Final Thoughts After A First Playthrough

First of all, this was my first Persona game so I was coming in with zero expectations of what the game would be other than I expected it to be good.

Even after taking a day to sit back and reflect on the experience, I still don’t have proper words for describing this game. I’ve never felt so connected to characters before in my life. Even though I know they’re just preprogrammed to give certain responses to certain dialogue choices, I still felt the weight of each choice and thought deeply every time I did. I felt like I was Joker bonding with those people, trying to choose my words carefully to say the exact thing in that moment. That feeling is a feeling I’ve never felt before when playing a game. I regret none of the 100+ hours I spent because of that alone.

Then there’s the music. After a certain point, all music just starts to sound samey. This OST shattered that. I’ve never heard music that sounded remotely like this before. The atmosphere and feeling that the soundtrack provided was breathtaking.

The art style had me hooked from the opening cutscene and kept me completely immersed from start to finish. This game looks SO STYLISH. In fact, it’s the most stylish animated thing I’ve ever seen.

Then there’s the combat system. I was a huge fan of Final Fantasy X growing up, having first played that when I was ~6 when my brother got it. I loved rigid turn based combat then and playing this game over a decade later reminded me I still do. Except this is a combat system with wrinkle upon wrinkle that I still feel like I have so much to learn about. I don’t know if I’d call it perfect, but it’s perfect for ME.

Then there’s the plot twists. I have to say I called most of the things that would happen pretty early on only to get double faked and surprised by those same twists in the end. Atlus knee what players would expect and pulled off hoodwink after casino-sized hoodwink to assure those things weren’t bland and uninteresting when they did happen.

I didn’t get every confidant maxed. I didn’t get every social stat maxed. I didn’t fill out the entirety of the Mementos requests. But what I did, I did blindly with no regrets. They were my decisions and that’s how I made them. In a game that urged me to take my time, I did and was blown away.

I did nail almost all of my Makoto confidant responses and ended up having Joker date her, which made me even happier because I immediately picked her out as best girl. Those date sequences were some of the most heart-warming things I’ve experienced.

I can say with 100% conviction that this is my favorite game of all time. It was Final Fantasy XII for more than a decade, but this game came along and burned straight through my nostalgic bias. I can also say that Rivers In The Desert is now my favorite boss theme of all time. Every time I listen to it I find a new way to symbolically interpret the lyrics. Every little thing about this game works for me. The themes, the story, the characters, the combat, the levels, the twists, the music, the art, the choices, all of it. It all speaks to me. May Persona 6 even be half the game this was.

Now excuse me while I go listen to Rivers In The Desert again.

Submitted May 22, 2019 at 09:35AM by O-U-A-P http://bit.ly/30CYwjC