| (Image property of Atlas and Sega) However, herein lies the rub, dear reader, because Persona 5 feels almost genetically engineered to break my resolve for efficiency. You see, while the game has many different stats and progress trackers to keep on top of, it only gives you a limited time to do it. Most days only have two time slots and, in each of these, you can only do one activity, usually with one person at a time because apparently all of our friends will start banging their head against hard surfaces if they don't receive 100% of our attention at all times. Once those two time slots are used up, the calendar ticks over to the next day and you have to decide all over again which attention leeches you want to sacrifice your meagre free time to. I admire this system greatly on an artistic level for promoting player choice and giving our actions weight but, on a personal level, it's going to give me an anime-induced hernia. As stated, I like to optimise but when you have a small army of quirky anime teens to hang out with, five social stats to keep improving, new personas to craft and a never-ending imaginary dungeon to explore, it is quite literally impossible to manage it all. As a result, I kept finding myself paralysed by choice and once I did choose what to do with my time, I usually ended up worrying that I'd selected wrongly.  | | (Image property of Atlas and Sega) This time management forced me to ask questions like "What if I get to the final boss and I haven't maxed-out my friendship with the dominating goth doctor lady?". Alternatively, "Will my gameplay be sub-par if I'm not besties with the motherly teacher who moonlights as a sexy housemaid and feels like an attempt to fill out a whole bingo card of fetishes with a single character?". These were never problems I'd had to face in games before, even if they would've livened-up that Guardian Ape fight. As a result of this anime anxiety vortex, something of a mental reset has been necessary for me. As you keep playing Persona 5, the calendar and your character follow the inexorable march of time forwards. What becomes apparent though, is that you're not supposed to be doing everything perfectly. I found that my party members didn't fold like limp noodles in combat because I didn't cuddle them enough in the real world. I didn't become any more of a social pariah than I already was just because I couldn't dodge the chalk that my teacher kept throwing at your head. The story marches on and takes you with it regardless of what you spent your social time doing. You could be doing a Schwarzenegger roid-rage challenge run where you only go to the gym in your off-time and the game would still continue. Fittingly, much like high school in real life, choices that seem significant in the moment all come out in the wash later.
 | | (Image property of Atlas and Sega) In essence, with its time management system, Persona 5 forces you, like no game I've ever played, to accept that your gameplay simply cannot be perfect. Just like the actions of our characters, our times with the game won't ever be flawless and, much like what our characters learn about themselves, they don't have to be either. Nobody puts things into perspective better than the game's own seemingly innocuous loading screens that simply read, 'Take your time.' There are too many activities for you to be able to do all of them and so the only choice you have is to do whatever you think is important. In a game that leans heavily on themes of free will and self-discovery, leaving players to figure out what is important to them is a pretty poetic piece of game design.  | | (Image property of Atlas and Sega) So, from what I have played, would I recommend Persona 5? Yes. Has it made me less of a perfectionist? No, but by forcing me to abandon my usual instincts while I play it, I cannot deny that it has offered me a unique experience that has made me glad that people recommended it to me. Just don't ask me to write a top five waifus list. I don't think I could handle that kind of scrutiny... or the shame. All intellectual property and images above belong to their respective rights holders and are utilised here for the purpose of criticism and review.
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