Persona 5: The Phantom X.

Original Release: Android, iOS, Windows, 2025. Platform Used: Steam Deck.

Note: This review is based on 60 hours of playtime, including the first two palaces, various side-quests, and the "Crossroads of Fate" event.


THE PLOT:

After observing a fellow student's attempted suicide, a high school teen attending the Shujin Academy in Tokyo finds himself whisked away to The Velvet Room, where attendants Igor and Merope inform him that he is facing "ruin" unless he can find a way to fight back against it. He dismisses this as just a dream... until he presses a strange icon that appears on his cell phone.

He is abruptly transported to a world where he must battle Shadows alongside Lufel, an owl who is somehow able to communicate with him. Lufel dubs them "Phantom Thieves," and insists they use code names to disguise their identities, with the boy now dubbed "Wonder."

Wonder's new double life begins at just the right time. Disgraced former baseball player Kiuchi has begun violently bumping into women on the subway, evading consequences by claiming this was accidental. His behavior is becoming steadily more aggressive, and he has started targeting Wonder's fellow student, Motoha. When her best friend gets injured shielding her from this "Subway Slammer" (yes, really), Motoha's own Persona awakens, enabling her to fight alongside Wonder and Lufel to get justice for her friend by changing Kiuchi's warped desires.

Meet the Phantom Thieves. Um, the discount versions.

CHARACTERS:

Wonder may well be the dullest Persona protagonist. He has little personality, either in artwork or dialogue options. Persona 5's Joker had been set up as a delinquent, making him an outsider before he even arrived at Shujin; Persona 4's Yu Narakami had a preppy aesthetic that fit well with that game's social circle, and the uncle he lived with was investigating the crimes that gave that game its structure. Wonder is just... present. He has no personal stake in defeating either of the first two bosses, and he seems generally blank and featureless.

The supporting cast is better, with Motoha both enthusiastic and quick to anger and later supporting character Shun burdened by feelings of guilt, but neither of them transcends basic anime tropes. Talking owl Lufel, meanwhile, just feels like a discount version of Persona 5's Morgana.

Not helping are crossover events with the Persona 5 cast. In every instance in which Wonder's group shares the screen with Joker, Ryuji, and company, I just end up being reminded how much more dynamic the earlier game's characters were.

The boss fight against the first Palace ruler, a former baseball
player. Combat, like most of the gameplay, is excellent.

GAMEPLAY:

One area in which The Phantom X excels is the gameplay. As a free-to-play gacha title that many will play on their smartphones, its exploration and combat mechanics are simplified from those of Persona 5. However, it retains the feel of the earlier game. When you infiltrate palaces, you will have to find ways to get through locked doors, with various types of puzzles to solve. Ambushing Shadows is clunkier than in Persona 5 thanks to the cruder interface, but it's also more forgiving - to the point where you just about have to try in order to end up being ambushed.

The gameplay and combat remain addictive when you're in the Palaces or the Metaverse, and the game designers have done a terrific job of translating Persona 5 to a simpler, handheld-friendly format. The gacha elements can be intrusive, particularly when they "pop up"on the screen... but that more or less goes with the territory, and in most other respects, this is an extremely well-made title.

I just wish I could be half as positive about the writing...

Your first enemy: Takeyuki Kiuchi, The Subway Slammer.
The whole subway's his for the slammin'.

WRITTEN ON THE SUBWAY WALLS:

"The whole subway's mine for the slammin'!"
-The game's first boss, "The Subway Slammer," becomes an accidental Internet meme in the space of a single line.

Persona 5: The Phantom X has a lot going for it. It looks great, it plays well, and it boasts a fantastic score. Thus far, I haven't spent one penny, and I've found it generally free-to-play friendly - not as much as a Hoyoverse title, perhaps, but more than most gacha games I've dipped into.

But as I was playing it, even as I mostly enjoyed myself, a single thought kept popping into my brain - a tired Internet meme that nonetheless perfectly describes my reaction:

"We have Persona 5 at home."

Phantom X delivers a taste of what Persona is and how it plays (post-PS1 era, at least). It has the school/life division, though without the calendar that aspect is greatly diminished, and it attempts to tackle themes of alienation and social issues that have marked the modern Persona series. I'd say it's a decent enough free sampler of the series... except that the writing is so much worse than any of the actual mainline titles.

The opening "Subway Slammer" arc tries to build a story around a legitimate problem in Japan, of disturbed individuals deliberately and forcefully slamming into others (mostly young women, of course) with their shoulders and claiming accident. This is a passable seed to build a story around. Too bad, then, that Kiuchi, the villain of the first Palace, is cartoonishly over-the-top. At one point, he charges one of his victims and body slams her over a protective wall. Tokyo subways have a lot of security cameras, and he barreled toward his victim like he was an NFL linebacker. Claiming "accident" would simply not fly.

Oh, but the game has a "get-out-of-jail-free" card: "Apathy Syndrome." This isn't new to this entry, having been used in previous Persona titles as a growing sign that the world is moving toward ruin. Here, though, it becomes a magic wand that can justify any plothole.

There's more than enough evidence to throw Kiuchi in jail and be done with him? "Apathy Syndrome" means that neither police nor public care. The second villain is a popular restaurant reviewer who destroys good restaurants by giving bad-faith negative reviews (yes, really). And this works flawlessly in ruining even successful and well-loved establishments because "Apathy Syndrome" means that people will take his word over the delicious meal they ate last week.

