Persona 5 Royal - Way Too In-Depth Character Rankings
Added 2024-11-23 06:20:16 +0000 UTCAfter I mentioned on a stream that I spend way too much of my free time making in-depth tier lists with essay-length analyses for strategy games and RPGs, people asked me if I could share those on Patreon.
Some people really liked the one I did for Wargroove 1 + 2 alongside the audio reviews of that game. They asked for more.
Here is more. Roll over each colored box to read the notes.
The charts are as vague as possible, but do be aware they contain Spoilers for P5 and P5R. The games are quite badly written and their twists are so obvious as to be un-twists, so you aren't missing out on a lot if you haven't played them yet.
Of course, I already had an in-depth document about my opinions on each of the party members and confidants in Persona 5 that I made after playing the game twice for research to make So This is Basically Persona 5 and then playing the copy of Royal, the updated re-release that Atlus gave me a free copy of.
But like, why just post that when I can spend 110 hours playing the game again, right?
So I played through the game to show it to Amy (she fucking hates it). And then I realized that I was pretty close to 100%ing the game. So I might as well play it a fifth time to experience the entire thing.
Y'know.
I have this problem where I love digging into the bones and marrow and sinew of a game and dissecting it like a science lab frog in order to see how it ticks. It's fun to me to experience every aspect of a game. Which things are critically important? Which things do you absolutely need to do? Which elements of the game are fucking pointless wastes of time, and why? How does the game change if you ignore those elements and remove them? I love that shit. I go to the games. I eat the game design.
So, what originally started as a glorified tierlist of Persona 5's playable characters and befriend-able confidants turned into a full breakdown of the entire game. Which party members are written well (it's none of them), which ones are fun to use in battle, which confidants offer good abilities, and a way-too-in-depth breakdown of every single way you can spend time in the game and the ones you should do when you play vs. the ones you should never even look at. Plus, 100%ing the game means I had to date everyone, which was awful, so I threw in a romance tier chart too.
Also, Amy is very funny and she threw in a column of her thoughts on the characters. Mine is graded on a bell curve. Hers is not. She hates this game so much, lmao.
Here are the above Tierlists, by the way. I hate how Patreon blurs the preview images, so I'll put them down here as well.
EDIT: These look good as previews, but you can't zoom in on them! What the heck, Patreon? Oh well, just use the ones up top I guess, LMAO.
The Confidant Tier List is based exclusively on their mechanical benefits. It does not factor in how hard they are to unlock or how well they are written. That stuff is in the more detailed chart.
There are no good romances in Persona 5.
If you made it to the bottom, thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed.
This upcoming month is going to be a good time to be a Patron. I am planning to have So This is Basically One Piece done within the next 2 weeks and I'd like to wrap up the Anime Openings video by the end of the year, though we are traveling to see both my parents in Chicago and Amy's parents in St. John's, so it may end up coming out just after New Year's.
I'd also like to make a post about Potionomics, the game that I did vocal direction for last year. That game is great. I should probably stream it again.
Anyways now Amy wants me to play Fire Emblem 3 Houses which sounds awful so one day I'll do a tier list and audio review about that. I'll tag this type of post as "Tier List"s for now. Let me know if you guys like these or they're stupid and you don't want to read my 500 page essays about games that came out almost a decade ago, lmao.
Comments
No you get to hear the things I agree with. Futaba x Joker is weird and I’m very glad you like Yoshida, he’s incredibly underrated and not enough people acknowledge his existence.
Crippling Depression
2024-12-22 06:31:40 +0000 UTCThat was most circles for a long time. The discourse has soured on P4 for a while now that people are less forgiving of anime bullshit and people have more representation in media so they don't have to cling to Persona 4 and its problematic content, but P4 was fucking gigantic for a long time cause people thought it was genuinely well-written and designed.
Daniel
2024-12-03 23:47:22 +0000 UTCI'm sorry, what circles are you in where P4's story is a thing that people speak positively about???
