Only one game matters for the rest of the year

not even close

Persona's future as a Sony exclusive may be threatened if the Switch sells really well in Japan. But yeah, I'm just speculating.

The persona impact is gimmicky at best, and has no real bearing on the overall experience only really adding some extra busywork. Dungeon crawling is seperate from the dating sim and the story is there for sure, but the story is not a part of the gameplay.

Persona is still by and large a dating sim/dungeon crawler hybrid. With the part that people actually seem to like being a dating sim for people who dont know that they like dating sims.

Yuck.

*Vomits*

I smell a system wars bet?

@n64dd: I'm up for it, what is it based on? GS score?

Yeah, based on score. If mario gets a higher score, you have a Mario odyssey sig for a month, if p5 wins, i'll don a p5 sig for a month, good?

No thanks, I'll take Mario instead

The only game that has ever mattered this year, and this entire gen for that matter, to me is Sonic Mania. I wish SEGA would make Atlus work on a new Shining Force, Skies of Arcadia sequel, or a Panzer Dragoon Saga remake over this stuff.

sounds good to me, i'll start making your new sig

@charizard1605 said:

With the release of Breath of the Wild out of the way, and the first two and a half months of this year already having given us more notable games than the entirety of 2015 did, I suppose it is now time for us all to look ahead at the lineup of games planned for this year, and rejoice in the fact that so many great games are coming this year, across all platforms.

But see, as many great games as there will be releasing, only one will truly matter in the end. No, it's not Sea of Thieves. It's not Prey, Mass Effect Andromeda, God of War, Splatoon 2, Super Mario Odyssey. It's not even Red Dead Redemption 2, though with the color red, you're at least getting on the right track.

It's this thing right here:

Persona 5 is the sequel to the JRPG that many of its fans will tell you is among the greatest games ever made. It's been almost a half decade in the making, and it was originally announced in 2013, with a 2014 release date. After that... well, we all know what happened after that, with multiple delays completely waylaying its release date, until now, here we are, in 2017, with the game finally less than a month to release.

After the wait for it being such a pervasive thing for the last few years, it sort of feels surreal.

Persona 5 promises to be great- when it released in Japan last year, it was praised as the greatest JRPG since Final Fantasy 9. Atlus has taken all that was great about the superlative Persona 4, enhanced it, while also addressing all the complaints that were leveled at that game. Previews for the game are gushing and glowing. Listen to what Kotaku says:

In the wake of Breath of the Wild turning out to be one of the greatest video games ever made, I have some bad news for your time and wallet: Persona 5 might be up there, too.

For the past few weeks I’ve been playing an early copy of the fifth Persona, logging around 42 hours with Atlus’s latest gang of rowdy high school students, which means I’m probably not even halfway done yet. Kirk’s in-depth review will be up closer to launch (April 4), but for now, I’ve played enough to at least give you the short version: It’s fantastic.

So, yes- this is the game that has variously charted in SW's Most Anticipated Games list for four years now, finally peaking at #2 this year. This is the game that has charted on GAF's list at #2 for four years as well. This is the game that GameTrailers called the most anticipated game of 2016 (before it was delayed, of course). Until now, Persona has been a niche series, owing to its propensity to release on market irrelevant consoles- with Persona 5 launching on PS4, that looks to change, and it sounds like we're going to have a lot of people discover the game's magnificence for the very first time.

So- I don't care if you don't think Persona 5 will be your kind of game. Keep your eye on this one. Come April 4, by the time it is launching and reviews are up, you'll find yourself taken aback at the universal praise the game will be getting.

Oh, also, to SW this up- you can't play this on Xbox. You can't play this on PC. You can't play this on Nintendo. This is PlayStation exclusive. Buy a PS3/PS4, or miss out on what is going to be one of the best games of the generation.

I haven't kept in touch with this one at all, any news regarding its plot and characters? I'd love something akin to Persona 3, i'm not even gonna assume that it'll be comparable to the depth offered in Persona 2. But i would at least hope of something similar to Persona 3.

NeoGAF? Lol.

While I look forward to playing Persona 5 one day for me Mass Effect Andromeda is my most eagerly awaited game this year with Red Dead Redemption 2 a close second.

Yes!

