#wasn't really expecting Phantom to get a rank-up from this event but okay

[hassiegfrieddoneanythingwrong]

Now that the new Christmas event dropped, two more Servants have gotten rank-ups, those being Atilla the San(ta) and Phantom of the Opera.

Santa Altera's first skill increases her NP gauge from 10-20% to 20-30% and gives her another effect by increasing NP overcharge by 1 for one time, three turns.

Phantom's third skill now increases Arts card effectiveness for all allies by 10-20% for three turns, increases NP strength by 10-20% for three turns for all allies when on a Darkness field, and changes his "increase mental debuff success rate" and "mental debuff resist" to just debuffs.

Edit (because I nearly forgot): There's been a refund of Grails and coins.

[makangerous]

Ayumu Rank 10 (Fortune Confidant)

You received a text message from Ayumu.

When can I see you next, Emi-chan? I have some great news! Would it be okay for me to visit you at your home to explain? I'm wondering if it looks anything like I've imagined.

You invite Ayumu over. The two of you sit on the sofa in your room.

I hope I'm not causing trouble for you, coming over this late. Sakura-san seemed suspicious of me. But I can tell it was out of concern for you. Hopefully, that prediction for more customers I gave him wins him over. As for your room… Whoa, looks like my guess was way off. You have lots of space, but not a lot to fill it with. Should we go furniture shopping soon? I'll carry all your purchases back for you. Plus, I need to pick out some for myself. …Oops, I might've spoiled my surprise already.

>Housewarming party time?

Ah, you remembered that? Yeah, we can have one for real now!

One of my clients said Fukui was asking around Shinjuku trying to find me. My gut reaction was to avoid him like the plague. Then I remembered that he rushed to my side in Mementos, and I figured I should give him a chance. When we met, he apologized to me. He said he never expected me to work so hard to stay where I was. He has no choice but to sell everything, apparently. But get this! He put in a good word for me with one of his friends. Starting next week, I'll be renting a one-bedroom apartment in Shinjuku! I guess going to that other world wasn't totally pointless. It gave me a good omen.

Hey…can I rest my head on your lap? You look comfortable. …Ahh. You're beautiful from this angle. I want to see you from every angle, eventually.

>Can I kiss your forehead?

Sure. …Ah! Emi, your lips are so soft! I don't know what I was expecting that to feel like, but it felt really nice!

I love you, Emi. My cute Phantom Thief… See, I guessed your surprise. Now we're square. How did I guess? For one, your aura betrayed you whenever I brought up Kiritani. Also, when you rescued me in Mementos, I opened my eyes for a split second. I saw you and your friends in costumes. When you lifted me up, your eyes full of concern beneath your mask, that's when I was sure I'd fallen for you…

>I love you too.

…Um, can you tell me that a lot? I don't think I'll ever get tired of hearing you say that.

We're a heck of a couple. A thief of hearts and a prophet of good fortune… nothing stands a chance against us! We'll change the world!

I am thou, thou art I… Thou hast turned a vow into a blood oath.

Thy bond shall become the wings of rebellion and break the yoke of thy heart.

Thou hast awakened to the ultimate secret of Fortune, granting thee infinite power…

Oh wow. Sounds like Sojiro has a whole crowd of customers down there. I think I overdid it, hehe. I guess that means I don't have to leave for a while…

(I spent a long time with Ayumu…)

Author's note: If you've read the entire confidant, thank you and hope you enjoyed Ayumu, he is definitely the cinnamon roll of the bunch! (out of my FemC replacement Confidants, the others are the Temperance, Devil, and Tower arcana) I have some other events written or WIP for him, including Christmas and White Day, along with a friendship route, but those will go up on Twine and AO3 when I eventually post the confidants there (mainly to avoid spoilers appearing on people's dashes).

[nonsensical-rants]

Expectations for Persona 5 Royal

Well, its been a while. I've been busy with schoolwork and my birthday recently passing so I apologize for that but it has also given me the opportunity to think about a lot of things. Such as the re-release of Persona 5 that was announced not to long ago. Honestly it's one of the biggest titles that I am looking forward to in recent memory. Borderlands 3 is also up there but that is neither here or there. Either way, I wanted to talk about what I want personally for this re-release and the expectations I am placing on it. So, with that said. Lets get started I guess.

Before you ask, no. I have no problems with the design of Kasumi’s Phantom Thief outfit. It fits with the theme of what someone with her mindset and hobbies would see as "rebellion". If you wanna talk about risque, why wasn't anyone talking about the literal dominatrix and whip combo from Ann? It's fine. Nothing else to really say. Though I saw on Twitter that her code name should be Ace, to contrast with "Joker" which I thought was a fun idea.

