This review contains spoilers
I really enjoyed my time with Persona 5 Royal, time spent over two full playthroughs (one with the base version ending, the other with the royal ending), clocking in at a staggering 180 hours in total. It gave me a newfound appreciation for JRPGs, a genre I thought I simply didn't like. A few days after finishing it I tried Strikers, hoping that by virtue of it being an action game I'd have just as much fun with it. I ended up dropping it after a couple attempts, disappointed by the uninteresting story and the chaotic gameplay. This, combined with not finding another game to fixate on, led me to think quite a bit about P5R, eventually coming to the conclusion that, personally I don't find the narrative to be nearly as impactful as it had the potential to.
Part 1: Take your heart
P5R managed to make me play a JRPG from beginning to end, something that older and more revered games like Final Fantasy X ans Chrono Trigger couldn't manage. While I could say it did so with its strong narrative hook or the persona collecting system, the honest truth is that the game is piss easy. I can only recall two parts in the main story I found truly difficult, my NG exploration of Kamoshida's palace and the Okumura boss fight. While I have no shame in admitting I had to use a guide in the latter case, both were exhilarating moments, where planning your route and picking your next move felt truly important. What's truly special is that I dropped both FF-X and Chrono Trigger during what I felt were horribly unfair boss fights (they weren't, I'm just a scrub), something at first which I felt was true for Okumura as well. But when the strategy Icopied came up with worked, as I witnessed the evil CEO being brought down, I found myself laying in a pool of my own sweat, fumes exhaling from my every pore in a state of pure bliss; right then, something clicked in my brain, a thought emerged in my mind: "I fucking get JRPGs now, holy cow".
So that obviously meant I had become an adrenaline junkie, someone who would find ways to destroy the optional bosses too to chase that high, no matter how hard they were touted to be, right? Pfff, I wish, but since the game is long enough as it is, I honestly didn't want to excruciatingly plan and reorganize my entire persona roster in order to kill a couple of little girls.
Another reason which elevates the game is its presentation in battles, giving each clash a sense of urgency during small fight and scale in the large scale ones. I feel it's important to discuss it because it's also effective at heightening emotion during dialogue and story events, managing to mask (heehee) the plot's overall slow pace.
Part 2: Why not hoist the flag?
While the pace might be slow, I think you'll find it surprisingly breezy as long as you’re willing to take the story on its own terms, “living” day-by-day with its characters, with most events leading into each other naturally. Having downtime and taking things at your own pace feels amazing.
The story starts strong and Kamoshida’s palace is probably the highpoint, one of the few parts of the story I have next to no problems with. Madarame’s arc is also one of the better ones, although it’s here that a few cracks start to show. See, one of the themes explicitly tackled by the game is changing society for the better. Now, Madarame had it coming, what with the rampant and systemic student abuse; the Phantom Thieves undoubtly did a good action by punishing the fraud and rescuing Yusuke from a broken home. The real problem arises when none of the team members ever stops for a second to ask why Madarame, Kamoshida (or any other villain for that matter) were ever allowed to thrive in the toxic environment that their position afforded them. This stings especially when larger implications such as the morality of the team’s actions being put into question by Akechi and Ann; not to mention that these arguments can be rebuked with the simple fact that most palace owners act like they're bad guys straight out of a Saturday morning cartoon.
While Kamoshida was a monster, the conspiratorial silence imposed by the structure of the school is left untouched after his confession. We even see during Ryuji’s social link that a new mini-tyrant has taken the reins of the afterschool sports clubs. Thankfully he’s exposed by Ryuji and Joker, but if it this easy for any shitty person to take control of prestigious positions with only a select few being able to stop them, what’s the point in fighting just them when the real issue is an institution allowing this revolving door of abusers? Besides, that is far from the only questionable aspect of school; time and time again, we see teachers like Kamoshida and the vice principal reprimanding students by threatening to withold their admission letters to college, turning them into a tool to effectively hold the students' future hostage. Why are such practices never even put into discussion, only meekly accepted?
Still, the early arcs can be excused (and have in fact a more believable narrative) because the Phanton Thieves are rookies, still lacking the experience and the big picture vision to realize the deeper workings of their world. Although this excuse slowly loses credibility as the group gains new members, each from a different walk of life.
The first two bosses are far from the only times an individual targeted by the phantom thieves is a member of a larger, destructive structure of power. Kaneshiro was a massive letdown exactly because his arc misses the entire point regarding the damage which organized crime inflicts on communities. The thing is, I have no problem with the portrayal of Kaneshiro, but with how nothing fundamentally changes after his defeat. He’s taken into custody, we can probably assume his criminal family will be disbanded, with its members being also put in prison or going off the grid; we can also assume the drug deals in Shibuya will stop and the children involved will be allowed to stop without fear of repercussion, but that’s probably it. Nothing but the restoration of the status quo, now with more hype for the future endeavors of the Phantom Thieves. Again, a good deed, but most of the consequences I wrote are logical deductions I had to come up with myself. Knowing how criminal groups operate, by the end of the month a new burgeoning yakuza family might have sprung up to replace the old one. The larger phenomenom is never contrasted, only its individual representatives are.
Okumura, my favourite boss in the game, suffers from the same problem. All throughout his palace we witness how he only sees his workers and immediate family as dehumanized robots. The dungeoncrawling further reinforces that, using its miniboss structure and the dialogue to display the abuse trickling down the hierarchy of command the way Ronald Reagan preached money would. It also ingeniously employs RPG tropes of timed puzzles and bridges that need to be lowered in order to progress, using them as metaphors for workplace abuse. Despite all that, Persona 5 still refuses to level a systemic critique at how such exploitative spaces are born, claiming it's all due to a combination of monetary debt and daddy issues. Haru’s social link might reassure us that now Okumura Foods is a good company, with a good CEO, but we simply have no way of knowing since Persona 5 seems uninterested in exploring any further ramifications of the old boss’s fall. The game basically asks us to take him at face value. It's so uninterested in fact, there’s even a small scene where Joker and Morgana overhear a conversation between two office workers who share their belief that the Phantom Thieves should punish every company that mistreats its employees. How do they respond? Morgana brushes it off in a single line like it's not their problem.
Once Sae and Shido’s palaces roll around it seems more and more like the Phantom Thieves are incapable of understanding how to actually bring any meaningful change in society. This is where it gets especially infuriating, because there are hints dropped here and there that the problem goes much deeper than corrupt individuals, such as when Akechi explicitely points out that 99% of court cases end in guilty verdicts and that the system is clearly flawed. Yet, despite having basically the reached the finale of the story, the cast still refuses to actually engage in any kind of meaningful discussion about it. In the end, defeating Shido, while once again something good and necessary, simply results in the maintaining of the status quo, the old ruling class staying in power. Nothing fundamentally changes, they just avoided the worst case scenario.
Part 3: Life might change
To be fair, the main reason I believe Persona 5 shies away from these questions is that for most of the bosses, the main characters fight them more because of personal grievances than anything. While this works well story-wise, giving each party member a good reason for joining the team and sticking with it, it ends up eclipsing the larger theme of rebellion and of anyone in the world being able to fight against cruel circumstances. One dungeon where this ends up working to its benefit is Futaba’s Palace, since the more personal and intimate focus allows for a greater focus on the arc’s specific themes without having to necessarily deal with more all-encompassing societal problems.
For the base game's final arc, the story suddenly takes a weird turn, deciding to go 100% supernatural for its ending. After a story that features somewhat grounded and believable characters, having the big reveal be that a lawful evil god was just manipulating the main character for his goals can’t help but feel somewhat out of place. This is also where the game drops most pretentions of its story being about ordinary people standing up for themselves and simply deifies the Phantom Thieves, glorifying them and putting the burden of humanity’s survival on their shoulders. The original ending is satisfying at first glance, but deep down, I feel a sense like things haven’t actually improved. I am especially ambivalent regarding the scene that happens between Sae and Joker on 2/13: on the one hand I do want to read it the way the game wants us to, with society giving back to the wronged after all their struggles, but on the other it feels misguided to leave everything in the hands of the system that put the characters in the difficult situation they were in at the start.
I don’t have much to add when it comes to the arc added by Royal, I simply find it a great addition which does a much better job at dealing with its themes of acceptance of reality much more coherently than the base game does with its own tackling of rebellion, much for the same reason I found the Futaba arc more compelling than the others.
Maybe you find this review to be missing the point of Persona 5 Royal, that the game doesn’t need to talk about its topic in a revolutionary light, and to be honest, that’s quite fair. On a surface level, it works really well as pure entertainment and a fantasy of escape from reality. I’m just a player who finds himself disappointed that a game which takes around one hundred hours per playthrough never bothered to dig deeper into its own themes.
Part 1: Take your heart
P5R managed to make me play a JRPG from beginning to end, something that older and more revered games like Final Fantasy X ans Chrono Trigger couldn't manage. While I could say it did so with its strong narrative hook or the persona collecting system, the honest truth is that the game is piss easy. I can only recall two parts in the main story I found truly difficult, my NG exploration of Kamoshida's palace and the Okumura boss fight. While I have no shame in admitting I had to use a guide in the latter case, both were exhilarating moments, where planning your route and picking your next move felt truly important. What's truly special is that I dropped both FF-X and Chrono Trigger during what I felt were horribly unfair boss fights (they weren't, I'm just a scrub), something at first which I felt was true for Okumura as well. But when the strategy I
So that obviously meant I had become an adrenaline junkie, someone who would find ways to destroy the optional bosses too to chase that high, no matter how hard they were touted to be, right? Pfff, I wish, but since the game is long enough as it is, I honestly didn't want to excruciatingly plan and reorganize my entire persona roster in order to kill a couple of little girls.
