LET US RESTART THE GAME
If You Regret, Reset the Game is a work in progress Persona 5 Alternate Universe Fic created by Jazzy
and Crescentmoontea that swaps the roles of the Phantom Thieves and some other characters.A side fic, called Like Beating a Dead Lobster, was released on February 4th, 2023, which details Haru's, Sumire's and Akechi's encounter with the titular persona in Madarame's palace.
Spoilers for the original Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!
- Abusive Parents: Madarame is perhaps an even worse parent than in canon. On top of what he already does to Yusuke, he forcibly drives a wedge between Yusuke and Sumire in order to take proper advantage of the former's artistic talents.
- Adaptational Angst Downgrade:
- Due to Kasumi being Spared by the Adaptation, Sumire is far more upbeat than in canon, though she does suffer from the same Always Someone Better complex as normal.
- Futaba is far less angsty than in canon, being an extremely popular e-sports gamer that takes Yusuke's place in the story.
- Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Makoto, due to taking Futaba's place, starts as a shut-in who's slowly dying due to Sae suffering a Death by Adaptation. Ryuji, who took Sumire's place in this AU, also gets this.
- Adaptational Badass: Kamoshida goes from the Starter Villain who's the only Palace Ruler who's completely unrelated to the Conspiracy to the leader of the Conspiracy and the 7th palace leader due to taking Shido's place.
- Adaptational Dye-Job: Futaba's hair is orange with black streaks, rather than being completely orange like in canon.
- Adaptational Early Appearance:
- Haru appears much earlier than in canon due to being the protagonist. Sumire, Akechi and Yusuke also have this treatment due to taking Ryuji's, Morgana's and Ann's roles respectively.
- Madarame is the 1st Palace Ruler instead of the 2nd, taking Kamoshida's role as the Starter Villain.
- Adaptational Relationship Overhaul:
- Ann and Akira, rather then becoming friends in high school as in canon, go far further back in this AU, being childhood friends due to their parents being business partners.
- Yusuke and Sumire are relatively unrelated in canon. Here, they've been friends since middle school who bonded over being outcasts.
- Adaptational Species Change:
- Outside of the Metaverse, Akechi takes the form of a small crow instead of being a human.
- Morgana is a human in this fic, taking the place of Makoto.
- Adaptational Villainy: Ann, due to taking Akechi's place, goes from one of the founding members of the Phantom Thieves to The Mole planning to betray them.
- Adaptation Name Change:
- With the exceptions of Akechi (who's still Crow), and Makoto (who's still Queen), each of the Phantom Thieves have a new codename in this AU.
- Haru is Lucky instead of Noir.
- Sumire is Spark instead of Violet.
- Yusuke is Plume instead of Fox.
- Futaba is Idle instead of Oracle.
- Morgana is Twist instead of Mona.
- Akira is Rook instead of Joker.
- Ann is Vixen instead of Panther.
- Ryuji is Citrine instead of Skull.
- In a non-Code Name related example, Futaba's last name is Isshiki instead of Sakura due to Wakaba being alive.
- With the exceptions of Akechi (who's still Crow), and Makoto (who's still Queen), each of the Phantom Thieves have a new codename in this AU.
- Adapted Out: Quite a few more minor characters are completely missing, most notably Haru's fiancé Sugimura (replaced by the much nicer Mika), Kunikazu Okumura (who's role as the 5th palace ruler is taken by Akira's parents), and Masayoshi Shido (who's role is taken up by Kamoshida).
- Age Lift: While Morgana in canon has a Vague Age, when he becomes human in Maruki's reality, he looks like a boy around Joker's age. Here, he's a 13-year old boy.
- All There in the Script: Several story tidbits are shared through fanart from the artist, questions answered in the artist and author's retrosprings questions where they share things that could be shared such as how Haru feels about her probation.
- Animorphism: In the Metaverse, Crow sports a mostly human appearance, but takes the form of an actual crow in the real world.
- Ascended Extra:
- Wakaba Issiki goes from a Posthumous Character who's death drives Futaba into being a depressed shut-in to taking Sae Nijima's role as Haru's prosecutor and 6th Palace Ruler.
- Kana Magario goes from The Ghost to taking Natsuhiko Nakanohara's role as the instigator of the Phantom Thieves finding out about Mementos and the second Palace Ruler's crimes.
- In terms of locations, the Crossroads was only used as a work place as well as the place where you do Ohya's Confidant in canon. Here, there are no less than three Confidants in the form of Sadayo Kawakami, Jin Akechi and Ren.
- Body Horror: Unlike most palaces in Persona 5, quite a few palaces have the cognitive people inside it not be human.
- Madarame's palace has the cognitions of his art students as wax statues, heavily implied that they're still alive, just dipped in wax and immobilized.
