This is so surreal. He liked it, he actually liked it.

Persona 5 gives me the ability to do things I'd never be able to do in real life. Like studying.

"A 60 hour JRPG"? Jesus, what kind of insane speedrun was he doing? I think I spent more like 110-120 hours on my first playthrough.

Yahtzee actually liked a JRPG? He had to have had a change of heart. Good work, Phantom Thieves!

Excuse me, the Persona 4 cast is the Scooby Gang, the Persona 5 cast are the Codename Kids Next Door

"Oooh Volleyball sounds fun" ...You did that on purpose didn't you?

I cannot believe Yahtzee would play this. This is an rpg that isn't paper mario.

That 'designed by sloths' comment is even more hilarious when you consider Persona 5 is still faster than it's predecessor at moving the plot forward.

5 Years later and i still come back to this review in disbelief that Yahtzee wont ever shut up about how much he loved this game. By this point i'm convinced the Phantom Thieves stole his heart for it to happen.

He didn't like the battle music? I NEVER SAW THAT COMIIIIIIIING

Even Yahtzee likes Persona. That's it! Persona 5 is scientifically proven to be good.

In Persona I can be the man I wanted to be. *Maintaining a healthy social life and in an intimate relationship with something other than my fingers, thumb and palm*

Despite his bias against JRPGs, the biggest gripes he cited are legit problems within the series as a whole. Problems I can easily overlook, but I know some people can't. Such is life.

Couldn't help but snicker when I saw "Oh Mishima you Nelly".

Morgana says you're too tired to upload this video. You should go to bed

As a psychotic completionist who has put many hours into this game, yes. Yes to all the nightmarish completion requirements. You have less than no time to increase combat skills, personality traits, and progress in the story. Don't even think about trying to cram side quests into... GOOD LORD IT'S A SATIRICAL REPRESENTATION OF JAPANESE HIGH SCHOOL LIFE.

From the end credits (which are still on the Escapist website's version of the video): "I guess the anime faces are a bit generic; there's one bit where a character turns around and we're supposed to be surprised by who it is but I couldn't tell who the fuck it was supposed to be because they changed their hairdo"

"Ooh, volleyball sounds fun!" He HAD to have chosen volleyball on purpose. XD

You know he enjoyed it when he has to use the all-important *last joke of the video* to make fun of a completely different game.

Oh god he mentioned the volleyball team....

Poor Ass Effect. It's going to be the butt of many jokes for a long time.

Yahtzee likes a JRPG? Ok, I'm prepping for the oncoming apocalypse.

Must be a hell of a JRPG for Yahtzee to end the review on a positive.

I'm surprised that Atlus didn't take this video down after the first 20 seconds.

I have to say, as a long time persona fan, this entry in the series was quite refreshing and made me fall in love with it all over again.

That moment when an avid JRPG hater like Yahtzee is won over by sheer fucking quality Persona 5 will steal your heart Guarantied or your money back Also, its not a 60 hour game like Yahtzee said... its a 110 hour game

he opened Andromeda a new one to give P5 a minor thumbs-up... that's kinda nice of him :)

In regards to demon recruitment dialogue seeming random, their nature (listed when you target them) determines what responses they want. Gloomy: Vague, apathetic Irritable: Negative, confrontational Upbeat: Positive, whimsical Timid: Vague, encouraging (but its better to just beat timid demons up) I think the game mentions this at some point.

The only gripe I really have with Persona 5 is the stupid 2 time slot thing he mentioned. I just wanted to go running for a few hours with Ryuji! Apparently he made me run from 10 am until 10 pm!?

I don't get to bang the monsters. 3/10

shit yahtzee did not shit much on one of my favorites games of the year.

I would leave a witty comment about Yahtzee liking a JRPG, but my cat is telling me to go to bed.

1:34 “Was it really okay to change the heart of Thomas Babyeater, the inventor of eating babies?”

The Phantom Thieves stole Yahtzees heart.

Not a bad review for someone who adamantly hates JPGS. It's fun to joke but the game is seriously amazing.

I call Morgana's vehicle form 'The Meowstery Machine', so...

yahtzee's definitely hit the nail on the head with "absorbing". im a huge jrpg fan but i can still only play 3, 4 hours at a time with most games. persona games i can play for literally 8-12 hours straight every day (which i did with 5, completing it after a two week cycle and a 103 hour total playtime). the life simulator and rpg elements actually balance out fairly well time-wise, so you can go between those aspects and never feel like you're getting too saturated with only doing one thing. as strange a concept as it is, it works.

A JRPG that Yahzee likes? Must be a good day today.

Skull-fucking Freddie Mercury may not be wise...

