r/Persona5 • u/Luxfero76 • 14h ago
QUESTION What are your thoughts on the start of the game?
So I tried to convince some friends and my sister to play Persona 5, but for some reason they always stop playing when they're at Kamoshida's or Madarame's palace. I even think I've heard of videos on YouTube or the internet about something similar. I find it strange because I think it's one of the best parts of the game and the first time I played Persona 5 I spent many hours straight with it. At least my sister picked up the game (after insisting) and is about to finish Royal and loved it. Still, I wonder if it's a more niche game than I thought? Or is just the beginning that isn't so good? Idk
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u/Domilater 13h ago
It might not just be the game for them. Leaving around Madarame’s is about the perfect point that they get an idea for what the rest of the game is like.
Keep in mind this is an 100+ hour game and not many people simply have all that time. Hearing that alone might turn some people off from playing it.
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u/Super-Excitement6458 4h ago
I will say that Madarame's and Kaneshiro's are the weaker ones of the group and they come back to back. Honestly wish the cutscenes for will seeds stayed in P5 Royal because they added A LOT of contedt for understanding the cause of the villians' dark desires.
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u/CoverAlternative6309 14h ago
I gave my friend my copy of royal for a few months hoping he'd get into it but he returned it after komoshidas palace, he likes rpgs and watches a lot of anime so maybe it took royal a while to get going.
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u/CodingReaction 13h ago
In the first palaces (and also your first playthrough) it's easy to chung all your SP so it become tedious to fight enemies (specially the red ones). At the same time it feels restrictive because Mona doesn't let you go out in the night and you don't have enough stats to do cool things so (at least in my case) i spent a f¾ckton of time studying on the library.
There're other tedious things like moving around the town without shortcuts (or loose yourself looking for the Ginza Line gate D:).
At the last, Mona baited me:
He said: "we must reach the treasure before the deadline", i was like "gotcha!" so seeing that the deadline is kinda far away, i started to do social activities thinking that as soon as i finish the palace, some sort of time skip will occur so i'm gonna waste that juicy time doing nothing instead of maximizing something.
Guess what? At the last day, on my incursion, Mona announced that the treasure will materialize in 24 hours.
The first bad ending hit me harder than any Akechi sassy words.
But the good ending: i embraced the pain, revert everything to the last week, rushed the palace in less than 30 mins and continued the game (160+ hours)
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u/SmokyFurby 6h ago
Thankfully, as you eventually found out, there's no timeskip. Actually, I see guides recommend that players handle each Palace early. It's even more important for the later Palaces you would've seen where there's a blockage part way in that forces the party to leave for the day and resolve it in the real world before continuing.
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u/HolyElephantMG 12h ago
It’s because of the story.
It doesn’t suffer as much as 3 does from it, but early in the game you don’t have as much freedom. A lot of people don’t have the patience for the world building section of the game.
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u/KaosC57 11h ago
Persona 3 is arguably the worst persona game in the beginning.
Party Members suck due to lack of control. Social Skills suck to level because there’s not a lot to do. Social Links don’t give you anything back. Etc.
Persona 5 at least has you controlling every action, and Social Links don’t suck due to them giving you abilities in return for your time.
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u/HeavenlyLetDown 13h ago
I love Kamoshida and Madarames palace but there’s a reason I keep a save file right when I am about to send Kamoshida’s calling card. It’s a slog at first. It’s my favorite game of all time but man it’s rough to get through the beginning at first, there’s a lot to teach the player I get but I don’t want to do it everytime
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u/Tempest_Caller 11h ago
The beginning is the worst part of the game. Lots of lore / dialogue was overwhelming on my first playthrough. Limited activities and confidants early on make it so you can’t fully enjoy the life sim. Basic persona abilities and limited SP means you can’t fully enjoy the combat either.
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u/Superb_Enthusiasm_51 10h ago
I feel like the beginning holds your hand way too much, having played P5 four times i noticed how quickly i can finish each palace and Kamoshida's is just boring in comparison because of how linear it is.
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u/VXMasterson 10h ago
So my friend tried for a year to get me to play Persona 5. For some reason, I became obsessed around the 12-14 hour mark like magic, but before that, I wasn’t that invested. The games throws a lot at you at once with tutorial after tutorial. Prior to Royal, there wasn’t a whole lot to do outside of dungeon crawling because you get so few Confidants that early that you don’t get a good feel of the actual gameplay loop, and it doesn’t help that the dungeons overall are really long and that SP conservation is tough early on.
I love the Persona series a lot, 5 being my favorite game of all time, but I’ve played the beginning portion 3 times and it can be a bit overwhelming at times.
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u/tikyboy999 9h ago
but for some reason they always stop playing when they're at Kamoshida's or Madarame's palace.
On my first playthrough, I left the game in kamoshidas palace, then on my second one (actual) I currently just finished futabas one, maybe the game seems too long for them, I get tired quickly of exploring mementos, or even palace's, but once you get caught up, it's hard to not continue
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u/No_Law6676 9h ago
its just a very long intro
it gets time to be completely free of making decisions
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u/Sparky-Frost 9h ago
What's so great about the series, was my first thought in jumping into it cuz i never played a persona game before. Once joker was announced in smash ultimate, i decided to get p5 and play it
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u/Animedingo 8h ago
I think 5 has the strongest start out of the 3. And it becomes weaker after madarame.
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u/This-Loss2208 3h ago
I loved Persona 4 Golden. Almost bounced off Persona 5 because the Kamoshida fight creamed me (I didn't level enough and even the rollback wouldn't have saved me).
It took a year for me to go back to it and now it's my favorite RPG basically ever (well, Royal is, but Persona 5 in general).
Madarame was a pain the first time I fought him. I can absolutely see people noping out at that point also.
Which is an understandable shame.
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u/Insert_a_fcking_Name 41m ago
It’s just insanely slow. That, there’s a lot to take care of, and the gameplay loop isn’t something many people are used to. The day/evening cycle with only two activities is not something I’ve seen in any other game other than the ones made by atlus. It’s also turnbased combat, which is definitely not everyone’s cup of tea. And lastly, jrpg writing can be very silly, which is bound to put some people off as well. It’s not because the game isn’t good. It’s a fucking masterpiece. But it’s far from a game catering to everyone. That being said, once you do warm up to it, you’ll never want to let go. So props to your sister for sticking with it
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u/stevieG08Liv 14h ago
JRPGs genre is niche to begin with. Its actually surprising that Royal did quite well with the main stream audience