- The Kurusus' palace has several people built into the palace itself, like Ann being a fountain.
- Breaking Old Trends. In the original game, the Lovers, Empress and High Priestess confidants/social links are filled by female characters. In IYR, The swap of roles change the Arcana's such as Yusuke and Akira being the Lovers and Empress arcana confidants for Haru, and Morgana being the High Priestess confidant for her as well. The same also applies to Futaba who is now of the Emperor Arcana confidant, which is usually filled by male characters in the original games.
- Canon Immigrant: "Like Beating a Dead Lobster" primarily features the titular shadow, which originally made its first appearance in Megami Tensei II.
- Death by Adaptation:
- Due to Sae and Wakaba swapping roles, the former ends up dying, causing Makoto to become a suicidally depressed shut-in.
- Kaneshiro ends up suffering a mental shutdown instead of Kobawakawa, with the phantom thieves exploring the latter's palace instead of the former.
- Demoted to Extra: Kaneshiro becomes The Unfought in this fic, with Kobawakawa taking his place as the 3rd Palace Ruler and him getting mysteriously "taken care of" regardless.
- Fastball Special: Haru defeats the disaster shadow at the end of "Like Beating a Dead Lobster" by throwing Dead Lobster at it.Haru: (Grinning) You said throw everything I've got at it.
- Females Are More Innocent: Played with a little more than in canon. Makoto and Wakaba are just as benevolent as who they replace, but there are two subversions in the form of Futaba's abusive manager Shun Nanami and Akira's mother Fumiko Kurusu.
- For Want Of A Nail: Several major changes happen due to the characters swapping roles:
- Due to Shido lacking the ability to cause mental shutdowns thanks to Akechi, not only are Akechi's mother (given the name Jin) and Wakaba Isshiki Spared by the Adaptation, but Shido himself lacks any sort of power and is thus more or less removed from the plot.
- Due to Wakaba being spared, Futaba was never adopted by Sojiro, thus her name is Futaba Isshiki rather than Futaba Sakura.
- Since Crow is not related to Jin in this story, she gave birth to a young daughter named Nozomi instead.
- After getting put on probation, Haru's father called off the Arranged Marriage between her and Sugimura, thus removing the latter's significance in the plot.
- Identical Stranger: Ren, the third Crossroads Waitress, is physically similar enough to Akira that she was initially thought to be Akira's crossdressing alter ego when she was initially revealed before the artist clarified that Ren is a separate individual from him.
- In Spite of a Nail:
- Despite being the first Palace Ruler instead of the second, Madarame remains more or less the same, with his palace still being a museum (albeit more themed around waxworks rather than paintings), and he's still responsible for Yusuke's awakening.
- Akira is still working at LeBlanc, albeit only part time due to his modeling job.
- Both Crow and Akira retain the same third tier Persona's as their original selves. Since they both actually had the memories of the original Persona 5 Royal timeline via New Game Plus, this can be justified.
- Mask of Sanity: Ann outwardly appears to be a normal, happy girl, but also commits murder and harbors intense grief over Shiho and Yuuki's deaths. Her second Thief outfit exemplifies this.
- Mythology Gag: The name of the fic is taken from a lyric from Persona 5 Strikers' "Axe to Grind".
- New Game Plus: Both Akira and Crow are both under this but instead of going back in time, they went into a timeline where their roles have been changed around such as Akira taking Haru's place and Haru taking his. As a result, nobody but Akira and Crow are aware of the original timeline.
- Not So Above It All: Akechi easily loses patience with the group's sillier antics, but can also be bribed with Feathermen merchandise and frequentlh takes advantage of his bird form to curse out people he doesn't like.
- Sir Swears-a-Lot: Jin's vocabulary is… colorful, to say the least.
- Spared by the Adaptation:
- Wakaba Isshiki, Futaba's mother, is alive and well in this AU, taking Sae's role in interrogating the protagonist as well as being the 6th palace ruler.
- Kasumi didn't die in a car accident and attends Kosei high school instead, which is the main cause of Sumire's Adaptational Angst Downgrade.
- Akechi's mother, named Jin in this AU, did not die and never met Shido so she is also alive and well.
- Take That!: The main artist of the AU detests "Studly Guy" (Morgana's human appearance in Maruki's reality), and wastes no opportunity to take potshots at him. They also have similar hatred of Kawakami's second job, leading to her working at the Crossroads, and the "Nude Painting" scene, which is Adapted Out with no equivalent.
- What If?:
- One official What If? had Akechi still being Akechi Jin's son, but with an Adaptational Angst Downgrade and having a happier life compared to his canon backstory, with Akechi being Nozomi's brother.
