Game Developers Refuge

Anyone else picking this up this week? I thought it was just going to be a straight musou, but according to reviews it has a lot of the elements from Persona 5, making it almost a true sequel to the game. Seems the big thing it's lacking is the calendar-based gameplay.

I've been avoiding the intertubes to stay away from spoilers...

So, after one evening of playing (didn't get to play it when it released) I'm honestly rather shocked. It feels like a "lite" version of Persona 5, set ~one year after the events of P5, and featuring musou-style battles with a bunch of P5 mechanics hooked in (summoning personas with selectable skills, all-out attacks on downed enemies, and environmental elements as well). There's a bunch of story stuff ('natch) and exploration periods between dungeons, which I can't really comment on yet as I've barely dipped my toes into the game. Production values and polish are absurdly high, as you'd expect from Atlus's P-Studio.

While it's so much more effort, I think this should be ω-Force's thrust from here out. The rewards seem so much greater. This doesn't feel like a cash-in at all.

I ended up watching 1/4th, 1/3rd of the game via subtitled Japanese gameplay videos. I had to stop myself though 'cause I still need to finish vanilla Persona 5. But yeah, I was shocked to see the story stuff getting the respect it deserves.

Oh, yeah, definitely finish Vanilla P5. I stalled out at the very end of my second playthrough (where I somehow *still* managed to not max out my social links. WTF).

I must say this is my favorite game so far of 2021, though we've just started. Combat needs some rethinking, because unless there's something fundamental I'm missing, physical attacks are nearly worthless. Enemies hit super-hard, and spamming magic is the only way to consistently survive. Boss battles are basically impossible without a good supply of SP. It's... weird. But still so good

I'm at ~40 hours, and have two more jails (like palaces in P5) to go. So after doing side quests and such, I will probably clock out at 55 hours or so.

My only substantial complaint is that combat feels very spammy. I can't dodge attacks well, so I usually rush in and spam magic until I get my all-out attack, which mops up the adds. And running out of SP in a boss battle is pretty much the kiss of death, which is why the first boss battle is such a pain. You unlock cooking after the first jail, which makes the game so much easier. Like, a little too easy.

It's a genuinely great game, and a welcome follow-up to P5, but is badly in need of some tweaking in the combat department. It's close to being where it needs to be.

Beat the game right at 48 hours. The last two "dungeons" are shorter and more direct than the previous ones, and the investigative phases are basically eliminated due to plot events making them largely unnecessary. Still, I'd have enjoyed something similar to fill the empty space.

Final boss was fairly easy. I brought tons and tons of HP/SP supplies, so I was essentially unkillable at that point, I think. Unless the boss had like ten zillion HP, which it didn't. So, hey, this was a very enjoyable attempt at creative asset reuse on the part of Atlus/Omega Force, and I'd love to see more of it in the future.

Nice.

Related, the other day I stumbled across and powered through the Person 5 Anime. Very much the same story as the game, but I'm pretty sure the game is more engaging 'cause there is more time to dive into details. Still not bad. Features the same voice cast.