Persona 5 Royal makes minor improvements to the vanilla versions gameplay, some boss battles are better and others are worse (FUCKING OKUMURA), and the third semester is good and helps to tidy the flow of the late game narrative (even if I think the need to max 3 specific social links to unlock it is dumb. That's probably a bit petty of me). But above all else, Royal did what I stubbornly thought was impossible: made me an Akechi stan. Akeshu shippers: I finally get it now.
Shelved on March 10th 2024, about 65 hours in. I believe I will come back and finish this out, but for now I’m burnt out on it. I’m about 50% of the way through the game. Some thoughts: equally compelling, baffling, and outright annoying, Persona 5 is really my first JRPG besides something like Pokemon. The good aspects include the combat, dungeon crawling, (most of) the visual design, and certain aspects of the life sim sections. But the bad: utterly cringeworthy writing and storytelling, It can be extremely juvenile, homophobic, two-dimensional, and boring. There’s so much story, and not all of it is compelling. Much of it is tedious, and takes too long to make very simple points. So much text, not enough action. Beyond the story, some of the level design is very one dimensional. So much of the dungeons are simple paths that can’t be deviated from, and there’s so many invisible barriers where you character cannot move beyond. The game came out in 2016, but I expected more on this front. Again, this is one of my first JRPGs, so maybe they’re all like this? I’m not sure. Regardless, it did keep me interested for 65 hours, so definitely not the worst game I’ve played. If I were to rate it now I’d give it a 7 or 7.5, but I’ll save the final rating for when I finish it.
Played OG Persona 5, sunk 100'ish hours into it. This came out on PS4 and I did it all over again. Then it released on Steam and I just had to pick it up AGAIN. Persona 5 Royal is a masterclass in the JRPG genre. Stylish visuals, incredible Jazz music, and a wonderful story and cast carry you through the 100-hour playtime. If I can playthrough this game 3 times and not get bored, you can do it once.
Overrated and underrated in equal parts, ATLUS, stop overexploiting this game.
Not the best story, but endearing in several parts. The gameplay and aesthetics are fire.
But I feel like the game gets too dark when Morgana turns to the screen and starts telling you to kill the president... That part was weird...
Not the best story, but endearing in several parts. The gameplay and aesthetics are fire.
But I feel like the game gets too dark when Morgana turns to the screen and starts telling you to kill the president... That part was weird...