PurpleIsDebeste
2024-11-28 17:10:08 +0000 UTCThis kind of proves to me at least that P5 story wise is the worst in the series. The runner up is P2IS but even then the worst of that is simply the party doesn't have good chemistry with each other, and it's salvaged by P2EP which has a fantastic story. I have yet to play P1R so I wouldn't know about that game's plot but everyone joyfully speaks so highly of P3 and P4's plot while I hear a ton of mixed things regarding P5
SignedCentaur
2024-11-25 18:35:01 +0000 UTCNo but people write stuff
Daniel
2024-11-25 15:21:10 +0000 UTCThey clearly want Ann to be useful as the “charming seductress lady character” and, to her credit, I do think she’s very committed and useful to the phantom thieves, considering she absolutely DID NOT have to do what they asked her to at Madame’s and frankly should have been furious at them. But also. The reason she shouldn’t have done that is because she’s a SEXUALLY ABUSED TEENAGER and they STILL make her the charming seductress girl like come ON get a grip writers!!!
PurpleIsDebeste
2024-11-24 19:24:59 +0000 UTCThankfully no. Some of the P4 spinoffs get gross about Narukami having a sister complex, but it never goes as far as being in a romantic sense.
Filip Kanzurovski
2024-11-24 07:12:53 +0000 UTCI'll give Morgana this: at least he isn't Teddie P4. Congratulations Morgana, you win second worst place.
Azelhia
2024-11-24 07:06:22 +0000 UTCThank you. I aspire to be a good game dev so I'm always thinking about these kinds of things. I think it could work well in other large team RPGs as well. I first thought it up playing Persona Q because of the sub-persona feature. Where there were more slots to put minor features on, such as Nav specific ones. Also playing through Reload reminded me that the lore of Persona is they have categories. Like Mitsuru can supposedly work as a Nav persona, and has quite a respectable range. (It's just that Fuuka is obscenely better at the job). Shame they didn't lean into that more, having more roles for party members when they're not in the line up. P5 also could have used more roles, such as having your benched party members acting as solo agents. At the very least I'm surprised there was no Sniper option, letting you get some chip damage automatically when starting random battles.
Crimson Claw
2024-11-24 04:10:37 +0000 UTCI actually don't do this at all in most games where you can Min-Max. Like I never spend time making the best kit or breeding Pokemon for the best IVs or whatever. But when a game gives you a limited resource, I think it's really fun to see how far you can stretch it. One of the reasons I like Radiant Dawn so much is because the character availability is terrible and there's such a low amount of EXP to go around. It's fun to see who you can raise, how you can do it, and which characters are worth the time. It's less about being the best at something and seeing how far any given mechanic can go before it snaps in half like a tightrope.
JelloApocalypse
2024-11-24 04:05:19 +0000 UTCisn't she like seven
JelloApocalypse
2024-11-24 04:03:12 +0000 UTCoh jesus christ you can't actually date nanako can you
JelloApocalypse
2024-11-24 04:03:04 +0000 UTCI tried to use it so many times and I swear to god it NEVER works now.
JelloApocalypse
2024-11-24 04:01:30 +0000 UTCName two things you disagree with and I'll fire a cannon at you in response
JelloApocalypse
2024-11-24 04:01:02 +0000 UTCThis is a fantastic idea tbh
JelloApocalypse
2024-11-24 04:00:30 +0000 UTCI absolutely love these lists. Can't really disagree with a single point. It does remind me that I DESPISE the navigator "system" they have in these games. It's not really a system since you can't actually change navigators but they act like the one the give you is ✨special.✨ Where as if you COULD switch navigators it could be really interesting. For P5 you could have Morgana, Makoto, Futaba, & Akechi (P5r only) as navs with various benefits. Early Game Morgana would be interesting as a Nav, because either he's in the party OR being the Nav, not both. And his Nav specific abilities could be based around restoring HP after fights and reducing how long status effects last. Maybe decreasing the cost of buff spells. Makoto meanwhile could act as a more aggressive and synergy focused Nav. Perhaps having a 50% chance to change which party member goes first in battles to be the one with the ability to hit enemy weaknesses. And could have passives that increase baton pass damage. Futaba would be more of an exercise in making her a combat character, but as far as Nav abilities restoring SP and providing benefits to benched party members fits her. Plus her signature position hack. And finally Akechi could be ANYTHING and I'd still pick him because he has the best lines. 😂 But if I had to give an example, he could have passives that make enemies have a chance of starting battles with status ailments, or increases susceptibility to them. Also decreasing debuff costs. But we all know Atlus would NEVER implement a good idea, so it's all a mute point. But a man can dream...
