Parents' Guide to

Persona 5

By David Wolinsky, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 16+

Mature, violent RPG shows lots of style, mild plot issues.

Game PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 2017
Persona 5 Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this game.

  • Persona 5 screenshot #1
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Community Reviews

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age 14+

Based on 36 parent reviews

Noah T.
Noah T. Parent of 11-year-old
February 23, 2023
age 17+

Great game, but not for kids

This is a great game with a lot of content (100+ hours). As an adult, I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's a great combination of JRPG and visual novel. I think the ESRB of M (17+) is appropriate because of specific things that happen in the game, though most of the game is probably closer to a Teen rating. There are a lot of deep and dark topics including suicide, stalking, murder, physical and sexual abuse, rape, police brutality, and other crimes. The protagonist is portrayed as someone who is approximately 16 years old and has romance options with characters ranging from 15 years old to mid to late 20s, including a romantic relationship his homeroom teacher who moonlights as a sexy maid/adult escort. While there are no explicit sex scenes, they are implied in some places. There isn't a lot of blood in the game. Most of the blood is brief, like the first time characters get their personas and rip off their masks, they bleed from where the mask was. Some of the characters in the story also die a fairly gruesome death, bleeding from their eyes and other places. There are at least two enemies in the game that are definitely not for children. One appears to be the head of a penis and is oozing what appears to be semen. The second appears to be a full on penis, with tenticles, on wheels. One of it's attacks is to squirt a dark liquid from its tip. Allegedly, these both have mythical origins from somewhere, but nonetheless some parents may find these images offensive and inappropriate for children. For a preview of what a lot of the story of this game is about, Persona 5 The Animation follows the exact same story. It's available to stream on Hulu and Crunchyroll as of 2/24/23.
2 people found this helpful.
cosmicdrew
cosmicdrew Parent of 7, 11 and 15-year-old
October 28, 2022
age 13+

A Rare Masterpeice, Persona 5 Navigates Very Heavy Issues with Finesse While Being Fun & Stylistic.

One of the best games in modern history. Though it deals with very dark issues including death, the responsibility of death, sexual abuse and many more deep issues, Persona 5 navigates these subjects with finesse that's rarely seen in the gaming industry. I see this game as an amazing tool to teach teenagers how to deal with the difficulty of the world and overcome overwhelming obstacles. It may take 100 hours to play but it gives the game time to fully develop while tackling such heavy topics in one of the most enjoyable ways possible.

This title has:

Great messages
Great role models
See all 36 parent reviews

What’s It About?

Trying to effectively recount the story of PERSONA 5 is hard. You play as a high schooler who, after trying to place an attempted rapist under civilian's arrest, is sent to live with your uncle. Rumors about what really happened spread around the school and marginalize you, leading you to form a tightly knit group of friends of other outcasts and people similarly dogged by exaggerated rumors. You all band together as the Phantom Thieves of Hearts vigilante group to engage in battle in the cognitive realm -- an alternate dimension where the twisted desires and tormented wishes of others manifest physically. As time goes on, you discover a massive conspiracy that you have to stop before it destroys the world.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (36):
Kids say (80):

There's a lot going into this complex RPG that can absorb your time completely, but some missteps lightly tarnish this mature game experience. In reality, Persona 5 is a dungeon-crawler, social simulator, and time-management headache all wrapped up in one package. This is what the Persona series always has been, and part of what makes this latest entry excel and shine so much more are, curiously, very tiny touches. For example, the game's user interface has a funky '70s aesthetic (including the soundtrack), adding a much-needed splash of style and grace to the simple act of level grinding, managing items, and even buying weapons. The game always plays with your screen's real estate -- borders swirl and sway, picture-in-picture events occur suddenly, and so on. It's a game that is truly fun to play and watch.

Though appropriate to its being a teenage drama, the game takes itself very, very seriously. It thinks its story is far more interesting and complicated than it is: Large sections grind to a crawl when cut scene after cut scene occurs in succession, hammering on a plot point that occurred only a moment before. This may be the biggest strike against the game, when everything else has such an eye toward presentation and mindfulness of the player. The combat is fun, the open-ended nature of the world when it finally does open up is fun to poke around in, and the sheer variety of playing in the Persona realm and out in the real world is fun. The cut scenes are always optional, but you will be lost without them. If you can take the bad with the good, Persona 5 is a funky good time.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Talk about the act of playing a video game that takes place in a virtual high school. Why would playing a game set in a familiar location be interesting or exciting to players?

  • Families can talk about sex and gender in video games. Why do you think some characters make comments about sex, women, and rape? How do these comments make you feel? Does this add to or detract from the gameplay?

Game Details

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