to time?

 

[Dadd]

Kisama is like thou but more disdainful

 

[Nifft Batuff]

Hard was perfect for the original P5. Sadly they didn't updated the difficulties to all the extra powers the player got with P5R.

Yeah, this is my issue with P5R. They added a lot of ridiculous filler mechanics, all of them in the direction to overpower the player, without any balancing.

 

[Longes]

Now that P5 is on PC, I started a playthrough. Currently, I'm ~50 hours into the game, in mid-July. Kaneshiro's deadline has just passed.

I'm going to make a preliminary thesis statement. Persona 5 core theme is not "revolution" but finding community and acceptance for who you are, even if you are marginalized and rejected by the majority culture.

Supporting points from social links:

• (Death) Takemi finds happiness in the role of a doctor for Yongenjaya
• (Moon) Mishima dedicates himself to building a community for the people like him
• (Sun, unless they pull a major twist on me) Yoshida refuses to assimilate to the parties that used him, and builds a voter base around his beliefs
• (Temperance) Kawakami's defining incident was abandoning a marginalized student, and in the end, she resolves to be there for students like this in the future

Additionally, for all* the party members core aspect of their story is reaching self-actualization through the community in the Phantom Thieves.

As a counter-argument against the "rawr rawr revolution" theme - the Phantom Thieves frequently question the morality of what they are doing, before resolving to steal a heart as they are forced into it anyway. And I'm noticing a recurring questioning of the nature of Justice, explicitly spelled out by Akechi - what is a hero to you - someone who follows their own beliefs even if they contradict the majority, someone who enforces the will of the majority, or a mysterious third thing?

In that regard, I can see why the nihilist political undercurrent who believe that social systems are fundamentally corrupt and must be burned to the ground describe Persona 5 story as lacking.

*Except for Ann whose turning point in life was befriending Shiho, which still fits this theme

 

[Ivan]

Persona 5 has grown on me. I'm all in now.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Shoji Meguro is great (as far as we know he is the one doing heavy lifting for modern Persona much like Uematsu did with classic FF). His music all fits pretty well from Persona 3 to 5. Fitting music for modern setting JRPG. One of those game that you can be sure that the soundtrack is not an afterthought and is actually integral part of the games.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Played a few hours of this during the week. I really really want to strangle whoever is responsible for this translation. Words like "asshat", "jelly" in place of jealous. Just sad sad shit.

Story does seem good otherwise though. Maybe my cringe resistance is low this time of year.

Asshat is fine. Jelly sucks, but they're supposed to be kids, aren't they? I'm not sure how it's bad writing for imitating how kids speak, other than "asshat" is probably a bit old.

 

[ResetRPG]

finally started playing it and im having a very good time with it. gameplay is very cool, writing is definitely anime quality- but enjoyable. still prefer shin megami tensei 3, as its my only reference point for atlus games.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Well developed for "children", aren't they? Definitely young adult territory if anything. If they were toddlers you might have a point.

Well I won't ask how you are such an expert on how Japanese children speak but just because they are young doesn't necessarily mean they need to be moronic. There are plenty of children who can speak properly I am sure.

So what's your deal? Are you just an average basement dweller (probably with a court order to not be within 3 miles of children) or just old and out of touch? Teenagers and twenty somethings say shit like that, including my nieces. Sorry to burst your bubble.

Also, nobody in the real world has ever used the term Asshat. It's 4Chan/Something Awful forums slang. It just feels unnatural, like I can imagine the sweaty fucker writing it and laughing to himself.

What country are you from? Don't know what to tell you, but people use the word "asshat". For example, you're acting like an asshat right now.

EDIT: Apologies, now that I think about it for somebody like you this level of language is probably completely normal. You can disregard the above.

Buddy, between this and your rating spree...

The contest is over. Are you just trying to get a jump start on next year?

 

[AdamReith]

What can I say, sorry I wanted to play as a group of kids more intelligent than your nieces.

No more now, thanks.

