Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 5 Stray Thoughts

As I said a few rants ago, while I’ve had plenty of thoughts about SMT Persona 5 that have warranted (under a very generous interpretation of that word) full-on rants, there were far more impressions and reactions I experienced as I played this game that are more appropriate for a blurb than a dissertation.  So we’re here again today for some more stray thoughts, this time a bit more generalized than last time.  Enjoy!



- Man, the writers didn’t even try to hide the fact that Akechi was going to be the game’s twist villain.  This douchebag is going around talking and dressing like Ikutsuki, with the same profession and almost the same name as Adachi.  I know the Persona team can only write 1 type of surprise villain, but come on, guys.


- I really like the fact that the planning and deduction in this game isn’t a 1-person show.  Ren may be, for example, the one who figures out that Kaneshiro’s palace is a bank, but it’s a team effort of Ann, Yusuke, and even Ryuji’s intuitive luck that figures out that it’s located in Shibuyua, which is an equally important step in getting to him.  Later in this same arc, the team works as a whole and has their talents utilized in the scene of their trying to follow Makoto to find Kaneshiro’s hideout--Makoto’s figured out a way to provoke Kaneshiro’s lackeys into taking her there, Yusuke is fast on his feet and immediately sketches the license plate of the vehicle that kidnaps Makoto, and Ryuji uses his vaunted Juvenile Delinquent powers to get a cab to stop so they can follow.  This sort of thing is common in Persona 5; everyone has a part to play in the success of the Phantom Thieves.  Some are more frequently vital than others (Makoto and Futaba), but each member’s personality and talents contribute to the success of the team in demonstrably valuable ways, within and beyond their introductory arc.

It’s a far cry from what we had to put up with in Persona 4--Yu and Naoto seemed to be the only ones on the team who were allowed to ever figure anything useful/significant out (most of which were painfully obvious deductions that the player had already figured out hours before), with the others barely managing to occasionally toss a few clues their way.  And on the rare occasion that the rest of the Investigation Team were actually DOING things, it was mostly just running around or basic functions that literally anyone could accomplish which had no connection whatsoever to the actor specifically.  It’s a huge improvement; where SMTP4 constantly held itself back by treating Yu like a fanfic’s self-insert Mary Sue, Persona 5...well, it’s certainly not lacking in player wish fulfillment, but at least it doesn’t let that get in the way of effective storytelling and use of its cast.


- Damn, once it’s decided that Le Blanc is gonna be the Thieves’ hideout, Ren loses absolutely any illusions of privacy in his personal life.  Man’s up getting 2 AM texts from Ryuji like “hey dude imma be there tomorrow with dvds and ur room’s where the player at, its cool if I just hang out in your personal living space all day, right?  dont bother texting back ur answer doesnt matter”


- Romance in Persona 5 is weird to me.  Ren seems much closer to the mental and emotional level of an adult than that of a high schooler, which makes it feel a little uncomfortable to hook him up with girls that are actually in his appropriate age group, like Ann or Hifumi.*  At the same time, it’s also obviously sketchy to have Ren hook up with actual adults, even if his maturity does somehow feel more appropriately on their level.**  Not helping matters, of course, is the fact that, as per Persona tradition, there’s really only 1 or 2 romances in the game that are even halfway decent to begin with.  And let’s not even get into the ickiness of the emotional power imbalance inherent with dating Futaba.

Thankfully, Haru manages to hit a sweet spot of an appropriate age, an older soul, AND a romance that’s at least passably believable, but honestly, it feels like Atlus hit that bullseye out of luck alone.


- I really like the fact that the relationships that Ren forms with his Social Link pals have demonstrable and appropriate effects on improving his abilities as a Phantom Thief, from gaining new fancy firearm moves from learning Shinya’s First Person Shooter techniques, to gaining more tactical options in combat from learning Shogi strategy from Hifumi, to building a more formidable and fortified state of mind in battle thanks to learning concentration strategies from Dr. Maruki during counseling sessions.  With Personas being manifestations of different thoughts, perspectives, beliefs, experiences, and feelings within the breadth of the human experience, there’s always been the elegant and quiet implication that the reason that advancing Social Links empowers different types of Personas was because the protagonist is broadening his horizons and expanding his understanding of the human experience through his connections with others, and I’ve always liked that.  But with the action of Persona 5 taking place entirely within a cognitive dimension, having the Social Links of Persona 5 also directly empower and expand Ren’s capabilities is a narrative touch I appreciate.  It also heightens the weight and significance of the friends he makes outside of the Phantom Thieves, as he carries the lessons, joys, and values he’s gained from them into his work as a hero, allowing them a more constant and notable contributive presence in Persona 5 than was true of non-party Social Links in previous titles.  It’s a good new feature.


- Yusuke, Hifumi, Kasumi...is there anyone from Japan who didn't spend the same weekend in the same 2-block radius of the same specific corner of Hawaii? I'm half surprised they didn't get an obligatory previous game cameo out of the way by inventing some reason for Akihiko, Metis, Rei and Zen, the Persona 4 Hermit shrine fox, and goddamn Raidou Kuzunoha XIV to all be sitting on a bench as Ren happens to walk past.


- While on the subject, is there some law posted in the Atlus boardroom that school vacations in Persona games have to be boring nothingburgers? Why even include the Hawaii trip to begin with? Nothing happens, being half the world away from home doesn't prevent ANYONE from meeting up, and you could go to the beach with a prospective love interest in Japan anyway. It's not the travesty that was the Persona 4 camping trip, thank God, but the most memorable part of this entire half week spent in Hawaii was calculating just how much of the day Mishima was spending with his head jammed in Ren's suitcase, sniffing his boxers.


- Seeing Ren dance gives me Commander Shepard PTSD.


- Does anyone else just absolutely love the movies and TV shows that Ren can watch in his free time?  I couldn’t even begin to explain why, but somehow the absurd versions of classic and renowned film and media that Persona 5 comes up with were 1 of my personally favorite things about the game.  I always got such a kick out of the spoken dialogue lines that would play as he watched stuff like Admission Impossible, Guy McVer, and of course, The Cake Knight Rises; they’re the perfect blend of silly, clever, and stupid to make this idea work.  Persona 5’s absolutely filled to the brim with little day-to-day quirks and polish that give it such a robust personality, and getting to listen in on Ren’s watching habits was definitely my favorite of these signature bits of flare.


- While we’re on the subject of Ren’s watching habits: the night before the finale to the main story of Persona 5, I decided that Ren should just get to relax and clear his head a bit, so I had him spend the night watching the first half of the DVD he’d recently rented.

So it’s now my headcanon that, for the entirety of the fateful Christmas Eve, as the Phantom Thieves plunged through the depths of Mementos, fought a chalice-made-god, challenged the embodiment of the seven deadly sins, and made hope incarnate literally shoot a bullet through collectivism's face, the ONLY thing running through Ren's mind the whole time, driving him forward, was a burning, unquenchable desire to see how Desperate Housewives ended.








* Although it’s also possible that it’s actually more just the fact that, at 40 years old, my old ass is starting to feel creepy about datesim’ing teenage characters.


** Hell, good sir Ecclesiastes has pointed out to me that there are times when Ren is so clearly emotionally and psychologically ahead of even the older romantic options that it still feels like he has too much leverage over them for it to ever be a relationship between equals.  I mean, can you seriously look at Ohya and say the woman is Ren’s mental peer?