Why I think Persona 5 is the Most Over-Rated Game this Generation
- Thread starter JayWood2010
- Start date
I don't even like Persona, but I just can't see Persona 5 being overrated.
It looks to be more of Persona 3 and 4.
It's still divisive as most niche game that break out in the west is.
I find Witcher 3 to be the most over rated game this gen.
It looks to be more of Persona 3 and 4.
It's still divisive as most niche game that break out in the west is.
I find Witcher 3 to be the most over rated game this gen.
That's a nonsense comparison, X and XIII are nothing alike other than the fact they're both linear
Yeah I stopped just after the second castle. I enjoyed my 25hrs or so playtime (great visuals and soundtrack) but the fact that I barely scratched the surface in that time (also it took like 9hrs to get going) didn't do it for me, I just found the pace/experience really exhausting.
At least games like Shenmue or Yakuza (which some may consider to have slow/poor/uneven pacing or whatnot) gave you plenty of variety and novelty to find with the side activities, it really felt like you could blow some steam somewhere doing something completely unrelated (and I suppose without the time pressure aspect) so by the time all was said and done you were ready for the main mission again. I could play those games for hours and hours.
I know it's unfair to label the way time/choice of activities progresses in Persona, it makes sense the way they implemented it; I just got really burnt out playing it within that time and what exacerbates the issues is when you think you can predict what the next 80hrs of the game I haven't played would feel like :/.
It reminds me of my time with Blue Dragon on Xbox 360, i enjoyed the gameplay and visuals but I only ever felt compelled to approach it every 6 months or so. I started the game in 2007 and eventually finished it in 2013 playing it that way 0.o
Sep 2017 was the last time I played P5, I might go back for another 20hrs by the end of the year.
P.S. I feel like this game was always best played in remote play (and treated like a portable) considering it made it's way to the ps3: I'm kinda surprised they never made a vita-only version (for Japanese regions at the very least).
I have over 400 hours combined for 3, 4 and Golden and I think 5 is garbage. Dont tell us we cant enjoy certain games in a series and not others, it's not for you to decide
I don't know if it's my fault or because it looks like a PS3 game not in visuals only but in design or the terrible waiting for the release with all the delays but I didn't enjoy it.
Absolutely agree. I myself never quite connected with the entire cast.
Amen. This might be my biggest problem with the game while not even being specific to P5 itself.
I can't really comprehend how I otherwise come to absolutely love P4G in 2015 while I barely enjoy P5 only two years later. I played P3P for the first time in between those two by the end of 2016 on Vita. And while not loving it, I liked it a lot more than 5 in the end.
It's such an outlier in that sense, I can't circumvent directly connecting the aspect of portability with my enjoyment of Persona overall. I wouldn't even care for the platform holder it releases on, but give me that goddamn portable P5 Crimson stuff, Atlus.
Still would buy P6 on PS4 / PS5 regardless but I'd know that I don't enjoy it as much as I possibly could.
The plot is really the worst thing. If they had fixed that I think I could've lived with the bland characters and it would've been my GOTY because of the art and music alone, but the plot kills it for me (especially toward the end)
OP
OP
Do i understand that is the Holy Grail? Yes. Do I think it is lame? Also yes. The entire ending, where everybody just ignores it and accepts it is bad in my honest opinion. That isnt about being daft, its about my perception of it being believable was bad. It was one thing to make the Holy Grail an end boss. My biggest gripe is everybody ignoring it, and how they explained that. Then everybody is like, oh phantom thieves save us...I just I didnt like it, and I am being real. This thread is filled with complaints, so id hardly say im the only one, and too "daft" to understand it. I understood it, and didnt like it.
Person after person comes in here and says "Its not over-rated because i dont like the word, but its disappointing though." Not really a huge difference and pretty much echos what I have said.
Last edited:
OP
OP
One of the problems with the pacing is that there never really seems to be an end goal. You have to get like 50-80 hours into the game to even have an end goal. Persona 4 as an example pretty early on you knew it was an investigation,and why people were disappearing in the fog.
So i disagree with you that past entries was as bad. Granted I have not played Persona 1 and 2, so im only speaking about 3&4.
I like Persona 5 the most in terms of gameplay and style. But the story was a bit lackluster. The first palace and Villain remains my favuorite, after that everything falls flat.
Characters weren't as good as P3 and P4 cast either.
All in all I enjoyed my 115h of Persona 5, I guess I just had really high expectations.
Characters weren't as good as P3 and P4 cast either.
All in all I enjoyed my 115h of Persona 5, I guess I just had really high expectations.
