Yeah, the Phantom Thieves started because they ended up having to steal Kamoshida's heart and the nature of palaces and personas means that your metaverse alter-ego is going to be a cool anti-authority figure, so might as well lean into the Phantom Thief aesthetic.
As an aside, now I kinda want a P5 tabletop game called "Palaces & Personas".
Edited by NativeJovian on Dec 22nd 2020 at 3:58:12 PM
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.![]()
There's a tabletop RPG called Voidheart Symphony
that is definitely based on Persona 5, with a bit of Castlevania mixed in.
Its prequel, Rhapsody of Blood, is definitely more Castlevania than Persona 5, though.
Edited by dragonfire5000 on Dec 22nd 2020 at 4:28:29 AM
"I squirm, I struggle, ergo I am. Faced with death, I am finally, truly alive."I talked about that tabletop RPG in a post several months ago
, if anyone is curious on what the premise of the RPG is.
one criticism i do have about P3 that's a pretty big one, is that the boss fights are uninformative as all heck
none of the boss fights keep track of weaknesses and what you've tried out, which is a super major inconvenience with how many elements there are and three different physical types
an even bigger issue is status effect ailments, which are pretty important to the gimmicks of a lot of the floor bosses in tartarus
like, for the Intrepid Knight fight on the 56th floor, his thing is that he has access to Mind Charge into Garudyne/Magarula, which by that point in the game can and will instakill your party/team
but he can be rendered completely harmless but Enraging him, or rarely Charming him.
the issue with this is that the game gives you no indication that bosses can be hit with status elements, with even the Intrepid Knight being immune to all but Enrage and Charm as far as i can tell, and even Enrage is seemingly a low chance to hit.
the game comes really close to making status ailments NOT fall into the Useless Useful Spell trope but then falls into it anyway because it doesn't do anything to encourage the player to even try out the status ailments.
"There's not a girl alive who wouldn't be happy being called cute." ~Tamamo-no-MaeOk fair i still love the game to death
also you say gays don't exist in persona when Fe MC is canonically bi and can romance aigis, uh. . yeaaaaaa..
tho gimme romances for some of the female party members + rio pls and thank you
whew, beat the third boss
the love hotel was minorly amusing, but it was a pretty shallow backdrop all things considered. Rise and Kanji's dungeons in 4 were a lot more thematic and involved, as well as Kamoshida's Palace.
the boss also wiped me the first time i fought it. got charmed once at the very end of the fight, couldn't act for three turns, and got heartbroken twice so i just died with nothing i could have done. neat.
as for actual plot stuff, i recognize Chihiro but i have no idea who these other two dudes are. jesus looking fella looks creepy as hell. clearly these are, like, the bad guys right? but probably not the main MAIN villains. probably. i wonder what their deal is beyond being murder hobos.
oh and junpei is really starting to get jealous of the main character, huh? its like Yosuke's SL was a main plot point. it makes sense, and i'm glad to see it developed as part of the main plot, it fits well.
"There's not a girl alive who wouldn't be happy being called cute." ~Tamamo-no-Maei finished maiko's social link, and honestly it made me cry a lil bit
definitely one of my favorite social links of the whole series. largely in part because of the subject matter and how unique it is in terms of forging a relationship with essentially a found little sister
i do remember absolutely adoring Nanako's social link, even if i havent played golden in years. i wonder if i'll end up finding that Nanako's is just a better-done version of Maiko's social link or not
either way, i very very much like it, and it ending on a bittersweet note makes it all the better in my opinion
anyway, as for plot i guess its time we learned how tartarus and the dark hour started... kinda weird that mitsuru's grandpa was able to capture shadows given how they're only available in weird psyche spaces like the dark hour/tv world/mementos but whatever, i'll roll with it
but definitely interesting that we're just trying to deal with the mess of the kirijo's effed up experiment- it honestly kind of reframes that what we're doing in a weird way, i dig it. interesting that we find out that not even mitsuru is fully aware of what happened, though. and talking with Ikutsuki reveals WAY more insight to what's going on- like how Mitsuru was forced to learn how to summon a persona when she was young.
i also feel bad for Junpei. he was being such a huge dick earlier, but honestly i feel him. also, good on him for apologizing. what a bro.
also... Aki and Shinjiro are orphans, what?? who's parents haven't died this game, geeze.
Yukari's dad was head researcher at the Kirijo group too?? what a twist, geeze. so much information dumped all at once. and then the MC's parents apparently have a connection to the events of 10 years ago, as implied by Pharos??
and last but not least we finally meet Ken. what a nice young lad, who also has dead parents, apparently!! not sure we should be taking an elementary schooler to fight in life and death situations. akihiko clearly is wary of him, and yukari apparently knows him, so clearly something else is up with him.
i'm totally engrossed, this definitely feels different from 4 and 5.
the plot's got a bunch of different pieces all moving at the same time. the characters' motivations are all very different, but they ultimately result in the shared goal of figuring out what waits for them at the top of tartarus.
i really, really like that.
...oh, and "maya" admits she's into me irl. that's hot.
"There's not a girl alive who wouldn't be happy being called cute." ~Tamamo-no-MaeIt's only really 4 and 5 that have the insanely upbeat tone. 1's a dark mystery where you try to figure out what's going on and protect your city from demons. The 2 games are conspiracy thrillers with college party members. 3 has more slice of life, but it's only really sum of the music that give 3 the teen pop reputation it has, as most of the non-vocal score and dour writing are tonally consistent with the earlier games. At most, 3 had elements of fluff and cheeriness, 4 and 5 were the games that cranked that to the max with the very goofy humor, talking mascots, and kids doing everything.
Like sure, you could argue 4's serial killer plot and 5's social criticism darken the game, but not nearly as consistently as 3's death themes.

The weird part about the thieves is there's like, no real stated reason why that theme was chosen. In 3, you don't start the group at all and there's 2 active Persona users already at work, you just join and become the field leader. In 4, Yosuke gets the investigation team going and it's with Chie and Yukiko's support that they decide to try and find the culprit. In 5, it's an idea Morgana has, who got it from Igor, but the cast just thinks it's cool and goes along with it. It feels like a gimmick, even in-universe.