Crimson Claw
2024-11-24 03:25:29 +0000 UTCConsidering the sheer amount of time you have put into this. What would YOU do if you made a Persona game?
Crippling Depression
2024-11-24 01:41:13 +0000 UTCSome of the things on your sheet are the most insane and horrible opinions I have ever seen which is why I paid money to seem them. In general your opinions somehow range between “hey this is actually a good point.” To “What is going on in your brain.” I want to study you under a microscope.
Crippling Depression
2024-11-24 01:28:49 +0000 UTCDidn't give the theater a 7 for "The Cake Knight Rises", another bad Jello take, smh. In all seriousness, I really enjoyed reading over this breakdown, and I can't wait for your nuclear bombardment of 3Houses' systems and writing, given what you put together for Wargroove and P5 already.
Act One
2024-11-23 22:56:58 +0000 UTCYeah, Atlus could’ve done a better job integrating the confidant routes with their respective roles in the plot. If how she’s written in the story doesn’t change regardless of confidant level, then yeah it would feel a bit disconnected to go back and forth from “i have an arc, im just trying my best” to “im gonna continue acting like a level 1 confidant because my dialogue wasnt written differently, i hate you”. I’m not defending that “think of MY feelings” line. If the last third of her confidant can be accessed before that, it wouldn’t even make sense for her to say it. And if that last third can only be accessed AFTER that, even if it makes sense cause she hadn’t gone through her arc at that point, it still wouldn’t change the fact her demeanor does come off as too unlikeable, I’ll give you that. Again, I’m not defending Kawakami, I’m just trying to interpret what the writers were going for, even if it’s badly executed.
George Blanchard
2024-11-23 22:39:08 +0000 UTCI love persona 5’s music but the writing is… not good sometimes (read: almost always). I found this game when I was like 15 though so it kinda formulated a core of my personality😵💫
Reina Baker
2024-11-23 22:13:19 +0000 UTCI've spent some time thinking about the Persona 5 party before, and one of the interesting things I've never seen anyone else mention is how each Phantom Thief is a archetype from a heist story, and why that doesn't work within the mechanics of the Metaverse. Joker is the leader and the one who directly pulls off the heist, Ryuji is the muscle, Ann is the seductress and people person, Morgana is the stealth guy with a bunch of tricks, Yusuke is the art guy, (Yeah this is kind of reaching for him,) Makoto is the strategist, Futaba is the tech specialist and Haru is the rich one with connections to high status The problem with each of them filling these archetypes is that they're not stealing from real places, so only Joker, Makoto, and Futaba can actually do things. Yusuke provides the cards at least, but Ryuji, Morgana and Ann only ever have like one moment where they provide anything of value. Ryuji is presented as the muscle, but due to persona powers everyone is on the same level of strength. The only time where his fitness is ever important is at the end of Shido's palace, and for finally doing something the entire cast comes to reward him by beating him half to death. Like Ryuji, one of the few times Ann tries to seduce someone is in Shido's palace, but that was entirely unnecessary as they could have just killed the shadow she tried to seduce immediately. She at least manipulated Yusuke so they could get closer to Madarame, but after that she doesn't matter to the story at all. Morgana also sucks and I hate him, he also only does like 2 things of actually value throughout the entire story. With Haru, she doesn't use her wealth to help fund the Phantom Thieves, and shadows don't care about money so she can't use it to influence them through bribes. She also never uses her high society connections to get the thieves into new places, mainly because they aren't needed for Sae's palace, and Shido knows she's a thief so she can't access his palace in the way Makoto did with Kaneshiro.
Your Moist Toast
2024-11-23 19:46:19 +0000 UTCInsert the spreadsheets into my veins. Okay now to be normal - the biggest disagreement I have is that I would have Yoshizawa hanging around with like, Anne when it comes to the quality of the writing. I think the biggest reason her confession comes across as the most "mature" isn't actually because of anything to do with the character, but instead because the people who wrote her stuff in Royal are thoroughly boring writers - as opposed to everything else which has moments of consistently incorrect writing choices. All her stuff just feels like it's... comparatively competent, and in a game where a lot of my enjoyment comes from seeing the stuff that sucks, this just makes her boring, even for a Persona 5 character. This of course is in part influenced by how much her inclusion into the story feels like it was done in the final hour because they realised they put some new girl into the new intro.