It's difficult for the game's story to capture any real world resonance when its villains require a Magic Syndrome in order to be effective threats in the first place.

The Palaces are big, to make sure you don't get through
them too quickly. But they're too big to remain interesting.

LEVEL-GATING AND TIME-WASTING:

The gameplay is this title's saving grace... almost.

As I said earlier, the addictive Persona 5 gameplay has been effectively streamlined to work in a mobile format. The Palaces are beautiful to look at, the soundtrack is fantastic, and the combat flows smoothly. Puzzles are mostly well integrated (though if I never see another colored baseball that I need to fit into a lock, it will be too soon), and the palace designs cleverly reflect the individual villains - frankly, the level designers do a better job of characterizing the baddies than the actual script does!

But it's an online, ongoing gacha game, which means that the developers don't want you getting through content too quickly. Hoyoverse mostly tried to avoid this issue in their gacha games by creating lots and lots of content, with side quests and daily missions that further developed their settings and were often quite interesting in themselves (and, yes, some that were effectively fetch quests). Black Wings/Atlus follow a more time-honored strategy:

They waste your time.

There are multiple points in the game at which you will find yourself level-gated, pushing you off to grind side activities until you are graciously allowed to continue the story. This is a mild annoyance, as you can gain levels reasonably quickly, but it turns those side activities - quick combats that gain you Personas or upgrade materials - into chores.

The palaces are also big. Too big. If the first of these dungeons - which is larger than all but the final Persona 5 ones - had been the standard size, then I would be reasonably OK with this. But the second Palace is almost double that size, to the point where its repetitive hallways and trap puzzles become boring.

Lastly, at the end of the second Palace - which, until an update earlier this week, marked the end of the initial story content - the game unveils its final delaying tactic: a sudden difficulty spike. The second boss is recommended for a party of Level 58 or higher. You can comfortably reach him, defeating most of the mini-bosses along the way, with a party of about Level 40. I would generally call this poor design - except in this case, the design is doing exactly what's intended. It's just that the intent is to delay players by sending them back to grind for several sessions.

Of other games I've played, I'd most compare these time-wasting tendencies to the "four Tombs" quest in Anthem - unnecessary barriers that exist only to keep you from running out of story, even if it transforms gameplay that had been enjoyable into a tedious irritation. It's a massive misjudgment, one that I suspect has caused at least some players to drop the game entirely.

Igor and Merope, in The Velvet Room, offer you a contract.

OVERALL:

Persona 5: The Phantom X is entirely salvageable. The designers have done a terrific job of adapting Persona 5's gameplay into a mobile format, and it's genuinely fun to play. The problem isn't the game's architecture but its writing - and it's my understanding that Atlus has already stepped in to change writers for the latest update, so there is an excellent chance that this will improve.

I'm disappointed in Phantom X, but I haven't given up on it. It's my hope that, in due course, I will find myself issuing an update to note improvements. As of the end of the second arc, however, I would rate this as a passable Persona sampler, but one that falls well short of any of the "real" Persona games.


Overall Rating: 4/10.

Previous Game: Persona 5 Tactica

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Persona 5 Tactica.

Original Release: Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Ninendo Swittch, 2023. Version Reviewed: Playstation 5, 2023.


THE PLOT:

After bringing down Minister Shido and defeating the dark god Yaldabaoth, the Phantom Thieves have earned a rest... but they aren't going to get one.

They are in Cafe Leblanc, watching a news report about the disappearance of politician Toshiro Kasukabe, who is favored to become Prime Minister. Suddenly, the group finds itself transported into an Alice in Wonderland-like Kingdom, ruled over by Marie, a wedding-obsessed tyrant. Joker and Morgana manage to escape, thanks to the intervention of rebel leader Erina. However, their friends are captured.

While staging a rescue, they stumble across another prisoner: Toshiro. He's been abducted, but he has no memory of it happening. In fact, there are large gaps in all of his memories. Even as the Phantom Thieves are reunited, they come to realize that Toshiro's past holds the key to their presence in this strange world.

Getting back home will mean keeping him alive - which, given Toshiro's general uselessness, might be easier said than done!

Toshiro is shaken after being transported to an impossible world.

CHARACTERS:

There are more than a few similarities between this title and the Persona Q games that came out for the 3DS. One of the biggest is that the Phantom Thieves are essentially "guest characters" in their own game. The real focus is on the new characters, Toshiro and Erina. They have full character arcs, and both of them gain considerable depth as the story progresses.

By contrast, the Phantom Thieves are basically "present." There are parallels between some of Toshiro's and Erina's issues and problems that some of the Thieves went through during Persona 5, notably Futaba and Haru. But the Phantom Thieves are static characters. They observe the events happening to Toshiro and Erina, they react to those events, and they protect the pair - but in the end, this isn't their story.

Setting up a devastating Triple Threat - this
game's version of the series' All Out Attack.