I actually just beat the Persona 5 final boss yesterday after slowly playing it for like a year. I don't wanna call it "overrated" because that word has no meaning whatsoever. But I did find the storyline and characters a little disappointing. Felt like it was trying to one-up 4 but with worse execution. It peaked at the first palace, and save for a couple of moments the story was incredibly predictable. I had a good time with it in general though. Outstanding visual design and soundtrack, and I enjoyed the social links
I love this game just as much as anyone else, but it's a lil word heavy. If I smoke while playing it, I fall asleep during dialogue scenes. The dungeon gameplay can be troublesome with hiding and sneak attacking. It simply doesn't work if the camera isn't lined up just perfectly. It also has the best turn based combat on PS4 to me.
It's more Persona and that's a great thing. If they came out more often, the review scores would drop. That's just my opinion though.
It's more Persona and that's a great thing. If they came out more often, the review scores would drop. That's just my opinion though.
Persona 4 has an end goal right from the beginning, but nothing in between. Everything after the first dungeon until the last one, is pretty much filler were nothing noteworthy happens, except introducing characters.
P5s episodic structure has a clear goal for each arc, with the perception of the Phantom Thieves from the public connecting the separate stories. And you have the whole, how they get caught angle from the start.
Yea, this is a believable post. /s
I don't give a shit what you like, but you put 4 hunndos in the rest of the series but 5 is garbage? Ok.gif
Not sure why you went with the hyperbolic use of 'ever' for the thread title when games like Mario Odyssey exist. Although I agree that P5 is critically overrated, by definition of the word overrated.
One of the games of the generation for me. For someone who hated Persona 3 due to its routine structure and repetitive gameplay, the massive strides that the franchise has made since then have been nothing short of miraculous. Yeah it's a long ass game, but it still managed to keep me invested right up until the end credits.
While you do have an end goal in Persona 4 the Investigation Team never makes any progress to it until Namatame decides to take Nanako which is about 8 months after the investigation starts. Seeing as P4's pacing is non-existent until Heaven since it's just Someone gets chucked into tv, Investigation Team rescues them, Investigation team asks if they know who tossed them in, Victim says they don't, Rinse and Repeat I'm not too sure why you are using it as an example.
OP
OP
Let me explain it in a different way.
Brandon Sanderson, a highly successful author if you know who he is says that in storytelling you should start a story off by making promises. These promises not only engage readers but lets them know what the story is about, and helps meet their expectations.
Persona 4 does this.
Persona 5, does not.
Can you seriously not understand that people can like some games and dislike other games in a franchise? That sounds kinda stupid to me, there are like tons of game franchises that have sequels that people don't like.
Persona 4 is one of my favorite games, i even bought the Vita just to play Persona 4 Golden. And i think Persona 5 is a bad game. You couldn't pay me to play through it again, a total waste of time to me.
Take Halo 5, i bet there is a huge amount of people who put in hundreds of hours in the earlier games and who disliked the new Halo. Uncharted 4 is another game i didn't like and i loved Uncharted 2. Loved the Tomb Raider revival, but was less fond of Rise. The new Wolfenstein and Shadow of Mordor was meh to me.
There are so many examples of sequels failing to live up to the earlier games.
Persona 4 starts with end goal that cast spends 8 months ignoring entirely while shitting on people who take the fact that there's an actual killer going around kidnapping people seriously. While the end goal exists, The investigation team does nothing to reach their end goal until Namatame kidnaps Nanako, to the point where their end goal tells them that what they did was pointless because he wanted the game of cat and mouse to go on forever. For a game that spends most of it's time going on about the truth the Investigation Teams spends a lot time not pursuing said truth. Compared to P3 where you actually make some progress towards the team's goal of getting rid of the 12 Shadows that are causing Apathy Syndrome. Which makes the pacing after the first dungeon non - existent.
I agree. I give serious sideeye to anyone who claims the pacing, dungeons and characters in Persona 5 is bad while also talking about how Persona 3 is amazing.
OP
OP
Im not going to debate with you on P4 and how its story was told, other than the fact that it has an end goal from the very beginning, while P5 doesnt have one until around 50-80 hours in. You seem to agree with this. Do you not see how that could be an issue with people?
My point is that having an end goal doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things when the cast makes absolutely no progress towards the established goal right. Because once you have an end goal you have to establish some pacing towards it which P4 doesn't have so you spend the majority of the game seeing absolutely no progress towards the goal that gets established which is much worse than not having a end goal until to a certain period of time.
I also think Persona 5 is the most overrated game this gen, so OP isn't alone. I think Persona 4 Golden is superior. Better story, characters and pacing. The only thing i like more in Persona 5 is the graphics and level design.