Another reason which elevates the game is its presentation in battles, giving each clash a sense of urgency during small fight and scale in the large scale ones. I feel it's important to discuss it because it's also effective at heightening emotion during dialogue and story events, managing to mask (heehee) the plot's overall slow pace.
Part 2: Why not hoist the flag?
While the pace might be slow, I think you'll find it surprisingly breezy as long as you’re willing to take the story on its own terms, “living” day-by-day with its characters, with most events leading into each other naturally. Having downtime and taking things at your own pace feels amazing.
The story starts strong and Kamoshida’s palace is probably the highpoint, one of the few parts of the story I have next to no problems with. Madarame’s arc is also one of the better ones, although it’s here that a few cracks start to show. See, one of the themes explicitly tackled by the game is changing society for the better. Now, Madarame had it coming, what with the rampant and systemic student abuse; the Phantom Thieves undoubtly did a good action by punishing the fraud and rescuing Yusuke from a broken home. The real problem arises when none of the team members ever stops for a second to ask why Madarame, Kamoshida (or any other villain for that matter) were ever allowed to thrive in the toxic environment that their position afforded them. This stings especially when larger implications such as the morality of the team’s actions being put into question by Akechi and Ann; not to mention that these arguments can be rebuked with the simple fact that most palace owners act like they're bad guys straight out of a Saturday morning cartoon.
While Kamoshida was a monster, the conspiratorial silence imposed by the structure of the school is left untouched after his confession. We even see during Ryuji’s social link that a new mini-tyrant has taken the reins of the afterschool sports clubs. Thankfully he’s exposed by Ryuji and Joker, but if it this easy for any shitty person to take control of prestigious positions with only a select few being able to stop them, what’s the point in fighting just them when the real issue is an institution allowing this revolving door of abusers? Besides, that is far from the only questionable aspect of school; time and time again, we see teachers like Kamoshida and the vice principal reprimanding students by threatening to withold their admission letters to college, turning them into a tool to effectively hold the students' future hostage. Why are such practices never even put into discussion, only meekly accepted?
Still, the early arcs can be excused (and have in fact a more believable narrative) because the Phanton Thieves are rookies, still lacking the experience and the big picture vision to realize the deeper workings of their world. Although this excuse slowly loses credibility as the group gains new members, each from a different walk of life.
The first two bosses are far from the only times an individual targeted by the phantom thieves is a member of a larger, destructive structure of power. Kaneshiro was a massive letdown exactly because his arc misses the entire point regarding the damage which organized crime inflicts on communities. The thing is, I have no problem with the portrayal of Kaneshiro, but with how nothing fundamentally changes after his defeat. He’s taken into custody, we can probably assume his criminal family will be disbanded, with its members being also put in prison or going off the grid; we can also assume the drug deals in Shibuya will stop and the children involved will be allowed to stop without fear of repercussion, but that’s probably it. Nothing but the restoration of the status quo, now with more hype for the future endeavors of the Phantom Thieves. Again, a good deed, but most of the consequences I wrote are logical deductions I had to come up with myself. Knowing how criminal groups operate, by the end of the month a new burgeoning yakuza family might have sprung up to replace the old one. The larger phenomenom is never contrasted, only its individual representatives are.
Okumura, my favourite boss in the game, suffers from the same problem. All throughout his palace we witness how he only sees his workers and immediate family as dehumanized robots. The dungeoncrawling further reinforces that, using its miniboss structure and the dialogue to display the abuse trickling down the hierarchy of command the way Ronald Reagan preached money would. It also ingeniously employs RPG tropes of timed puzzles and bridges that need to be lowered in order to progress, using them as metaphors for workplace abuse. Despite all that, Persona 5 still refuses to level a systemic critique at how such exploitative spaces are born, claiming it's all due to a combination of monetary debt and daddy issues. Haru’s social link might reassure us that now Okumura Foods is a good company, with a good CEO, but we simply have no way of knowing since Persona 5 seems uninterested in exploring any further ramifications of the old boss’s fall. The game basically asks us to take him at face value. It's so uninterested in fact, there’s even a small scene where Joker and Morgana overhear a conversation between two office workers who share their belief that the Phantom Thieves should punish every company that mistreats its employees. How do they respond? Morgana brushes it off in a single line like it's not their problem.
Once Sae and Shido’s palaces roll around it seems more and more like the Phantom Thieves are incapable of understanding how to actually bring any meaningful change in society. This is where it gets especially infuriating, because there are hints dropped here and there that the problem goes much deeper than corrupt individuals, such as when Akechi explicitely points out that 99% of court cases end in guilty verdicts and that the system is clearly flawed. Yet, despite having basically the reached the finale of the story, the cast still refuses to actually engage in any kind of meaningful discussion about it. In the end, defeating Shido, while once again something good and necessary, simply results in the maintaining of the status quo, the old ruling class staying in power. Nothing fundamentally changes, they just avoided the worst case scenario.
Part 3: Life might change
To be fair, the main reason I believe Persona 5 shies away from these questions is that for most of the bosses, the main characters fight them more because of personal grievances than anything. While this works well story-wise, giving each party member a good reason for joining the team and sticking with it, it ends up eclipsing the larger theme of rebellion and of anyone in the world being able to fight against cruel circumstances. One dungeon where this ends up working to its benefit is Futaba’s Palace, since the more personal and intimate focus allows for a greater focus on the arc’s specific themes without having to necessarily deal with more all-encompassing societal problems.
For the base game's final arc, the story suddenly takes a weird turn, deciding to go 100% supernatural for its ending. After a story that features somewhat grounded and believable characters, having the big reveal be that a lawful evil god was just manipulating the main character for his goals can’t help but feel somewhat out of place. This is also where the game drops most pretentions of its story being about ordinary people standing up for themselves and simply deifies the Phantom Thieves, glorifying them and putting the burden of humanity’s survival on their shoulders. The original ending is satisfying at first glance, but deep down, I feel a sense like things haven’t actually improved. I am especially ambivalent regarding the scene that happens between Sae and Joker on 2/13: on the one hand I do want to read it the way the game wants us to, with society giving back to the wronged after all their struggles, but on the other it feels misguided to leave everything in the hands of the system that put the characters in the difficult situation they were in at the start.
I don’t have much to add when it comes to the arc added by Royal, I simply find it a great addition which does a much better job at dealing with its themes of acceptance of reality much more coherently than the base game does with its own tackling of rebellion, much for the same reason I found the Futaba arc more compelling than the others.
Maybe you find this review to be missing the point of Persona 5 Royal, that the game doesn’t need to talk about its topic in a revolutionary light, and to be honest, that’s quite fair. On a surface level, it works really well as pure entertainment and a fantasy of escape from reality. I’m just a player who finds himself disappointed that a game which takes around one hundred hours per playthrough never bothered to dig deeper into its own themes.
this game isnt as bad i thought it was but unfortunately my SD card got corrupted while playing this game so i give it a .5/5 and if i could i would give it a 0 combat is insanely fun but the story is lacking a lil, i really like the interactions between some of the characters but man i fucking hate morgana so much
About as fun as accidentally pulling out a pube
This review contains spoilers
I LOVE this game. ill give you a quick P5og opinion rundown but I love palace 1 4 and 6. 2 is great and 8 is pretty fun and decent ending. this game OVERSTAYS its welcome. so much LOL this was one of the first JRPGS I've ever beaten so after playing a lot more JRPGS I definitely see the flaws most other JRPG fans have with this game but still, it sticks out to me, it's really unique and a blast. BUT palace 9???????????? OH MY GOD, I felt l like I was playing the OG game again for the first time. I thought I was really spoiled but I really didn't know shit and I thought it was gonna be mega-ass. But when I got to it and saw what it was about it REALLY hit me hard seeing all of my favorite characters having their tragedies undone and them living like nothing ever happened was so heartbreaking because you knew that it was gonna be undone and things were gonna go back to reality. Also, I really love the message of moving forward with your scars as lessons. Maurki is probably easily the best persona villain to date. Some of the execution is a bit shaky IMO but I think that's in vain for persona 5 because for all the bad there's a lot of good and well-done. Akechi is one of my favorite characters now because of this game.
Pretty good when you ain’t got a bitch in your ear telling you it’s not
I beat this game over 2.5 weeks while I had covid - it was amazing and makes me look back fondly on the time that I had covid, which is saying a lot because I felt like human garbage
Very fun game with likable characters that suffer from inconsistent writing. This game had a huge impact on me so it’s very hard to give it a fair rating but I do think some of the writing is poor and often saved by very likable characters. The gameplay is the best in the series and the added third semester content is the best part of any persona game. Definitely worth a play with easily ignored flaws.
straight up makes p5 irrelevant, really glad I saw this one through to end but ultimately after completing it I decided going forward that series was not for me
ryuji. bro. i love you, but you gotta quiet down about being a phantom thief in the middle of a CROWDED SUBWAY STATION 😩
This review contains spoilers
What isn't there to say about this game that already hasn't been said? It's a masterpiece, an almost flawless piece of fiction.
Story
The story is pretty spectacular from start to finish, it starts off with one of the best arcs in the game with Kamoshida. The starting characters of Ryujji, Ann and Morgona get you immediately invested in the story. These characters feel real in their motivations and goals, and feel very distinct and unique in their personalities. The same is true for the rest of the cast, each character is really well written. Some characters dont shine as well in the main story like Haru due to lack of screentime and importance in the story besides one arc, but this is where the social links come in to flesh out the characters. So either way, each cast member gets the attention they deserve.