Top reasons why Persona 5 is worth your time and Money

10 - Legacy

Persona 5 is the 5th main installment in the Shin Megami Tensei: Persona franchise with the last full main series persona game being Persona 4 that came out in 2008, 9 years ago. Persona 3 and 4 are widely considered to be nothing short of amazing games, making it on to many best rpg lists and even greatest games of all time lists. They are very niche games, but persona 5 seems be picking up some attention. Even gamespot is covering it, which is weird...

9 - New Side Quests

Persona has always let you choose what you do with your spare time, but it hasnt really had any side dungeons for you to traverse. This changes in Persona 5 as new side missions to explore, all with side stories called mementos. Mementos are randomly generated dungeons that serve as areas for you to grind more similar to the experience you would get from a P3 or P4 dungeon.

8 - Expanded Activities

When you are not in a dungeon, there are way more activities you can participate in including fishing, a batting cage, video games, movies and tv. Its probably not going to be the main focus of the game, but its cool that they are adding more stuff for you to. I read that there are quite a few activities that are available to you.

7 - Its Already Doing Amazing in Japan

The game may not be out in America yet, but it has been out in Japan for some time. Persona 5 is the fastest selling Persona game in Japan and the third best selling PS4 game there as well. For such a niche series is doing amazing and its also receiving tons of praise including being the game of the year 2016 as voted on by people in the Japanese video game industry. We all ready know its going to be good, now all we need to know is how well it will be received in the west .

6 - Stealth System

Going off of the thief theme, Persona 5 implements a stealth system to the dungeon crawling. From what I understand of it, is that if you can successfully sneak up on enemy shadows, you can get a preemptive attack similar to that of p3 or p4. If you get spotted though, the alert rating on the dungeon will go up and will eventually lock down if it gets too high. This seems to be an interesting mechanic that will add depth to the dungeons as well as keeping the searching tense.

5 - Hold Up & Combat

The combat still retains of what made persona accessible and adds some different twists to them, some of which should be familiar to some. The first of these is the implementation of guns being a secondary weapon (similar to P1) and the addition of more element types. These add more variety to the mix, but what is more interesting it the baton touch and hold up mechanics. Instead of the "one more" mechanic in P3 or P4, when landing a crit, it becomes a baton touch where you can choose another member of your party who has the baton touch ability. This is to prevent exploiting weaknesses of all the enemies really easily which some have complained about. The other is the Hold Up, when all the enimies are down instead of going to an all out attack right away, it goes to a hold up sequence. From there you have the choice of preforming an all out attack or talking with the shadow. This is a mechanic seen in P1 and P2, coming mainly from Shin Megami Tensei, and gives you options to try and get treasure or more persona's to use in battle. Apparently negotiations can also pop up randomly where shadows will beg for their life if damaged too much, it all depends on the shadow's personality.

4 - New Dungeons

A major complaint with P3 and P4 were that the dungeons were too similar and lacked anything substantial. Persona 5 aims to fix this with new dungeons that were designed specifically with this critique in mind. No longer are all the dungeons randomly generated, these are beautiful dungeons that are apparently really complex with puzzles that will challenge you.

3 - Soundtrack

The soundtracks in persona are epic. Persona 5 is no different, I already listen to a bunch of them regularly. There isnt more to say than that. I love these soundtracks.

2 - UI

The UI is the single most beautiful UI in a game. I am claiming this, quote me on it. This game isnt going to challenge Horizon for graphics king, but what it doesnt have in realistic graphics it pays 100x in style. Everything in this games oozes it; the menus, battle prompts, results screen, all out attacks, everything. So much so that there is a game on steam that blatantly rips off the style already (I've seen it, but I cant find it right now sry. it was funny though).

1 - Story

The main reason why Persona 5 is going to be amazing is the story. This is what Persona is known for now, amazing characters and writing. If you thought Zelda BotW was going to make you cry (other than Mipha of course), Persona would blow your mind. Its writing is some of the best in gaming imo (dont fight me on this @Maroxad). They make you care about what happens to all of these characters through the main story and the social links you develop in your off time and it doesnt pull any punches like other stories, it will go to dark places. This is one of the games you should go into completely fresh, dont spoil it for yourself.

Eh. Too many AAA games to finish and many that have been sitting for years unfinished. For purchases in the future it will mostly be smaller titles.

