Persona 5 - Boxed - PS3

In a casino, the group known as the Phantom Thieves of Hearts is cornered by the police during one of their heists. Unable to escape, the leader of the group (the game's protagonist) is arrested and interrogated. He then begins to tell his story. After the 16-year-old protagonist defends a woman who is being harassed by a powerful politician, he is charged with assault and given a suspended sentence, which leads to his expulsion from school. The protagonist is then transferred to Shujin Academy in Tokyo, where he is forced to live in a café called Café Leblanc, under the supervision of a friend of his parents, Sojiro Sakura. After starting school and making a few friends, the story really gets going.

Like its predecessors Persona 3 and Persona 4, Persona 5 plays out over an entire school year and combines elements of a social simulator with those of a dungeon crawler. During the day, the player must attend lessons and can spend free time on various side activities, such as playing sport, fishing, working out at the gym, watching TV, going to the cinema, hanging out with friends, taking on part-time jobs and so on. There's a new game mechanic, the Confidant system, which is similar to the Social Link system from earlier games and whose sole purpose is to encourage interaction with other characters and the building of relationships. The stronger the bonds with others, the greater the benefits (usually related to the Personas themselves). In a nod to older Shin Megami Tensei games, Personas are obtained this time through the negotiation system, in which the player characters talk to the demons they fight and try to persuade them to join the group through various dialogue options. Alternatively, players can also demand money or items from the creature. The Persona fusion system is still present, allowing the player to create more powerful Personas in the Velvet Room by fusing existing ones. Personas are obtained by visiting Palaces, this game's dungeons, which take on a physical form through the desires of corrupt individuals. Unlike in the predecessors, these dungeons are not procedurally generated, so they have the same layout every time they are visited. The visual presentation is based on the picaresque theme underlying the story and is very striking in the UI screens. Persona 5's theme colour is red, just as Persona 3 had blue as its main colour and Persona 4 had yellow. The game's soundtrack features acid jazz elements as well as hard rock elements during boss battles, setting it apart from previous titles.