Persona 5, Cant get into it, is it my age?

[[DA] Atomsku]

Thought I'd express my thoughts since I know there is a lot of passionate fans
on here that can share there own experiences with the game.

Tl/Dr: Even though loving the series. P5 just could never keep my attention.
and I'm thinking its due to my age and no longer connecting with its themes
and target demographic.

For context.

I've been a SMT/Persona fan since P2. P3 actively made me switch camps
from a Final Fantasy guy to a SMT/Persona guy. and at that point I was around 18/19
years old. I still remember having doubts about the cast of characters in P4 on release,
and being blown away by the end, having played none stop from 10am to midnight
everyday. So saying I did not love this series, just would not be true.

The Story

Fast forward and P5 is announced. I'm hyped. At this point I'm around 27.
I preorder the most expensive edition "Take your Heart" for the PS4.
despite not owning or ever owning any (at the time) new gen console.
(I stopped console gaming around the PS2 era) at this point I'm a PC player.
Takes me about two more years to play the game by moving into a friends
house who also owned a PS4, which lasted only about a month.

in that month I did nothing but play P5 and look for work. However
I remember being annoyed at its initial set up (being framed as a delinquent
and people taking that as fact without any question, despite very obviously not being so)
and its slow start up before I could get to the dungeon crawling and social link
cycle. I also became frustrated on how most of the characters where the same arch types
as the previous cast. Yosuke(P4)+Ryuji, Morgana+Teddie ect.

I reached Sae's Palace and after reaching the boss, I turned off the game and
exclaimed. "nah I'm done" and never played it again. moved back home and felt
bad ever since.

A few Years later, I'm now 36, Royal releases on steam and despite my experience.
I purchased the game and while the new content and some changes to the pacing
have helped A LOT. I'm still not as invested as when I first started this series.
I have yet to beat the game (Royal) and most times I just cant bring myself to
play it.

I think of how much fun I had with the mechanics of previous games and
hype myself up. but once in the game. I can only play it for an hour tops.
Unless the hype of friends who enjoyed the game, are there to keep my
attention up.

What went wrong? is the teen, mystery drama thing just not hit anymore
cause I'm old? am I missing the greatness that all the fans are talking about?
I have other complaints with the game. But I'll share those for those who ask
and see what you all think.

[Ivas]

I genuinely believe that age does not change your taste. I'm 28 now and my tastes haven't changed since my teens. P5 has different theme from other Personas. Maybe that's the problem?

Unrelated, but it buffles me when people say that P5 has slower start then older entries. P5 starts its story within half an hour, P4 takes about 2 hours. P3 took half of the game to become good, but to be fair, after that it became amazing!

[[DA] Atomsku]

Originally posted by Ivas:

I genuinely believe that age does not change your taste. I'm 28 now and my tastes haven't changed since my teens. P5 has different theme from other Personas. Maybe that's the problem?

Unrelated, but it buffles me when people say that P5 has slower start then older entries. P5 starts its story within half an hour, P4 takes about 2 hours. P3 took half of the game to become good, but to be fair, after that it became amazing!

When it comes to the start up. P5 does honestly feel longer to start.
But if the numbers dont lie, then it might feel that way to me and some because
of how morgana always prevents you from going downstairs in the beginning? lol
as for the other games. P3 and P4 did not feel as long for me, But thats probably
because of how invested I was in the mystery from the start. As opposed to P5.

[Ivas]

Originally posted by DA Atomsku:

Originally posted by Ivas:

I genuinely believe that age does not change your taste. I'm 28 now and my tastes haven't changed since my teens. P5 has different theme from other Personas. Maybe that's the problem?

Unrelated, but it buffles me when people say that P5 has slower start then older entries. P5 starts its story within half an hour, P4 takes about 2 hours. P3 took half of the game to become good, but to be fair, after that it became amazing!

When it comes to the start up. P5 does honestly feel longer to start.
But if the numbers dont lie, then it might feel that way to me and some because
of how morgana always prevents you from going downstairs in the beginning? lol
as for the other games. P3 and P4 did not feel as long for me, But thats probably
because of how invested I was in the mystery from the start. As opposed to P5.

maybe it's in-game days that matter then? P5 takes a week to give you freedom. I don't remember number of days it takes in other games, but definitely less than a week

P5 grabbed me in the first 10 minutes though, so I can't understand why it's "slower". Just for reference, it took Kanji to become a thing for P4 to have me. And though the first hour of P3 intrigued me immensely, the game made everything to lose me. The pacing was awful. Until late August, that is.