GAMEPLAY:

The gameplay segments of Tactica represent a very basic tactical RPG. If you've played any Fire Emblem, or Suikoden, or X-Com, the grid-based maps will be entirely familiar. Also, if you've played any of those, the difficulty will seem downright laughable by comparison, even on the hardest setting. I managed to botch parts of the fight with the first Kingdom's boss, with my characters getting literally run over and scattered about the map like ragdolls... and not only was I able to salvage the level, my units didn't even take that much damage! Call this "Baby's First Tactics Game."

There are a few neat curveballs. If your character manages to score a critical hit (easy to set up once you know how), that character gets an additional turn. Exploit it properly, and you can stretch one turn into several offensive actions. Also, once you get a "One More!", you can position your characters in a triangle around enemies and perform an All Out Attack. Yes, all of this makes an easy game even easier... but I'd be lying if I said it didn't feel satisfying to pull off.

There is some difficulty. Not in the main story missions, but optional "Quests" will test your ability to exploit the game's mechanics in bite-sized encounters that have strict conditions for victory. Some of these get repetitive, though, particularly the altogether too many "defeat all enemies in one turn" quests.

Erina plants the flag symbolizing her rebellion as she and
the Phantom Thieves take their fight to the Tyrant, Marie.

THOUGHTS:

Persona 5 Tactica might as well be titled Persona Q: Tactics. Yes, the Etrian Odyssey-inspired mapmaking has been replaced with tactical grid maps. In all other respects, though, this is essentially a Persona Q title. The cast gets whisked into a fantasy world, where they act as protectors for the actual focal characters while traversing four dungeons related to the new arrivals' arcs. There's a base, where character development occurs through optional conversations. All the characters get to equip sub-Personas, just like in the 3DS games. Oh, and it utilizes a Chibi art style.

I will say that I enjoyed it more than the second Persona Q game, though I didn't think it's as creative as the first one. That said, for a current gen game, there's little if anything here that couldn't have been accomplished on the 3DS. The maps are mostly small; even the boss levels have less elaborate maps than some of what was seen in the 3DS Fire Emblem games. It's also quite short. You can blow through the main story and all Quests in about 30 hours.

I enjoyed it on its own terms, but I can't deny that it feels... well, small. I think I'd be a lot more forgiving of its limitations if not for one thing: the price point. This looks and plays like a $30 game, but it was released at a full $60. Tactica ended up with soft sales compared to most Persona offshoots, and I strongly suspect the asking price had a lot to do with that.

The story starts out poorly, with clunky dialogue that makes it even harder to adjust to the art style. Futaba gets some particularly bad lines. Yes, she's a techie, a hacker, and a gamer; but in the first part of the story, practically every word she utters is a gaming reference. The main game's Futaba was working through severe issues related to grieving, guilt, and anxiety, but she still did her best to connect with and help her friends. I liked that Futaba. This game's version? Well, not for the first time in a Persona 5 spinoff, she's been flattened into someone I would find unbearable in real life.

Thankfully, the writing improves as the story progresses. The dialogue improves, even if many of the conversations are a bit repetitive. Toshiro and Erina grow from one-dimensional ciphers into genuinely engaging characters. Oh, and it's a Persona game, so it goes without saying that there's a terrific soundtrack, though my personal favorite track ended up coming from the DLC campaign.

Joker teams up with Akechi and Kasumi for
the Repaint Your Heart DLC campaign.

DLC: REPAINT YOUR HEART:

Yes, the game has a DLC campaign - Day One DLC, no less.

Repaint Your Heart is a fully separate story, set during the "Sae's Palace" segment of the original game. The story teams Joker with Akechi and Kasumi as they're drawn into a street artist's nightmare world. It's actually a lot of fun, with both your characters and the enemies having to "paint" areas of the map to gain tactical advantages (Persona: Splatoon!), and it benefits from some excellent voice acting, particularly by veteran voice actress Susanne Blakeslee as the villain.

The story is engaging, and the element of "tactical paint" suits the narrative while improving upon the main game's gameplay. Character interactions are well-written, sometimes more so than in this game's main campaign, with several exchanges playing on the secrets kept by both Akechi and Kasumi. It does feel like a missed opportunity that Yusuke, the artist member of the Phantom Thieves, is completely absent for a story centered around art, but that's really my only complaint about the story.

If it was $10, I'd recommend it without reservation. As with the main game, though, I think it's a bit overpriced. This DLC lists at $19.99, and it lasts all of four hours. Yes, you get some challenge levels after you beat it, and you unlock Akechi and Kasumi for your next playthrough of the main game. But it's hard to see this trifle, enjoyable though it is, as something that's worth the asking price.

The Phantom Thieves find themselves in
a bizarre fantasy world. It must be Tuesday.

OVERALL:

Persona 5 Tactica is too small scale to justify its price. It's a Playstation 5 game that feels like it should be a mobile or handheld title, a sense not helped by it being so strongly reminiscent of the 3DS Persona Q spinoffs.

It is enjoyable, as its DLC campaign. I don't think it's worth full price, but I'm not going to deny that I had fun playing it. Catch it on sale at a decent discount, and I'd say it's worth giving a go. But at its list price, it costs about double what it actually merits.


Overall Rating: 6/10.

Previous Game: Persona 5 Strikers
Next Game: Persona 5 - The Phantom X

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Persona 5 Strikers.

Aka, Persona 5 Scramble (Japanese title). Original Release: Playstation 4, Nintendo Swittch, 2020. Version Reviewed: Playstation 4, 2020.