Persona 5? More like Persona I can't think of a matching pun

Oh Mishima you nelly

Was I the only one who broke out laughing when he said that bit on McDonalds Cheeseburgers with spiders in them? lol

If you think the demon conversation topics are odd and arbitrary in Persona 5, try Persona 2 *makes motorcycle noises*

Yahtzee liked this game? I never saw that coming.

"Ooh, volleyball sounds fun!" Whoa boy, buckle up Little Yahtzee...

Yahtzee played Xenoblade Chronicles X for over 30 hours, didn't give up Final Fantasy XV 2 hours in and likes Persona 5, is this a comeback for the genre?

In terms of story, this is the best JRPG I've ever played. Games like Tales of Vesperia and Eternal Sonata were fun, but there's just too much grinding they force you to do, and the story line takes far too long to progress relative to the number of battles you have to win. What's more, the enemies in those games either fall over with the flick of a finger or absolutely destroy you before you know what the fuck. Probably the biggest achievement of Persona 5 is that it has a battle system that allows the player to grind and rout as many weak enemies as he or she wants to, but the nature of the Palaces turns it into a war of attrition, so you have to be careful not to overdo it or you'll never survive the final boss fight. The bosses are challenging, the voice acting is top-notch, the artwork is beautiful, and for a modern video game, it has a very original concept.

Say what you want about Last Surprise, but syncing up an All Out Attack that finishes your foes off right at the chorus is an incredible feeling.

You wanted to say you hated this game but you need at least bold guts.

This was my first zero punctuation. And after watching half his library I realized that he really liked this game.

Yahtzee reviewing the most jrpg jrpg of all time? Well, I'd better go hunt for flying pigs at my local rivers flowing upstream.

Yahtzee, just embrace that inner weeb already.....We know you can do it

This game completely melted my heart and captured my imagination- something video games haven't done in ages. I can't believe that yahtzee, who dislikes jrpg even more than i do, actually gave the game a glowing review. holy shit, if this game had more brand recognition it may very well be the game of the decade

I was so nervous clicking this cause I like Persona. So I got all ready to watch Yahtzee eviscerate one of my favorite things and send me into a spiral of anger and depression. Well, the joke's on me, cause he actually liked it. He even liked the turn-based combat. Hell, the criticisms he had were criticisms I already had myself. What a nice day this is.

"Although having said that, if you're going to make a 60-hour-RPG, have a speck of fucking mercy and have more than one music track for standard battles"

Yahtzee, the reason I know you've never played a Persona game is because this review might as well be a review for ANY Persona game (well, at least 3 and 4). And so it's so much fun to see your perspective from a series we've all played and all of us knowing EXACTLY what you're criticizing, complimenting, etc. And the reason that makes all the fans KNOW we'll like it: because you're review comforts us into learning that Persona is INDEED still Persona. And really that's kind of all we want. But seriously, it's like watching someone playing Pokemon for the first time and complaining about the caves and the weird combat system rules. Makes us feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

This is weird. ytz played a JRPG and liked it... nice. i never saw that coming.

In Spanish it means "person"

So true about Ann ending ass up everytime she’s knocked out…not that I’m complaining

I love how the entire video also sets up to be an incredibly visceral jab at another title. There's something so satisfying about it, like watching a video filmed with a high speed camera of a person you don't like getting punched in the face.

I am 130 hours in and the combat music still gets me grooooooven I just never see it coming

I love how P5 manages to bring in even the staunchest of RPG critics. Yahtzee and Dunkey both had to admit this was good.

"ooh volleyball sounds fun!" how can you say that after playing Persona 5

The verdict is in. Yayzee liked Persona 5. Game of the year.

Ironically, this game is the exact same as Yahtzee’s JRPG statement in his Earthbound review. You and your friends kill a god by using the power of friendship to summon Satan to put a bullet in his head.

Wait "60 hour RPG" dude I'm at 90 hours and just hit november!

Never knew a video like this could ever exist. Seeing your stance on the Persona series... So props to you.

The demon negotiation does have dialog that suits each demon based on their personality, but it's not too had to get them to join you anyway, especially with character abilities that add to that. It's no where near RNG that SMT can be when it comes to recruiting demons thankfully. Do agree on the "Days to complete mission" thing. I'd rather it just tell me the date up to the deadline of when I can send the calling card but I get why they do it as is. I think in regards to the time slots, I think part of why you spent all of that slot doing that one thing is because it's meant to treat your wandering around and then spending time as the whole slot, just in a very simplified form which looks a bit off when you look deeply into it. It's basically what happens when you implement time slot progression over real time progression I suppose. Atlus are not that subtle with their symbolism usually, they do have some subtle bits here and there in it as well but they are well known to sledgehammer their messages in which can be a mixed reception kind of thing. I personally prefer it because I don't care for overly vague symbolism but you can easily argue they try too hard with it. The string of story progression during events like the dungeon completion did surprise me as well. When the plot does get moving, it tends to railroad you more than previous ones I feel, not that it's a bad thing though as the story was interesting enough to where I wanted to keep seeing that progression. But it does make the game feel tightly packed on your first playthrough. Also I'm surprised Yatzhee actually liked this game, let alone reviewed it but it was an interesting and amusing watch as always.