P.s. P3 is such a strange game... It has the best story... With the worst pacing. It has the best social link in the series (Sun) and it has a record for bad S.L. in one game... Strange game...

[Fool]

Hey there!

Doing a play through myself right now, and I can understand how you feel. Very much the same vein as you. I had played P4 and was excited for P5 back in the day, played the hell out of it when it released and didn't touch it again. Fast forward years, I picked up Royal and couldn't get into it for some reason, but I've been on a single player game vendor recently from Tunic to Cassette Beast and I was looking through my library of games and thought "Oh yeah, Persona." So went ahead and loaded that up.

It's a slower start than P4 I feel but for different reasons, it just takes longer to get things really rolling in general because there's more content in P5 than there was in P4. More bases and story to cover, so it's more stretched out. I'm not saying that in a negative way, but P4 is about a 60-70 hour game, and P5 is about 100-120 hours give or take, so it's paced differently from the top down.

For me the problem was that the palaces seemed to drag on, when I'd rather be working on story stuff. The pacing of those to me felt opposed to the rest of the game loop. I did the first few palaces and felt myself burning out a fair bit. I understand we're meant to space them out over a few in game days and have ample time, I just didn't enjoy the grind as much as I used to.

Since I'm mainly here to re-experience the story anyway, just cheesed it. Awful, I know. One of the DLC persona's you can summon from the velvet room for free basically nulls combat with auto full SP recovery at the end of a fight, and a move that will wipe a whole board of enemies in 9/10 times a single use. This allowed me to basically stick to story elements and see everything fold out rather than worrying about leveling, and preparing for bosses. It helped the overall pacing for me a good bit, but it's not for everyone I understand.

What I do find confusing is you stopped last time at the Sae boss, that's where things really start to pick up, and on vanilla that's not too far from the ending. Maybe the game isn't for you anymore, but there's round about ways the game lets you engage with the content the way you want to, and I do feel the story is worth it in the end. I just wrapped up the palace after Sae's and am looking forward to the extra 3rd semester, just shy of 70 hours in.

I can relate to some frustration in character motifs and archetypes being repeated because it is stupidly obvious at times, for me though as a writer myself, I enjoy the depth of the story regardless. If you're here for the dungeon crawl aspect of it I'm not sure what to suggest, but if it's story.. maybe give what I did a shot and it might help?

Sorry this got so long winded, you put a fair bit into your post here so I thought I'd put a bit into mine as well. For context I'm just a year older than you, and yeah I understand some of the frustrations you have with the game, but do find myself enjoying it like I mentioned. Play the way you want, or don't. Everyone else be damned as long as you're having fun with what you're doing.

[[DA] Atomsku]

Originally posted by Fool:

What I do find confusing is you stopped last time at the Sae boss, that's where things really start to pick up, and on vanilla that's not too far from the ending.

Originally posted by Fool:

For me the problem was that the palaces seemed to drag on, when I'd rather be working on story stuff. The pacing of those to me felt opposed to the rest of the game loop. I did the first few palaces and felt myself burning out a fair bit.

Stopping after Sae was mostly due to burnout from EXACTLY what you described.
The palaces did drag on for me back when I played vanilla. Also the more interactivity
had the opposite effect. Even though I thought the new mechanics were cool, I also felt
it made the grind take more time than it should have.

Currently with Royals new content I have come to appreciate the way palaces work a lot
more and feel a bit more rewarded for my time due to all the tiny details they've added.
However the "drag" issue still persists when doing palaces for me.
(currently 60hrs in and at the Mafia Palace story line)

Also no worries about being long winded, That is what I'm looking for when it comes
to this thread. The more input the better lol

I also have in fact "cheesed" the game myself right before the mafia palace.
Since I dont think I would have made it as far as I had if I relied on my own patience.
by doing what you described I have been able to take in the story a lot more.
making the time I spent more streamlined. That being said, another nitpick
is the fact that on the years of lead up to P5 vanilla. I was always under the impression
that the games tone would be much darker than it actually was/is.

Not to devalue the issues that are touched upon in P5, but none of them hit home
like most of the issues the previous cast (more so P4) had. Also I thought the
"friends can overcome anything" tone sometimes felt somehow more anime trope
in this than it did in previous games, idk xD

[Fool]

Well, when it comes to JRPGs in general, a common trope has always been, and likely will always be "Using the power of friendship to kill god." Persona series can lean heavily into this often haha. The games darker tones come in chunks. Some darker than others sure, but some feel more personal than others and due to this we might feel more differently about the tones. Kamoshida for example we feel more connected to, and it feels darker because we were introduced to many of the characters involved in it all throughout that arc. You see less of this as the game goes on. Ryuji, Ann, Shio, Mishima ect ect. Our classmates, and even the MC suffer from his BS. So, it felt more personal. It was a wonderful introduction, and those characters keep being either party members, or important elements in the story as it goes on. Even Shio and her recovery through Ann's arc.