THE PLOT:

It's summer vacation, and Joker has returned to Tokyo to reunite with his old friends, the group formerly known as "The Phantom Thieves." With the defeat of both Shido and the God of Control, there's no more need for heroics, and the friends plan to relax and spend the month just enjoying each other's company.

But life intervenes.  A wave of "changes of heart" has left the police suspecting the Phantom Thieves are once again active.  Zenkichi Hasegawa, a police inspector, thinks otherwise. He approaches the group and makes a deal to shield them from arrest - if they can unravel these new incidents and find the real culprit behind them!

A police inspector approaches the Phantom
Thieves with an offer they can't refuse..,

CHARACTERS:

Spinoffs Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight and Persona Q2 reduced the rich cast to two-dimensional caricatures... Which makes it all the more joyous to see the cast back in form in this sequel. Each of the main characters gets a moment in the spotlight, thanks to a structure which connects each of them with one of the game's mini-bosses. This adds additional depth, even the ones the original game sometimes overlooked. Haru in particular gets more focus than in Persona 5, emerging as a surprisingly strong character. Meanwhile, Ryuji - generally just comedy relief - receives a strong dramatic moment midway through that's in-character while still acting as an effective contrast to his usual antics.

The new characters are also engaging. Zenkichi originally seems to be just a replacement for the earlier game's Akechi: the detective whom the characters are forced to work with to stay out of jail. As the story unfolds, he becomes such a well-developed character that I wouldn't mind seeing him return in another title. Friendly AI Sophia is possibly a bit too anime-tropey for my personal tastes, but she also receives several good moments - and all of the various mini-bosses are three dimensional characters whose pasts are explored by the narrative.

Voice acting is terrific across the board. In the original Persona 5, I didn't much care for Xanthe Huynh's overly-breathy Haru. Either the actress has toned it down or the improved material she's received has boosted her performance, but she's not only good here: She's arguably one of the game's standouts.

One of the game's boss battles. 
Yes, the enemies are still pretty weird...

GAMEPLAY:

Like earlier Persona titles, gameplay is divided into two segments: the real world, and the fantasy world (here known as "the Metaverse"). Real world gameplay is similar to earlier titles. You control Joker, exploring bits of various Japanese cities while listening in on conversations and interacting with your companions and assorted NPCs.

In the fantasy world, however, Persona 5 Strikers is very different. The game is a crossover of sorts with the popular Dynasty Warriors series, and it replaces Persona's usual turn-based combat for real-time "hack-and-slash" battles against large groups of enemies. I'll admit that this made me wary of the game, despite its many good reviews. I'm not fond of hack-and-slash combat; and I had previously been left completely unengaged by Fire Emblem Warriors, a Warriors crossover with another of my favorite series.

Happily, once I adjusted to the hectic pace of combat, I was surprised by how intuitive and enjoyable this game's combat became. Persona battle tactics have been carefully merged with the frenetic Warriors "Musou" style, and the results succeed in feeling like Persona combat that's simply achieved in a different way. The basic rules still apply: You do extra damage for successfully ambushing enemies, but are at a disadvantage if they ambush you. Enemies have weaknesses that you can target and exploit, often resulting in battle-ending "All-Out Attacks." Baton Passes can be done at the press of a directional button. It's all accomplished so artfully that, long before the end, I stopped even thinking of it as being different.

The Phantom Thieves rise again.

THOUGHTS:

Persona 5 Strikers is not just another Persona spinoff. This is no minor side title like the Arena or Persona Dancing games. This is a proper sequel, with a storyline that builds on Persona 5's while taking concepts and characters in new directions.

The story follows the structure of a road trip, with the group traveling in an RV from city to city. The result is a tour of some major Japanese locations, including Tokyo, Sapporo, Okinawa, Kyoto, and Osaka. It's no open world game - You only get to explore a few sections of each city. But those sections are meticulously recreated, as side-by-side photos of the game's locations vs. their real-world counterparts attest.

The "tour of Japan" aspect carries over to the "Jails," this game's dungeons. Each Jail is tied to a specific city, meaning that the fantasy world provides a distorted recreation of those same locations, merged with the Jail's theme. For example, after touring Sapporo's parks and shopping district, you enter its Jail... and go through those same locations, only now reinvented as an ice-covered winter wonderland. The effect is visually striking, and simultaneously eerie and engaging.

Persona 5 already boasted my favorite soundtrack of a series that's become known for its splendid soundtracks. The core songs from the earlier game return at appropriate moments: notably Life Will Change after the sending of Calling Cards and Rivers in the Desert for a key boss fight. Several new tracks have also been commissioned. They are in the same jazz/rock style, and a few of them are every bit as good as the original game's songs.

The script intelligently explores significant issues, from the effects of bullying to government corruption. Many of the game's villains are people who actually wanted to do good, or who were themselves victims of abuse or mistreatment, which makes the Phantom Thieves' adversaries more than the usual "Eeeviill" video game bosses. When the Shadow of one such character - a mayor who has been mistreating her staff - falls, she frets, "What kind of monster will... (take my place)?" Given the backstory we've already learned by this point, her cry is not without some justification.

