P5 - Yeah, beat it over the weekend. 8/10, I suppose. Failed to complete Hierophant (sadly, but goddamn, being walled by a hard time constraint, a 5-stat check AND a Memento request? Holy -shit-), Tower, Hanged Man (also sadly, it's my favorite Hanged Man thread in the series from what I saw) and Emperor. As for the game, it could've bended up higher if it didn't sorta sizzle out by the very last legs. The ending -seriously- sprawls for way, WAY too long and I'm not sure there was a need for that minidungeon at the end. The SMT angels reference was cute, I suppose, but the whole sequence was sorta... unnecessary? Yeah. Also, final boss was a wuss. Char Aznable wasn't great either, though pretty durable, but my assessment just remains entirely true: your mitigation is just way over the top in this game. Once I fused Trumpeter for Char (it's a L59 fusion? WELP, do NOT mind if I do), the game was pretty much over. I didn't even bother to fuse Yoshitsune, which would've cost a fortune (a postgame-levelled fusion that requires ANOTHER postgame-levelled fusion among its components? Are you -shitting- me? Yeah, I'm so not allowing it in the DL, I even ended up the game at lower levels than OK and I certainly didn't skimp on fighting trash. In fact, his levels all around for the topic are kind of slightly higher than I ended up at, but it was really no biggie. As I said, the mitigation is so -dumb-. Both Rakukaja and Tarunda halving damage is insane and, while Sukukaja feels less unbalanced than it was in P4, where it felt like it boosted evade by well over 40% (might've been a straight addition component rather than the 1.5x multiplier on base evade granted in P5, iunno), Sukunda is -nuts-, halving accuracy and stacking multiplicatively with Sukukaja - i.e. stack those and you're the wind. Hell, I rarely even bothered with Masuku because just Debilitate was GOOD ENOUGH. Regardless, some character gameplay thoughts.
Akira/Joker - Consistently felt like the best PC, but never felt gamebreaking like Yu or Makoto/Minato did, but maybe that was just because I never picked Yoshitsune. The fact the really stupid Personas are all past endgame levels also adds to this. Frankly, feels like a good move, it does emphasize the worth of your teammates a bit further. Could do everything well, including damage, but having the extra utility made him the best PC rather than just being overall stupid everywhere. Not being your -only- source of Tarunda also helped in the overall balance. Who'd thunk?
Ryuji/Skull - Kinda terrible in the early game, comes into his own in a big way late. In the beginning, his skills sorta suck and Thunder is consistently the game's worst element, being often resisted and not often enough hitting weakness. Hower, once he gets past L50, he just -soars-. Matarukaja is seriously godly as usual and he outpaces the -other- physical-reliant PC at that point. Ended up being the offensive backbone of my team endgame even though I never got God's Hand, Matarukaja and Charge alone led to some mean Megaton Raids. This is quite important now that the game doesn't punish PCs for staying on the bench. Took Atlus long enough to stop being dumb.
Morgana/Mona - Benchwarming heal battery. The Thunder weakness is terrible and the durability sucks. Wind also isn't anywhere near the god element it was in P4. Recarm/Samarecarm are nice thoughts and Sukunda/Masukunda also help, but on average it felt more practical to just carry Personas with those skills. Round robin revival was still pretty valuable for the Palace 4 boss, at least, that's quite possibly one of the toughest battles in the maingame (fights toe-to-toe for that moniker with Palace 2 boss).
Ann/Panther - Quietly arguably your best non-Joker PC for nearly the whole game. She's pretty much an improved Mitsuru build, running a Red Mage-like array of options off game-best MAG/LUC and a good element (fire's almost as good as nuclear and psychic for hitting weaknesses). For starters, having Tarunda from the first Palace master onwards alone earns you a spot on your boss-fighting A-team for pretty much forever and she, besides game-best magical damage (which gets boosts and amps earlier than everybody else's), she also gets status options for when fire isn't an option. I used Dormina (sleep's the least immuned status in the game and it's HORRENDOUSLY accurate. All ST status options are, but Ann stands out for being the only non-Joker PC to get accurate, spammable status options to play with) to control nasty single targets all the way up and -including- Palace 7. Tentarafoo isn't nearly as good (only 65% accuracy and a lot more enemies immune it), but it saw play in the midgame as well. She -does- kinda dwindle late, when Debilitate comes into play and fire isn't as useful as it is earlier on, but she still has the best backloaded damage (Focus off game-best MAG!) and Matarunda does have use because there are more relevant AoE fights than you'd think - heck, even the last boss is among them, though I didn't bring Ann there.
Yusuke/Fox/Inari - Man, talk about sizzling out. Yusuke starts out pretty great, with better physical skills than Ryuji off better speed and Ice is an amazing element early (and honestly always good, really). Problem is his skills start sizzling out later on and his buffing options are more defensively geared - not to mention Sukukaja requires Sukunda synergy to really shine. Fire weakness also sucks ass. I just stopped using him entirely by the time Palace 4 ended.
Makoto/Queen - In spite of learning her healing skills later than Morgana and not getting revival ever, Makoto's pretty much the reason the kitty doesn't really get to shine and ultimately bashes heads with Ann to decide who's the second-best PC. Game-best stat spread on a healer is really nice and nuclear's a great element to specialize in. She starts with Diarama (getting it earlier than Morgana!) and Dekaja is often oddly useful. By the time you get to Palace 5, though, she gets Marakukaja and holy shit is that skill dumb in conjunction with Tarunda. Marakukaja+Ma/Tarunda made me feel frankly -immortal- and stacking that on a PC with good stats and a nice dedicated healing skillset is just nuts. Getting the status healing spell for the nastiest ailments also helps. By the end, Makoto felt nearly SMRPG Toadstool-level good at keeping my party alive. Her only problem is taking a bit of a while for her damage to develop, but with that package, I'm not complaining.
Futaba/Oracle - Best party navigator in the series. The random MT buffs/healing/SP healing come in REAL handy and they proc often enough to matter (you'll always see it at least once during boss fights, often twice, and they feel quite rigged in your favor - she seems to actually consider which buffs you -already- have in your party. MT Charge AND Focus gets simply ridiculous). The random Hold-Up at the beginning of a fight is also great and saved me from quite a few resets.
Haru/Noir - Looking at the skillset from the stat topic, I thought pretty long and hard "how does she end up not being kinda trashy?" and welp, who'd have thunk, she's quietly oddly -good-. Psychic is a good element to have and she's actually the hardest PC to wall due to having two solid offensive options. She's also silently your best physical slugfesting PC due to being the only character (besides Joker) who gets phys-boosting passives and having a great mult on her gun attack - oh which also happens to be MT. Triple Down is a bit of a risky move due to sketchy accuracy, but it pays off on average and its main downside is easy to mitigate on boss fights with Sukukaja/Sukunda. IF you want, you can also synergize it with Sukukaja against randoms, but that feels kinda unnecessary. Later on, One-Shot Kill is -amazing- and can pump up really shiny numbers with that crit rate and random baton pass strings (because I obviously gave it to Akira too, of course. In hindsight, I should've used Revolution in tandem with it more, four-character baton pass shenanigans with zero weaknesses involved can get downright NUTS). Tetrakarn and Makarakarn are niche in use, though Makara felt invaluable against Forneus on Palace 7 (it reflects status spells!). Finally, her status healing also saw -a lot- of play. Ended up being one of my best PCs against randoms and very solid against bosses too.
Igor's weird as fuck VA being a PLOT POINT was pretty much the most hilarious thing in the overall arc. Clever and in-your-face at the same time. THIS spoiler was really cool, even though the gameplay execution sorta meandered too much.