The villains are pretty good, most aren't the deepest characters in the world but they get the job done. I was a little dissapointed by Shido though, he felt a tad forgettable, however this is only a minor flaw. The third semester villain trumps all of the villains for me due to his complex motivations and ideology, it's great because he's not a bad person, he just has a different perspective to the thieves. This makes him very sympathetic in the game, definitely one of my favourite villains in fiction.
There is only a couple of sore spots in the story for me, like the dreaded Morgona arc where he leaves because he thinks he is useless. This felt very contrived to me and forced since it's extremely clear from start to finish he isn't useless, and his reasoning for feeling useless is frankly idiotic, and Morgona gets overly angry in a short time span too, it went from 0 to 100 way too quickly. Ryujjis treatment of him didn't help for me either. The only other sore spots in the story is Shido as the big bad and some very minor scenes that feel very off to me, like the scene where they leave Shidos palace and everyone thinks Ryuji is dead, and they play it off as a weird gag right after. These weird tone shifts are rare though and thats the only occasion where it's really a problem.
Presentation
The music... 10/10. You don't need a review on the music. It's spectacular, one of the best soundtracks in gaming. The graphics? Despite being based off a PS3 game, it's still a looker. The art style is clean, quite a lot of detail but still very "anime". The animated cutscenes can sometimes look a little "cheap"? However the in game cutscenes look amazing, like when Ann almost kills Kamoshida. Shit is excellent looking.
Gameplay
Like the previous two Persona games, the gameplay is split into dungeon crawling and daily life gameplay. Daily life gameplay involves you spending time with your friends by levelling up their social link rank, this is the most important thing. All the other social gameplay revolves around this, like social stats like "Knowledge" or "Guts". That's important since social links can have barriers to entry if lets say your "Guts" wasn't high enough. You can level up social stats by doing various activities of your choosing So the daily life gameplay involves managing your time so you can max out as many social links as possible. There is a lot of strategy in spending your time, if you are good enough (and abuse Chihaya's ability enough) you can max out everyone. The social gameplay is really well done too since doing these links effect dungeon gameplay, like making you gain more EXP when fusing Personas of the same arcana, or confidant abilities that give you more options. However, I wish these abilities were optional in some cases when you get them, I will explain why later.
Dungeon gameplay is the other half. This involves exploring palaces and Mementos with shadows dotted around the place. Palaces are awesome, unlike previous Persona games, they are properly designed areas with puzzles, exploration and layouts. All of the palaces are well designed layout wise and puzzle wise mostly, there are some annoying puzzles like the air lock puzzles but these are inoffensive. There are also will seeds which are collectables that when you gather three of them, you get a very useful accessory. Adds a bigger reason to explore palaces more so I appreciate that. They also restore your SP, I don't like this because it makes SP management a bit too easy, luckily, I collect will seeds on the day of infiltration so it's not an issue for me. Mementos is like the previous games with randomly geneated floor layouts, this was terrible in vanilla Persona 5, but thanks to the stamps collecting and new music it's way better. Battling is amazing turn based combat. Striking weaknesses is very important just like the other Persona games for a "One more", but you also have technicals and baton pass which add another layer to gameplay. However, recently I've been feeling mixed on baton passing. For boss fights, I love baton passes because they allow for a lot of strategy within the boss fights, and bosses are hard and challenging, they feel well designed around baton pass. However, for enemy encounters, I don't think I like them. Because to me, it feels a bit too easy to knock down all the enemies with baton passing, it's a bit too versatile and makes enemy encounters feel too linear? With baton passing, you can make it so enemies barely get the chance to act, especially if you ambush them. I would call this is a criticism, but I can do something called "Just dont use baton pass lol", so really, it's nice it's an option for people who do like it. So yeah, the battle system is amazing, the best turn based combat ever. However, there is one fatal flaw with this game, perhaps the biggest in this game that holds back the battling for me.
The biggest flaw of this game
Whats this big flaw? Well, you may have noticed that I have restricted myself in a lot of ways in this playthrough in an attempt to make it harder. Like not collecting will seeds, not using baton pass, and I even don't use SP items too. I don't see these as flaws since I can easily just not use them and players who want to use them can do so. However, remember the confidant abilities? Well I want to max them all out because it gives purpose to the social gameplay, most confidant abilities are well balanced. However, there is one I do not like. Mishima's. When levelled up, Mishima gives the ability to increase XP you earn by a lot. Why is this an issue though? Less grinding right? Well true, but what if you like the battle system though? Mishima's social link maxed out makes it so only a couple of battles can make enemies a joke around you. Thus this makes battling repetitive and linear since enemies are no longer a threat, you don't have to be strategic as much, this with Ryujjis insta kill ability makes it so you can automatically get XP without even battling. For some people, they love this, it makes it so they do less battling and want to finish the palace quicker and get to the story. But for me, who wants to battle more, for me who wants to manage SP management and resources more often, Mishima removes that. This is why I feel confidant abilities should be toggleable. Despite this, I still really love the gameplay, in future playthroughs I will avoid doing Mishima's social link since before I didn't know he could negatively impact the playthrough this much.
Royal additions
Since this is basically a definitive edition over the original Persona 5, would I say the new additions are worth it? Yes. 1000%. There are so many good additions, it changes palace layouts, adds will seeds, adds technicals and changes up boss fights in the gameplay department. I love these additions, it makes the gameplay so much better over vanilla, it's like an improved remix. Story wise this has added a lot too. Kasumi is an excellent addition to the game, her struggle for identity and moving on from the past really hits hard. Her social link is one of the best in the game. The villain as I said is amazing for so many reasons. And then there is Akechi... To be frank, he SUCKED in vanilla. Here, they really fleshed him out as a person both in the base game with his brand new social link and his use in the third semester. Akechi is incredible in this game, certainly one of the best characters in this game.
Conclusion
Despite the difficulty complaint and some minor complaints, this is indeed perhaps my favourite game of all time. After this, I am planning to replay Persona 4 Golden too, this is to decide which game takes hold as my top 1 game. This has already shot past Danganronpa V3 and retook it's place as my top 1, now it's up to P4G on whether it can surpass this game or not. Overall, Atlus, you have created one of the best pieces of fiction in existence, I applaud you.
10/10
Story
The story is pretty spectacular from start to finish, it starts off with one of the best arcs in the game with Kamoshida. The starting characters of Ryujji, Ann and Morgona get you immediately invested in the story. These characters feel real in their motivations and goals, and feel very distinct and unique in their personalities. The same is true for the rest of the cast, each character is really well written. Some characters dont shine as well in the main story like Haru due to lack of screentime and importance in the story besides one arc, but this is where the social links come in to flesh out the characters. So either way, each cast member gets the attention they deserve.
The villains are pretty good, most aren't the deepest characters in the world but they get the job done. I was a little dissapointed by Shido though, he felt a tad forgettable, however this is only a minor flaw. The third semester villain trumps all of the villains for me due to his complex motivations and ideology, it's great because he's not a bad person, he just has a different perspective to the thieves. This makes him very sympathetic in the game, definitely one of my favourite villains in fiction.
There is only a couple of sore spots in the story for me, like the dreaded Morgona arc where he leaves because he thinks he is useless. This felt very contrived to me and forced since it's extremely clear from start to finish he isn't useless, and his reasoning for feeling useless is frankly idiotic, and Morgona gets overly angry in a short time span too, it went from 0 to 100 way too quickly. Ryujjis treatment of him didn't help for me either. The only other sore spots in the story is Shido as the big bad and some very minor scenes that feel very off to me, like the scene where they leave Shidos palace and everyone thinks Ryuji is dead, and they play it off as a weird gag right after. These weird tone shifts are rare though and thats the only occasion where it's really a problem.
Presentation
The music... 10/10. You don't need a review on the music. It's spectacular, one of the best soundtracks in gaming. The graphics? Despite being based off a PS3 game, it's still a looker. The art style is clean, quite a lot of detail but still very "anime". The animated cutscenes can sometimes look a little "cheap"? However the in game cutscenes look amazing, like when Ann almost kills Kamoshida. Shit is excellent looking.
Gameplay
Like the previous two Persona games, the gameplay is split into dungeon crawling and daily life gameplay. Daily life gameplay involves you spending time with your friends by levelling up their social link rank, this is the most important thing. All the other social gameplay revolves around this, like social stats like "Knowledge" or "Guts". That's important since social links can have barriers to entry if lets say your "Guts" wasn't high enough. You can level up social stats by doing various activities of your choosing So the daily life gameplay involves managing your time so you can max out as many social links as possible. There is a lot of strategy in spending your time, if you are good enough (and abuse Chihaya's ability enough) you can max out everyone. The social gameplay is really well done too since doing these links effect dungeon gameplay, like making you gain more EXP when fusing Personas of the same arcana, or confidant abilities that give you more options. However, I wish these abilities were optional in some cases when you get them, I will explain why later.