Azelhia
2024-11-23 19:44:43 +0000 UTCMan, yeah, the Lucky Punch/etc nerf is... like, objectively, really small, down from 50->55 to 45->45, but like... the difference between "better odds of critting than not" and "worse odds of critting than not" takes it from a gamble that's net-positive to one that's net-negative. Going from "technically worth it" to "technically never worth it" means Morgana loses all his lategame utility against the no-weakness shadows. Did they just, what, want to require the player pivot to using exclusively Technicals for knockdowns? (Because in my playthrough I didn't do that, because I didn't realize you could do that, and just kept using Morgana and raging at the RNG every time it failed, which was often. Oops.) Also- y'know what they should've done with Ohya to take her from "utterly useless" to "maybe sometimes useful" is make her a Danger Mario sort of option. It's already bizarre that her "scoops" *lower* the security level- if they instead *rewarded* you for having a high security level, that could be a fun mechanic. Profiting off bringing things to people's attention! Instead she's like... Saffron Potionomics in a game where you never actually take Stress, when flavor-wise it would make more sense for her to be Luna.
Benedict Ide
2024-11-23 19:26:22 +0000 UTCYeah, I like Futaba but Joker dating Futaba is like a milder version of Narukami dating Nanako. They only make it ok cause "not blood related and near in age," but in the Social Link blind main story shes straight up the friend's little sibling everyone allows to hang out cause shes cool.
Daniel
2024-11-23 19:08:35 +0000 UTCAgree with literally everything here, except that I had more affection for Sojiro then you guys do. I think that's mostly his voice acting though lol. I like Persona 5, but really just for the style and panache the game has; strip that out and the story is frustrating and most of the characters are weird fetishes. You have to have your "forgiving of anime's weird sexual choices" goggles clamped on HARD for this one. There's always some fucking thing that ends up knocking the legs out from under the themes in Persona games. It's worse in P4 (game where Kanji is afraid of being perceived as a gay stereotype and then is made fun of constantly for liking "gay" things. Also most of the character's arcs ending with a "shut up and conform" message) but it's definitely present in P5 too. Constantly forcing Ann into weird sexualizing scenarios, everyone yelling at and beating up Ryuji all the time, and the ending of vanilla P5 being "actually it's futile to try and fix things outside the system like you've been doing all game, to actually get anything done you have to have insider friends helping you get out of an unfair system your actions had no effect on and there's nothing you can do about it" And you are correct, Ann is definitely a lesbian.
Emma Breslauer
2024-11-23 18:59:11 +0000 UTCDouble dipping here because I want to lay out something I've been thinking about for awhile now. I recently replayed persona 4 for a paper and found myself disliking it more than I did as a teenager, and I never REALLY liked Persona 5 beyond its style and the thesis of its themeing. But i think what I find intriguing is that the reason that both the Investigation Team and Phantom Thieves are so insufferable is because they are copying the dynamic of SEES without underatanding why SEES in P3 is like that. The P3 party members are there by force. The Dark Hour will happen to them whether they want to be there or not, the threat represented by the Dark Hour is both more tangible, broad reaching, and immediate, and thus the students are safer and more easily used as a paramilitary organization when forced to live in the same dorm. Not all of SEES HATES eachother, but they aren't really there by choice (Shinji representing the denial of the call). The MC of P3 is basically the only person in their lives that attempts to hold them together and help them, and so all of them find not so much FRIENDSHIP (they really dont hang out outside missions and school stuff) but comradery in each other. When the Answer starts, and the mc is no longer there, they have to confront the fact that they arent REALLY friends, hence the bickering. They ultimately come away some what better. Not to overhype P3, its still anime as shit so calling it "well written" might be a farce, but there is SOMETHING to their antagonism of each other. P4 couches the antagonism of the Investigation Team as teenage ribbing and shittiness, which is like... Kind of accurate? I definitely partook in casual homophobia and overall shitty behavior as a teen in the 2000s, though