Persona 5 Tactica & American Arcadia | Fully Ramblomatic 

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You don't hear people list "having a good ending" in game reviews that often.

The first half of this is evidence Yahtzee has fully joined the Persona fandom. He's officially in the "why isn't there a Persona (X+1) yet?" camp that pretty much everyone heads to after Atlus begins transparently milking the last main entry for all it is worth.

Seems Yahtzee has become a true Persona fan: loves the main entries; tolerates the spinoffs for the music

Yahtzee's lucky he only recently became a Persona fan because the agonizing gap between Persona 5 and 6 is new to him. He didn't have to deal with the large gap between 4 and 5. Or the large gap between 2 and 3. That said, the gap between 5 and 6 IS shaping up to take the record for longest gap between major mainline titles! So...that's something.

American Arcadia sounds like the title of a mid-tier YA dystopia.

Funny you mention appreciating a game's one good "fuck" placement in the same video as a P5 spinoff, cause P5 Strikers is my personal favorite of that category. A whole game and a half of teenagers avoiding the fuck word, using "eff" if anything, and then we get Ryuji's passionate "Shut the FUCK up" that hits so good

If one game makes a single good use of the word "fuck", then that's all the accolades a game needs.

Ironically, Persona 5 Strikers was the last time I remember a precision F strike in a game being genuinely impactful.

American Arcadia genuinely has one of the best endings I've seen in any narrative format. The perfect use of the F-bomb. The cynical yet hopeful tone. The characters being so perfectly in character. It's perfect.

What's that, Skippy? There's a new Fully Ramblomatic episode out today? What good news. 😊

"I was going to call it Persona Lack-tica but I was afraid people would think I was comparing it to breastfeeding." The things you have to think about when you're Yahtzee.

I was fully expecting "shows you just how important a good ending can be" to be followed by looking into the camera in silence for 10-15 seconds before the credits roll

Man, can I just say how jazzed I am by how phenomenally well the transition you guys made has been? It's like you guys never left, and also got better than ever. :D

What got me when playing Persona 5 Tactica was how stiff a lot of the side dialogue felt, and how flat many of the jokes landed. It gave me the overall impression that the localization team were phoning this one in a little, and the jokes made more sense in Japanese, but I don't know enough Japanese to tell. Maybe they gave this one to their jr localization team to work on for experience.

We’re gonna get a Persona 5 themed first person shooter made in the build engine before we get Persona 6

It interesting that wasn't a persona 5 spinoff that didn't go full on the stealth. You think being phantom thieves you would seen more sneaking in, but strikers goes "burst out into a widow and forgot the stealth".

I’m reminded of the Rory Award from HHGG for “most strategic use of the word Belgium in a serious screenplay,” I think American Arcadia earned Yahtzee’s version.

The GLORIOUS return of "man with blank expression". I am overcome with elation from seeing him once again. A Yahtzee staple.

I loved the story of American Arcadia, and fully agree that it sometimes drags on a bit but the ending makes it entirely worth it and satisfying.

I watched Prometheus, the attenpted prequel to Alien once. I predicted every single twist and turn on my first watch. My adopted moms ex wanted to know if I'd seen it before and it was just 'Nope. I just know how to recognize plot elements, and this is just copying the original movie.'

Endings make a huge difference. Despite getting numerous awards at Winter E3, Alan Wake 2 has become a 'wait for sale' game, simply because Yahtz said the ending sucked. Not super interested in media that just keeps trying to spinoff itself.

That thumb rotating from a sideways to a pointing up position has gotta be the first time I've seen an actual animation in one of Yahtzee's videos

I watched RTGame play American Arcadia, one of the few streams I stuck around for all the way through, and Yahtzee echoes my sentiments on almost all fronts - the protagonists do have a tendency to whine at times, but broadly speaking the plot is quite well paced. At some point there's a Twitch chat analogue in the game, and it was almost more Twitch-chat-esque than RT's actual Twitch chat was, weirdly!

Finally some love for American Acadia. The game is also great looking and while the story starts as the derivative Yathzee mentioned it goes its own way long before the amazing ending. I finished it in 7 hours and they were almost all wonderful.

P5T's combat was weird. Like, there's a bunch of different elemental attacks and they do...stuff? Like some of them can be kinda interesting, nuclear and hypnosis bring enemies together so you can get a combo easier...but then I never really felt like the game was deep enough for that to matter too often.

Okay I understand Yahtzee doesn't have the ZP license anymore, but the loophole to getting around that being that every character has a pair of glasses is going to take some time to get used to.

4:52 Was that a moving prompt? Holy shit! No, seriously, I think that was the first I've ever seen in this reviews.

You know its bad when Yahtzee is getting a bit tired of the Persona franchise. Considering he isnt far from being a anime character. I might consider american arcadia on a sale down the line. I get the distinct feeling its good for 1 playthrough but not repeat sessions.

