Mementos Devil Story: Persona 5 Silver

'Have you ever dreamt you can fly? I'm still searching my wings... to fly away...far away from myself.' Mementos Devil Story: Persona 5 Silver (Japanese: メメントス デビル ストーリー ペルソナ5 Silver, Mementosu Debiru Sutōrī Perusona Faibu Silver), is a roleplaying game developed by Atlus and Doctrina Armageddon and the prequel of Persona 5, with the game directed and written by Cadence Jamieson, using former Persona director Katsura Hashino's notes, along with her own ideas. The game was released for the PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and PC worldwide on April 20, 2019.

Synopsis
WARNING! DESPAIR AWAITS YOU 1. DO NOT PROCEED 2. IF YOU DON'T KNOW 3. THE CONSEQUENCES OF =SPOILER=

Premise
''Tokyo, the capital city of Japan. It is called the place of dreams and fantasy.''

However, there lies a living nightmare with the metropolis, unknown to the public.

They aim to control the people, at any fatal cost.

Their leader, a man with toxic desires and no love for anyone else.

And his flame of despair, lying in a boy who had just turned 18...

The game starts with the skyline of the Tokyo metropolis on fire, it's tower falling apart...

It then cuts to the 18-year old boy running down the desolate streets of Shibuya. As he turns a corner, a mob of gym-addicts charge at him. However, he is more nimble, and quickly kills armies of them with the help of two mythical beings, before rescuing a crying child. The child dries his tears and tells him that his fate will be decided, as everything fades to black.

The boy, Goro Akechi wakes up in a taxi heading towards a place near the courtroom driven by an acquaintance of his. After talking with the driver, he hears a different, female voice in his head, telling him that his life was already set out in stone, ever since the flames were ignited.

The ignited flames being a burning foster home. Goro lived his childhood friendless, oppressed and depressed as he was born out of wedlock. When the drunken, so-called caretaker attempted to fix a broken stove, the ensuing explosion had made Goro the sole survivor thanks to a pair of 'guardian angels' leading him out. He would discover their names, and that he had awoken to the power of Persona.

As the taxi travels to its destination, he recalls the drama, horror, tragedy of his past, and the little light of hope of the boy he met, who he is to soon snuff out...

Plot Summary
Eris and Innocence meet up with Goro after he escapes the burning foster home and train him on traveling the Metaverse, a parallel dimension consisting of the world's minds. A mysterious being calling themselves The Warden tasks him on 'bringing ruin' by finding and manipulating a man named Masayoshi Shido. Goro discovers the ability Call of Chaos that turns people berserk through their Shadows, and eventually mutates them into monsters, much to his horror. Iaoh Sueru, a posh middle-aged man, gives him advice to find Shido.

After defeating a crooked politician and unknowningly changing his heart, Goro manages to gain audience with his estranged father, who was the opponent of the politician. When his son presents the Metaverse treasure as "evidence of an unknown world", Shido tasks him to destroy the Shadow Self of Wakaba Isshiki in Mementos, a scientist researching the Metaverse. Not knowing the consequences, Goro obeys his father. Wakaba's destroyed Shadow Self causes her to suffer a mental shutdown and die to a speeding car in front of her daughter, Futaba. Goro realises he's imprisoned by crime and is now a member of Shekinah. Traumatized, he resigns to complete his plan alongside Eris' guide, even if it means damning the world. He evicts Innocence from his apartment, telling him to hide. Despite this, Innocence resolves to assist him from the shadows.

As he studies in high school and solves crimes, Goro explores the underground of Tokyo with his father, and is a victim to all sorts of dangers. He dreams the copy of Tokyo to escape reality and in the Metaverse he assassinates Shadow Selves on the orders of Shekinah, killing several past Persona series characters like Hanako Ohtani and Editor Mizuno. Innocence develops a tranquilizing medicine meant to combat the Call of Chaos, so the Shadow Selves inflicted don't turn into monstrosities.

On April 2016, the Warden informs him of a second Wild Card entering the game of fate. They instruct him to not trust the new player. When June rolls by, he ends up meeting the Phantom himself, and finds himself confining his terrible past to him. Goro finds out that this boy is the leader of the Phantom Thieves and is ordered by Shido to assassinate him. He is torn between admiring and envying him, during his alliance with him in Sae's Palace. In the end, Shido and Eris' words come first, and the silenced trigger would deal a fatal blow to him...

That is, if the Phantom failed to remember his plan. The sight of a dead teenager angers Innocence to breaking his trust in Goro. After Shido is elected, Goro is led to the Mementos Depths to recive the Warden's empowerment...only to be temporarily trapped in a videogame dream by Innocence, then breaking out and fighting the formidable little boy, who also can summon a Persona. Innocence fails to subdue Goro and Eris, and escapes. In the end, Tokyo and the rest of the world are doomed to be fused with the dream world by a last-battle choice, with Goro humiliating Shido by becoming a Lawful Warrior of the Grail or a Chaotic Avatar of Eris.

Canonically, the Phantom evades death and is healed by Innocence, leading Goro to suspect him in Shido's Palace. Upon encountering the alive Phantoms, Eris convinces Goro that life isn't worth happiness, leading him to turn himself berserk. Innocence snipes him with the anti-Chaos tranquilizer, helping the Phantoms defeat him. The Persona-users are trapped by Shido's cognition of Goro, breaking the Crow even further. Deciding to disobey Shido and do anything for the Phantoms, he helps the Phantoms escape at the cost of disappearing, and everything goes white...

