To sum it all up
Final Fantasy 15 will never be this stylish.
Final Fantasy 15 will likely be a great game that tries to simplify the story telling that bogged down previous entries, continues the tradition of introducing new combat styles, and strives to push gaming technology in a way that only the ambitious minds of Square Enix would. The fact this game survived a decade of development hell and is coming out in a state that already feels decent, is extremely impressive.
SE probably won't have all the answers for the problems we saw in the two demos, so I doubt Final Fantasy 15 will be seen as the Final Fantasy 7 of the PS4. Today's fans are too demanding for that. It's fine though, because as long as you keep your expectations in check, Final Fantasy 15 will be a worthy entry into the series. Barring some catastrophic happenings between now and September 30.
Persona 5 Is not trying to reinvent the wheel, it's improving on a rock solid core. There's a distinct vision that isn't being compromised by the developer's overreach, the weakness of the PS4 hardware, or changes of direction. It looks like a well planned and executed game by a team that has been on absolute fire lately, and that's why it will be the better game overall.
Sound off in the comments section below: Do you think Final Fantasy 15 or Persona 5 will be the better overall video game? Tell us why.
Story
This is a point that's heavily skewed in favor Persona 5. Has there been a bad Persona story? I don't think so. There have been some truly awful Final Fantasy stories though. Like Final Fantasy 10-2, which went out of its way to defeat the purpose of Final Fantasy 10, the entirety of the Final Fantasy 13 series, and a number of shoddy spin-offs from the main series.
The problem with Final Fantasy stories is the same problem with Final Fantasy visuals: Square Enix needs to learn when to say stop. Just look at the train wreck of FF13, with the fal'Cie, l'Cie, Cie'th, and the convoluted Focus. Fortunately, SE seems to be toning down their terrible made up bullshit quota for Final Fantasy 15, but at the same time taking the game dangerously close to the same song and dance JRPGs have done for decades. Stop me if any of this sounds familiar:
The bishounen prince of a fallen kingdom, armed with swords and magic, must reclaim his throne from the evil ruler of an empire that has taken over the rest of the world. He'll take on this overwhelming enemy with a party consisting of himself and three friends that come from different backgrounds and social classes. Along the way he'll seek out an oracle, clash with the empire's watchdogs, meet a chancellor that's probably the true villain, and inevitably discover the conflict is much greater than originally thought.
I'm not saying Final Fantasy 15's story will be bad. It may turn out to be a modern classic that builds on its archetypal foundation, but there's not a lot of unique ground to cover after 30 plus different Final Fantasy titles. Not if they want to meet expectations as to what should be in a Final Fantasy game.
That's not to say Persona 5 isn't also borrowing a basic set-up for its story: A high school student arrives at a new school, becomes friends with the outliers, and joins a special club of sorts. In its set up, Persona 5 sounds like just about any high school anime drama seen in the last few years, but then it takes a hard turn into Persona territory with the introduction of Personas and the“Palace.” From there, finds its own identity in the series through the thievery theme.
How many games that you know of involve thieves fighting against demonic casino owners, and stealing the ill intent from human hearts to make them better people, among other things? Unique stories filled with strong characters and good writing are at the core of the Persona franchise, just as integral as the art direction, and that isn't likely to change here.
Turn Based Combat
Persona 5's over the top style aims to make you forget the battles are basic turn based affairs.
Atlus has again sidestepped the issues Final Fantasy 15 faces by sticking with classic turn based combat. Persona 5 won't have many issues with the camera, combat will be done through menus, terrain won't be an issue, and dropped frames will not only be rarer, but less important. Atlus may not be on the cutting edge of technology, but they're taking the strength of a turn based system and pushing it to the bleeding edge of cool.
That's not to say turn based systems are perfect though. They have a nasty habit of becoming repetitive and boring, often devolving into bouts of holding the confirmation button and steam rolling weak mobs. The grind. It's a terrible downside that can lead to burnout, something I've personally experienced, killing desire to play any JRPG again.
Since Atlus doesn't have to worry about all the variables associated with real time combat and expansive open worlds, that extra time and effort can be put into mechanics and bits of style that keep the game fresh despite the battles being fairly by the books. Thanks to the use of gameplay footage to show off the game, instead of bull-shots and early demos that aren't representative of the final product, we can get get a great look at how Atlus is adding a little extra substance and a lot of flash to cover up the traditional weak points.
Look at the UI, instead of going the minimalist route Final Fantasy 15 is taking, Persona 5's UI is in your face, bold, vibrant and, pulsing like a loud, colorful dildo on a coffee table in a small, empty room. It's inventive and provides all the information in one entertaining glance, and despite its call for your attention, it doesn't overpower the rest of the action on screen.
Now you might be asking “How do you pull attention away from the metaphorical dildo?” By shoving a black and red elephant in that room and making it do sick ass gun-katas, that's how. The characters of Persona 5 are flashy enough that Atlus can get away with a UI that flies in the face face of the common knowledge that "Good UI tells you the important information you need, then gets out of the way." No, fuck you, you're going to look at this UI and love it. Atlus spent a lot of time making it look good and easy to use.