Unfortunately, the series' tendency toward heavy-handedness remains in evidence. I was involved by the story throughout... but I'd be lying if I didn't admit to rolling my eyes at a few of the late-game monologues. Also, some of the series' overused elements are dutifully trotted out again here. Every significant female character seems to be in love with, or at least expresses interest in, Joker. Running gags have a tendency to run out. And yes, the group visits a hot spring for another round of the same allegedly hilarious hijinks that became tired long ago.

For Persona 6, I hope some of these elements are retired. I'd love for at least a couple members of the opposite sex to be romantically uninterested in the protagonist. I'd be very happy if the exploration of moral and sociological issues didn't have to end with After School Special style speeches. And I would be positively delighted if all future Persona games declared a moratorium on sitcom-level misunderstandings at hot springs!

Still, these are minor pet peeves that apply to the series as a whole.  While they are no less annoying in this game than in previous ones, they are also no worse. Like frustrating mini games in Final Fantasy titles, these just seem to be blemishes that must be accepted when picking up a Persona game.

Joker returns, his flair for the dramatic fully intact.

OVERALL:

I approached Persona 5 Strikers with wariness, after being underwhelmed by previous Persona 5 spinoffs and by previous Warriors crossovers. To my delight, it ended up being a full sequel that at all times felt like a proper Persona title, even while using a radically different combat style.

In its way, this is almost as good a game as Persona 5; and I would rate it every bit as much a part of the "core series" as any of the numbered entries.


Overall Rating: 7/10.

Previous Game: Persona Q2 - New Cinema Labyrinth
Next Game: Persona 5 Tactica

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Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth.

Original Release: Nintendo 3DS, 2018. Version Reviewed: Nintendo 3DS, 2018.


THE PLOT:

During the period in which the Phantom Thieves have struck an uneasy alliance with "Detective Prince" Goro Akechi, the group decides to train in Mementos. However, something feels off, and they soon find themselves ejected into a bizarre world dominated by a superhero known as "Kamoshidaman" - who looks exactly like the gym teacher who so badly tormented Ann and Ryushi.

They discover that they are inside a movie, one that is rife with Shadows.  They are able to escape into a movie theater, but are unable to exit to the outside world. There are only two people inside: Nagi, the theater's manager, and Hikari, a painfully shy teen girl who is the only customer. Also present is "Doe," a mysterious creature who shows movies - films that are "wrong," showing stories about giving into authority and conforming to groups regardless of personal beliefs.

To escape this strange place, the Phantom Thieves will need to enter these movies and change them for the better. And as they do so, they learn that they are not the only group that has been brought here...

The Persona casts set out to "fix" a series of bizarre movies.

THE LANGUAGE ISSUE

Persona Q2 was the final 3DS game to receive a physical release in the West. By the time it came out, the 3DS was already effectively a dead system. As such, it's really no surprise that Atlus did not pour money into doing an English dub featuring three full casts made up of some heavily sought-after voice actors. Instead, they subtitled the dialogue while retaining the Japanese audio.

I honestly had no problem with this, and even found some fun in comparing the Japanese and English voices. I'm certainly not going to blame Atlus for refusing to throw a large amount of extra money to dub a large-cast release on an already obsolete system. That said, if you have difficulty with subtitled movies, this game probably won't be for you.

In the movie theater, which acts as the home base and quest hub.

CHARACTERS:

Persona Q2's most interesting character ends up being its most surprising inclusion: the female protagonist from Persona 3 Portable. When she is reunited with the Persona 3 cast, she finds that these familiar faces don't recognize her at all - because they are from the male protagonist's Persona 3. This creates some nice character moments, as she insists on acting cheerful even while privately feeling that she doesn't belong.

The game combines the casts of Personas 3 - 5. The first Persona Q, Shadow of the Labyrinth, did a decent job balancing two casts... but even there the strain showed, with many characters reduced to simply one or two traits. With three full casts to deal with, the sequel has trouble finding anything interesting for most of them to do. Futaba has an effective strand that spans the game's first half, with the painfully shy Hikari reminding her too much of how she was before meeting the Phantom Thieves. Aegis and Akechi get a few decent bits, and Teddie receives just enough prominence to make clear that his Japanese-language voice is even more aggravating than his English-language one. The rest of the supporting characters might as well not be there.

This situation is made worse by a change to the first game's format. In the first Persona Q, the characters interacted with each other through "Strolls," while you got additional bits of interaction and experience through optional side quests. This game eliminates the strolls, moving all its character asides to the quests. A poor decision, as character interactions are now brief and broken up by long stretches of wandering and random encounters.  Also, since these quests are entirely optional, no character arcs build for the Persona casts. As a result, the only substantial character development belongs to Hikari, while the characters actually used to sell the game are left all but entirely static.

Persona 3 Portable's female protagonist meets the Phantom Thieves.

GAMEPLAY:

Core gameplay is identical to the first Persona Q game. The movies the characters enter are dungeons, each designed around a theme: an urban superhero movie, a dinosaur-themed theme park, a sci-fi dystopia, and a brightly colored children's musical. You map each dungeon as you explore, fighting turn-based random encounters and exploiting enemy weaknesses. A boss waits at the bottom of each labyrinth, and you will need to employ careful strategies to defeat each boss.