Crosscode looks like one of those off the rader games that will probably end up doing well.

http://steamcommunity.com/app/368340/

Ya its turn based, give it a try, its going to be awesome

There are persona fusion bonus and abilities that you would miss if you didnt do the social links, they arent completely separate

And how do these add to the social elements of Persona 4. In any meaningful way that is actually fun. All the Persona system does for the dating sim gameplay is make you fuse certain persona to make sure you get the maximum ammount of points.

Fusing a Persona you wont be able to see until the late game, if at all is hardly much of a reward.

@aigis: Did you make that list Aegis? If so well done. If not, you are a dirty plagiarist :P Regarding the 10 items you listed,

10. This has more to do with outside games as opposed to the game itself.

9. Dont like the sound of this. In fact, I am fundamentally opposed to grinding in RPGs period. Regardless, thank you for talking about the freakin' game.

8. Here is the first interesting point you brought up. And going to make the new area of Persona 5 to feel more like a place where people live as opposed to a hub for you to do your daily shopping/social linking. I just hope we wont have a cousin asking us to go bowling every day :P

7. Red herring... pass.

6. More improvements about the dungeon crawling. The alert system sounds interesting. And seems a hell lot more interesting system of keeping your runs short than the freakin' SP system.

5. So basically, the combat wont be Poverty SMT. That is great.

4. I have no real comments here outside of the fact that I would have said handcrafted dungeons. But yes, the dungeon crawling should be nowhere near as tedious this time.

3. I am just going to say I disagree here. When someone linked me music from P5, I usually lasted 10 seconds before I shut it off.

2. People are overlooking one thing about Persona 5's UI. Not only is it beautiful. But it looks incredibly practical as well. The UI in Persona 5, as beautiful as it is. Is also a shining example of how I wanted a console menu based RPG UI to work for a long time. Sliding through menus was always stupid. This isnt a NES controller, there are 8 buttons, 2 triggers, a d-pad and 10 clickable analog sticks. USE THEM. Thankfully Persona 5 did.

1. It has already been partially spoiled for me. I occationally visit site that must not be named.

Either way. While I do think it would be great if you picked more reasons on how the social linking is this time (Social Linking is what makes Persona near unplayable to me). Your post is nonetheless a great post. And probably better than some of the articles GS posts on this very site :P

The dungeon crawling already looks spectacular. What I am more worried about than anything is all the downtime and all the ways the game will waste my time. Or you know... the parts I like to call the Dating Sim ;)

plus abilities for your party and bonuses to all the personas in that arcana. Thats all baring the fact that the stories themselves in the social links are good

Can't wait! This game has a great sense of style. I love the vibe it has way more than the one in Persona 4.

Main reason I prefered what I played of 3 over what I played of 4. Never finished either for whatever reason...

Oh yes, i forgot about the exp bonus. It is nifty for sure and reduces grind.

But still, in the actual dating sim aspect of the game. The Personas add nothing but busywork. Having the dungeon crawl interact with the dating sim does not make a system good or work well together, they have to work together in a way that is fun. The Personas giving you relationship boosts in your outings is not a fun system.

Ya, I wrote it. Thanks!

10. Ya it was more of a thing on why you should care about the the game rather than the actually game itself. Coming off the backs of two highly acclaimed games might entice some people

9. It more like doing a side mission I guess. The details allude me a bit, because I dont want to get spoiled, but each one should come with its own story. That way I feel like its less of a grind mission and more of a side quest. You cant even go back to old dungeons, so I dont think it will be as grindy as 3 and 4.

8. Hey <Main Character Name>-kun want to go to the batting cage

7. :'(

6. Ya it sounds pretty cool, I think the purpose is the same as sp or fatigue in 4 and 3 receptively. It also makes encounters a little more nuanced too now that everything isnt random.

5. ya, no more spamming apparently :P

4. gs wont let me change it...

3. aww. I love the soundtrack. Did you like 4? I guess you havent heard 3

2. <3

1. rip

Ya, honestly I just dont know whats new in the social links yet. I have been avoiding them for potential spoilers, but im sure thats something that will be talked about when the game comes out. From what I've heard they are pretty good, but im not sure of the tweaks they have made or how it relates to the dungeon crawling aspects.