I feel this is where the game stumbles though, many of the other palaces feel less impactful because of this. Futaba's was more personal and touches on darker themes, and this feels better because of our connection with Sojiro, and that splinters off into numerous other story beats. Where as Kaneshiro, Okumura, Madarame, while awful people, we only seen smaller parts of that dark tone and don't feel as connected to those stories. We're being told about the bad things they've done, and only experience a little of it through our new party members, so that darker tone can feel lacking despite it being there; we don't experience it, so it has less of an impact. It's telling and not as much showing if that makes sense.

The game IS dark in theme, we just don't experience it fully. If you look between the lines, it touches on numerous elements that other games likely wouldn't go out of their way to dabble with at all, and I can appreciate that.

Being 60 hours in now, I'd imagine it's time to make a call if you want to stick with it or not. For the full game, you're about at a halfway point. If you're not vibing with it, that's fine. Hell I could even suggest some other RPGs to give a shot. But personally, getting that far into something, I'd rather see it through.

[Coffee Addict]

age is not the issue iam 38 and love the persona games, however i need to be in the right mood in order to sit down and play them if iam not then iam usually only able to play 10 or so minutes before i have to turn the game off

[Zalie]

Speaking only for myself now. I played this game a few weeks ago and it's the first (and so far only) Persona game I have ever played, I'll be 44 years old this year and I absolutely loved the game. I loved it so much that I felt obligated to check out some of the other games (bought Persone 3 reloaded during the sale now but have not had time to play it yet).

All the above rambling aside, it is entirely possible that your tastes have changed with time, that doesn't mean though that just cause you are a certain age you can't connect with things that might be targeted to a younger demographic. And given time you might start to enjoy this type of games again.

[Coffee Addict]

Originally posted by Zalie:

(bought Persone 3 reloaded during the sale now but have not had time to play it yet).

if you enjoyed P5 i think you will love P3, P3R is my favorite in the series. the story takes a bit to get going but i love it, P5 is a very close 2nd though

[Dopey Shepard]

I am a 300+ pound male, 32 years old, I hate anime, and I love Persona 5, I find the characters' interactions quite lively, hilarious at times, and just overall entertaining

[King Of Lolis]

only teens and neckbeards really dig this tbh
if i was 17 id love this as i loved highschool dxd and other cliche school animes but not now with its plot writting "society bad we must change it"

[Dopey Shepard]

Originally posted by King Of Lolis:

only teens and neckbeards really dig this tbh
if i was 17 id love this as i loved highschool dxd and other cliche school animes but not now with its plot writting "society bad we must change it"

uhh I think you misunderstood the plot, really. SOME people bad - we must change it is more like it

[King Of Lolis]

Originally posted by Dopey Shepard:

Originally posted by King Of Lolis:

only teens and neckbeards really dig this tbh
if i was 17 id love this as i loved highschool dxd and other cliche school animes but not now with its plot writting "society bad we must change it"

uhh I think you misunderstood the plot, really. SOME people bad - we must change it is more like it

nah force changing peoples heart was cringe. They were literally those 🤓 i can fix them type as phantom thieves.
Especially when they went on bigger targets like the fast food ceo guy.
Thats when i stopped playing,it was bs

[Dopey Shepard]

Originally posted by King Of Lolis:

Originally posted by Dopey Shepard:

uhh I think you misunderstood the plot, really. SOME people bad - we must change it is more like it

nah force changing peoples heart was cringe. They were literally those 🤓 i can fix them type as phantom thieves.
Especially when they went on bigger targets like the fast food ceo guy.
Thats when i stopped playing,it was bs

OK? lol nobody really cares. Persona community is very engaging and most people play the game fully as is evident by achievement completion rate. You are free to dislike it, though

[King Of Lolis]

Originally posted by Dopey Shepard:

Originally posted by King Of Lolis:

nah force changing peoples heart was cringe. They were literally those 🤓 i can fix them type as phantom thieves.
Especially when they went on bigger targets like the fast food ceo guy.
Thats when i stopped playing,it was bs

OK? lol nobody really cares. Persona community is very engaging and most people play the game fully as is evident by achievement completion rate. You are free to dislike it, though

aight,just saying it aint for me if you into dark serious or brainrot stuff like me
i loved the gameplay,ost,characters but story is so mid
well,still better then 4 at least,i hate that one the most