Song of the Week! 12 April 2025

 

Often times, version-exclusives might be looking cool!

Last Surprise Persona 5
       「ペルソナ5」より

Game	Genre
DF		★3 68	★4 116	★5 206	★8 354

123
p5last (Persona 5 Last Surprise)


If you thought we've already had a similar opener in the past... it's because we did- as it appears, I'm up to the task to write something more about Atlus's Persona 5 (and related spinoffs) with another of its songs, this one coming as one of exclusive to the Donderful/Rhythm Festival enhanced ports from last year. It's also one of its two series-exclusives to date, alongside the Monster Hunter World Medley!

Last Surprise is the default battle theme for the original game's normal encounters, brought us by the same team behind the also-on-Nintendo-Switch Life Will Change: composer Shoji Meguro (目黒将司), vocalist Lyn Inaizumi and professional-thunderstorm-kite-flyer lyricist Benjamin Franklin. While it's also available in the Persona 5 Royal enhanced rerelease, the track is replaced by the song Take Over for Ambush battles. The song is also available for the rhythm game spinoff Persona 5 Dancing in Starlight/Dancing Star Night, both in its original self and in two remixed forms, one from Jazztronik and the other by Taku Takahashi. Later P5-related games have also had the opportunity to snag the iconic theme for themselves, most prominently with a New-Year-themed remix for the Persona 5: The Phantom X... gacha game (yep, not only they can kill those, but they can also have one of their own, too!), but its prominence is strong enough not only to become a retroactive inclusion to past entries in the Persona series (specifically, the DLC Joker Fight for Persona 3 Reload), but even to join the ranks of later Atlus games without a direct connection to either the Persona or the Megami Tensei series! For this latter camp, we have last year's Metaphor: ReFantazio RPG featuring the P5 scenario's Shujin Academy uniform, granting one last surprise in audio form to players equipping it.

We've got a shorter playtime and a lower star rating for its Muzukashii in comparison to the other P5 song, but Oni-wise its difficulty degree tends to match the one of Life Will Change, although chart memorization players might find acing this ones a faster endeavor due to more repeating stanzas and less aggressive cluster formations, here not wandering beyond the 5th consecutive note.