 

[Terra]

After what seems like an eternity, finally finished P5 Royal, I grabbed it from Fanatical during their sale as they had it for a fair discount just over a month after its PC debut, so I at least avoided paying the early adopter Atlus tax. For context, I played and finished the original way back when it was first released on PS4, what was it, 6 years ago now? Ever since the initial Royal announcement I have been waiting patiently for it to come to PC to get access to the Royal Content and my patience ultimately paid off.

For a couple of years now, I like to save a big RPG to play over my Xmas holidays, this year, after casting a glance over what I'd missed over the course of the year it was somewhat disappointing to note that the titles I was most excited for were all remasters/remakes of games I'd already played; Tactics Ogre, P5 Royal, Romancing SaGa, there was just no forerunner for a big CRPG/JRPG for the year that wasn't something I'd already played before; the only contenders that came to mind were Black Geyser, Star Ocean 6 & Valkyrie Elysium, FF7 Remake which all have variouis issues/problems where I didn't want to take the gamble on them. I was hoping SMT5 would have gotten a PC port by now as rumoured by the Geforce Now leak, but sadly that hasn't happened... The Judgment collection was tempting too but still kinda pricey to pick up the whole thing, and of course Yakuza Ishin is in the ever-elusive February slot. And so I've ended up spliting my time between P5R & my current multiplayer addiction. This meant the game took even longer to get through than I'd have liked. Anyway, my random thoughts on both the new content and the game as whole in retrospect. Naturally there will be spoilers:

General thoughts

-It didn't really hit me on my original playthrough, but at times this game definitely felt too long. Or at least has odd pacing problems, like you're given way too much time for the palace infiltrations, when you can finish them in 1/2 visits usually, then you have a solid month of the characters worrying about if the change of heart will take effect, while you have to sit through reams of visual novel content in the form of social links. I'm really starting to feel like I should skip P6 vanilla when it comes out and just wait for the inevitable enhanced version to save myself the 100 hours wasted on the lesser version. I had a similar issue with P3, which I also played at release, then grabbed FES (which came pretty soon after in relative terms). That FES playthrough, while I saw and appreciated all the little tweaks and additions it made to the main campaign, it still felt too hot on the heels of my P3 playthrough and consequently parts of it felt like a bit of a drag. I've never even gotten to the chunk of new content in P4 Golden for similar reasons, I'll get to it eventually, but for returning players it can kinda feel like you have to scale a mountain again just to get to the little tidbit they added right on to the end.

-I ended up romancing Makoto again, I initially intended to go with Kasumi, but they made a similar mistake to what they did with Haru with Kasumi, introduced as a party member way too late (although there were reasons for this, which I'll touch on later). Her scenes sprinkled through the game are alright, but they just didn't make her feel like a core cast member to me until you hit the 3rd semester; just not enough involvement in the core plot till way too late. I'm always a sucker for the waifu with the best tie to the main plot so, yeah, disappointing they couldn't make it work, but I guess Makoto was already better positioned for it.

- With one notable exception, playing on Hard throughout, I didn’t really encounter any major roadblocks and difficulty overall was about what I’d expected (most of my original P5 playthrough was on Merciless, but I dropped it down to hard at some point, probably due to being one-shot over weaknesses). Not too hard, not too easy.

- Lots of funny scenes, particularly liked the one where the protagonist wakes up and there’s another guy with him in bed, Morgana, never seen anybody jump out of bed so fast before, lol.

- I was able to max Haru’s S.Link this time around but I sadly didn’t max Futaba (so close!),Yusuke or the gamer kid's. Probably spent a bit too much time trying to max out Knowledge too early, that kinda screwed me on the Futaba stat prerequisites for a while and it snowballed from there.

- Igor's voice - playing through again reminded me that Igor's (actual Igor) was kinda meh in this one, clearly not the same guy (yes I know the original JP actor died). With him also having pretty much a non-speaking role in the 3rd semester I worry they'll drop him moving forward, which is a shame. Wouldn't surprise me if the EN actor was pulling shenanigans and wanting crazy some amount for a small role. Definitely brought that continuity aspect of the game down a notch after his excellent performances in P3 & P4.

