If you can't expect to have a relationship in a game, how can you maintain one in real-life? You'd counter that by stating the obvious, saying that there's no correlation between the two. Persona 5 is a better way of saying otherwise.
A JRPG (yes Yoshi-P) that uses RPG mechanics as a means of subtextually deconstructing social norms and understanding people in order to save the world from great corrupted powers. And what I like about it is just choosing a few selections of dialogues is what makes me really think situationally and empathize with each of the characters.
I had fun playing the game, and its intriguing concepts that took 5 games to improve, enhance, and perfect in a lot of myriads of ways. After 70hrs of playtime, I've gone through so many interactions, I felt the need to dissect it.
Knowing And Caring Enough
In the mid 2010s, Japan went through a crisis of sorts. A series of terrible events culminating from the Tohoku earthquake, resulting in a Tsunami, and the Fukushima Nuclear Plant disaster in 2011. That, and plus the stagnating economy of Japan starting from the 90s, has put them in a rather strained social economic position.
What does that have to do with this game? The first pic is a game confidant who has to juggle several part-time jobs, outside her main as a school teacher of sorts. She is doing so to pay off a close relative's medical expenses. One of them is being a maid for hire.
Despite how bad it is for the average Japanese, a band of misfits gets the power and access to another dimension in order to stop people with twisted ambitions taking advantage of vulnerable people amidst the dire economic strains, and in the end make the world (or Japan that is) a better place.
The game makes it a necessity to grow my relationship with other characters. As confidants, where just interacting with them, and making the right dialogue choices strengthens the bonds between us while also providing a myriad of in-game bonus traits.
I want to explore the social aspects here, how a game that uses even the simple visual novel mechanics to play guessing games for dialogue choices. Some of them I would like to pick just out of my amusement, though I would be relinquishing points that help rank up my confidants rank.
Take Yusuke for example, he drags MC to a lake with a boat to find references for his art, only to see that other people on the boat are couples, and one next to us are brother and sister whom are also embarrassing to be on one, and mistaken by Yusuke to be couples. It got tempting for me to make the funniest dialogue present, but I have to put my thinking cap as well in choosing the right one.
I kind of dismissed the right ones made by the game devs at first, but after a while, I noticed certain subtle things that pointed to my confidant's personality traits. Yusuke doesn't react to these jokes much, because he is curious about things, and wants to be the best artist possible. More observant, and has a very different viewpoint of life compared to others. Hence, when I press on "Love comes in all forms", he reinterprets what love actually means.
The same kind of applies to going out with female confidants, all of whom have romantic options. While not encounter seems grounded, they give me enough ideas to consider what growing a relationship with the opposite sex would be like.
Social Benefits
The other important reasons why growing relations matter is because as an RPG, there are benefits given from increasing rank of each confidant that are based on tarot cards. Kind of like Shinya Oda, who has a Tower card that, after receiving rank 1, allowed me to use special ammo to one shot stun enemies.
I was introduced to him right after not being able to deal with a request involving a cheater that uses his game cheating methods in the Metaverse to be completely impervious. After using the special ammo, in one fell swoop, he was taken down.
Access to these abilities and traits are available just by raising the confidant rank one hangout after another. And these characters have backstories, life dilemmas they've been dealing with, and playing as Joker, it's kind of his obligations to deal with them. It's always easy to assume everyone is hiding something, because after maxing out one or three characters, I'd always see at the last point that they are really fleshed out and exposed.
Ryuji here went from being a bumbling idiot to someone who had to accept his past and move on towards the future. His character development relies on acknowledging that his mistakes and animosity towards Kamoshida cost his track team their opportunities, and straining his relationship. Despite it all not being entirely his fault.
I've mentioned before how the game tackles with a lot of flawed human beings amongst systematic corruption. One other request I got from the Phansite was about taking care of an ex-mercenary who was a hired gun for killing. After taking him down, he started vindicating his actions by comparing himself to the Phantom Thieves, stating that he takes down scum of the earth too.
Throughout the entire game, most of the playable characters have deeply rooted trauma being dealt in a flawed society that seems to be slowly falling apart. Persona games take after Shin Megami Tensei, which has always tackled with edgy subject matters. But nothing like this.
All of this feels grounded, so much so that it properly reflects on current life issues in Japan. With depression rising, birth rate slowly decreasing, and noticeable suicide rates. It doesn't need an edge makeover, because it's already dealing with grim issues.
Thankfully, most of those are triumphed by the developed relations that I have, because of the access of abilities and traits. The game telling me that growing my confidant rank is sort of needed, in order to best out the enemies in the other dimension. While I enjoy their stories and how they accompany me throughout my playthrough.
The world needs to be saved, but so do other people. As they help make the battles much easier. I think that's the best way to sum up what Persona 5 Royal has going. I got really deeply invested in the long hours playing it, and I hope that within my first run, I'll be at the least able to reach rank 10 in most of the confidants that I have met.
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