The pacing in Persona 5 is so bad. The decision to reveal the targets before you get to them in the story made no sense. Knowing who the target is makes the dialogue such a slog to get through. They are wasting like two weeks or something to find out who the next target is and it would have been so much better if you didn't already know it. And why focus so much on it in the dialogue. They talk about it every.single.time they meet up.
They could have used all that time to actually making interesting characters. Persona 5 has by far the worst gallery of characters, so forgetable that i can barely remember their names. And the dialogue between the characters are so much worse.
What a letdown of a game.
The pacing in Persona 5 is so bad. The decision to reveal the targets before you get to them in the story made no sense. Knowing who the target is makes the dialogue such a slog to get through. They are wasting like two weeks or something to find out who the next target is and it would have been so much better if you didn't already know it. And why focus so much on it in the dialogue. They talk about it every.single.time they meet up.
They could have used all that time to actually making interesting characters. Persona 5 has by far the worst gallery of characters, so forgetable that i can barely remember their names. And the dialogue between the characters are so much worse.
What a letdown of a game.
OP
OP
No. I could use countless examples of this where a character knows from the opening chapter what they are searching for, while in the rest of the book, game, etc they build character. I will use Name of the Wind as my example though. Arguably the best fantasy book in the past two decades, and from the first couple of chapters you knew what he was searching for, yet there was times when he fell in love, played music, or simply took classes. These are parts of life, and it helps build character so you can connect with them more. P5 did the opposite. They tried to build character first, and didnt even do that well.
Plot wise and Pacing wise P4 is a lot worse than P5. The investigation team wastes three weeks each and every time, A week goes by before the Midnight Channels reveals the next person to get chucked into the TV, Then said person ends spending a week to 2 weeks recovering after their rescued. You mean like how the Investigation Team talks about the TV World and the Midnight Channel each time the next victim gets thrown in only to spend 8 months doing nothing which leads them closer to the killer's identity.
Again you're still missing the point. There's nothing wrong with establishing an end goal and having things to lead up to it, The main problem with P4's pacing is that nothing the Investigation Team does leads up to their end goal, The midnight channel rescues don't lead to any thing because every time a victim is rescued, They don't remember who kidnapped them so the investigation team doesn't get any closer to stopping the killer, This happens for 8 months straight, It's only after Naoto joins and Namatame decides to kidnap Nanako that the Investigation Team actually progress towards finding the killer. They don't grow as a result of the whole experience, They almost repeat the same mistake that they made with Mitsuo which makes his entire arc pointless with Namatame which was falling for a false truth. The only three people in the game who actually take the murders seriously are Naoto, Dojima and Adachi (Seeing as he's the only person who figures out that someone was manipulating all three of them from the sidelines.)
Yea, I can. And you right about most of your examples. But when some say P5 is "garbage" or "a bad game" without any context behind it, thus praising the rest of the series in which the hook and gameplay is virtually unchanged, I question any random person that claims as such.
Anybody can just say they put hundreds of hours into something. Maybe you guys are just burnt out on the series, I dunno. You say you'd never play 5 again, but love 4 which had the absolutely worst start in the entire series. So excuse me if it's hard to believe, cause it is. But I do understand and realize that people don't like persona 5. That's totally understandable.
OP
OP
There is several reasons why i disagree with you though the point is, one had an end goal and the other didnt. One developed their characters and took the time creating a bond, while the other did the same thing poorly(though this can be debated). Its like saying Harry potter never got closer to his answers for 7 books, and nobody cared. The point is they are trying to solve the mystery, whether they are failing or not. They take time doing other things does not mean they do not care.
By whose metric? 5 does a far better job of setting expectations and then actually following through on them than 4 ever did.
I have no clue what you are looking for, P5 is arguably way more dynamic than 4 in its story telling and sets up everything way better
What's the point of establishing an end goal if the cast spends most of their time not working towards it. P4 doesn't develop it characters outside their introductions after they join the party (which the game just uses as a way to pitch them all as besties) they stay the same for the rest of the game. Investigation Team spends more time messing around than pursuing any kind of lead that could lead closer to the killer's identity, They even go as far to shit on Naoto who actually investigates this case by telling her that she's consider it's a game despite the fact that it's part of her job to investigate this case, The first thing Yosuke does after getting his Persona powers is tell you how the cops are useless for this case. The point is that for the amount of emphasise they put on trying to solve the murder they sure spend a lot time repeating the same mistakes without evaluating their approach to solving this mystery when they go no where for most of the game. Taking time to do things that aren't related to the mystery and spending barely anything on the mystery despite the fact that they want to end it means they don't care as much as they say they do.
OP
OP
Considering that most people in this thread has pointed out pacing issues; A lot of people.
Ill reiterate. People dont seem to like the word over-rated, but people sure dont seem to be hesitant on the game being a disappointment. Whether the two words can be related is for another topic.