- On the whole though, I was actually very impressed with how on-point all the returning voice cast were in Royal, when it comes to sequels or later added content, I often find the actor loses the original tone, or their performance drifted somewhat, but everyone that returned for Royal was spot-on and mirrored their original performances seamlessly, very impressive tbh. Hot Doctor chick got a new voice that may actually be better than her original... I’ve actually just started P5 Strikers and some of the voices there feel… off. Not just the recording quality either (which I gather was compromised due to Covid necessitating home-recording) but Yusuke & (some of) Ann’s voice has… drifted a bit, quite noticeable in some of the scenes.

- The game definitely hits a certain point where it’s got nothing left to show you mechanics-wise, by the time I did the initial infiltration of the new 3rd semester palace and got cock-blocked by a required Mementos visit, I was ready for the fighting aspect of the game to be over. I was already lvl 85~, most enemies mercifully fell to the Insta-Kill skill, which granted ever more EXP & money and so I could avoid most non-fixed battles, yet traversing through Mementos and yet more VN scenes continued to push the playtime ever higher. The unavoidable battles at this point started to remind me of the worst aspect of P3's The Answer, where enemies are just immune/strong/reflective to everything and you just have to slowly wear down their HP. The True ending was right there in front of me, but I knew I still had to faff about through Mementos + the last Palace again. On paper, a quick trip through Mementos, a few chats & a palace infiltration shouldn't take as long as it does, but it took me a solid day to get through the 3rd semester. It’s a good thing that the story & characters in the 3rd semester ended up being one of my favourite things about the game really. They did a good job with the 3rd semester, the setup kinda reminded me a little of P3’s the Answer, but far better executed.

-Colour puzzles right at the end of the final dungeon - really? I'm close to max level,have the best personas, just open the door to the last boss and let it end already.

-Just to reflect back on P4 and P5 endings,

Spoiler

the only thing I didn’t particularly like, the game is seemingly falling over itself to ship the protagonist off back to wherever they came from at the end of the game; the nameless hometown…for no particular reason I guess other than to split the group up. Royal seems to have doubled down on this even more due to the 3rd semester incident, inspiring more of the cast to head off than I recall happening in P5 vanilla. iirc, P4, after pulling a similar stunt, has the MC returning to Inaba pretty soon after/regularly for his spinoff games so I didn’t doubt there would be a similar handwave/contradiction in Strikers / whatever other media there is post P5, so I just question why every entry since P3 feels the need to disband & disperse its core cast so suddenly and forcefully, then 5 minutes later they're back together in whatever spinoff game is made. It feels like the game pretty much just overrides the player’s wishes to deliver the ending it wants, but then Atlus never really utilises the characters again beyond cameos/spinoffs, so I kinda question what the point of doing it is?

I recall when I played P4 Arena (the first one), the game was almost going out of its way to avoid committing to/canonising who the P4 MC’s romantic interest is/was whilst simultaneously ensuring it did nothing to disprove/invalidate any of the candidates either, so I just find the endgame heavy handedness a bit pointless (especially given Royal’s Bad ending where everyone gets their wishes has the protagonist stay in Tokyo). Or maybe it's just that I'd prefer to leave things off with a little more of a status quo so the adventures could theoretically continue in the imagination of the player after the credits roll. Oh well, it is what it is I guess, I’ve not made it to the extended epilogue in P4 Golden, only ever finished P4 vanilla, so maybe it's different there) but still, I find it a bit odd that two games in a row have almost the same ending in this regard.