i push back against the sheer perversion and level of homophobia displayed as "normal." Theres definitely cultural stuff in the way too, but theres a level at which I can at least take P4 as it is because they are rural teens in 2000s japan. Not a winning formula for kindness, and I genuinely DO believe they will become better people. But P5 really has no excuse. These kids are working specifically for SOCIETAL benefit, and the THEME OF THE WORK is societal outcasts, abuse of power, and bullying. WHY ARE THESE KIDS SO TERRIBLE TO EACH OTHER????? Why is Ryuji treated like such a pathetic loser even amongst his FRIENDS??? Why is Ann still used for her sex appeal after her arc about harassment?? Why is Yusuke only ever "weird (half affectionate)"???? At least with Makoto, her whole bit is like 'I'm upper caste and a hard worker and doing everything right so my initial empathy for people who i see as doing things wrong is low' so her change from REALLY shitty to basically a nothing burger makes some sense (Haru should probably also have had a similar arc but instead Mona and Ryuji fight so whatever). These kids should want more from people, including each other! The abstract of their whole mission is "do better"!!!!! This whole story shouldve done what persona 3 did with their ultimate personas and make them unmissable story progression because the Thieves are boosting each other up so much! Instaad we chase down the cattiness of the party from two games ago cause P3 was the one that popularized the format
Daniel
2024-11-23 18:40:38 +0000 UTCTo clarify, I mean the aggressive min-maxing
Daniel
2024-11-23 17:56:43 +0000 UTCI mean this as affectionately as I can, playing video games the way you play video games would make me hate video games
Daniel
2024-11-23 17:52:01 +0000 UTCHard disagree. What you're saying is how I felt after my 3rd playthrough when I was skipping the story but reading the Confidants. If you take Kawakami's route in isolation then she seems like a beaten down but ultimately good person. She is just straight up fucking AWFUL in the main story. It's not a tired woman struggling to hang on to what she loves. It's a woman who hates her students, openly. Truly every moment where she could show even a lick of compassion, she decides to be cruel. When the police start coming to the school to investigate Phantom Thief activity she's like "Ugh, I know you guys are upset because the police are coming to the school since your principal committed suicide and the gym coach was sexually assaulting you, but please think of MY feelings. It's very hard coming up with things to say to you when you're in danger." That's not a joke. She actually says that. FUCK Kawakami. She's 100% irredeemable outside of like the last third of her Confidant. I will not take that in isolation.
JelloApocalypse
2024-11-23 17:21:34 +0000 UTCIt's honestly not about the age with Futaba. It's the fact that Joker is clearly in an "older brother" role with her and he's acting as her guardian whenever they go out together. Futaba getting a crush on Joker makes sense, he's Joker, of course you'd get a crush on him. But the idea of taking advantage of this socially confused, isolated character who trusts you implicitly so you can date her is SO disgusting to me. Yoshizawa is also young, but Joker's 17 and a 17/15 age gap isn't that bad. It's not even unrealistic, I knew people in high school who dated with wider gaps than that. Yoshizawa's feelings toward Joker are like the only place where she comes across as confident, and her confession is the most mature one in the entire game, so I think it reads as cute. She and Joker are equals, unlike Futaba, who is hardcore Little Sister Coded.
JelloApocalypse
2024-11-23 17:15:51 +0000 UTCLast palace navigator Aketchi really is the best/funniest part of the game. They made the hilarious decision of just letting him be an unhinged little freak, and it was great!
Abby_Gale
2024-11-23 16:43:02 +0000 UTCyou act as if 500 page essays about a decade old game aren’t exactly why we’re paying for your patreon
Violet DB
2024-11-23 14:21:20 +0000 UTCStill reading this, but pausing to note that there's a typo in the Twins box that made me laugh and now "fucking feak behavior" is going to be stuck in my head forever.
Benedict Ide
2024-11-23 14:21:16 +0000 UTCThanks as always Jello!
Jack Patterson
2024-11-23 13:52:00 +0000 UTCThis is so weird, because I JUST listened to the Open Thoughts Persona 5 post yesterday, and then this drops. Lol
Jack Patterson
2024-11-23 13:51:43 +0000 UTCoh jello i have WONDERFUL news for you if you enjoy being sad and liking this game less Yoshizawa is the same age as Futaba yayyyy!!
