Persona 5/Persona 5 Royal is another legendary JRPG and has been on my JRPG bucket list to play. Much like the previous review of Chrono Trigger, Persona 5 needs little introduction. It is considered a modern classic and a must play JRPG for many and I’m sure was an introduction to JRPGs to many as well. And for good reason. Persona 5 Royal is radiating with style and is sure to catch anyone’s eye by visuals alone. But P5R packs so much more than just outstanding stylized visuals. It packs a powerful punch of music, style, story, soul, and the heart of rebellion in one cohesive package. While the game is a massive undertaking, (My playthrough finishing at 193 hours), it is well worth it in the end. While not my personal favorite JRPG I’ve ever played, it is certainly up there and I easily see why this game holds a special place in the hearts of many.

TLDR at the end

Please note, this review will contain spoilers. I will make it clear before post any spoilers, but if you’re sensitive to any spoilers, I recommend jumping down to the TLDR

History

I have a somewhat unique history with Persona 5. I started my original playthrough of it in December of 2018. The month Joker got announced in Super Smash Bros Ultimate and before Persona 5 Royal was released. I had streamed it and never finished it. I don’t exactly remember why I never finished it. But at the time, I did struggle with some of the more visual novel/life sim aspects of the game. I’m personally not much of a life sim gamer. Other than Persona my main life sim games I’ve played were Animal Crossing and Sims and very casually. I ended up putting it down for a combination of not feeling it exactly and also likely just another game I was really looking forward to coming out. It was always a game I had wanted to come back to. But never had the motivation to restart.

Fast forward and we come to the release of SMT V on the switch. I played and absolutely loved SMT V. The pacing balance of the game felt much better to me. SMT V is largely combat and exploration focused. Once I finished SMT V, I was under the impression that maybe I’m more of a SMT person than Persona when it comes to this series. And this year, after SMT V and some of the original Persona 5 under my belt, I thought it was time to return to Persona 5 with the Royal version. My girlfriend and I had also just moved in together and she was interested in Persona 5. So I thought there was no greater time! And I’m happy to report back that I was correct! This time Persona 5 Royal hit and it hit hard!

Premise

The premise of Persona 5 is that you play as the Phantom Thieves of Heart, who steal the hearts of criminals. The Phantom Thieves are a group of misfit kids who have been wronged by society and are trying to make it better. Led by Joker (Who I named SNICKELS SNUCKLES because I didn’t find the lower case letters) who is arguably the most wronged. He was persecuted for a crime when he was attempting to defend someone. You’re then sent away to live in a cafe attic and go to a different school as your probation. You and your crew discover a world made out of human cognition which allows you to infiltrate criminals' “Palaces”, which are places manifested out of people’s distorted desires, so that you can change their heart in the real world. While at the same time you’re trying to live a regular life as a student in the real world and conceal your identities.

Within the cognitive world, which is called the metaverse(Much cooler than the Zuck’s metaverse), your crew awakens to their powers to call upon their Persona. Their Persona is the other selves within them and allows them to fight in the metaverse. Joker is in a unique position where he is able to obtain multiple Personas which plays an important role in the story.

Gameplay

The gameplay, much like the story, is largely split into 2 parts. There’s the life sim part where you live as a student in the real world, improving relationships with your confidants, go shopping, improve your social stat and more. The second part of the game takes place in the metaverse where you become the phantom thieves, infiltrate palaces, (which to put it simply are this game's dungeons) participate in turn based battles and collect/fuse personas.

Life Sim/Visual Novel

The game takes place in a fictional version of modern day Tokyo. So you get to explore a lot of various parts of Tokyo such as Shibuya, Akihabara, Shinjuku, and more. A lot of this part of the game is time management. The game starts off pretty slow in terms of what you’re allowed to do. But once the game picks it bombards you with options. Almost to the point where I felt overwhelmed at times. You’ll have so many things to do and be pulled in so many different directions on what you feel needs to be done. You’ll have access to a total of 24 different confidants, which are your friends and allies that have friendship meters. Meeting certain bars on their friendship meters unlocks various skills that are used in helping you in the other half of the game. These skills aren’t the only motivators though. Many of these characters have really interesting stories to pursue. From the goth doctor who runs the local clinic, the school counselor who’s wanting to help everyone, your father figure in LeBlanc who I lovingly call coffee dad, the politician who’s trying to raise awareness and run for office to help lead the country in a better direction and more. However there are some of the confidants who just aren’t aren’t as interesting or offer weaker skills. They aren’t all equal. But what their story has in store or what skills they provide can largely depend on what you find interesting or helpful. But there are for sure some fundamentally weaker skills on offer from some of them. Sometimes to proceed with these stories, the game will require you to have certain social stats at a certain level. There are 5 different stats and you can have 5 different levels. Part of the game is training these stats so you can get past the roadblocks the game has set for you. Other things to do in the life sim part includes visiting new locations and giving characters gifts, you can shop at stores, which to be honest half way through the game didn’t feel super helpful as a lot of the items/armor you get from the metaverse are better, and eventually work your way to going on dates with your favorite character! Unfortunately there are only female romance options for Joker. So there can’t be any Akechi x Joker action happening although if I could’ve I would’ve.