As one of my favorite JRPG's that I have put three hundred plus hours in, I can say that I am pretty well versed in both the story and game play elements of Persona 5. Am I an expert? Of course not. I have no say in what is actually going to change but a man can hope and dream. So to get started, I am happy with what has been shown in the trailers thus far. Game play seems to be getting even more sleek and has the group attacks that I loved from P4G (Persona 4 Golden). In addition to this, there is the new character! To put it simply, I think shes great based on what we know. Though I am concerned about what elemental type she'll be using against demons. As I have not heard anything concrete about it thus far. My guess would be here Light or Dark? But that's already taken up by Akechi.

Last thing I've seen in terms of game play is that (presumably) all party members will be getting a third persona just like in P4G! This is amazing for me because I felt that some of the designs were lacking when compared to the originals (Captain Kidd looks better than Seiten Teisei in my opinion). Other than that, we are gonna be able to play during the winter months instead of having it end abruptly which is fantastic. I want some kind of confirmation on new events, Haru Okumura getting more development, and maybe even being able to rank up Akechi, and Morgana's Confidant's on our own time. Leaving Morgana's second form Persona until the LAST Dungeon was a huge mistake in my eyes. It made me never want to use the poor cat as the rest of the party was already past their Second Awakening's and beyond powerful in comparison. He was more so left as an out of combat heal-bot. Which no character should have to be designated too.

As for my reason for mentioning Akechi's confidant. It was just.... So obvious that he was the traitor. At least for me, maybe you were surprised. But I immediately noticed the infamous pancake line which got my gears turning. Even before then though it was just suspicious that you couldn't rank up his and ONLY his confidant (besides Morgana like I mentioned, but he was with you from the beginning and hes the mascot. No way would ATLUS make the mascot character be the traitor). I am expecting to see another P4G idea converted to this game, in which Akechi's social link can progress naturally. But it will stop at rank 5/6 until you learn more about him via story beats. And if you reach that point before the story gets there, you can maybe save him?

Lets move onto the story then. I want a proper build up to the confrontation between Ryuji and Morgana, or to just have it removed entirely. It ate up way too much time and it annoys me how much shit Ryuji gets from everyone when he's trying his damnedest. Like yeah a few jokes is fine (especially because hes comic relief I guess?) but having to hear from Palace One: "Oh Skull, you're pathetic" from Morgana over and over, and how the whole team beats him up for saving them, but getting exploded out of the Metaverse? How is that his fault; he was knocked unconscious after Shido's palace and they blame him for not telling them when he physically couldn't! That's not even mentioning how his trauma is kind of underplayed after the Kamoshida arc. But that can be said about all characters after their arc is over. Ryuji deserves better all around.

We need to see more of Shiho! And not just in Ann's confidant. She's officially part of the story and Ann's best friend. Kind of an important character who went through. Just an awful experience. Player's should be getting the occasional update after Kamoshida's palace that she is okay! She attempted suicide and it is rarely mentioned after that point in the game. On my first play though it was all over my mind even after Madarame's confession. Maybe make her a confidant, but with no romance? I feel like it would be in bad taste to try and romance her after what shes been through. She needs more friends and more exposure to help her get back into the society of P5. She wasn't even in the finale where everyone decides to put faith in the Phantom Thieves!

Then there's Akechi, which. Like I said earlier. I think it would be fine if they took another page from P4G but modified it slightly. Similar to Adachi we could hang out with Akechi on our own time, and if we rank up enough before Shido's palace we can try to convince him to rejoin the Phantom Thieves? Or maybe during the end of Shido's palace some "Power of Friendship" shenanigans happen and he's able to defeat his Shadow and continue moving forward. Changing him from Justice to... Something beyond it. I dunno but it would be an interesting concept to see a semi-deranged party member fighting with Loki.

Oh! I almost forgot. For DLC. PLEASE let us be able to choose what music we want to hear for combat. There are some songs that play for combat that I LOVE with all my heart but the outfits associated with them just don't mesh with the style I want to use. Like I wanna hear Mass Destruction while wearing the outfits from Catherine. Or listen to the Persona 1 theme with the Casual summer/winter outfits. And this last one might be a bit much but. Could the ending cards (shown below) match the outfit the characters are currently wearing? In terms of design and style, P5 exceeds in every way but it's always disappointing me that I couldn’t see my band of thieves posing in their Winter suits or P4A outfits.

There are a lot of expectations for this game in my eyes and I hope it can live up to even half of them. Akechi doesn't have to be entirely redeemable. But he shouldn't be batshit crazy. Everyone has problems and he might just need help to work through it. Thats one of the lessons I took away from Persona 3. And it could work well here. With all that said, this game will be an instant buy for me, and I look forward to dumping another 300+ hours and 4 play through's.

It's also a huge shame we still have boring robotic Makoto as a party member instead of actual Queen Hifumi Togo, fight me. Haru is best, followed by Hifumi. There's my controversial take. Have a nice day.

Art from:

 https://www.reddit.com/r/Persona5/comments/7dbm8f/all_out_attack_pt_hifumi/