They have the typically ordinary day-to-day of a Tokyo high schooler: attending class, after-school activities, and part-time jobs. But they also undertake fantastical adventures by using otherworldly powers to enter the hearts of people. Their power comes from the Persona, the Jungian concept of the "self"; the game's heroes realize that society forces people to wear masks to protect their inner vulnerabilities, and by literally ripping off their protective mask and confronting their inner selves do the heroes awaken their inner power, and using it to help those in need. Ultimately, the group of Phantom Thieves seeks to change their day-to-day world to match their perception and see through the masks modern society wears.
Sometimes when the protagonist of Persona 5 goes to sleep, he doesn't dream like a normal Japanese high-schooler. Oh no. He gets transported to a place that exists between dream and reality, mind and matter. A place where fate has made it look like a prison. A place where sacrifice creates power, and where a familiar face will assist the leader of the Phantom Thieves in reaching his full potential. Get ready to say hello to Igor once again, because the Velvet Room is back!
For those of you who aren't familiar with the Velvet Room, it's a special area where personas can be... played around with. Basically, the room is where personas collected in the Metaverse can be upgraded, turned into items, or undergo fusion. Let's start with the most morbid one, shall we? Fusion allows personas to be fused together to create a new, hopefully stronger, one. There are three ways to fuse personas, basic fusion lets any two be fused together, while advanced fusion is preset and require three or more. Oh, there is one little thing I should mention. Your personas will need to be executed via guillotine to undergo the aforementioned fusions, so always remember their noble sacrifice when Velvet Room wardens, Caroline and Justine, lets the blade drop (be wary of accidents though). The third method of fusion is network fusion, which allows a player with online function to fuse their persona with a random online player's persona!
Besides making heads roll, the Velvet Room offers other fun ways to execute, I mean, manage personas. For example, you can strengthen a persona by sacrificing (hanging) another one to it, put personas in lockdown so they can learn to take less damage from their weakness, and "transform" them via electric chair into a useful item/piece of equipment. You can also register and summon them from the compendium as well! Although the Velvet Room may look like a prison, it's an important place to invest time and persona lives in. Oh, you can also access the area during the day/night or during Palace runs through a prison door looking portal.
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