Dungeon gameplay is the other half. This involves exploring palaces and Mementos with shadows dotted around the place. Palaces are awesome, unlike previous Persona games, they are properly designed areas with puzzles, exploration and layouts. All of the palaces are well designed layout wise and puzzle wise mostly, there are some annoying puzzles like the air lock puzzles but these are inoffensive. There are also will seeds which are collectables that when you gather three of them, you get a very useful accessory. Adds a bigger reason to explore palaces more so I appreciate that. They also restore your SP, I don't like this because it makes SP management a bit too easy, luckily, I collect will seeds on the day of infiltration so it's not an issue for me. Mementos is like the previous games with randomly geneated floor layouts, this was terrible in vanilla Persona 5, but thanks to the stamps collecting and new music it's way better. Battling is amazing turn based combat. Striking weaknesses is very important just like the other Persona games for a "One more", but you also have technicals and baton pass which add another layer to gameplay. However, recently I've been feeling mixed on baton passing. For boss fights, I love baton passes because they allow for a lot of strategy within the boss fights, and bosses are hard and challenging, they feel well designed around baton pass. However, for enemy encounters, I don't think I like them. Because to me, it feels a bit too easy to knock down all the enemies with baton passing, it's a bit too versatile and makes enemy encounters feel too linear? With baton passing, you can make it so enemies barely get the chance to act, especially if you ambush them. I would call this is a criticism, but I can do something called "Just dont use baton pass lol", so really, it's nice it's an option for people who do like it. So yeah, the battle system is amazing, the best turn based combat ever. However, there is one fatal flaw with this game, perhaps the biggest in this game that holds back the battling for me.
The biggest flaw of this game
Whats this big flaw? Well, you may have noticed that I have restricted myself in a lot of ways in this playthrough in an attempt to make it harder. Like not collecting will seeds, not using baton pass, and I even don't use SP items too. I don't see these as flaws since I can easily just not use them and players who want to use them can do so. However, remember the confidant abilities? Well I want to max them all out because it gives purpose to the social gameplay, most confidant abilities are well balanced. However, there is one I do not like. Mishima's. When levelled up, Mishima gives the ability to increase XP you earn by a lot. Why is this an issue though? Less grinding right? Well true, but what if you like the battle system though? Mishima's social link maxed out makes it so only a couple of battles can make enemies a joke around you. Thus this makes battling repetitive and linear since enemies are no longer a threat, you don't have to be strategic as much, this with Ryujjis insta kill ability makes it so you can automatically get XP without even battling. For some people, they love this, it makes it so they do less battling and want to finish the palace quicker and get to the story. But for me, who wants to battle more, for me who wants to manage SP management and resources more often, Mishima removes that. This is why I feel confidant abilities should be toggleable. Despite this, I still really love the gameplay, in future playthroughs I will avoid doing Mishima's social link since before I didn't know he could negatively impact the playthrough this much.
Royal additions
Since this is basically a definitive edition over the original Persona 5, would I say the new additions are worth it? Yes. 1000%. There are so many good additions, it changes palace layouts, adds will seeds, adds technicals and changes up boss fights in the gameplay department. I love these additions, it makes the gameplay so much better over vanilla, it's like an improved remix. Story wise this has added a lot too. Kasumi is an excellent addition to the game, her struggle for identity and moving on from the past really hits hard. Her social link is one of the best in the game. The villain as I said is amazing for so many reasons. And then there is Akechi... To be frank, he SUCKED in vanilla. Here, they really fleshed him out as a person both in the base game with his brand new social link and his use in the third semester. Akechi is incredible in this game, certainly one of the best characters in this game.
Conclusion
Despite the difficulty complaint and some minor complaints, this is indeed perhaps my favourite game of all time. After this, I am planning to replay Persona 4 Golden too, this is to decide which game takes hold as my top 1 game. This has already shot past Danganronpa V3 and retook it's place as my top 1, now it's up to P4G on whether it can surpass this game or not. Overall, Atlus, you have created one of the best pieces of fiction in existence, I applaud you.
10/10
This is, without a doubt the best JRPG I have ever played. From the storytelling, to the music, to the combat, everything is so incredibly well done that the length doesn't even feel like that. Immaculate.
Taking back reality
It's not a surprise to hear "Persona 5" in the gaming space today. The one to bring turn based JRPGs from the brink in 2016-2017 during its initial release window. While beloved in many gaming circles, a divisive title in its own community due what was given up or given. It's gotten to a point that you'd be ridiculed on this very site for having the game or the Royal iteration as one of your favorite games because of its reputation as an entry into the turn based JRPG space and JRPGs in general. I enjoyed the vanilla version of Persona 5 when I played it at twenty frames per second on a middle of the line computer several years back and I think while flawed, I enjoyed what I played with the story hitting home pretty well at the time and the combat being really smooth to play. I can safely say Royal adds enough to make the experience fresh and it really needed to do so as I've clocked 141 hours when the clear screen popped up. Despite the long run time, Persona 5 Royal really more than the sum of its parts and some of the parts are dare I say, pretty great.
The narrative really has to pull a miracle here to justify the narrative being as long as it is. The days can go by in seconds, minutes or even hours sometimes. It's hard to gauge the regular main narrative this time around due to being completely familiar with it despite being years of playing but I'll say the good moments still hit and some of the ridiculous moments are still ridiculous but given with a bit more nuance this time around. Still a decent story to tell revolving around how we perceive things, politics, and general psychology although I wish it went a bit farther with some stuff. Royal adds a few more scenes and more things to help flesh out the characters and your cliche as you form memories with your team. The overall arcs range from good to alright with the third arc not being as good despite the dungeon being great in my opinion. Definitely a few flaws overall as much as I want to elaborate more, it would be too specific for a spoiler free opinion but the overall package and the "original" ending still hits pretty strong even though Royal reintroduces a new experience. I think my main problem with the writing and narrative is that I feel it doesn't go deep enough into the subject matter itself. I can understand insulting adults for how the world is but it also feels a bit too naive although the story doesn't really help in this factor. It feels like it can be oceans worth to say but it's only puddles here. It's definitely a long journey to say the least and even with someone lacking in patience like I do, surprised to only feel the padding a little bit in the end.
The biggest additions to Royal in the narrative is the two new confidants: a first year honor student and talented gymnast, Kasumi Yoshizawa and a bumbling yet earnest high school counselor, Takuto Maruki and the brand new "third semester" which really more like an additional arc/month more than anything. Kasumi brings an interesting yet utilized in the wrong moments and even underutilized at times as well. I like her overall demeanor. I guess I can respect that they didn't want her to completely muddy the original narrative with her appearance more constantly and involved and I feel the scenes in between do a decent job of keeping a rapport with her but it's a bit disappointing with how long you truly have her to say the least. Onto greener pastures, the "third semester" overall is a great addition and have some of the highest points I didn't think the game was capable of. Steeling resolves, seeing old friends, one of the most sympathetic palace rulers yet along with an extremely high quality dungeon that's long, manages to provide context and depth, notes on specific things and the visual quality and puzzles are a step up from what we've seen before. I can understand being a bit cautious of additional dungeons in a Persona re-release after Golden but I think this one is hard to go without at this point and arguably one of the highest point in the game. Maruki provides an extremely interesting perspective into the effects on mental health and trauma as you visit him during your playthrough. It's hard to hate his amicable demeanor most of the time. I wish I can say more but I think you should fully realize his dream when you have the chance. I wish to talk about one more person and for those that played the game, I hope it should be obvious when I say they fleshed him out way more than I liked in a good way. I understand why the fans like him now.
A play is not without the actors and actresses and the cast and characters for the game are actually great but also a missed opportunity at least with the main cast. I think what really sells them for me is the little interactions sprinkled out throughout the story making it a bit more believable that these people are actually friends with a similar confidence to truly face the world and fight for what they believe in. Some characters are a bit tropey but that's a given in a japanese title and especially JRPGs at this point but some are just a bit too out there at times. It's also more that they do some really dumb and ridiculous decisions that take me out of the story for moments and just leave a bad taste afterwards too. Even with their initial arcs, I think the game does a good job of keeping them doing stuff together and have some semblance of importance in the overall plot compared to the other games where they kinda become paper stands for the big moments. Despite that, you honestly feel like you belong in this group and probably the only people in the game that will truly sympathize with you. The villains are a bit lacking sadly barring a few. It's almost feels like cartoon villain tier with the stuff they did or doing so you never feel a twinge of regret playing through most of the game. Not to say that sympathetic villains are the only way to write good villains but I think figuring out how and why they went these awful ways would be something that can also link to the main narrative as well so a thread can continue spinning after an arc is concluded. I thought the will seed system introduced in Royal would be just that when I heard about what it is suppose to represent in the cognitive world but I was disappointed there isn't much to them from a narrative sense. It's funny because I think this game has one of the better villains I've seen in a JRPG too but just know it'll pay off in the end. You can't reform society with a few teenagers as you learn about confidants or people that are dealing with their own unjust struggle the same as you. You'll probably spend a huge majority of your time helping these people, understanding their struggles and setting their problems on the right path so to speak. I fortunately managed to complete every one with time to spare and most of them were a treat to experience again including a revised confidant that I won't spoil but enjoyed a lot. The variety of people is great too ranging from a teacher, a former yakuza, a politician and a journalist looking for the truth.
Time. Persona 5 Royal gives you more of it to fully utilize the new locations and activities but the main appeal of the game is how you'll spend that time. Apart from moonlighting as a phantom thief, you'll also be a high school student with a variety of activities to do after the final bell rings. The main form of progression here is your social stats: how smart you are, how dexterous you are, how kind and understanding you are, how brave you are in the face of sheer adversity and danger and how much charisma you garner to attract those that share the same values you do. These are eventually used to continue specific confidants themselves and grant various advantages as well so aiming to be the best person you can be feels a bit more believable given the incredible amount of time you have for this game. The standard rage of activities comes from seeing your friends and confidants, participating in self improvement like reading and going to the gym to more recreational activities introduced in Royal like playing darts with your friends or showing off your billiards prowess. Persona in recent times is known to have this wonderful mix of brevity by showing the real life continuation of someone while giving you a regular JRPG experience with levels, dungeons and customization to boot and the day to day section feels a bit more fleshed out here granted I did get a bit bored near the end when I had nothing else to do but improve mine or my friends stats which didn't feel like a complete waste but there was nothing meaningful at that point. I was ready for the journey to end.
