First, PERSONA is an RPG game sequel first published in 1996 for the PlayStation, made by a game developer named Atlus.
At first, the persona series was a spin-off from the predecessor series titled Shin Megami Tensei (1994) published by Bandai Namco.
Persona and Shin Megami Tensei had Story and Psychological aspects that uniquelly symbolize the world's situation when published like PERSONA 5 where phones and social media are used as dungeons in the game, called metaverse in Persona 5 where this place is used as a kingdom or dungeon created according to the user's wishes or even desire either bad or good. it symbolizes how in 2016 social media is rising and people using it as an escape from reality.
At first, I didn't play Persona, but after watching several YouTube videos, I think this game has a lot of uniqueness and the story is rich.
The gameplay is a little bit challenging, but it is still similar to Final Fantasy or maybe Honkai games, but the difference is in this game we need to use a persona, the persona is a manifestation of your character who will be used to kill other shadow a manifestation of people in a dungeon or this game is a boss in every dungeon you in.
The psychological aspect of this game is what I think made this game unique from other games, and here I think some of it is in the persona series.
- Persona and Identity
Identity can be said to be one of the main ingredients that builds the story in every game persona, where the character we play and the persona we have are based on our character's personality at the beginning which was triggered by a dark problem or certain event, this is the same as us or perhaps a child who makes imaginary friends as an escape from trauma. - Choices and Consequences
Persona can be said to be a pioneer in story gameplay which forces us as players to follow the story based on the choices the player makes, but in this game, the choices can come from friendships and our choices in everyday life. It could be said that activities outside of gameplay action are what determine the plot. even the personas we have in the game. - Character Relationships
In this game, we as players can invite NPCs (non-playable characters) to the party by forming relationships with them, whether it be friendship or even dating. this is where I think this game describes a situation where we as humans can make relationships with other people only with the same goal, in the end, you cannot be alone in this journey. - Existential
Many of the persona games take the theme of existential questions, especially humans who ask questions about the nature of reality, identity, and the meaning of life. where the character has a dilemma about his presence in life and whether the problems he faces are reality or not
Conclusion
I think Atlus has made a very good game, in my opinion Persona is one of the best RPG games which could be said to be underrated compared to some of its predecessor RPG games, and the story it tells is very rich, especially in the realm of human relationships.