Have you ever seen a movie on mute in the background at a bar or restaurant? You can see what characters are doing, you know when someone gets punched or kicked or shot, but you don’t know what they’re saying. The plot is unfolding right in front of you, but you have none of the context or explanations behind it.
After putting more than 80 hours into Persona 5 in Japanese, that pretty much sums up my experience.
Enough of the menus are in English that I’ve been able to stumble my way through and even beat the game, but I’m admittedly missing out on some of the best parts of the series by not being able to understand the story and the personalities of the characters.
Still, I can’t say I regret my time with the game. Despite missing out on the story, I still get the full benefit of the game’s absolutely gorgeous aesthetic, new mechanics, and the stuck-in-my-head-for-the-rest-of-my-life soundtrack, which has a much jazzier feel than previous Persona games.
I’ve already written about how awesomely stylish Persona 5 is, but playing through it, it’s even more impressive how smoothly everything flows together and how well thought-out every design decision seems to be. Every dungeon is completely visually unique – more so than in Persona 4, even – and there’s much more variety to mini games and social links. There’s also a much bigger environment to explore, and while it’s not quite open world, many of the distinct real life-inspired areas of Tokyo are gigantic by Persona standards and mix things up compared to older games in the franchise.
In a demo at PlayStation Experience, I was able to finally play part of the game in English, and it’s incredible how much context makes a difference. Without getting into plot spoilers, even a basic, simple piece of backstory for a single character was able to redefine my understanding of one of the game’s early dungeons, which is a testament to how good Atlus is at immediately making you care about characters in this world.
On top of that, Persona 5 marks the return of negotiation to get a Persona to join you, a staple feature of the Shin Megami Tensei franchise that Persona is a spinoff of. Finally playing in English, I can appreciate that, as in SMT, the conversations with Personas are wonderfully odd and funny, adding an interesting new potential outcome to battles.
Persona is wonderfully deep mechanically, but the last few entries of the series have especially excelled in making your party members and social link characters really feel like friends that you’re sorry to leave when the adventure ends. Even after learning the entire battle system and knowing the game’s basic story twists, finally understanding even a little bit about the characters is a great way to make the game feel fresh and surprising.
I managed to get a lot out of my first time through the game (and will probably go for a second playthrough and the Platinum trophy in Japanese now that it’s been delayed again), but even a taste of getting to know the characters reminded me why a full English playthrough will be worth it come April.
Andrew is IGN’s executive editor of news and really hopes they make a plush toy of Morgana’s normal cat form. You can find him rambling about his Persona toy collection and cute animals on Twitter.
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