WHY IS THE ENDING THEME SONG SO LOUD! Blows out my damn ears every time

I wonder if he'll get a chance to play "scene investigators". It seems like his kinda thing since he loved "Return to Obra Dinn"

That stupid ass chibi art style has put me off of so many Persona spin-offs, but apparently they sell. Presumably to people who thought the anime-esque characters were too expressive.

Really digging the dog as the imp’s replacement ❤

Awesome! I was really hoping that Yahtzee would play Tactica. As a fan of both Persona an XCOM, it seemed up his alley.

Any time I hear Yuri Lowenthal now, I reflexively say "You again" or "Shut up Yuri". Yuri is like Steve Blum with how often he is used, except Steve's voice is much easier on the ears.

Hope the Persona 3 remake reinvigorates Yahtzee's love of Persona.

I second the "Where Persona 6?" inquiry, Yahtz. Jesus, SegAtlus, this is getting to Skyrim levels of milkage...

American Arcadia was one of those surprisingly nice games, and Yahtzee pretty nailed the review.

I wonder if yahtzee will be doing a top 5 best, worst, and blandest list this year.

Bought American Arcadia purely on Yahtzee's recommendation. It truly was a good ending.

Speaking as a Sponsorblock user: What fun-hating whack-a-doodle is marking all the lovely wordplay as "Filler"?

As yahtzee described the gameplay of American Arcadia, I was thinking "Ugh, I don't think I wanna that", but when he said "I liked it because it had a really good ending" y went "oh, then maybe I'll give it a try". Goes to show how important a good ending can be that just the mention of having one can convince someone of playing the game.

I was worried you were losing your edge, Yahtzee, but I laughed at that last line. Signed, an Asian.

Nice to hear someone finally did a horror take on _The Truman Show_ given what horror fodder the original is. I'm sure it's been done before in some non-apocalyptic capacity, but I'm unaware of it.

Played American Arcadia because of this review. Had a blast. Thanks Yahtzee

They were better off making a persona 5 fighting game that would have been a bit more interesting

Hi Yathzee, i know it's not something you do but since it has been proved that things change (zero punctuation and all that) can you consider maybe on doing a review for game that came out in 2022? It's called "I was a teenage Exocolonist" (yeah i know, the title is what it is and i can already hear all the jokes lol) and it's honestly the best Visual Novel Game i have ever seen! it absolutely deserve a shoutout, exposure and reviews, it has the best writing i have seen in a long while.

I was 15 when Persona 5 came out in the US, and it was the perfect game for me. Now I'm 21 and it's gone on for too long, yeah I'm older but I've seen these characters do as close to everything as possible. Plus its getting really hard to keep buying these games without my girlfriend thinking I'm weird.

I do hope eventually they get the rights to ZP back, if only so they stop giving everyone glasses.

4:08 And Farenheit 451, especially around the middle of the end, and the themes it proposes. They also allude to Orwell a lot, but only one or two spots ever feel like 1984. Still, I loved it to bits!

0:19 If you count the mobile game crossovers, at least 20. And they haven't even been added to Fortnite yet. And that _is_ a yet. Unless Persona 6 surprises us by both coming first _and_ getting just as much attention and only one of those things is likely to happen. I couldn't tell you which one though.

Agreed with the ending bit of American Arcadia. That final sequence in the narrative is like a perfectly punctuated punchline. It's a tad bit anti-climactic, but dammit all if it isn't really funny.

American Arcadia? That's that game where you're a weird little fat dude going through platform puzzles in order to gather up your friends for a weird concert thing. Oh wait, that's Arcade America, nevermind.

God, it's been forever since I had a truly satisfying ending in a game, I should check American Arcadia out

3:01 Pretty sure that's literally every Persona game. Including the first two and one other of the second (I really don't know how to refer to that when Persona 2 is two games for some reason).

If you haven't killed God with the power of friendship by the end is it REALLY a japanese RPG?

Go play American Arcadia! Don't be a fool! That will make sense about 10 minutes into the game.

I think people forget there was nearly a 10 year difference between vanilla persona 4 and vanilla persona 5 and persona 5 made even more money so it’s not that surprising that they’re waiting even longer

What is this?! They made Zero Punctuation Red! What did they switch from P4 to P5?!

2:10 You might want to tell that to demons like High Pixie and Succubus then lol!

Didn't know another P5 game came out. Doesn't sound like I'm missing anything.

I wouldn't hold my breath for 6. Altus still haven't made a Persona 5 cooking game.

