Stealers of Hearts

Another goodie from 2018. Man, does time fly. A sketch of Joker and friends from the original Persona 5.

Anyone who knows me closely knows I’m a huge JRPG aficionado, and played quite a bevy of them throughout my short time here on this rock. Obviously, as I grew older, it became more difficult to keep up with playing them; to piggyback off the last upload, time just slips by the longer we’re all here. Anyway, I played a ton of Atlus titles but never got a chance to play a Persona game until 5 came out (alongside the SMT games). I guess my own personal religious indoctrination made me afraid of playing the series for so long with all the demon references. I also associated with Atlus when they were helping out with publishing Cryamore then, so I felt the need to finally dive in. But it quite literally had a huge impact on my life, and still do to this day. I had just recovered from a deep betrayal and divorce, questioning my own identity after vocally leaving a cult; I was going through my own Awakening period. P5 was the first I’ve played after a long bout of depression, not touching any games at the time. So safe to say, this game holds a close spot in my heart right next to my favorites like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VII.