PurpleIsDebeste
2024-11-23 13:27:38 +0000 UTCalso like. have you been to a school? every teacher who loves teaching also fucking hates teaching
PurpleIsDebeste
2024-11-23 12:36:47 +0000 UTCYESSSS yes yes yesssss
PurpleIsDebeste
2024-11-23 12:22:38 +0000 UTCI will agree that Kawakami's romance is gross and bad and awful and bad. But I will disagree on her saying she loves teaching not making sense. Yes, she clearly looks like she’s done with it, but you mention her arc about tutoring a student. So when the student probably died, it led to her blaming herself and losing that passion from before the events of the game. Everything about her obvious disdain points to her being a shell of what she once was. She's stuck in this rut of wanting to love teaching again, but can never quite get there after the incident, but can’t quit because of her sunk-cost fallacy of putting so much into being a teacher. And she also doesnt want to quit because part of her still holds onto that love, hence why she would still say she "loves" teaching. Either she's lying to herself, or that love is still inside trying to get out, but is trapped in her own misery and Joker has to help her get through it. Does it seem like I'm filling the cracks myself? Maybe, but there ARE characters out there who try to hold on to what they used to love, even if it means getting stuck in a pit of self-loathing until the protagonist pulls them out.
George Blanchard
2024-11-23 10:40:36 +0000 UTCThis is great, (and pretty accurate honestly) but I'm mostly curious about why? Why do you put so much effort into these? You could have done it as a little text blurb or something basic and left it at that. But it seems like you really put some effort into organising it, kinda like what you're doing with the 100 OP's video. To clarify, I really like hearing your well researched opinions and you making these diagrams is certainly really useful, I just want to understand why you put so much effort into it. Especially in places like this where is seems like most of your thoughts on the social links are between mid and negative.
Megabutler
2024-11-23 09:47:21 +0000 UTCIt's so funny to me that you would read Joker as the one who's down bad for Akechi instead of vice versa. We ended up playing Joker as a literal "Eyyy I'm a joker" who always did bits in our run, so we kept responding to Akechi with the most vapid, stupid stuff. He'd be like "What do you think of the Phantom Thieves?" and Joker would go "What do... YOU think?" and because Akechi is written to react the same way no matter what he just goes "OH MY GOD, YOU'RE SO STIMULATING, WE SHOULD HANG OUT *sweats awkwardly*" It's very funny
JelloApocalypse
2024-11-23 08:41:04 +0000 UTCYusuke is the most valid option for boypicks, you are correct
JelloApocalypse
2024-11-23 08:39:07 +0000 UTCI'd honestly rank Yusuke as the best romance even though he doesn't get one. The writing for his link is just SO weirdly romantic?? I wish the creators didn't treat it like a damn joke, cos if they actually let us go gay for this dude it woulda been way better than most of the canon options 😩
Bunni89
2024-11-23 07:49:08 +0000 UTCA part of me wants to ask to do Persona 3/Reload. But I idolize that game and don't want the illusion ruined. Imma reqatch Stars and Time playthrough again.
Masofuts
2024-11-23 07:40:32 +0000 UTCI 100% agree with all of this especially that all the romance options are bad. The only pairing I really like is Joker/Akechi, and even then I think that they only work well when they're like estranged exes with Akechi being The One That Got Away and Joker never quite getting over him.
Umbralala
2024-11-23 07:38:14 +0000 UTCYeah, I’ve willingly put almost 200 hours into it and fully admit it’s a terrible game. Still had fun though. Though what do you think is the single good thing about it?
Noah Pilgrim
2024-11-23 06:45:35 +0000 UTCI think almost everything about the most recent Gen of Pokemon is really bad, sorry!
JelloApocalypse
2024-11-23 06:42:55 +0000 UTCSince I’ve got your attention, I was just curious about your opinion on the gen 9 new evolutions?
Noah Pilgrim
2024-11-23 06:40:07 +0000 UTCthis was awesome, pls do more of these!
Call me Caesar
2024-11-23 06:39:40 +0000 UTCThat'd be the reverse where I give everything a D or F ranking and Amy is like "I like all of it :)"
JelloApocalypse
2024-11-23 06:37:54 +0000 UTCAn Orre Tierlist would be hilarious for the 5 people that can play it genuinely, (Including me, you and Yam.)
Noah Pilgrim
2024-11-23 06:34:38 +0000 UTCPersona 5 is a game who's most praised aspect (the characters and story) are easily the weakest part
Luke Negus
2024-11-23 06:33:35 +0000 UTC
