Persona 5 scrapped a lot of its mythological symbolism and theming, and I think it’s a lot worse off for it. They were originally going to have Mephistopheles as the main character’s starting Persona, with all the Faustian mythology that entails.
In one of the Persona Stalker Club interviews, they said that the writers planned for Mephistopheles, but the devs felt that Arsene would be a better fit for the vigilante angle that all the other main character Personas start with. A lot of that explanation doesn’t quite add up, as they only vaguely follow it to begin with, and there’s a lot of themes still in the game that fit Mephistopheles, but are simply lost on Arsene.
Mephistopheles would’ve linked up with the Seven Deadly Sins theme, the moral question of manipulating the hearts of mortal men, the struggle between following your noble cause or giving in to your desires, the whole unfair divine game you’re contractually obligated to play, the contracts being brought up every time you start a confidant, the “blasphemous acts” thing that bookends the game, being chained to Hell itself, the Trickster moniker, segues nicely into the Gnostic mythology, and the bad end mirrors the unfortunate fate of Faustus in the original tellings just like how Orpheus and Izanagi have links to the bad ending of their respective games. Heck, Beneath the Mask is chock full of references to Mephistopheles that just go over everyone’s head thanks to Arsene. Even Arsene’s design is a hastily altered Mephistopheles, with the feather-like horns, the black wings, and the mask, really all they added to make it Arsene was the stovepipe hat. Even Raul, the DLC Persona that’s supposed to be a more true version of Arsene, has a signature move that has a high chance of inflicting sleep ailment on all enemies, something that Mephistopheles specifically does in the Goethe play.
I think the real reason they dropped Mephistopheles was to open the door for crossovers and the mobile game market. P5 has had Smash Bros, mobile game crossovers, and a few other RPG crossovers. Using the German devil could’ve closed a lot of these doors, because of how many ratings boards take umbrage with “superstition”. The fact that right now P-Studio is working with a Chinese company to make a gacha Persona 5 spinoff, mirroring the events of P5, but censored to suit CCP preferences, is proof enough that they had ulterior motives for making such a drastic change.
With how popular Persona has become, it bothers me that I’m seemingly the only one upset by all this.