Persona 5 also provides stealth elements, falling perfectly in line with the thieving protagonists. Players can use them to score preemptive strikes, making gameplay out of initiating battles properly. From those preemptive strikes, the game almost seamlessly transitions into a battle sequence. It's beautiful. That's how Atlus is trying to avoid the monotony of Turn Based battles: The usual Persona mechanics mixed with stealth, and style two planes of existence higher than that of the competition.
Action Based Combat.
Final Fantasy 15 is going with a seamless world, and that includes the battle system. An Action-RPG battle system is something Square Enix has done pretty well before with Kingdom Hearts and even Type-0. When it's done right, it adds far more depth to a game, but there's also more room for error. SE has shown they can make ARPG systems that work in much smaller games, with less technical issues and limitations that were easier to work around. Trying to seamlessly implement this battle system in a larger, denser, and more varied world brings a ton of complexities to the table, that I'm not sure SE will overcome.
First and foremost is the camera, which took a hit in the newer Platinum Demo, often going crazy around objects and jerking about. Then, you have to worry about character controls during battle, and let's just say that the Platinum Demo shows SE is not quite Platinum Games when it comes to smooth combat and smart button placement. Finally, we can't forget about AI either: The AI controlled party members in Episode Duscae were often more hindrance that help.
You may argue that my critiques for some of those elements are subjective. After all, you may enjoy the control changes between Episode Duscae and Platinum Demo. Here's something that's not up for debate though: Frame rates are more important for these types of battles systems, and both Final Fantasy 15 demos become more like choppy slide shows than video games whenever you have a significant number of enemies or effects on screen at once, and it affects combat greatly.
Well timed perfect dodges, counters, and chain attacks are hard to nail when the game starts to slog about. In an attempt to combat dropped frames, SE dropped the resolution to 1600×900 on PS4 for Episode Duscae, and opted to use a dynamic resolution for Platinum Demo. It's a smart move, but not one that has really fixed frame rate issues, even with smaller groups of enemies and a solo protagonist. Unless you're somehow happy with cheap shots in battle because the console is shitting the bed trying to keep up with SE's ambition, it's an actual issue.
Visuals
The first, and most glaring differences between the two games are the visuals. Final Fantasy 15 goes for realism, while Persona 5 has a highly stylized aesthetic. Final Fantasy 15 is probably going to be a visual spectacle, like Square Enix games aim to be these days, but that likely means it's not going to age very well. Sorry, but realism ages like milk in the sun, in general it's a console generation away from looking like comparative crap.
Episode Duscae, the more entertaining of the two Final Fantasy 15 demos, looked like a normal countryside with Final Fantasy elements thrown in, and nothing more. If it weren't for familiar monsters and Final Fantasy's boner for crystals, all work done by previous entries, you wouldn't be able to differentiate the setting of Final Fantasy 15 from just about any other open world RPG. There's probably something in the full game that will resonate with players and set it apart. We don't know about it yet, though, and this is just based on my impressions of things I've seen.
The two best things Final Fantasy 15 has going for it are a slick looking, minimalist UI, that's undergoing changes, and phenomenal character animations for traversing different type of terrain.
In the case of Persona 5, we see none of these issues. Instead of crashing into hardware limitations and trying to push them further, Atlus uses anime inspired character designs and a visual style that could be described as coolness materialized. The only limitations thiese visuals run into is the creativity of the artists. Persona 5 will look just as gorgeous 20 years from now as it will on release day.
What's more the Atlus flair permeates every element of the game You can just look at it and feel the mishmash of quirk and colorful darkness radiating from your screen.At no point can you look at the Persona 5 material and think it could be anything but Persona. The character designs, the UI, the battle transitions, the cut-scenes, everything screams “Atlus Made” a seal of approval that's more synonymous with quality than Nintendo is right now.
In case you have bad taste in video games or have been living under a rock for a long, long time, you've heard of Final Fantasy. You might have also heard of Persona as well, since it has quickly become one of the most highly respected Japanese titles in the West. What we just recently learned, is that these two JRPG franchises, one an old powerhouse trying to make a come back and the other a spin-off franchise that has become more highly revered than its progenitor, will both see a September release. In japan at least…
There was a time when Atlus may have considered moving their game's release date far away from a Final Fantasy release, but that certainly isn't the case now. Atlus is the hottest developer in the Japanese gaming industry today, making everything they touch into a golden experience of polish and style, while Square Enix has let themselves be overcome by an inability to say “No” or follow a budget of money or time. Maybe Atlus just wants Persona 5 to steal Final Fantasy 15's thunder?
As a complete game, Persona 5 is probably going to be much better than Final Fantasy 15. Anyone who knows me, knows how much I hate hype culture in video games, but here I am drinking the kool-aid. So why am I getting hyped for Persona 5, and why am I claiming it will be better than Final Fantasy 15?
Lots of reasons actually.