Let's be real, if we had more time to do more things in one day, the game would be way too easy.

This game is amazing, but the most amazing thing about it never gets mentioned. There was no day one patch. I just popped it in and started playing. In fact, there hasn't been a patch yet that I'm aware of and its been almost a month. This must EASILY be the most polished AAA game on release in years.

makes me appreciate the slower speed options in the settings. Great vid.

So very funny with the dialogue bits and the imps too, especially the giant king imp! XD

60 hours? I don't know if you played it to the end or not but it took me about 100+ I don't think it's possible to complete it in that time at least without skipping everything

Hello Yahtzee, there's a slim chance your going to read this, but I listened to your book "Will Save the Galaxy for Food," through Audible, and thought it was great. It was imaginative, witty and full of more deadpan snarking than one person could reasonabliy hope for. Thank you for your work. :)

I see that I wasn't the only one learning about the wonderful world of late fees with DVD rentals, because the game didn't want you to bring them back in time.

Haven't watched a Zero Punctuation video in a while and had to check this one out. I was honestly expecting it to get ripped into but it's a pleasant surprise and understand what some of the problems were. I got a kick out of how time seems to hold still when you take the train but your friends stayed glued to your hip for half a day. 'Don't leave me' LMAO

The spiders that live in McDonalds cheeseburgers line gets me every time.

ahahahaha, 60 hour game. 60 my ass, I'm sitting at almost 80 hours in.

Hahah love the "Oh Mishima, you nelly". So true. He definitely is a nelly.

I heard the intro to Last Surprise over a thousand times and it never got old

Nice-- he squeezed in the ME:A burns here that he couldn't seem to fit in the actual ME:A review

I'm with Yahtzee on this one. I don't like JRPGs. I don't like the grinding. I don't particularly like the turn based combat. I don't like the stupid amount of grinding in the day life simulator, and the restrictions on it. Yet I love Persona. Why? Because I wanna see what happens next. The characters are so good.

I figured I'd revisit this review because I remember thinking that I agreed with a lot of the criticisms and wanted to see if there was anything from Persona 5 that didn't get fixed in Persona 5 Royal that I didn't think about or otherwise just missed. Basically every mechanical problem that Yahtzee points out is improved on IMO, and even some of the story problems (specifically villains with no nuance to them) although because the new story stuff is at the very end of Persona 5 Royal your proverbial 'Scooby Gang' does have to run through the full cast of Scooby Doo-tier villains still to GET to the interesting and deep villain in P5R.

I love chilling w/ my Scooby gang and pretending I'm a good student.

A video praising Persona 5 and putting down Mass Effect. This is all I ever wanted.

"If only there was more than one battle theme." Me: _laughs in Persona 5 Royal_

I can't think of this game without remembering the Gigguk video where he made a bit about the way you can romance one of the teachers with incredible enthusiasm.

Yahtzee was nicer on this game than I expected, not cause it's a bad game I absolutely fucking adore it, but because I know yahtzee's usual attitude towards jrpgs and I'm willing to admit P5 isn't perfect and Yahtzee kinda shreds games for their imperfections usually (in a good way, he's entertaining about it and it's his freaking job.)

How many other games give you an Atomic Popecycle?

60 hour rpg? That makes me laugh a little

yahtzee approved of my favourite franchise of all time - I can now die happily

"Putting together a Scooby gang..." Wait, I'm confused, I thought Persona 4 was the one where you solve a murder mystery...

The way you actually romance the personas is to be like them, that is to say, be like their personality. If you see a persona has the gloomy personality, act gloomy at them and they'll relate to you and join you.

huh, im surprised he liked it, you could say i never saw it coming. also the morality of what your doing starts getting called into question at around the half way point of the game, but i dont hold it over Yahtzee for not getting that far within his review window.

i hope he never stops making videos like this

As much as I love persona I completely agree about how un-subtle P5 is, especially the main antagonist

Did you forget that you can date your 20-30 year old teacher?

Suddenly this video is relevant again.

He found some combination of characters and story engaging enough to keep playing it. That's the gist.

so happy to see you do this! btw, for anyone playing the game, they hid a recruitment explanation in the tutorials. it becomes stupid easy to recruit, but they never bother to tell you it's there :P