As with the earlier title, all of this proves addictive. There's something very satisfying about putting the pieces of the maps into place, and the combat is well-designed and enjoyably challenging. Optional side missions give you a chance to level up further, with short explorations of dungeons you've already defeated. The gameplay is generally well-balanced, with bosses providing enough of a challenge to engage without being difficult enough to frustrate... though for masochists, higher difficulty levels are available.

The film-obsessed Hikari watches wide-eyed as
the theater's oppressive movies are made better.

THOUGHTS:

Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth makes a strong first impression. The first hour of the game offers up a jaunty opening cutscene and a strong introduction to the basic scenario. The next few hours are also enjoyable, as you figure out (or, if you played the first game, are refreshed on) the mechanics while exploring a first dungeon that is terrific fun. When the heroes finally confront Kamoshidaman, there's even a Persona 5-like Calling Card delivery, complete with the instrumental for Life Will Change. At ten hours in, I fully anticipated delivering a glowing review.

Unfortunately, the spell fades in the subsequent dungeons. The second and third labyrinths do almost nothing to advance the plot, save for hammering some obvious and repetitive themes. They mainly serve to introduce more Persona casts to the increasingly bloated ensemble, while the main story basically stands still.

It isn't until the fourth (of five total) dungeons that the story actually comes into focus. There are some effective scenes once that happens... but by that point, most of my emotional investment had faded, and so even these well-written moments didn't hit as strongly as they should have.

As with the first Persona Q, the story is centered around Q2's original character - Zen and Rei in the earlier game, Hikari in this one. The first game made Zen and Rei playable characters, which increased player connection to them. In this game, Hikari is an NPC (you do act as her once - but even then, it's in entirely scripted encounters), and so we are never as connected to her as we were to Zen and Rei.

Even with regard to gameplay, which is this title's strongest point, it just isn't as good a title as its predecessor. The maps are simpler, with relatively few creative puzzles or curveballs. The final boss is tedious, an otherwise straightforward boss battle but with an aggravating "Retake" move that requires you to periodically redo a turn. This is an utterly pointless bit of business that doesn't make the battle more challenging in any way; it simply makes it take longer.

The Phantom Thieves in "Kamo City,"
their introduction to this bizarre world.

OVERALL:

Persona Q2 disappointed me, which may be why I'm focusing so much on the negatives. Let me emphasize, then, that this remains an enjoyable game overall, with engaging combat and mapmaking mechanics. But after an excellent first Act, the story stalls for much of the running time - likely in part because it's overburdened by cramming in the full casts of all three "modern" Persona games.

This is not a bad game. But even the things it does well were done better by the previous Persona Q, which is also more widely available. Given that, for all but die hard completists I would recommend playing Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth, and giving New Cinema Labyrinth a pass.


Overall Rating: 5/10.

Previous Game: Persona 5 - Dancing in Starlight
Next Game: Persona 5 Strikers

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Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight.

Original Release: Playstation 4, 2018. Version Reviewed: Playstation 4, 2018.


THE PLOT:

The Phantom Thieves have won. The corrupt politician Shido has been defeated, as has the demon Yaldabaoth, and the Velvet Room has been restored.

So why have the Thieves suddenly all found themselves in a transformed version of the Velvet Room, redubbed as dance spot "Club Velvet"? Twin Velvet Room attendants Caroline and Justine inform the confused teens that they are to participate in a dance-off against their unseen sister's "guests," a competition that will be held in painstaking recreations of familiar settings, from the street of Tokyo to the various Palaces they have infiltrated to the depths of Mementos itself!

The Phantom Thieves are enlisted for a dancing competition.

CHARACTERS:

Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight was developed jointly with Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight... and given how much I liked that title, this one is extremely disappointing by comparison. The Persona 3 dancing game captured those characters beautifully - I'd argue, better than any of the other spinoffs that have featured them - while also finding ways to deepen the already strong original characterizations. This was one of many reasons why I found that dancing spinoff a surprise joy to play, and why I was genuinely looking forward to this one.

Sadly, with the exceptions of a couple good moments, the Persona 5 dancing game offers only one-note versions of these characters. Futaba ends up with the worst of it. In Persona 5, she was painfully uncomfortable with social interactions, but she was never deliberately rude or mean; even when she nicknamed Yusuke "Inari" after an anime villain, it quickly developed into a sort of semi-fond nickname. In Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight, Futaba is... obnoxious. When she is on the sidelines, she snaps at Yusuke to "shut your mouth hole!" - with a sharp, non-joking line delivery, and usually in response to perfectly innocuous comments. When she's onstage, she constantly chants, "Hype! Hype! Hype!"  In short, a character who was likable in the main game has been turned into an active irritant.

The rest of the cast is more or less in character, but each Phantom Thief is reduced to just one or two traits. Morgana has a self-delusional crush on Ann; Makoto is a control freak; Ann is an airhead; and so on. An occasional moment will slip through that rings true, but these are too few and too far between.

Persona 5 protagonist Ren shares the stage with Ann.

GAMEPLAY:

Gameplay here is identical to the other Persona dancing titles, which turns out to be this game's saving grace. As I observed in my reviews of Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight and Persona 4: Dancing All Night, these games benefit from a remarkably intuitive interface. While the characters dance in rotoscoped animations, symbols float toward a ring at the edges of the screen. Some call for quick button prompts, others for holding a button in a slide, still others for moving one of the analog sticks to create a record scratch noise (this last can be reconfigured to be read by a press of the shoulder button instead). The simplicity does not negate a challenge; on higher difficulties, the variations in tempo and rapidly changing prompts will test your dexterity. It just means that the controls don't get in the way of you playing the game - and the core gameplay remains as addictive as it was in the other two dancing titles.