The other side of you, fighting for your own justice. When it's finally time, you have work to do. This is when you enter the other world and begin your infiltration. The dungeon format consists of palaces throughout the game and you're given a few weeks to complete each one which feels extremely generous in all honesty. If you're good enough, you can complete them all in one day eventually and the Royal edition gives you a lot of tools for sustainability during your trials. I only truly had SP problems at the first dungeon but not as much afterwards so I managed to stay at every dungeon indefinitely until I "completed" it for the day. I will say the dungeons themselves are honestly great here and Royal does a bit to make them a little better to say the least. Despite the linear nature, they're always visually distinct from one another and provide different means of getting from A to B other than the new grappling hook mechanic. Will Seeds are cool but another missed opportunity too with how gathering them only involves going a little out of your way and the main reward only happens for getting them all and a bit more SP for your troubles. Out of every dungeon in the game, I only really found two of them to not be as great and almost tedious at times but some shine so much brighter than others, it's hard to forget their dark sheen. The new Royal dungeon probably has to be the best one by a huge mile, thematically and story wise too. Palaces aren't the only "dungeons" you'll be experiencing as well as there's Mementos, a large overarching dungeon that relies on randomly generated floors like the previous two titles did for their dungeons. Fortunately Royal improves them a tiny bit with the addition of Jose, a mysterious being that wants to understand human desires. He makes exploring Mementos a bit more to it but unfortunately I can't say it's much other than it'll give great rewards for actually doing so at least and even change how much you even get from the place too. I really do find the locations themselves interesting and thematically fitting for the group of heroes moonlighting as thieves. You'll essentially be robbing a bank, an art museum and even an ancient pyramid for "treasure" really sells the thief fantasy pretty well too when I thought about it. All locations that usually have something precious and expensive in them.
Apart from the exploration of the other world, you're going to have to fight the sea of cognitive beings and people to reach your goals. I have always respect how smooth combat plays out even in the original Persona 5 due to the intuitive "menuing" system as I like to call it. A quick explanation of "menuing" would be how fast your muscle memory goes to specific commands in a turn based JRPG and how fast the delay between selecting the move and the move being done is. Persona 5 is excellent for this to the point it also doesn't feel turn based when I was in the zone and being fast with my inputs. The sheer amount of customization and flexibility for creating your demons is outstanding too with a new trait system and other systems to make making strong demons much more feasible and more into your own desires. Your teammates also essentially work as their own Persona being able to get skills as specific levels as usual but you can actually do more with them in the Royal edition. Taking them to a jazz club can enhance their stats or even grant them new moves they wouldn't have been able to get to allow a better amount of customization that I really enjoyed with the game that kept me going honestly. Sadly that's where the positive remarks stop and now I introduce my main problem with the game that might purely be subjective: The game is incredibly easy even on Hard. I didn't play Merciless since extra damage on technicals and more exp and money when I was already getting overleveled without even grinding was kind of an issue for a bit. I think it feels unfortunate when the game gives you so many fun tools to make the ideal demon for the ideal situation and the game never really expects much from you at all even with the various difficulty levels. Most of the game I was just overleveled without even trying so most enemies were never challenging to engage with barring one boss that caught me by surprised by how specific you had to be that I actually enjoyed the challenge. Maybe it's that I'm used to playing megaten games at this point that this felt like a cake walk but I just wish they introduced harder difficulties especially when Royal adds a few quality of life additions that make the combat even easier like reloading your gun after a battle now and so forth. If this game had the right amount of challenge, it might have been one of my favorite JRPGs easily. Sadly because of how easy it was mostly, it barely misses the mark a bit for me.
One of the main appeals of Persona 5 is the style and overall sound. Menus with a red and black motif, the obviously jazz inspired soundtrack to the point you get "Persona 5 invented jazz" memes spread throughout most of the internet. The stylized world really helps make it feel way more unique compared to the others it's not even funny. Bordering on overrated at this point, I still think Persona 5's overall soundtrack is excellent and the new Royal additions are just as excellent almost if not better too. Hearing The Whims of Fate during a specific palace really enhanced how exciting everything was at the time. From the other side, hearing this palace theme with an extremely emotional guitar playing in the background to the point you can feel their pain traversing through one of the unique palaces in context.
"Style over substance" feels like a common way people tend to describe Persona 5 but it doesn't feel exactly wrong or right either. I do agree that the game never goes too far with the themes and ideas it tries to present and goes for a safe option where most of the villains are painted out to be always evil, the characters despite being treated different and ostracized from society never fully going into how that truly affects someone's mental space. I can see how people wanted something really deep with this title and while I can say the original title didn't do that, Royal managed to do a bit more here. I also feel like the quote is wrong too because there's a lot to love in this game despite my gameplay grievances with it. Even if you didn't find the narrative and characters life changing, getting to know everyone and being in that world for that much time and rarely feeling like it was padded for 141 hours almost feels like a miracle. One day you can spend hanging out with someone and it could mean the world for them and another day, you're just hitting home runs at the batting cage. The endings of these games always feel bittersweet because of the long journey it took to get there, you spent so much time in the world that you can't help but feel sad when the game ends because replaying it is a herculean task in itself sadly. Maybe not for others but putting another 100 hours in an NG+ playthrough might be a bit much sadly.
Given unfair justice, a young adult tries to take back his future and the world with the help of those that share his struggles in itself creates a place and meaning in society just for them. If you enjoyed Persona 5 already then the Royal edition is a no brainer but if you're apprehensive or not a fan of the original title, hard call to say but leaning towards not trying it again since it's a time investment at that point for you. A few missed opportunities and generally too easy but I enjoyed the long haul in general.
It's not a surprise to hear "Persona 5" in the gaming space today. The one to bring turn based JRPGs from the brink in 2016-2017 during its initial release window. While beloved in many gaming circles, a divisive title in its own community due what was given up or given. It's gotten to a point that you'd be ridiculed on this very site for having the game or the Royal iteration as one of your favorite games because of its reputation as an entry into the turn based JRPG space and JRPGs in general. I enjoyed the vanilla version of Persona 5 when I played it at twenty frames per second on a middle of the line computer several years back and I think while flawed, I enjoyed what I played with the story hitting home pretty well at the time and the combat being really smooth to play. I can safely say Royal adds enough to make the experience fresh and it really needed to do so as I've clocked 141 hours when the clear screen popped up. Despite the long run time, Persona 5 Royal really more than the sum of its parts and some of the parts are dare I say, pretty great.
The narrative really has to pull a miracle here to justify the narrative being as long as it is. The days can go by in seconds, minutes or even hours sometimes. It's hard to gauge the regular main narrative this time around due to being completely familiar with it despite being years of playing but I'll say the good moments still hit and some of the ridiculous moments are still ridiculous but given with a bit more nuance this time around. Still a decent story to tell revolving around how we perceive things, politics, and general psychology although I wish it went a bit farther with some stuff. Royal adds a few more scenes and more things to help flesh out the characters and your cliche as you form memories with your team. The overall arcs range from good to alright with the third arc not being as good despite the dungeon being great in my opinion. Definitely a few flaws overall as much as I want to elaborate more, it would be too specific for a spoiler free opinion but the overall package and the "original" ending still hits pretty strong even though Royal reintroduces a new experience. I think my main problem with the writing and narrative is that I feel it doesn't go deep enough into the subject matter itself. I can understand insulting adults for how the world is but it also feels a bit too naive although the story doesn't really help in this factor. It feels like it can be oceans worth to say but it's only puddles here. It's definitely a long journey to say the least and even with someone lacking in patience like I do, surprised to only feel the padding a little bit in the end.
The biggest additions to Royal in the narrative is the two new confidants: a first year honor student and talented gymnast, Kasumi Yoshizawa and a bumbling yet earnest high school counselor, Takuto Maruki and the brand new "third semester" which really more like an additional arc/month more than anything. Kasumi brings an interesting yet utilized in the wrong moments and even underutilized at times as well. I like her overall demeanor. I guess I can respect that they didn't want her to completely muddy the original narrative with her appearance more constantly and involved and I feel the scenes in between do a decent job of keeping a rapport with her but it's a bit disappointing with how long you truly have her to say the least. Onto greener pastures, the "third semester" overall is a great addition and have some of the highest points I didn't think the game was capable of. Steeling resolves, seeing old friends, one of the most sympathetic palace rulers yet along with an extremely high quality dungeon that's long, manages to provide context and depth, notes on specific things and the visual quality and puzzles are a step up from what we've seen before. I can understand being a bit cautious of additional dungeons in a Persona re-release after Golden but I think this one is hard to go without at this point and arguably one of the highest point in the game. Maruki provides an extremely interesting perspective into the effects on mental health and trauma as you visit him during your playthrough. It's hard to hate his amicable demeanor most of the time. I wish I can say more but I think you should fully realize his dream when you have the chance. I wish to talk about one more person and for those that played the game, I hope it should be obvious when I say they fleshed him out way more than I liked in a good way. I understand why the fans like him now.