JRPG Dungeon Crawling

The other half of the game takes place in the Metaverse and while in the metaverse Joker and crew become the phantom thieves. There’s 2 primary reasons to go into the Metaverse. There will be story dungeons that you’ll need to traverse. And there’s Mementos, which is a dungeon that is the public's palace. The story dungeons are much more elaborate and detailed than Mementos. In the story dungeons you’ll be traversing fighting shadows (Which are what they just refer to the enemies) and collecting Personas. The combat in Persona, if you haven’t played any or any of the SMT games, is the signature press turn system. It’s a little different in Persona vs SMT though. There’s a list of elements that exist in the game, and enemies have a variety of resistances, immunities and weaknesses. The game is all about focusing weaknesses. You want to hit an enemy's weakness and doing so knocks down an enemy and gives you an extra turn. The extra turn also allows you to perform a baton pass, which allows you to give the extra turn to a different party member. This is useful in case the party member doesn’t have the other spell that matches the enemy weakness but another does. Enemies are also able to be knocked down if they are hit with a critical hit. Which can happen randomly but there’s moves with increased chances or moves that just flat out increase the chances to crit. If you’re able to successfully knock down all the enemies in a fight you’re able to pull off an all out attack which does massive damage. For most fights this is where a fight will end, but with mini bosses and bosses the fights will usually go on. While in combat though, after you’ve knocked down enemies you’re able to talk to them and recruit them. Which is one way in which Joker can collect more Personas. You can also merge Personas to create even more powerful Personas. Something that I find really cool about the game is that the Personas are all actual demons/deities from various cultures around the world. It’s really cool to see Kelpies, Angels, Pixies and more all mixed in and it feels very cohesive.

The dungeon crawling mentioned above takes place in the main story dungeons which are much more guided and elaborate. You are timed on how long you can take to finish these dungeons and at the end you have to send a calling card to the person in the real world so that you can steal their distorted desires. The other half of the dungeon crawling is through a place called Mementos. The dungeons of Mementos are a distorted version of Tokyo’s subway system and is a randomly generated dungeon. There’s many floors to this dungeon that open up through various points in the story. Mementos is a massive randomized dungeon but it’s also got a very important role to play in the story.

There’s a lot more to each of these parts of the game than I can list. But this is the major breakdown of the games system. I’ve had a love for JRPGs for a long time and have played a lot of them. The Press Turn system is a really fun take of turn based combat. And as mentioned above I’m not super into Life sims/dating sims/or visual novels. But this does a really good active blend of it all. I love that they actively integrate into each other beautifully. It can be really addictive to rush through a dungeon just so you can go back to talking to your friends every day getting more and more boons and buffs.

Story

The story of Persona 5 Royal is pretty good if not a little long winded and somewhat predictable. I’m not sure if this is from an aversion to visual novels (I think Digimon Cyber Sleuth really did a number on my tolerance of VNs) but it can be a little slow at times. But never actively bad or disinteresting. And I’m not sure if it’s me replaying a good bit (I originally got to the 3rd dungeon) but I did catch on to some foreshadowing and I called out and nailed some plot twists. I also accidentally got spoiled to some later plot points, somehow only while actively playing though and this games been out for a long time now. All that to say, these are all very active and valid reasons it could’ve left me feeling less engaged. But in spite of all that, the game still had me yowling and screaming at parts that I won’t spoil in this section. Even despite seeing through some of the story, having some spoiled and my disdain of VNs, I absolutely loved the story. It’s heartfelt, soulful, and I think strikes at the heart and soul of disenfranchised youth. I think if I were to have finished this game when I was in my teenage years up to my early 20s this would’ve had an extremely profound effect on me. There’s something about a game that’s set in modern times, taking down corrupt criminals with the power of friendship that strikes the soul. Is it cliche, especially for a JRPG? Yeah of course. Does it fucking rock? You bet your sweet bippy it does.

Difference Between P5R and base P5

Now before I get into talking about some of my favorite bits and then some gripes, I wanted to note that there’s some differences between P5R and base P5. Primarily it’s quality of life improvements. For example, one of the pieces of equipment you have is a gun, in base Persona you had 1 whole magazine for your gun per dungeon run. Which may not sound like much but when each gun has like 8 bullets or less, you’d find yourself needing your gun and not having any ammunition despite it not making much sense. In Royal, you have 1 mag per fight. So now it comes back each fight. Which in my opinion just makes sense. There’s various other improvements like that, I may not know everything that was improved/changed because I never finished base Persona. But another big part is that there are new characters added and a whole additional segment of the story. You have to meet certain criteria to access this additional content. Which I won’t tell you what the criteria is here, but if you want to know there’s an excellent spoiler free guide for that

Spoiler Free P5R Guide

But this is genuinely the best part of the game. It’s kind of astonishing to me that it can be missed since it’s just that good. But it goes to show Atlus confidence with the game as a whole.