So, elephant in the room, but will there be an 'end of year' ramblionic (w)rap-up? (If so, will it just be the last 2 months of reviews? 😅)

I kind of feel I missed out on the whole Persona 5 vibe thing because of how long it took to get off of the PlayStation. Like the spin offs were already on PC before the main game even came out, and that game is so damn long to begin with. So I can’t really get the hype around more spin off games of a main game that couldn’t even be bothered to be on the same platforms it’s spin offs were on.

Angry Flanders won Yhatzee's heart

Insert differing opinion Yahtzee won't read here

now that its fullyramblomatic again, we need another limerick episode!

im really really liking the changing colors on the videos, i wont miss the piss days of yahtzee

I was so happy to hear Yahtzee say enough of the Persona 5 spin-offs because entries 3 through 5 being milked as hard as they have been is my biggest complaint with Atlus today. After Reloaded is done, I'm seriously hoping they take a break to do something else with RPGs. Personally, I want to see remasters of the first two. They placed extremely high in a popularity contest in Japan asking that very question, after all.

The massage parlor won't subscribe and like you back!

Uh-oh. FR liked a game. Instant wish-listed.

It's funny because I called the twists at the end of Arcadia pretty early on. Didn't call how depressingly realistic it would be afterwards though

I love how they're not just retreading the same ground as previous games, but retreading the same ground as previous spinoffs of the same game.

Playing through it rn, enjoying the gameplay quite a lot. The cutscenes are pretty long for what is really a simple story, actually leaves me wishing you were thrown into combat more often. I'm a die-hard P5 fan tho so I can imagine someone who isn't so invested in the series being put off by this

Person 1´s and 3´s original releases were hard as balls.

Has Yuri Lowenthal figured out how to not make everyone he voices sound the same?

Yatzhee's review made me somewhat curious about American Arcadia, but hearing that Yuri Lowenthal is in it fills me with dread. Not because the dude sucks or anything; he's one of my favorite voice actors, period. No, because I s2g Yuri has been stalking me since middle school and placed a curse on me to adore any character he voices.

Instructions unclear: ate my boss.

It's still jarring to not hear the old ZP theme at the end of his rants. But on the other hand, it's always a reminder that of you decide to make a massive life change, it can turn out way better in the end.

I love the character arc of yahtzee from angry with anime games, finally plays persona, loves it,now hates the over amount of spin offs, and wants the next proper entry. 😅

I still kinda love that Persona 5 got Yahtzee in it’s sticky anime clutches after he spent so long wanting nothing to do with anime. I don’t think everyone needs to bow down and worship at the altar of anime, but I do still get a chuckle when people who hate it suddenly find anime they like. It’s kind of wholesome in a let-anything-have-a-chance-to-surprise-you kind of way.

4:08 I was interested in American Arcadia and you were making it sound better than I thought but, oh my god, anything that reminds me of Deadlight is a write off for me

Not sure if I think American Arcadia's ending was "good", but I'll agree with Yahtzee that it's use of the word "fuck" during the final line before the credits is indeed immensely safisfying.

I just had a horrific realization: yahtzee does not have enough content in Fully Ramblomatic to make a best/worst/blandest list. And in such a... static year for video games.

I'm only just realizing that every character in Fully Ramblomatic has glasses. ...Not sure what I think about that.

Honestly my issue with the P5 Spin Offs is...fundamentally, they are either fundamental repeats of the original plot (Strikers) or functionally don't serve to show more of the world or anything about it (Tactica). Hell even Q2 spends most of its time pandering to the thieves than the xover actually being a xover. Add to this that for them being 'Thieves' the group rarely actually steals shit, Atlus refusing to let them have a proper xover with the previous games ala Arena, FUCKING JOKER PERMANENTLY BEING A SILENT PROTAG AFTER ALL THIS TIME. P5 as a plot is kinda going in circles because Atlus just doesn't want to let the thieves properly develop or go anywhere or explore anywhere, the fact that in Strikers Joker's Velvelt Room was still the twisted version that Yaldy made says a lot.

I've noticed in these reviews that the background keeps changing colour. Is there a reason for that? My thinking is it reflects his opinion during the segment. Red is negative, Green positive and blue neutral.

I wanna give props to the "the buck passes here" joke. Well done, sir.