@charizard1605: This is not the year to be saying only one game matters for the rest of it Char. Even narrowing the awesome releases down to 2 is near impossible for me.

Persona 5 is the only game I'll be picking up day one this year.

Will be getting Horizon ZD, Mass Effect, Gravity Rush 2 and Nier sometime later this year after I have finished P5.

Continuing with FF15 and Skyrim till P5 drops.

9. It depends on what is in them. Ultimately. Good side quests are commendable, but these are randomized. Randomized side quests always make me worried.
8. Well probably can. I mean, it cant be worse than bowling with Roman :P On a serious note though. I wonder how these will be implemented alongside the rest of the game.
3. Not into jPop. I didnt really like the P4 soundtrack for that reason. But the composer is clearly talented.

Ya I think the dungeon aspects themselves are randomized from the sounds of it, but the story itself isnt. The one I heard was pretty funny, so at least you are getting something new each time you do one of them. I dont think its supposed to be the main focus, but I dont know how many there are and how long each one is either.

I think certain ones do different things. Some will raise certain stats (like charm or intelligence), others will give you money, and some you can take other people with you to (im guessing to raise affinity)

Star Citizen, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Ni no Kuni 2, Persona 5, Yakuza 0 (Already have but it's this year still), Yakuza Kiwami, Mass Effect Andromeda (when complete version comes out since **** ea for their bad practices with dlc where it's cheaper to buy full version over just the dlc after you already own the game), and plenty of other games. Stuff like A Hat in Time, Nex Machina, Matterfall, Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War 3, Nier Automata, Styx: Shards of Darkness, Digimon World: New Order, Horizon Zero Dawn, Kingdom Hearts 1.5, 2.5, and 2.8, Little Nightmares, Get Even (possibly), Tekken 7, The Bard's Tale IV, Absolver, Ace Combat 7, Agents of Mayhem (possibly), Call of Cthulhu, Dauntless, Death's Gambit, Divinity: Original Sin 2, Drawn to Death, Dreadnought, Dreams, Earth Defense Force 5, Frozen Synapse 2, Gran Turismo Sport, Guilty Gear Xrd Rev.2, Lords of the Fallen 2 (if not just to see if they can improve on the first game to make a solid game), Mages of Mystralia, Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite, Megaton Rainfall. LIGHTFIELD, New Hot Shots Golf, Nine Parchments, Torment: Tides of Numenera, Nights of Azure 2: Bride of the New Moon, Nidhogg 2, Outlast 2, Overkill's The Walking Dead, Pillars of the Earth, SpellForce 3, Starblood Arena, Star Control: Origins, State of Mind, Strafe, Sundered, The Guild 3, The Sexy Brutale, The Church in the Darkness, The Escapists 2, Thimbleweed Park, Tokyo 42, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, Vampyr, Windjammers, What Remains of Edith Finch, WipEout: Omega Collection, Zero Escape: The Nonary Games, Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles, etc etc

Tons of games that matter.

shhh 1 game matters and thats Persona 5, but If two games mattered Zero Escape is awesome, but Im not as hyped for it as I am Danganronpa V3, so I guess three games matter for the rest of the year, but if I could only choose one it would be Persona 5, so there

I do love Persona, but more excited about Mario Odyssey.

RDR2 will blow this out of the water.

another silly weabo like game

no thnx

give me last of us 2 instead, SONY

There needs to be a sticky about Persona. I never saw a game that irrelevant getting talk about so much (by the same people).

We get it, you guys like Persona and over hyped it. You want the franchise to be as important to other as it to you. You love a franchise that most people find boring, unappealing, weird or never even heard of.

If it wasn't for SW I probably wouldn't know what persona is and I wouldn't have wasted my time trying the first three games.

how can you say that after Zelda just happened? This seems in proportion to me

Also I would hardly call it irrelevant and why did you bother playing 1 and 2?

@the_master_race said:

Just wait till Larian drops its bomb , then you'll see what really matters

Boom!

I thought you were going to say McBigity vs the Space Squidos which would give insight into the developer Sir Spencer announced would carry the Blinx franchise on.

