#7: Persona 5 (PS4)
Persona 5 is the longest I have ever taken to complete a single player video game before. Finishing my playthrough at about 120 hours. To put this into perspective, the total run time of the show Breaking Bad is 62 hours long. Suffice to say, Persona 5 is a lot of video game, and I haven't played it in over half a year, so it's a very challenging game to write about and perhaps why I've stalled a little bit in putting together this top ten of the year. I'll do my best to make this succinct and not-spoilery.
Persona 5 is comfortable and familiar, but also impressively risk-taking and exotic. It is a game that stretches the confines of familiar JRPG tropes to their absolute extremes. It is a game where you explore dungeons, collect swords, fight monsters, and open treasure chests. It is also a game about depression, teen suicide, social anxiety, ennui, The Patriarchy™, class discrimination, and the fantasy of enacting social justice and change by grinding levels and casting spells against boss monsters. It's frankly stunning how much this very Japanese video game has in common with the current political climate of the United States, but it just goes to show that the problems we face as a human race are much more global than one would think.
It's a game I wish everyone could play, but it's difficult to recommend. It's dungeon design at times can be monotonous, the combat gets repetitive, there are conversation sequences in the game that become so obvious and exhausting that the established nuances of the cast begin to become smeared and dulled by the inclusion of comedic sequences that double down on the tropes each party member is supposed to fulfill. You spend hours and hours staring at menus and thinking carefully about crafting perfect movesets for your team (Something I enjoy very much, but maybe people don't want to do this for 120 hours!) It's also busting at the seams with anime-style humor that may fall flat for a lot of people. It can also be at times shamefully problematic with it's treatment of homosexuals which only becomes more tragic when you look at how effective it's predecessor, Persona 4, explored the uncertainty of one's sexuality with the character of Kanji.
There is so much that Persona 5 does well and so much there that can be related to if you find yourself young, angry, and frustrated at the status quo and yearn to live a fantasy where that social reform does not take decades to slowly evolve, but takes just a mere 100-120 hours. In conclusion if you hate rich people and narcissism and have the ability to cringe through some gay and sexist stereotypes and also love Japan, drop everything you are doing and play this game immediately.
Persona 5 is comfortable and familiar, but also impressively risk-taking and exotic. It is a game that stretches the confines of familiar JRPG tropes to their absolute extremes. It is a game where you explore dungeons, collect swords, fight monsters, and open treasure chests. It is also a game about depression, teen suicide, social anxiety, ennui, The Patriarchy™, class discrimination, and the fantasy of enacting social justice and change by grinding levels and casting spells against boss monsters. It's frankly stunning how much this very Japanese video game has in common with the current political climate of the United States, but it just goes to show that the problems we face as a human race are much more global than one would think.
It's a game I wish everyone could play, but it's difficult to recommend. It's dungeon design at times can be monotonous, the combat gets repetitive, there are conversation sequences in the game that become so obvious and exhausting that the established nuances of the cast begin to become smeared and dulled by the inclusion of comedic sequences that double down on the tropes each party member is supposed to fulfill. You spend hours and hours staring at menus and thinking carefully about crafting perfect movesets for your team (Something I enjoy very much, but maybe people don't want to do this for 120 hours!) It's also busting at the seams with anime-style humor that may fall flat for a lot of people. It can also be at times shamefully problematic with it's treatment of homosexuals which only becomes more tragic when you look at how effective it's predecessor, Persona 4, explored the uncertainty of one's sexuality with the character of Kanji.
There is so much that Persona 5 does well and so much there that can be related to if you find yourself young, angry, and frustrated at the status quo and yearn to live a fantasy where that social reform does not take decades to slowly evolve, but takes just a mere 100-120 hours. In conclusion if you hate rich people and narcissism and have the ability to cringe through some gay and sexist stereotypes and also love Japan, drop everything you are doing and play this game immediately.
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