I really enjoyed Tactica-I even enjoyed it enough to commit to a second playthrough for the obligatory _Fill Out the Compendium_ achievement-but I can hardly blame anyone for feeling uninvested. It's a decidedly low-stakes affair for the PT, comparatively speaking, and _Salmael_ has gotta be the weakest in a long, long line of very abrupt and _very_ underwhelming _inexplicable final boss deities_ that Persona has been compulsively pulling out of its arse for the better part of twenty years whenever it doesn't know how to close out a game. Damn shame too, because the boss of the third kingdom was the definite peak of the game for me, narratively speaking. Probably because that's when Toshiro finally gets his shit together. Fuckin' love Toshiro. I love him _way_ more than I thought I would. Elle too, although Toshiro is the real star of the show here. If you can tolerate the admittedly lacklustre gameplay, there's plenty of shit to love about Tactica. In fact, for as phoned-in as a lot of the obligatorily recurring _Phantom Thieves Moments™_ are (Makoto's fear of the dark, Haru being a low-key psychopath, Ryuji being too dumb to fucking breathe, Yusuke being weird, Morgana being a simp, etc.) I think there's a lot of individual fun and charming character interactions. Shoutout in particular to that one box-pushing sidequest at the very beginning of the game where Akira can just say, unabashedly _"I want the evil bubblegum dominatrix to sit on me."_ Mild paraphrasing, mind. And _everything_ between Toshiro and Futaba in the second kingdom was way more heartfelt than I ever expected it to be; ditto with Toshiro and Elle in the third kingdom, though I can't say more without risking spoilers. If anything, my biggest issue with Tactica is how Atlus handled it. Much as I loved my time with it, the game should _never_ have been released at full-price. Thirty bucks would be fine. Maybe forty with the DLC. But sixty fat ones is absolutely ridiculous. Ridiculous further still is the day-one DLC that charges twenty bucks for _three hours of gameplay_ that should blatantly have just been included as a prologue in the base game. It's doubly insulting that purportedly the DLC was created for the express purpose of showcasing more interactions between the _Royal Trio_ (Akira, Sumire, and Akechi) but the story takes place before Sae's Palace, so Sumire is still brainwashed into thinking she's Kasumi and Akechi is still maintaining his paper-thin _detective prince_ facade, so their tremendously sparse interactions are, by design, ingenuine. Such a wasted opportunity.

I remember how people got sick of all the Persona 4 spinoffs prior to Atlus getting bought out by Sega. People still bought them of course, but they still complained about it. Those spinoffs are now looked at more fondly, especially since Sega took a look at what Atlus did & said "hold my beer!" For those who don't know, Atlus admitted AFTER the buyout that they trotted out the spinoffs to keep themselves from going bankrupt. Sega on the other hand is just continuing with the spinoffs solely for money. You can tell the difference between them because Atlus actually TRIED to make good stories before the buyout. After the buyout, they just couldn't be asked to come up with decent stories for these spinoffs! I WOULD recommend a boycott, but I know it won't work as the gaming community is TERRIBLE at boycotting products. If you want proof, just look at the Pokemon & Hogwart's Legacy controversies with their so-called "boycotts!" The sales numbers will tell you all about how well it all panned out in both cases.

I'm a complete P5 fanboy and even I felt Tactica was...kind of alright, really. Felt lazy at times and the AI is very fucking stupid. A tactics game needs a good AI to function otherwise it's like playing chess vs yourself. But yeah at least we got some 5-6 new bangers I'm going to be obsessed for months

Personally, I liked Tactica. Was the plot fairly predictable? Yeah. Was it still fun? Also yeah. Although I have to say, the Repaint Your Heart DLC had a REALLY good story to it.

So, American Arcadia is basically The Truman Show crossed with Network?

"Cranially penile" is a new milestone for Yahtzee, god that's good. XD

Interesting reading the other comments about how Atlus takes forever to release new Persona titles and really milks the most recent game before they move on - as a non-Persona fan, I really wish more developers would actually take this approach! Make a quality product and really thoroughly explore it rather than burying it under a pile of mass-production filler. Historically, Nintendo should have done this with many, MANY games.

It is extremely rare, but every once in a while, a swear just works perfectly. It's a very difficult thing to pull off; there's got to be a good context, you have to get the timing just right, and which swear you use plays a big part as well. Go too soft in an intense situation and you've underplayed it, but drop an F-bomb after grandma forgets to flush and you've sucked away part of the simple, comedic joy of the situation.

As far as I'm concerned, box-pushing "puzzles" are the bane of puzzle design; they're not interesting, engaging, or challenging, and they're usually painfully slow.

Booby Booby Bum Bum

What bothers me about P5T, at least from the part I played of my sister's copy, is that they made all the fights so *small*. You get three characters, against 2-5 enemies, while the rest of your entire squad and the enemy's entire army sits around twiddling their thumbs. The phantom thieves are the perfect size for a proper military squad, and if you were up against full platoons of baddies in an interesting set of terrain that would go a long way towards making up for the extremely simplified combat mechanics. And those simplified combat mechanics would in turn make managing larger fights much more streamlined than it can ever be in the classic JRPG format. I went in hoping for xcom or fire emblem, except persona flavored. Instead I got a long series of largely meaningless tiny skirmishes where the only challenge was figuring out how to no-damage every encounter in four turns or less.

Funnily enough, I'm considering my local asian massage parlour tomorrow, as long as the fucking temperature drops below 40 fucking degrees here so it ain't too hot and sticky for... "massages".