2017, best year.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Horizon Zero Dawn, Nier Automata, Nioh, Gravity Rush 2, Resident Evil 7 PLUS Mass Effect: Andromeda and Persona 5 very soon PLUS a bunch of stuff that will release later this year that I'm more than likley forgetting.

PLUS and already very, VERY, sucessful hardware launch (Switch) with hopefully another one later this year (Scorpio) too!

Dudes we're only in March and it's already one of the best years in recent memory.

I've played P3:FES (don't remember if I even finished it), it was certainly a good enough JRPG in it's time. But I don't see what the fuss is about as far as calling any Persona a GOAT or GOTY type game. Persona 4 Golden has been sitting in my backlog forever and for whatever reason I've had little desire to get into it.

I'm not sure turn based is really a way to go anymore. It's just an archaic gameplay style. I loved turn based back in the day, but I prefer "real time" gameplay nowadays... even though so many JRPG developers struggle recently to get a decent system of real time gameplay. I can appreciate a franchise that sticks to it's roots i guess, the game certainly has a cool art style, but that's about it IMO. Just not into the high school setting or "dating sim" aspects, if anything, it's actually sort of creepy IMO - especially if you are older than about 20.

There will be two GOTYs this year: Zelda and Persona. We are blessed to live through 2017.

Never played a Persona game but I've looked at a couple trailers and it looks pretty stupid. I'm all for stupid, I love Bayonetta after all, but still, this doesn't appeal to me. Far too wacky looking, and outside the animated cutscenes the production value seems pretty shit and the combat looks archaic. Won't be on my radar but have fun I suppose.

Persona 5 is within my top 6-7 list of the year (no particularly number 1-3 really till i play them all) but this is a fucking great year.

Yakuza 0 and Kiwami, Persona 5, Ni no Kuni 2, EDF 5, Nex Machina, and Matterfall are probably my top games for this year, though almost every single game on that list looks great and I might not like a few and I"m taking a chance with a few, however it's a fucking solid year. Persona 5 is going to be one of the best though and I'm getting the eat your heart out edition or whatever for that cool bag.

Btw Tokyo 42 seems super cool.

I'm a fan of grid based and real time turn based.

As in games like Chroma Squad and Disgaea 5 for the prior.

Stuff like Shadowrun: Dragonfall and Valkyria Chronicles for the latter.

Turn based is great and it was done well in World of Final Fantasy with some depth to it, however if I go turn based, I prefer those other types. I'm 24 though and the game looks great. The game is aesthetically beautiful, it has vastly improved the dungeons so that they are less repetitive/boring, there is diversity of gameplay from social/dating sim to a management sim to dungeon puzzles to very fast paced turn based combat that transitions well to stealth to other stuff, and overall the game j ust seems like a good value for your money with a theme that isn't used much in video games anymore (the phantom thief theme)

The phantom thief theme is used in movies: The thief that steals from the corrupt, evil, and greedy, all for a good cause. Much like robin hood and tons of movies like the fast and the furious and just about 20% of action and suspense films like the italian job.

Persona 5 looks to fix all the issues of previous persona games./

@putaspongeon: for sure, this is a great year. The amount of stuff we have gotten already is insane

@Vaasman: Bayonetta had killer gameplay and design to go with its brand of bat shit, definitely can not say the same for Persona.

Bayonetta doesnt take itself seriously. And its level of batshit crazy actually worked well with the general style of game. Bayonetta is crazy, the good type of crazy.

Persona takes itself seriously. And fills itself with every single bad high school anime cliche there is (which is why I found it so easy to guess who the culprit and the villain were, and none of the social links ever surprised me). And to top it all off, it comes with a Mary Sue protagonist. Persona is wacky, the bad kind of wacky.

And you think the combat in this is archaic? Just wait until you see the predecessors?

There were about 10-15 different generic enemy models. just reskinned in every dungeon. Which is especially bad since it was based on SMT's ruleset. A ruleset which is about exploiting weaknesses. In mainline SMT since Nocturne. I am usually able to tell what a monster will be weak against based on its appearance, name or surrounding mythology.

This is a stacked year. No "only game that matters" about it. Persona 5, RDR 2, Sonic Mania. I'm stoked.

Yes, Persona 5 matters so much that I have no interest in playing it whatsoever. Weeaboo trash.

I was right

Mario is what matters now.