#extreme downshot

[meaganhealy]

Even in one of those extreme downshot style selfie angles, M looks good (left). Had sips and bites with M, R and D.

[supremenadeem]

revisiting p5r on merciless ng

the cut is mostly bcus this is a long rant no spoilers really other than for lategame personas

leveling felt a lot smoother but not fully fixed, although that may be due to the fact this time i would hardly ever use ryujis instakill unless i was in a palace, this made money tight. on my first playthrough on normal i was finding the difficulty to fluctuate crazily but by the end sections it was challenging. this time around on merciless i felt like i was being challenged decently dying quite a few times, and had a few points where i was stuck for a bit, until late game when i had access to fusing absurdly op personas. i already used attis(thermopylae), maria(holy benovalence, holy embrace, holy whisper), and lucifer(morning star) the first time around completely by chance the first time around and ended up using them again but forgot i fused attis into something else and didn’t bring them to the final fight... even then the final fight went easier than on my initial playthrough

i was using items a LOT more, mostly since hitting a weakness on a shadow on merciless would often oneshot it, meaning i couldn’t negotiate with them, the only way to get around it would be to use the elemental fixed damage items. i would pretty much have to use them for every mask i wanted. i could also use them to force a baton pass when in an awkward situation or to set up a huge baton pass chain for massive damage. used sleep vials and similar status ailment items a fair bit too so i could trigger technical damage and knockdowns from party members who didn’t have (good) ailment inflicting abilities.  i used the debilitate items from multiple consumeable sources a lot before i could get debilitate myself, which ended up being VERY helpful for a couple of fights. physical ointments and magical ointments were useful multiple times during my playthrough and i almost oneshot a lategame boss with them in fact. haru’s vegetables, and the ridiculous amount of random chewing souls or soul drops you can find rarely from using the phantom vision on the mementos platform also meant that sp was not a problem, as well as the obvious sp adhesive 3 or the camera strap from dlc.

i wasn’t able to use all the will seed items effectively yet, mostly due to forgetting them, the charge&concentrate ones are great for most team members not named ann or ryuji, the first one is great for the boss, so is the 2nd one great for it’s boss and used it a couple of times after. but there were a few that weren’t too useful or were already outdated in usefulness by the time i got to them.

you could make guns extremely op in persona 5, i never tried it, but apparently you could craft ammo refills easily, and since down shots were only tied to ammo, and shinyas confidant made guns ignore resistances on joker, they had insane potential. however obviously they are way better in p5r, you had less ammo per battle but it would recharge, only downside is that you had a fixed 1 or 3 (depending on tower SL rank) down shots, on my initial playthrough i really felt that restriction, but on this playthrough by the time i had down shots i think i already had at least rank 3 technical so ailments -> technical was actually easier and better than using downshot, so i hardly used it in this playthrough but there were a couple of times where it was handy. meanwhile in persona 5 base downshot was a godsend. it’s still useful, but i used it a lot less. later on in hanged man SL when you get expert customisation, some guns can be customised to have high chance of status ailments attached to them and i found it really useful as sometimes it could end up fulfilling the role of, and for me, even replacing downshot. joker gets a gun that can have shock added to it, which the gun itself can proc it’s own status ailment, same with makoto’s guns as many can have freeze attached, those two were incredibly high value.

i used the kichijoji trader as soon as he was available and there were many genuinely useful trades, i mostly just did it for completion’s sake though as well as helping a dad out, i tried to keep track of as many npcs as possible and was pleasantly surprised a lot of them react and change over time. used the capsules machines for a bit too, did all the crosswords, and tv questions etc. i also enjoyed the fishing minigame.. it’s just relaxing, it’s simple and not that great of a fishing minigame tbh but idk i did it mostly when there were 10mil things for me to complete so it was a nice distraction lol. it also had the great potential reward of the ali dance accesory. batting minigame is unintuitive but it’s doable ENOUGH to get the 30 homeruns, way easier for me this time around since i already went through the terrible learning curve the first time around. the games were fun and that one game which everyone has trouble with it fortunately didn’t take too long for me to do this time, darts is really fun, and i figured out the temple was a thing you could do.. idk how i missed it the first time around. i also actually got all the room accessories this time around, but it’s temporary and fixed to this one playthrough but it really makes the attic room more lively.

i feel better about the ending cutscene but same problems are still there but i suppose i don’t feel as strongly about them anymore? still think there are easy improvements to it, and that i prefer the original one. bad ending in semester 3 is the same as i remember it, so, well handled. i fused/caught most of the compendium before actively trying to complete it which was good i felt like i was actively using a lot of personas, i felt like personas that you had to fuse to became available often when they would become useful (anti instakill being available for futabas palace for example), i somewhat understand the underlying mechanics behind persona fusion and made some pretty cool stuff.

my only real big issue is the game’s too fucking long, but even if i were to cut the parts i disliked out of the game it wouldn’t really make a dent, even if some of the weird story/writing parts were reworked and improved, this problem would remain, the game just has a lot of content in it, mostly for better, and sometimes for the worse. persona 5 was already long, but they beefed up the original stretch of the game and added another, fantastic, semester.