A play is not without the actors and actresses and the cast and characters for the game are actually great but also a missed opportunity at least with the main cast. I think what really sells them for me is the little interactions sprinkled out throughout the story making it a bit more believable that these people are actually friends with a similar confidence to truly face the world and fight for what they believe in. Some characters are a bit tropey but that's a given in a japanese title and especially JRPGs at this point but some are just a bit too out there at times. It's also more that they do some really dumb and ridiculous decisions that take me out of the story for moments and just leave a bad taste afterwards too. Even with their initial arcs, I think the game does a good job of keeping them doing stuff together and have some semblance of importance in the overall plot compared to the other games where they kinda become paper stands for the big moments. Despite that, you honestly feel like you belong in this group and probably the only people in the game that will truly sympathize with you. The villains are a bit lacking sadly barring a few. It's almost feels like cartoon villain tier with the stuff they did or doing so you never feel a twinge of regret playing through most of the game. Not to say that sympathetic villains are the only way to write good villains but I think figuring out how and why they went these awful ways would be something that can also link to the main narrative as well so a thread can continue spinning after an arc is concluded. I thought the will seed system introduced in Royal would be just that when I heard about what it is suppose to represent in the cognitive world but I was disappointed there isn't much to them from a narrative sense. It's funny because I think this game has one of the better villains I've seen in a JRPG too but just know it'll pay off in the end. You can't reform society with a few teenagers as you learn about confidants or people that are dealing with their own unjust struggle the same as you. You'll probably spend a huge majority of your time helping these people, understanding their struggles and setting their problems on the right path so to speak. I fortunately managed to complete every one with time to spare and most of them were a treat to experience again including a revised confidant that I won't spoil but enjoyed a lot. The variety of people is great too ranging from a teacher, a former yakuza, a politician and a journalist looking for the truth.
Time. Persona 5 Royal gives you more of it to fully utilize the new locations and activities but the main appeal of the game is how you'll spend that time. Apart from moonlighting as a phantom thief, you'll also be a high school student with a variety of activities to do after the final bell rings. The main form of progression here is your social stats: how smart you are, how dexterous you are, how kind and understanding you are, how brave you are in the face of sheer adversity and danger and how much charisma you garner to attract those that share the same values you do. These are eventually used to continue specific confidants themselves and grant various advantages as well so aiming to be the best person you can be feels a bit more believable given the incredible amount of time you have for this game. The standard rage of activities comes from seeing your friends and confidants, participating in self improvement like reading and going to the gym to more recreational activities introduced in Royal like playing darts with your friends or showing off your billiards prowess. Persona in recent times is known to have this wonderful mix of brevity by showing the real life continuation of someone while giving you a regular JRPG experience with levels, dungeons and customization to boot and the day to day section feels a bit more fleshed out here granted I did get a bit bored near the end when I had nothing else to do but improve mine or my friends stats which didn't feel like a complete waste but there was nothing meaningful at that point. I was ready for the journey to end.
The other side of you, fighting for your own justice. When it's finally time, you have work to do. This is when you enter the other world and begin your infiltration. The dungeon format consists of palaces throughout the game and you're given a few weeks to complete each one which feels extremely generous in all honesty. If you're good enough, you can complete them all in one day eventually and the Royal edition gives you a lot of tools for sustainability during your trials. I only truly had SP problems at the first dungeon but not as much afterwards so I managed to stay at every dungeon indefinitely until I "completed" it for the day. I will say the dungeons themselves are honestly great here and Royal does a bit to make them a little better to say the least. Despite the linear nature, they're always visually distinct from one another and provide different means of getting from A to B other than the new grappling hook mechanic. Will Seeds are cool but another missed opportunity too with how gathering them only involves going a little out of your way and the main reward only happens for getting them all and a bit more SP for your troubles. Out of every dungeon in the game, I only really found two of them to not be as great and almost tedious at times but some shine so much brighter than others, it's hard to forget their dark sheen. The new Royal dungeon probably has to be the best one by a huge mile, thematically and story wise too. Palaces aren't the only "dungeons" you'll be experiencing as well as there's Mementos, a large overarching dungeon that relies on randomly generated floors like the previous two titles did for their dungeons. Fortunately Royal improves them a tiny bit with the addition of Jose, a mysterious being that wants to understand human desires. He makes exploring Mementos a bit more to it but unfortunately I can't say it's much other than it'll give great rewards for actually doing so at least and even change how much you even get from the place too. I really do find the locations themselves interesting and thematically fitting for the group of heroes moonlighting as thieves. You'll essentially be robbing a bank, an art museum and even an ancient pyramid for "treasure" really sells the thief fantasy pretty well too when I thought about it. All locations that usually have something precious and expensive in them.
Apart from the exploration of the other world, you're going to have to fight the sea of cognitive beings and people to reach your goals. I have always respect how smooth combat plays out even in the original Persona 5 due to the intuitive "menuing" system as I like to call it. A quick explanation of "menuing" would be how fast your muscle memory goes to specific commands in a turn based JRPG and how fast the delay between selecting the move and the move being done is. Persona 5 is excellent for this to the point it also doesn't feel turn based when I was in the zone and being fast with my inputs. The sheer amount of customization and flexibility for creating your demons is outstanding too with a new trait system and other systems to make making strong demons much more feasible and more into your own desires. Your teammates also essentially work as their own Persona being able to get skills as specific levels as usual but you can actually do more with them in the Royal edition. Taking them to a jazz club can enhance their stats or even grant them new moves they wouldn't have been able to get to allow a better amount of customization that I really enjoyed with the game that kept me going honestly. Sadly that's where the positive remarks stop and now I introduce my main problem with the game that might purely be subjective: The game is incredibly easy even on Hard. I didn't play Merciless since extra damage on technicals and more exp and money when I was already getting overleveled without even grinding was kind of an issue for a bit. I think it feels unfortunate when the game gives you so many fun tools to make the ideal demon for the ideal situation and the game never really expects much from you at all even with the various difficulty levels. Most of the game I was just overleveled without even trying so most enemies were never challenging to engage with barring one boss that caught me by surprised by how specific you had to be that I actually enjoyed the challenge. Maybe it's that I'm used to playing megaten games at this point that this felt like a cake walk but I just wish they introduced harder difficulties especially when Royal adds a few quality of life additions that make the combat even easier like reloading your gun after a battle now and so forth. If this game had the right amount of challenge, it might have been one of my favorite JRPGs easily. Sadly because of how easy it was mostly, it barely misses the mark a bit for me.
One of the main appeals of Persona 5 is the style and overall sound. Menus with a red and black motif, the obviously jazz inspired soundtrack to the point you get "Persona 5 invented jazz" memes spread throughout most of the internet. The stylized world really helps make it feel way more unique compared to the others it's not even funny. Bordering on overrated at this point, I still think Persona 5's overall soundtrack is excellent and the new Royal additions are just as excellent almost if not better too. Hearing The Whims of Fate during a specific palace really enhanced how exciting everything was at the time. From the other side, hearing this palace theme with an extremely emotional guitar playing in the background to the point you can feel their pain traversing through one of the unique palaces in context.
"Style over substance" feels like a common way people tend to describe Persona 5 but it doesn't feel exactly wrong or right either. I do agree that the game never goes too far with the themes and ideas it tries to present and goes for a safe option where most of the villains are painted out to be always evil, the characters despite being treated different and ostracized from society never fully going into how that truly affects someone's mental space. I can see how people wanted something really deep with this title and while I can say the original title didn't do that, Royal managed to do a bit more here. I also feel like the quote is wrong too because there's a lot to love in this game despite my gameplay grievances with it. Even if you didn't find the narrative and characters life changing, getting to know everyone and being in that world for that much time and rarely feeling like it was padded for 141 hours almost feels like a miracle. One day you can spend hanging out with someone and it could mean the world for them and another day, you're just hitting home runs at the batting cage. The endings of these games always feel bittersweet because of the long journey it took to get there, you spent so much time in the world that you can't help but feel sad when the game ends because replaying it is a herculean task in itself sadly. Maybe not for others but putting another 100 hours in an NG+ playthrough might be a bit much sadly.
Given unfair justice, a young adult tries to take back his future and the world with the help of those that share his struggles in itself creates a place and meaning in society just for them. If you enjoyed Persona 5 already then the Royal edition is a no brainer but if you're apprehensive or not a fan of the original title, hard call to say but leaning towards not trying it again since it's a time investment at that point for you. A few missed opportunities and generally too easy but I enjoyed the long haul in general.
I bag on persona 5 a lot but jokes aside, it's really fucking fun aside from awkward moments in the story when it just seems very stagnant. Middle of game wise where sometimes, I would be like, what should I do next? alright looking past all of it, this is still one of my favorite games ever and especially royale content.
i love maruki and sumire.
i love maruki and sumire.
I swear to God the start of this game was so good I already was "alright Persona series you won, take my 4.5/5", the first 30 hours were the best part of the game by far.
The insights into the mystery are still genius.
About the common Persona 5 plot: it's very good. Amazing from the beginning to the middle, mid to the end because this franchise always can't stop the cringe of running away from the main theme and out of nowhere you start fighting a god. Again, the topic was a very good critique of society and suddenly you're against a god.
Gameplay is great and far better than any other Persona. Nothing to say here.
Royal part is mid and basically normal plot, antagonist was great and one of my favorite characters, but as a villain is kinda meh. Everything I saw in Royal part I had seen before in this medium and in other medium as well, the plot itself does not bring anything new except the research of the antagonist and Akechi who is one of the 5 best characters in this game.