Sounds like confirmation bias to me...
Especially when the thread is framed negatively. Hell you would think era hates botw or xc2 given the amount negative threads, but those are really liked
Pacing issues are not equivalent to failing to set up or follow through on expectations. You're confusing entirely different storytelling things here. Pacing is a consequence of structuring your story, setup of expectations and follow through is a technique. You're comparing pizzas to iPhone chargers.
Persona 5 sets up expectations far better than 4, where the final act comes out of nowhere with zero foreshadowing. Persona 5 has trouble with its pacing because of how it is a series of mini stories leading to a self contained setup->conflict->climax structure five times that leads to start-stop pacing over and over.
The two things you brought up are unrelated entirely.
OP
OP
Character building, world building, plot, etc
Ive already shown you two examples in Harry Potter and Name of the Wind. Why on earth would Harry Potter focus large portions of the story on quittage? Why Would Name of the Wind focus so much time on Kvothe playing his loot? Should we go with more examples of stories focusing on things outside of just the end goal? The end goal is in mind of course, but to truly care about the end goal you also need to care for the charactrs and their life. You can not bring a character to life without building on them and the world around them.
OP
OP
So we are just going to ignore the countless criticisms towards it? Are we sure you arent bias with Persona 5? It goes both ways you know
Not when P5 was rated 5th best game of the year on this very forum. Thats as close to an objective view of if people like the game or not on here. People like the game, there is no both ways about this. You can search out for all the negative people, but some people who love it will still agree there are issues. That doesnt mean they hate the game. Are you looking for support from people?
You keep the missing the point somehow, If the main point behind an end goal is that a character's actions should to lead said end goal but they don't that's what as known bad pacing which P4 tends have throughout the entire game up to November. No action that the Investigation Team does up to that point leads to them closer to the killer's identity which is their goal right, Each rescue just adds a new member to introduce their quirk to you right, Yukiko likes laughing, Chie likes Meat, Kanji likes females, So does Yosuke and Teddy and Naoto gets embarrassed about girly things. I don't care about P4's cast outside of Naoto and Kanji because they don't show any care or reflection towards meeting their goal which is primary purpose of why their group exists. The slice of life stuff doesn't matter because it's not the group main purpose for existing, Solving the mystery behind the Murders, Catching the killer , solving the mystery the Midnight Channel and returning Teddy's World back to normal (Which every one in the cast, Teddy included forgets about).
People seriously needs to learn about arcs, especially in a seasonal anime format or manga format.
All three games has their specific end game hook. Persona 3 = Tartarus Mystery/12 shadows, Persona 4 = Killer investigation/Midnight Channel, Persona 5 is a bit unique in that the hook is how did the phantom thieves story culminate to the captivity scene of the protagonist.
Then they all have the truth arc which is your SMT gods are fucking up the world story.
Then almost each month is sectioned off as an arc where there is a sub goal while having the day to day life goings on. Persona 3 is sectioned off by each full moon in the earlier parts. Persona 4 is sectioned off by each kidnapping that occurs. Persona 5 is sectioned off by each target of the phantom thieves.
If people are familiar with phantom thief stories, each story is told from each of their target, A huge example of this from japanese media is Lupin III. The phantom thieves are moving from one target to another until culminating to a finale target that may or may not be entirely related to previous targets.
Persona games are designed to give the players the feeling of living in an anime. Its not your masterpiece anime story but more of a modern anime storytelling trope (A supernatural high school anime). So many people here fail to see this,
All three games has their specific end game hook. Persona 3 = Tartarus Mystery/12 shadows, Persona 4 = Killer investigation/Midnight Channel, Persona 5 is a bit unique in that the hook is how did the phantom thieves story culminate to the captivity scene of the protagonist.
Then they all have the truth arc which is your SMT gods are fucking up the world story.
Then almost each month is sectioned off as an arc where there is a sub goal while having the day to day life goings on. Persona 3 is sectioned off by each full moon in the earlier parts. Persona 4 is sectioned off by each kidnapping that occurs. Persona 5 is sectioned off by each target of the phantom thieves.
If people are familiar with phantom thief stories, each story is told from each of their target, A huge example of this from japanese media is Lupin III. The phantom thieves are moving from one target to another until culminating to a finale target that may or may not be entirely related to previous targets.
Persona games are designed to give the players the feeling of living in an anime. Its not your masterpiece anime story but more of a modern anime storytelling trope (A supernatural high school anime). So many people here fail to see this,
OP
OP
Nope. I can keep reiterating what i said above though. If anything this thread has echoed my thoughts towards P5.
You're ignoring my post. How does P5 do a bad job of setting up and following through on expectations, especially compared to P4?