Favorite Parts & Characters (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

All that leads perfectly into what is surely just going to be me gushing about some of my favorite parts of the game. For those looking for a spoiler free experience this is where I recommend you stop reading and jump to the next section or TLDR.


My favorite characters are easily Sojiro and Futaba and the found family relationship they have. It is incredibly heartwarming and the moments where I made Sojiro happy are some of the only moments I cried at the game. Something about how Sojiro and Futaba are written is absolutely wonderful to me. I think found families are important, especially for those who may not have the best relationship with their actual families. To have Sojiro go from a coffee dick head kind of ladies man to be revealed as a loving caretaker to the daughter of the woman he clearly loved was so wonderful. Such a touching part of the story and is one of my overall highlights.

I do also really like Yusuke, much less of a reason behind that one than Sojiro, I just kind of like how he’s a weird lil art kid and says unhinged shit.

I didn’t really like Akechi at first. To be honest I’m not sure if I even do currently. But the transformation he has is really cool to see in the extended royal part of the story. That being he’s an absolute psychopath and there’s clearly some sexual tension between him and Joker. Clearly. But I also really like how he’s such a good foil to Joker. Joker is the scrappy gentleman thief who’s persecuted by the law, and Akechi being the highly composed ace detective seeking to take him down, only to be revealed as a homicidal maniac. And honestly I only like that after the Royal part. If the addition of the Royal story hadn’t been there I think a part of me would’ve been disappointed. Because throughout the game Akechi was the only real push against the Phantom Thieves and their vigilantism. To have the only real moral opposition to turn out to be a psycho kind of dulls the moral question

However ALL of the Royal expansion answers that. And it is truly the absolute best part of the game. The reveal of Dr. Maruki being a villain and him having the power to solve all the world's problems but he re-writes reality. Rewriting people’s hardships and struggles that define them. To erase people’s memories to make them happy. Happy living in a false reality. It’s so compelling after the playtime of the game. It’s hard to imagine this game without this part added to it. It is the perfect ending to it and puts up an actual moral question. What it is that they fight for, what does it mean to have what you fight for erased to make life happier? Does one singular person deserve to have such power? So good.

Gripes/Nitpicks

There’s not a whole lot that I have to say that is super negative but I do have some thoughts. My primary complaint is that the game is sometimes just too wordy and long. I think there’s just some parts where there doesn’t need to be as much talking. There’s multiple points in the game where you’ll have a discussion in a cutscene, then you’ll have a discussion about the same thing via the game's text chat system with the characters. And sometimes it does that but with an additional talking scene about the same exact topic right after that. And sometimes the stuff said is not super interesting. It’s enough and I don’t want to call it filler because I don’t feel that strongly about it but I feel like there are definitely moments it could be more succinct

My other primary complaint is that sometimes the game is just too handholdy. There’s a lot of times in dungeons where it’s what I would consider a pretty basic puzzle mechanic (which to be fair it’s because I’ve played a lot of JRPGs with dungeons) and it gives me a play by play on what to do. Not entirely invalidating the puzzle but a lot of times just not letting me give it a chance to figure it out. Which I like figuring puzzles out in games. It wouldn’t be as bad if it was largely held off for the earlier parts of the game. But this goes all the way into the final dungeon of the game. It explains the puzzles just way too much. And while the final puzzle of the final dungeon made me push my brain a bit (for a will seed, not even the door to proceed) it largely just explains away its puzzles.

My final issue is that I just find some of the characters to be annoying or not super interesting or compelling. Characters like Ryuji or Mishima I find to be particularly annoying. There’s an arc in the game where Ryuji just feels excessively horny and is like “I wanna tell babes I’m a phantom thief to get some pussy” And Mishima is also a horny dude. The weird horny characters just didn’t do it for me and I find it to be generally more annoying than funny. Morgana has this aspect too but Morgana gets less annoyingly horny as the game goes on while Ryuji and Mishima get more. And then some of the side confidants I just find kind of uninteresting. I’d go more into it but it’d be listing some spoilers so I won’t. But some of them I just didn’t get super invested into which made doing their side stories for their buffs a little tedious.

TLDR

Persona 5 Royal is an absolute wonder of a game. It is really no wonder why this is so many people’s favorite game. I think this game is an excellent JRPG and an excellent way for people to get into the genre. The biggest issue I think this game would hold for most people is that it’s just a pretty long game and at times can feel a little drawn out. But none of that stopped me from loving the game. I would record myself yelling at the screen at character reveals and send it to friends who have already played the game. I was truly addicted to this game. The game instilled me at the end with the feeling only a fun loving Ghibli movie can give you at the end. This game easily earns its spot as one of the best JRPGs made, especially of the best JRPGs of modern times. (even if it is almost 10 years old). I highly recommend you play Persona 5 Royal if you’re at all interested. Just know that it can be lengthy and there’s some anime tropes in there that could hinder your enjoyment of the game if you have a low tolerance for that kind of stuff.