THOUGHTS:

I have been consistently impressed with the quality of the Persona series' various spinoffs. Even the ones I haven't liked have felt like legitimate expansions of the series rather than the cynical cash-ins I half-expected.

That trend had to break at some point, though. Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight is the first Persona spinoff that really feels like a cash grab. Sure, the gameplay is fun. But while the Persona 3 dancing game shone with love in its character interactions, this game... doesn't. Only a very few Social Links are actually interesting or effective, with the rest just feeling like hastily-scripted skits. Nothing is added to the characters or their relationships with each other, and few of the conversations are as enjoyable as the ones in the actual main game.

Added to that are the slim track offerings. Because this game was rushed out after Persona 5 proved to be a hit, it only features tracks and remixes of tracks from the core game. Nothing from Royal, or Q2, or Strikers. I like Life Will Change and Rivers in the Desert... but there are only so many variations on those that I'm actually interested in listening to. And while DLC tracks are available, most of them are taken from earlier games in the franchise.

I think this game fell victim to a rush to release. With the Persona 3 dancing game, more than a decade had passed since the release of even Persona 3 FES, and I think the creative team had new reflections on that set of characters. Here, Atlus had just released a 100+ hour game featuring the Persona 5 cast. With no distance between that game and this one, they can hardly be blamed for having nothing new to say about the characters.  I strongly suspect this would be a stronger title altogether had they just waited a few more years.

The Phantom Thieves celebrate their bonds,

OVERALL:

For all of my issues, Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight is not a bad game. The actual rhythm gameplay is as fun as ever; and while I wish there was a greater variety of Persona 5-specific tracks, I do like most of the music that's presented. Still, given how much I enjoyed the other two dancing spinoffs, I can't help but feel disappointed about how bland this one ends up. Since this was developed jointly with the Persona 3 dancing game, it seems clear that - likely unintentionally - the developers put more heart and effort into that game than they did into this one.


Overall Rating: 4/10.

Previous Game: Persona 5
Next Game: Persona Q2 - New Cinema Labyrinth

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Persona 5.

Original Release: Playstation 3, Playstation 4, 2016. Version Reviewed: Playstation 4 "Royal" Version, 2019.


THE PLOT:

After being falsely accused of assault, a young man transfers to Tokyo's Shujin Academy for his year-long probation. He is instantly regarded as a troublemaker by the adults at his new school, and is warned by his wary guardian that he is exactly one problem away from being sent to juvenile detention.

After he discovers a new app on his phone, he is transported to an alternate reality: the cognitive "Palace" of volleyball coach Kamoshida, a former gold medalist who is physically and sexually abusing students. There, he and his new friend Ryuji meet Morgana - a strange being who appears to be a talking cat. Morgana informs them that they have the power to change the evil teacher's heart if they can battle their way through this cognitive world to the "treasure" that has corrupted his worldview.

With help from Ann, a student being pressured and harassed by Kamoshida, they succeed in this mission. But after seeing that their strange power can result in changes to corrupt adults, they decide to pursue other targets as "The Phantom Thieves" - attracting the attention of the authorities in the process!

Igor welcomes a new guest to the Velvet Room...

CHARACTERS:

As far back as the first game, the Persona series has benefited from likeable protagonists. Each new entry introduces a new set of characters whom you just plain enjoy spending time with. Persona 5 is no exception, with an ensemble of characters who slowly evolve from anime tropes into full-blooded human beings. This time, I ended up liking all the party members. Even the talking cat/mascot character, Morgana, manages to avoid being either overly cutesy or creepy (traps that rather firmly ensnared Persona 4's Teddie). The main character is perhaps a bit too much of a blank slate for my tastes, but the rest of the group makes up for it.

My pick for the game's strongest character, at least in the updated Persona 5 Royal, would be "Detective Prince" Goro Akechi, who is essentially this game's answer to Persona 4's popular Naoto, but with a couple twists thrown into the mix. Akechi suspects the main group from early on, and finds excuses to insinuate himself ever further into the protagonist's life. As we get to know him through his Social Link, however, he turns out to be very different than he first appears. Particularly strong is the scene in which he reveals his actual feelings in a well-written encounter which is superbly played by English language voice actor Robbie Daymond; in the space of one scene, all preconceptions about the character are upended. It should be noted, however, that much of Akechi's best material was apparently added for Royal, and that he was noticeably less well-received in the game's initial version.

The game's first real boss battle. 
Yes, this series is just as weird as ever.

GAMEPLAY:

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Persona 3 reinvented the series' format by splitting players' time between daily life, focused heavily on developing relationships with other characters, and dungeon crawling. Persona 4 refined this split, expanding daytime activities and making the dungeon crawling more varied and enjoyable.

Persona 5 moves even further with those improvements. The dungeons are now "Palaces," reflecting the mental state of each target. A corrupt painter's Palace, for example, is an art museum; a jaded prosecutor's, a rigged casino in which the only thing that matters is winning. Oh, and the demon negotiation that was a major part of the Playstation 1 Persona games? It's back, and I couldn't be happier about that.

