Persona 5 - Path to the Holy Grail
With the gang re-assembled and Morgana remembering her reason for existence, people are starting to remember the Phantom Thieves again. Heartened by this turn of events, Joker and his friends head back into the depths of the Mementos. They don’t have to step into the Metaverse anymore because the two worlds are merged now. Before we can get to the Holy Grail again, Joker has to face the minions of the God of Malevolence. Once the Heralds start dying off, people start waking up to the danger they are in.
Meanwhile, our heroes keep heading towards the temple. These mini bosses are some of the hardest fights in the game, but still don’t hold a candle to the final boss. The final battle is still the Holy Grail itself. It has existed because of the indecisiveness of the humankind. People do not want to make the hard decision of making choices which give the Holy Grail the power over them. This time we know the blood pumping lines have to be cut to stop the Grail from healing. The enemy also knows the Thieves are aware of its weakness. The three will have to distract the grail while the fourth member goes to cut the arteries.
Without the arteries, the Grail does not receive the strength of the inmates. Without it, the damn cup cannot heal itself anymore, but it still hits really hard. The team perseveres through the pain to hand it a strong blow. Beaten but not defeated, the Holy Grail transforms into its true form. This is the God of Control, Yaldobaoth.
There has not been a tougher battle in the game before this one. The first time I faced Yaldobaoth, I died so many times, I seriously considered bumping the difficulty down to very easy. The problem is different parts of him reflect different attacks. If the player does not keep track of what is in play, the team essentially commits suicide by hitting different parts of the Yaldobaoth with wrong attacks. It also does not help when the boss gets multiple hits in before we can attack it.
The battle was much easier this time around because I went in better prepared. My team was maxed out at level 99 so they could handle much more of the punishment. I also wrote down what each arm does and used it as a cheat sheet. The Personas I had also made it easier for Joker to survive and deal damage no matter what arm he was attacking. Lastly, I did not hold back on the items. This above all made this battle a lot less frustrating. Even with all of that, the fight lasted more than half and hour. By the end my palms were still sweaty, and my controller was at the verge of breaking.
There are two boss battles that prepare us for this one. The Madarame one is more important. It gets the player to understand attacking all the parts of the boss with the same attack may not be a good idea every time. Madarame also regenerated different body parts, which is common with Yaldobaoth. The Shido battle also had an important lesson for us. The enemy can take multiple turns before the player gets a turn. This necessitates planning multiple turns ahead.
Even with all the power at their disposal, the Phantom Thieves are not strong enough to withstand the God of Control. They are beaten. But then something magical happens. The people start waking up to the nightmare they are in and remembering how Phantom Thieves had fought for social justice. These people have had their lives changed for the better by the actions of Joker and his freinds. They cheer our heroes and tell them how much the Thieves matter to them. Heartened by the voices of their supporters, the Thieves rise up once more.
Something stirs inside Joker. The chains holding the Trickster God break, and he transforms into the demon lord Satanael. In an ultimate show of subversion, Joker is helped by a demon to destroy a god and bring salvation to humanity. There is only one bullet in the chamber of Satanael, but it is enough. Yaldobaoth is no match for Satanael and the Thieves triumph over the God of Control.
I had previously remembered, incorrectly, Joker going to jail after defeating Shido, but those scenes take place here. He is asked by Sae to turn himself in and spends a night with his true love before going to jail. I think I need to play it again to see how many of the events I am remembering out of order. Sae does come through on her promise and Joker is acquitted. The term is also over, and it is time for him to head back home. With his innocence proven, Joker’s parents are ready to take him back. Maybe he should look to moving in with Sojiro permanently. Over the course of the game, he has proven himself to be a better guardian than permanently absent parents.
Before he can leave, Joker gets a chance to say goodbye to all the Confidants he has maxed out. It is a bittersweet moment to realize my time with these characters is coming to an end. This was my second run through the game, and I had spent upwards of 130 hours here. Even then I keep getting a hankering to play this game one more time whenever it is brought up. At the time of writing this, I am about six months removed from having played this game. I will most likely start another play next month. This time around, I will concentrate on finishing up all the confidants so I can add those stories here.
Turn-based RPGs are now considered too stale of an idea to be viable. The new JRPGs are more action oriented. We saw Square Enix move away from the turn based formula with Final Fantasy XV. That was followed up by Kingdom Hearts, but the series was always action RPG. The remake of FFVII finally came out and that was also action based. Even as action based role playing games gain popularity, Persona 5 has stood out as the most successful of Atlus games. It finally brought the Shin Megami Tensei series into the mainstream outside of Japan. The game was so popular, it prompted Sega to re-release Persona 4. The Steam release of P4 saw enough success that there are now consistent rumors pf Persona 3 re-release.
Success of Persona 5 is due to the fact it does most of the things very well. From 3 onwards, Persona series has been refining the formula and 5 has been the best version of it. I have talked about so many things the game has done right, so let me first talk about the weakest aspect of the game.
The story of the game is (in my opinion) not as good as the one for Persona 4. Although that does not mean it is bad by any means. In fact it is one of the most socially aware pieces of narrative I have come by in any video game. It highlights multiple problems with the Japanese society, but all of those problems are relevant to all the western societies. It is only weak in comparison to every other aspect of the game.
The music is one of the best I have heard in a long time. For me this was the best post-SNES JRPG in terms of music. I was never bored of listening to the battle theme, even after upwards of hundred hours of play. The characters as well as dungeon designs were also some of the best in the series. As far as characters go, Persona 4 gives it a tough fight but there is no game in the series with bespoke dungeons. Which makes them streets ahead of the procedurally generated ones. Each palace reflects the nature of the boss. The puzzles are fun for the most part and the place does not seem empty the way they do in the earlier games.
The menu style made the game pop. They are so unique anyone can recognize the game from screenshots (which makes the fact we can not take screenshots extra annoying). After the jaundiced look of Persona 4, I am in love with the red and black theme of this one. I was never bored of looking at or listening to this game. It was one of the few highlights of last year for me, and I can see myself play this game multiple times in the future. I can not wait to get back into it again!