Kasumi itself is overrated af, her plot is totally basic. Again, nothing new, I've seen that kind of development 4384837 times. You're lucky if it was your first time, because it's totally generic. Not to mention she was a disappointment. Royal didn't know how to use her in a good way, she was basically cameo for 80 hours.
But this game still is easily the best Persona in EVERY way: narrative, characters, fun, soundtrack... everything. And it's also clearly the one with the best theme. And I really liked the protagonist in this entry. Finally a Persona protagonist that didn't look like a "piece", he actually looked like a worthy protagonist and well used.
I swear I was enjoying the game a lot, a lot, but it's VERY repetitive. This game is long, yes, it's the longest game I've ever played, but this game's script isn't. You basically waste a lot of time doing the same things and the game goes on like this, you literally go to school, farm charm points, kindess and that things, come back, social link and sleep. You do this the whole fucking game. I love stories that take time to happen things, that proceed slowly, my favorite works are very longs slow stories, but Persona is ridiculous. It's one thing to be slow, it's another to spend 50 hours doing the same shit, social links in this franchise isn't that good as well, it's just good character development, not amazing.
So if you haven't had burnout playing this for 100 hours always going to school to study sleeping school social link sleeping school social link sleeping school study sleeping school theather sleeping I unironically say you've a better brain than me, you're better than me. I'm not kidding. You are stronger and superior to me.
TL;DR: I was really enjoying Persona 5 Royal A LOT at first, I really enjoyed playing, but after middle game my mentality was like: JUST END IT END THIS SHIT MOTHERFUCKERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
The insights into the mystery are still genius.
About the common Persona 5 plot: it's very good. Amazing from the beginning to the middle, mid to the end because this franchise always can't stop the cringe of running away from the main theme and out of nowhere you start fighting a god. Again, the topic was a very good critique of society and suddenly you're against a god.
Gameplay is great and far better than any other Persona. Nothing to say here.
Royal part is mid and basically normal plot, antagonist was great and one of my favorite characters, but as a villain is kinda meh. Everything I saw in Royal part I had seen before in this medium and in other medium as well, the plot itself does not bring anything new except the research of the antagonist and Akechi who is one of the 5 best characters in this game.
Kasumi itself is overrated af, her plot is totally basic. Again, nothing new, I've seen that kind of development 4384837 times. You're lucky if it was your first time, because it's totally generic. Not to mention she was a disappointment. Royal didn't know how to use her in a good way, she was basically cameo for 80 hours.
But this game still is easily the best Persona in EVERY way: narrative, characters, fun, soundtrack... everything. And it's also clearly the one with the best theme. And I really liked the protagonist in this entry. Finally a Persona protagonist that didn't look like a "piece", he actually looked like a worthy protagonist and well used.
I swear I was enjoying the game a lot, a lot, but it's VERY repetitive. This game is long, yes, it's the longest game I've ever played, but this game's script isn't. You basically waste a lot of time doing the same things and the game goes on like this, you literally go to school, farm charm points, kindess and that things, come back, social link and sleep. You do this the whole fucking game. I love stories that take time to happen things, that proceed slowly, my favorite works are very longs slow stories, but Persona is ridiculous. It's one thing to be slow, it's another to spend 50 hours doing the same shit, social links in this franchise isn't that good as well, it's just good character development, not amazing.
So if you haven't had burnout playing this for 100 hours always going to school to study sleeping school social link sleeping school social link sleeping school study sleeping school theather sleeping I unironically say you've a better brain than me, you're better than me. I'm not kidding. You are stronger and superior to me.
TL;DR: I was really enjoying Persona 5 Royal A LOT at first, I really enjoyed playing, but after middle game my mentality was like: JUST END IT END THIS SHIT MOTHERFUCKERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
we live in a society
i hoped a remixed Persona 5 would change the horrifically mishandled sexual assault storyline to have mattered. i also hoped it wouldn't treat Ryuji's abuse like a joke. but i guess asking for Persona 5 to be good was asking for too much.
Thank you for your service Billy Kametz
R.I.P.
R.I.P.
There’s a lot of things I could say about how wonderful Persona 5 Royal is. The new areas to explore, the new minigames, new dungeon quirks, new battle features. All of these things add up to make a pretty definitive upgrade to the vanilla Persona 5 experience. But what really pushed it up for me are the new confidants and the third semester. It’s impossible to really talk about why I love these here without getting into full spoilers. What I can say is that P5R explores some very powerful themes and some characterization that I consider to be the peak of Persona. While there were some aspects of the base game’s narrative that left me a little unsatisfied, Persona 5 Royal shows off that there are people who work at ATLUS who still know how to write a damn good story and character arcs. It gives me hope for the future of this series and I really can’t wait until my friends finally do get around to playing this.
This review contains spoilers
Not finished with my replay yet but just wanted to say rest in peace to Billy Kametz, the voice actor for one of the most interesting antagonists I have ever seen in any video game, Takuto Maruki.
Rest in peace, Doctor.
Rest in peace, Doctor.
The game only became good because it decided to plagiarize Persona 1's plot.
I love almost everything about this game. It has a great story and characters. Combat is amazing. Confidants are really good but romance could've been better. The UI is amazing. One of my favorite games of all time.
EU AMO ESSE JOGO
irei expressar meu amor por este jogp. A dificuldade, ou a ausência dela, é algo que me irrita profundamente. Parece que não há desafio real, mas ainda assim, as lutas contra os chefes conseguem apresentar momentos únicos para cada batalha.
Os "Social Links" neste jogo estão notavelmente melhores do que no jogo anterior. Os personagens de fato amadurecem, e cada um tem sua própria história cativante. O jogo ainda recompensa com novas habilidades. O momento em que você prepara café e Sojiro o toma, logo após ele te da um resumo das características do café como acidez, corpo e pais de origem, é um dos meus favoritos.
A cidade é absurdamente viva, onde a cada esquina há novas descobertas, e os NPCs, com o passar do tempo, revelam suas próprias mini-histórias, alguns até virando quests.
No entanto, minha única reclamação séria em relação ao jogo se encontra na parte "Royal". É como tentar encaixar um círculo em um quebra-cabeça, uma sobreposição forçada que parece destoar da essência central do enredo. Cria-se uma sensação de artificialidade que não faz sentido levando em conta que o final estava basicamente fechado.
futaba best girl
irei expressar meu amor por este jogp. A dificuldade, ou a ausência dela, é algo que me irrita profundamente. Parece que não há desafio real, mas ainda assim, as lutas contra os chefes conseguem apresentar momentos únicos para cada batalha.
Os "Social Links" neste jogo estão notavelmente melhores do que no jogo anterior. Os personagens de fato amadurecem, e cada um tem sua própria história cativante. O jogo ainda recompensa com novas habilidades. O momento em que você prepara café e Sojiro o toma, logo após ele te da um resumo das características do café como acidez, corpo e pais de origem, é um dos meus favoritos.
A cidade é absurdamente viva, onde a cada esquina há novas descobertas, e os NPCs, com o passar do tempo, revelam suas próprias mini-histórias, alguns até virando quests.
No entanto, minha única reclamação séria em relação ao jogo se encontra na parte "Royal". É como tentar encaixar um círculo em um quebra-cabeça, uma sobreposição forçada que parece destoar da essência central do enredo. Cria-se uma sensação de artificialidade que não faz sentido levando em conta que o final estava basicamente fechado.
futaba best girl
"What denies you is an illusion. A curse put upon you by the heartless. You knew from the very beginning. And yet.. you cowered in fear. Will you die as you are told? Who will you obey?” - Necronomicon
Persona 5 is a game that can be understood by many. To take back your future and break the chains that lock you in place. The world today is full of evil people who dictate how the earth moves forward; that is what forms our society. Nobody wants to move out of place, no one wants to defy the unwritten rules that our public has formed. Will you stay chained down? Will you continue moving in that strict, straight path that has been formed for you? Will you continue living that dull life? No, you won’t, despite what humanity has and will say about you, you have the power to break free and change the world.
This game has taught me that, I too, can and need to do my part in shaping my future. I don't need a special power to do so. All that is needed is a will and the courage to be an outlier. The 5th installment of the persona franchise is one of those games that have and will affect me for years on end. The message the game conveys is one we all need to acknowledge.
5’s characters are top notch this time around, with the exception of some minor flaws. These characters help flesh out the message even more. Each one of their character arcs show how they break free of the chain that kept them down all this time. The phantom thieves are just a bunch of kids who realized what this world truly is and want to reform it for the better. They all have their own endeavor that they overcome with the help of the team but the most important part of it is that they, alone, are the ones who have to put in the effort of ripping apart the shackles. This can also be said about us, no matter how much help you get from someone, you alone have to be the one to destroy that inhumane ideal.
The music in this game is also one of the many amazing parts of the experience. The tracks in p5 really give you that sort of snazzy feel with the jazz when it's any normal day, but, when the time comes and it's a critical moment, the game doesn’t disappoint in serious times as well. I love just listening to the soundtrack, especially to the lyrics. Each song was carefully picked and orchestrated for the moment in the story which shows how much time and effort they put into this game.
To cut this short, Persona 5 should be a game played by everyone. This game is a great example on how we should act as people in this society. We are the ones who allow these shackles to be placed on us by society so we also have the power to break out of them. Will you choose to stay chained down by society, or will you release yourself of that dull life and change the public?
Persona 5 is a game that can be understood by many. To take back your future and break the chains that lock you in place. The world today is full of evil people who dictate how the earth moves forward; that is what forms our society. Nobody wants to move out of place, no one wants to defy the unwritten rules that our public has formed. Will you stay chained down? Will you continue moving in that strict, straight path that has been formed for you? Will you continue living that dull life? No, you won’t, despite what humanity has and will say about you, you have the power to break free and change the world.