3rd semester stuff

- I thought Maruki was an interesting final adversary, as well as the 3rd semester being an interesting scenario/moral question as a whole, given his intentions, there was a nice contrast with most of the baddies just doing evil things for selfish reasons; he wasn’t just a moustache twirling villain being evil for the sake of being evil, like most of P5’s antagonists, the fact that he wanted the best for others really made the whole conflict more compelling for me to play through. I also liked the slightly more grounded aspect of someone who awakened to their power combining it with their research & knowledge to do “something” as opposed to just the typical big bad random god that shows up to end it all in the final moments of a game. To me, Maruki’s arc, that stretched from almost the very beginning of the game as the cast’s friend & counsellor to the very end as their adversary, was a much better and more meaningful conclusion than the original finale vs Yaldaboath or even Shido. I think it grapples with and explores its themes far more effectively than even the main plot thread, that alone made the Royal playthrough worthwhile, pretty much perfect for an epilogue chapter imo..

- I ended up liking Maruki’s integration into the main campaign more than Kasumi’s, with his scenes & interactions through the main game subtly foreshadowing his actions in the 3rd semester, and while I felt disappointed over Kasumi’s relatively minor role as far as the main core game is concerned, they did really pull it back and do it a excellent job with her in the 3rd semester, which I guess was the intent and somewhat makes up for it. Part of me would still have liked for her to have been a more regular cast member in the main game, but I guess it's tricky to go back and splice her into events, and downright impossible in the case of the FMVs.

-Onto the bad things, well, with this version coming with all the DLC, you have a plethora of top tier personas ready to summon right off the bat, granted they only have 3 basic abilities, but it's kinda weird how the new player experience must be if you were a total newcomer to SMT or the genre and end up summoning Messiah right off the bat. Personally, I never summoned any of them until I was able to fuse them naturally, at which point I already had a better version of them anyway. Quite a few games pull similar stuff nowadays with preorder bonuses giving you a bunch of stuff that is often a bit OP for the start of the game, but P5 Royal is really off the charts in this regard. Does it never strike the developers that maybe giving new players access the the best personas right from the very start might be a bad idea?

-The Okumura fight as well, holy shit, I ended up having to switch from Hard to Merciless for the Weakness damage boost, I just couldn’t output enough damage on Hard to take out one of the tougher groups before they reset.

-Game says I’m at 120~ hours, with the new arc/semester clocking in at around 15-20 hours all inclusive. Steam says I’m closer to 170, but that’s inaccurate as it includes AFK time and such. I encountered one BSOD in that time, but no other issues. Despite the fact that I think it has Denuvo, the port was pretty much rock solid for me throughout.

I’m moving onto Strikers now and while it's early days, I'm not really feeling it as much as I'd hoped (just hit the Velvet room and kinda feel like I don't want to spend even more time fusing Personas, I just want to run around slashing things with this cast for a bit!), despite loving all things SMT, Persona & Musou. But as far as Royal is concerned, it’s still P5, the game oozes style & charm, the UI, even years later is still classier than anything before or after it, and even though it's a monstrous game in terms of length, I still had a lot of fun with it throughout and ultimately I'm glad I went back for the extra content.

 

[Ivan]

Ploughing through the campaign:
- really love the tender story moments/vignettes: the firecracker scene w/Futaba, the beach outing, the Hawaii trip
-mementos sometimes serves as a nice breather to the formulaic story progression, sometimes I wish the game didn't feature it outright. the shadows you meet all come off the same, but in a much more boring way than anything seen in the Yakuza games
-too many confidants with their own story beats. it's neat how the main compas have 10 beats, but every NPC as well, a bit much IMO

 

[Tavar]

(...)
I'm going to make a preliminary thesis statement. Persona 5 core theme is not "revolution" but finding community and acceptance for who you are, even if you are marginalized and rejected by the majority culture.
(...)

My current thesis is that it's core theme is the danger of simping . The main character only gets in trouble because he white knights for a woman (who promptly turns on him). The game also makes fun of Morgana's and Rijuyi's simping.

 

[Ivan]

Well that Haru chapter was a waste of time. Worst dungeon, worst dungeon song, worst companion. Toughest boss (which was a nice difficulty spike).

 

[cruel]

Haru sucks, I have no idea what they were trying to accomplish with her.

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