Awakening in a void, Goro combats the Shido-made cognition of himself, but it's revealed in the end that Eris is actually Azathoth, the Primal Chaos. She is the progenitor of the Call of Chaos, and used it to assimilate Goro into herself, so no Trickster, Phantom Thief or any other Persona-user can stop her. Sueru, her arch-enemy, is really the Archon Abraxas, who is attempting to flee from Tokyo under the guise of 'walking the world.'

Time fast forwards to Tokyo's inevitable destruction, with Innocence the only one left alive. He manages to send the memories of the bad future to an alternative universe, in hopes that Goro can be saved and Eris can be destroyed. The background music implies that Innocence is a Velvet Room attendant.

Gameplay
There are two types of difficulties, Life and Conflict. Conflict is the battle difficulty and can be adjusted, with Merciless having a double-rewarding, double-punishing system similar to Shin Megami Tensei 3 Nocturne. The unlockable difficulty 'Despair' has its own savegame that will instantly erase all its progress upon game over.

Life

 * Peaceful
 * Relaxed
 * Average
 * Stressful
 * Labourful

Conflict

 * Recruit
 * Cadet
 * Soldier
 * Veteran
 * Legend

Metaverse Missions
Much like its primary game, Mementos Devil Story: Persona 5 Silver is an RPG, however it harkens back to Shin Megami Tensei gameplay, featuring demon summoning as party members and the Turn Press Battle System. A new gameplay feature is that like the shoot-em-up Ikaruga, switching Goro's Persona can have him absorb potentially fatal attacks, then release a severe attack based on the Nine Circles of Hell. Goro can't negotiate with Shadows, having to weaken, brainwash and capture them to his side, much like Pokemon's catching system.

There is also the option to cast "Call of Chaos" to turn a shadow berserk, amping its power at the cost of lowering its stats or killing it after battle. After a victorious battle, the team of shadows and Personas will receive EXP, leveling up and learning new skills. Dead Shadows that aren't revived before victory are turned into items, except for Inugami, Eligor and their evolutions. If Goro perishes in battle, the game ends unless a party-healing Chaos Plume is in his inventory.

Life Survival
Life in Tokyo is simplified, as schedules are planned out for the day. The player must simply select options to help Goro survive life and avoid angering superiors. Some unfortunate events can't be avoided. Online features can help with deducting responses. If approval rating drops to zero, or a deadline is missed, the game ends in a bad ending.

Dreaming World
If Goro manages to get at least 4 hours of sleep, he will be able to access Yggdrasil Tokyo within his dreams. Here, items can be harvested, stats can be increased and new dungeons can be explored. The player can not get a game over in the dream, but has limited actions before Goro has to wake up.

Development
Originally, the game was supposed to be a free-to-play mobile game that would hide the storyline underneath the simple gameplay. After the development of Persona 5 was finished, the staff found some documents for the backstory of Goro Akechi. Although Persona 5's director Katsura Hashino ordered them to dispose of it, some of the staff revolted in protest, stating the game 'is not finished.' Pressured by their defiance, he gave up and allowed Atlus' newcomer Cadie Jamieson to start the development of this new project. Kazuma Kaneko, known for being a character artist of many Atlus games, returned to design the bosses. The game was developed with Unity. All in-game assets were rendered as 16-bit sprites, giving the game a 'retraux' feel.

All playable characters are voiced with reused clips from Persona 5, Dancing in Starlight and (Japan only) Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth.

Reception
The game was announced in E3 2017, with massive applause, mainly from the female and/or LGBT+ audience, for finally making the main character's backstory. The reaction from most of Persona's overseas heterosexual male fanbase however, was completely negative. They made threats to the staff, those who liked the idea of the game, and even one gaming journalist said on their Twitter that they would 'spend their life savings to destroy every copy of the game, physical or digital.' Thousands of arrests have been made in fear of violence towards innocent players or staff.

The game received critical acclaim on reviews, winning 'Best RPG' in many sites.

Trivia
'Some children don't live past their 18th birthday. They are all vulnerable and easily preyed upon. Often they are insignificant, vanishing from the world's concerns as with every danger, until it is too late. Sadly, no-one but this lost child is willing to find the truth, as the world crumbles beneath its own sins and weight...'
 * During loading screens, statistics and facts of Japan's underlying problems are shown, such as orphaned children, crimes swept under the rug and the idol industry.
 * The game's subtitle is both deprived from Megami Tensei's original novel trilogy, Digital Devil Story, and Mementos, which holds the last dungeon of Persona 5.
 * The costumes new to Silver are created as a critique to Goro's limited wardrobe in Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight, the female Phantom Thieves having oversexualised costumes and the fact that some of the costumes that appeared in previous games were changed in appearance.
 * The game over screen shows a bloodstained piano with Goro's lifeless arm sticking out of the closed lid. His father used to play the piano before he fully invested in becoming Prime Minister.
 * The game has no downloadable content, as a critique of all games with too much DLC that is usually priced, such as the Persona Dancing games.
 * A total of 200 "female gaze" shots are taken in-game, more than the combined amount of past Persona games and other media "male gaze" shots.