Churro has been a long time Kingdom Hearts news writer and he enjoys playing RPGs, attending gaming events or anime conventions, writing fanfics and tweeting out his adventures on his personal twitter: @churroz.
Persona 5 is my personal choice for Game of the Year 2017 because it was the first time in such a long time that I was fully immersed into a game’s settings and world. Taking place in modern day Tokyo, you take control of the protagonist (which you can name) and you get to live his life as the new transfer student at Shujin Academy.
It’s really the little things that make this game so fun. As a high school student, you get to answer questions that teachers call upon you as well as take exams and see how well you place against the other students. Even on the way to school you may get lucky to snag a seat on the subway and read a book to pass the time. You can also listen in on your fellow students conversations outside of the school and pick up things like places to see or different foods to try. After school, you can partake in activities like batting cages, Big Bang Burger challenges, watch movies, or even play video games in your room, and not to mention study.
I also enjoy the characters and their developments not only towards you but themselves. After unlocking confidants with specific characters, you get to see first hand each of their struggles and by helping them decide what they want to do, you build that relationship just like you would in real life. It truly makes you feel for them as they become a core part of the protagonists’ life. Even the small details like text messages asking you to hang out, or after completing certain side quests when they’ll message you with their thoughts about what happened breathes life into them.
Now comes the other fun part, you also live a double life as the leader of the mysterious Phantom Thieves with the codename Joker. If you’re not participating in your typical teenager activities, then you’re invading the Palaces of corrupt adults and stealing their twisted desires with the power of Personas. Speaking of Personas, it was fun trying to obtain new Personas in each new Palace and eventually merging them to create even stronger ones. It really makes the replay value high as you try to complete the compendium and see which new Personas make an appearance with their respective mythology behind them.
My favorite aspect of Persona 5 has to be the music. Shoji Meguro did such an amazing job with the soundtrack. There have been countless times where I would just sit there and hum along to the main battle theme “Last Surprise” or the night theme “Beneath the Mask”. The game’s soundtrack was my most listened to album of the year as well. Lyn Inaizumi, who sang the English lyrics on a few of the songs, did a fantastic job of bringing the lyrics to life. From the opening theme “Wake Up, Get Up, Get Out There” to “Life Will Change”, she nailed every note that gives me goosebumps every time I listen to them.
Overall I highly recommend Persona 5 to anyone even if you’re not a JRPG fan. The story was fantastic from beginning to end, the traditional turn based combat works so well even in today’s gaming climate, and trying to catch weird looking monsters felt like an addiction. After investing over 100 hours the first time, I felt really satisfied. I felt even more after investing over 600 hours and 5 complete playthroughs. You can almost say that Persona 5 truly stole my heart and changed the way I look at video games.