If I have one quibble with the game play, it's the difficulty. Unfortunately, one area in which the PS1 titles have outstripped all of the modern Personas has been in difficulty balance, with the early games being neither too easy nor too hard; the modern Persona games have either been frustrating and arbitrary or ridiculously easy.  Persona 5 actually made me double-check that I wasn't accidentally playing on "Easy" mode! Only two boss battles provide a real challenge: one around the game's midpoint, one at the very end of Royal's new content.  Both of these were added for Royal, and they actually seem too difficult... mainly because their difficulty is so out-of-whack with the rest of the game!  One hopes they manage to balance it out a bit better come the next installment.

The second Palace: a corrupt artist's private museum.

THOUGHTS:

Persona 5 is a gorgeously designed, highly immersive experience. Save for the Persona series' usual "on rails" beginning (which is itself less tedious than the opening hours of its two predecessors), the entire package is designed to draw you into the game's world and make you want to keep playing to just one more save point, or one more social link, or...

So yes, as a game, Persona 5 is absolutely addictive. It is also unabashedly political. The main character is socially stigmatized by his unjust conviction, just the first of many broadsides the game aims at Japan's legal and political systems. The first villain is gym teacher/former Olympian Kamoshida, who is physically and sexually harassing students; the school's administration is aware, but is silently complicit because the man's profile boosts the school's athletics program. This is the game's most emotionally effective arc, because Kamoshida feels largely believable in his style of evil... and impression chillingly reinforced when a bit of research shows that he was based on Hajime Komura, a real-life coach whose abuse led to a pupil's suicide.

The game's ultimate villain is corrupt politician Masyoshi Shido, a career politican who sabotages the current government to advance his ambitions of becoming Prime Minister. Some US gamers became either upset or delighted when they decided the game was bashing Donald Trump. It almost certainly wasn't; Shido bears no resemblance to Trump in either speech patterns or background, and all the rest of the game's targets are entirely specific to Japan.  Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe - at the time of the game's release, in his third term in office - seems by far the most likely model for Shido. 

Tackling such material does result in a story that isn't nearly as light-hearted as Persona 4. Even so, the game retains a considerable sense of charm and humor, and never approaches the darkness of parts of Persona 3, let alone that of the PS1 entries. 

The game's weakest aspect is the overall conspiracy theory surrounding Shido. By the end of the main narrative, Persona 5 has made Shido responsible for more or less everything we've seen, attempting to connect him to all the various sub-villains. It breaks the game's internal credibility, and I would have preferred more of those secondary villains to have simply been abusing the system all on their own. Still, it ends with a pair of pretty decent boss fights and a nice overall wrap-up, leaving me with few serious complaints about the base game.

Oh, and the soundtrack is absolutely fantastic, to the point that I find myself seriously considering purchasing a video game soundtrack. The jazz/rock hybrid proves a perfect complement to both gameplay and visual style, with track ranging from stirring and exciting (Life Will Change) to mournful (Throw Away Your Mask).

Whisked from the streets of Tokyo to a literal Palace!

ROYAL ADDITIONS

Persona 5 Royal was the enhanced 2019 re-release of Persona 5. Basically, it's this game's Persona 3 FES or Persona 4 Golden: an enhanced experience with a boatload of additional content.

Royal is the only edition I've played.  Still, based on what I have read, most of the new content helps the game. Dungeons have been streamlined. The Batman-like grappling hook, which is frequently used to advance in Royal's dungeons, was evidently not part of the original release - and given how enjoyable and generally cool it is to use, that hook may in itself justify Royal's existence. A genuinely difficult boss battle was added to one dungeon, and Akechi's character was reinvented by restructuring and expanding his social link.

The most significant additions are two characters: School psychologist Maruki and honor's student/gymnast Kasumi. Their Social Links are basically required if you want to unlock the all-new "third semester," but this should not be seen as drudge work. Both characters are engaging, and I looked forward to my character's conversations with them.

My reaction is more mixed when it comes to the extra semester. It offers up an interesting story in itself, but by the time I was infiltrating the (very long) final palace, I couldn't quite suppress the sense that the game was insisting on continuing after the story had ended. In my opinion, this extra material (which is, in itself, quite good) would have benefited by being presented as a sequel campaign, much like Persona 3's The Answer was. By bolting it onto the main game, it just felt like extra innings.

The Phantom Thieves prepare for another infiltration.

OVERALL:

Persona 5 is yet another excellent entry in what has emerged as one of my favorite video game franchises. Given the capabilities of the Playstation 4 versus the Playstation 2 (the original home of Persona 3 and 4), it's no surprise that this is the most visually stylish entry to date; and for most of its 120+ hours, it is thoroughly addictive.

If pressed, I don't think it's quite as good as Persona 4, let alone the Persona 2 duology. There are a few story issues, with the conspiracy plot stretching a bit too thin, and I feel that a few of Royal's additions extended the narrative past its natural end point. Even so, Persona 5 is great fun, and all signs point to this 25 year old franchise still having a lot of life left in it.


Overall Rating: 8/10.

Previous Game: Persona 4 - Dancing All Night
Next Game: Persona 5 - Dancing in Starlight

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