This game has taught me that, I too, can and need to do my part in shaping my future. I don't need a special power to do so. All that is needed is a will and the courage to be an outlier. The 5th installment of the persona franchise is one of those games that have and will affect me for years on end. The message the game conveys is one we all need to acknowledge.
5’s characters are top notch this time around, with the exception of some minor flaws. These characters help flesh out the message even more. Each one of their character arcs show how they break free of the chain that kept them down all this time. The phantom thieves are just a bunch of kids who realized what this world truly is and want to reform it for the better. They all have their own endeavor that they overcome with the help of the team but the most important part of it is that they, alone, are the ones who have to put in the effort of ripping apart the shackles. This can also be said about us, no matter how much help you get from someone, you alone have to be the one to destroy that inhumane ideal.
The music in this game is also one of the many amazing parts of the experience. The tracks in p5 really give you that sort of snazzy feel with the jazz when it's any normal day, but, when the time comes and it's a critical moment, the game doesn’t disappoint in serious times as well. I love just listening to the soundtrack, especially to the lyrics. Each song was carefully picked and orchestrated for the moment in the story which shows how much time and effort they put into this game.
To cut this short, Persona 5 should be a game played by everyone. This game is a great example on how we should act as people in this society. We are the ones who allow these shackles to be placed on us by society so we also have the power to break out of them. Will you choose to stay chained down by society, or will you release yourself of that dull life and change the public?
A game well defined by its characters and storyline. While maybe not as good as the other games in the series, it still holds an immensely enjoyable experience worthy of a playthrough.
The updates within this rerelease makes this the definitive version of Persona 5. The core story, while mainly remaining the same, has had some new inclusions that make the character interactions a little better and give a bit more screen time to characters who were introduced later. The new 3rd semester was a blast and arguably peak story telling within the persona series. The new characters were fun to meet and interact act with. The new gameplay additions made the game feels 100 times more smoother than how the original release felt. The thieves den was a nice addition to spend some time in. My only gripe with the game is that with all these new additions, the game felt a little too easy. Other than that, peak game
Incredible how this manages to surpass every expectation even with there already being so much widespread praise for it, 100 hours well spent
Lessons from Persona 5
1. Opening yourself up to other results in positive feelings on both sides
2.Tackle every challenge, especially if it’s difficult or people doubt in your ability to defeat it.
3. “When you fall, you’ve got to get back up!”
4. “Men are idiots though...We spend our time chasing after things we can’t get.”
5. Time passes, and whether you like it or not, if you don’t work, you won’t grow.
6. Reading books improves everything.
7. “One must concede defeat with grace – maintaining dignity until the very end.”
8. “The most important part of your life is how you choose to live it.”
1. Opening yourself up to other results in positive feelings on both sides
2.Tackle every challenge, especially if it’s difficult or people doubt in your ability to defeat it.
3. “When you fall, you’ve got to get back up!”
4. “Men are idiots though...We spend our time chasing after things we can’t get.”
5. Time passes, and whether you like it or not, if you don’t work, you won’t grow.
6. Reading books improves everything.
7. “One must concede defeat with grace – maintaining dignity until the very end.”
8. “The most important part of your life is how you choose to live it.”
"For real!?" ~Everyone, Everywhere, Every 10 Seconds
After years of silence, I finally get courage to make a review… let’s go them.
Persona 5 Royal is, by a landslide, the best game I played in my entire life. It hits me in almost every weak point. Persona 4 is my favorite Persona, but is impossible to me to down P5 by anything, and FFXIV tried a lot.
The art style, the soundtrack, everything in P5 technical department is made by godly hands. Jazz is the Shoji Meguro’s favorite style, but damn he was having a blast doing it. Lyn is unbelievable.
Combat is the best in the series. It is fast, it is stylish and it is satisfactory. Yes, it is easy, but after P3, Persona is completely independent of SMT, and should not be compared by difficulty, it is not the focus of the game to be hard, and I don’t think is easy per se, but they give you so many ways to play and to abuse the system, that for a experienced player, they will use to make everything look like a joke (give them myriad truths!).
The characters of P5 are the middle ground of the self development from P3 to the chemistry of P4. I try to not use Strikers memories to review them, but by the vanilla game, they are good enough. Now, the phantom thieves are the best group, not questions. The calling cards, the outfits, this gentleman thief thematic… amazing all of it. It has the best overall confidants (or Social Links if you want) from the series. Not everyone of them is the peak of writing, but no one of them is useless or completely boring like some from P3 and 4, and thanks to the bonus system, they are useful to be leveled.
The story of vanilla P5 is decent. The first arc is one of the best first arcs in any jrpg i played, you will easily get hooked. Many people hate the “comically evil” villains, but for me, they are not entirely unrealistically or boring. Of course, humans are not that simple, but they do exist, and for me, as a Brazilian, after the last few years I found real P5 comically evil villains more than I would like to. You are not wrong to dislike them, just know that they are like many comically evil villains from classic heroes comics, that P5 heavily is inspired from. And yeah, society is the root of the problems, we know that, and the game does a good job in making corny or cliché things like that to be hell of cool.
Now, the beast: The Royal. P5 is a amazing game by itself, but some time of reflection and by getting new references, I don’t think I would like P5 this much if I only have played vanilla. Royal is the “expansion” P5 deserved, even if I still hates how Atlus handles this. The content is diluted by the base game, by the new confidants and by the new “third” semester. It feels natural, Kasumi is a friend of Joker, and only him, so it feels right that she does not jump right to the Phantom Thieves. Every other character from Royal is a spoiler, so the only thing I say is that a character from vanilla completely changes from water to wine in Royal, and the antagonist? Hoo Boy… I do think that Royal ending does not fit right to the ending of the story of P5, but I was so destroyed that I don’t care.
As you can see I can talk about P5 for hours and would still not be enough. It is easy the best Persona game, it is an evolution in every technical way and it’s undeniable. No game has this feeling that only a persona game could give, and I will pay Atlus for every Remaster I can, because I am stuck in this loop. Good luck for them to try to get near as high in P6 as they got in this game, but even if takes more 10 years of copium, I will be there for the next P5 milk.
Take Your Time.
Persona 5 Royal is, by a landslide, the best game I played in my entire life. It hits me in almost every weak point. Persona 4 is my favorite Persona, but is impossible to me to down P5 by anything, and FFXIV tried a lot.
The art style, the soundtrack, everything in P5 technical department is made by godly hands. Jazz is the Shoji Meguro’s favorite style, but damn he was having a blast doing it. Lyn is unbelievable.
Combat is the best in the series. It is fast, it is stylish and it is satisfactory. Yes, it is easy, but after P3, Persona is completely independent of SMT, and should not be compared by difficulty, it is not the focus of the game to be hard, and I don’t think is easy per se, but they give you so many ways to play and to abuse the system, that for a experienced player, they will use to make everything look like a joke (give them myriad truths!).
The characters of P5 are the middle ground of the self development from P3 to the chemistry of P4. I try to not use Strikers memories to review them, but by the vanilla game, they are good enough. Now, the phantom thieves are the best group, not questions. The calling cards, the outfits, this gentleman thief thematic… amazing all of it. It has the best overall confidants (or Social Links if you want) from the series. Not everyone of them is the peak of writing, but no one of them is useless or completely boring like some from P3 and 4, and thanks to the bonus system, they are useful to be leveled.
The story of vanilla P5 is decent. The first arc is one of the best first arcs in any jrpg i played, you will easily get hooked. Many people hate the “comically evil” villains, but for me, they are not entirely unrealistically or boring. Of course, humans are not that simple, but they do exist, and for me, as a Brazilian, after the last few years I found real P5 comically evil villains more than I would like to. You are not wrong to dislike them, just know that they are like many comically evil villains from classic heroes comics, that P5 heavily is inspired from. And yeah, society is the root of the problems, we know that, and the game does a good job in making corny or cliché things like that to be hell of cool.
Now, the beast: The Royal. P5 is a amazing game by itself, but some time of reflection and by getting new references, I don’t think I would like P5 this much if I only have played vanilla. Royal is the “expansion” P5 deserved, even if I still hates how Atlus handles this. The content is diluted by the base game, by the new confidants and by the new “third” semester. It feels natural, Kasumi is a friend of Joker, and only him, so it feels right that she does not jump right to the Phantom Thieves. Every other character from Royal is a spoiler, so the only thing I say is that a character from vanilla completely changes from water to wine in Royal, and the antagonist? Hoo Boy… I do think that Royal ending does not fit right to the ending of the story of P5, but I was so destroyed that I don’t care.
As you can see I can talk about P5 for hours and would still not be enough. It is easy the best Persona game, it is an evolution in every technical way and it’s undeniable. No game has this feeling that only a persona game could give, and I will pay Atlus for every Remaster I can, because I am stuck in this loop. Good luck for them to try to get near as high in P6 as they got in this game, but even if takes more 10 years of copium, I will be there for the next P5 milk.
Take Your Time.
Simplesmente lindo, a estética desse jogo é sem dúvidas o ponto mais positivo do jogo, sempre que eu abria o menu eu ficava maravilhado com o quão lindo era, além da história incrível e personagens cativantes (Exceto a Haru, eu odeio ela) e OSTs perfeitas (Last Surprise é a minha favorita), o meu primeiro jogo da série Persona e já me cativou!