God, what an experience.
I’ve been wanting to play Persona 5 for a LONG time now. I first became interested in the game from Joker being added to Smash Ultimate and being mesmerised by the game’s artstyle and music. Only problem was that P5 was a Playstation exclusive and I only had a Switch back then. Few years later, it’s announced that the modern Persona trilogy would be re-releasing on all modern platforms. I went ahead and wishlisted all the games on Steam as I thought that if I enjoyed P5, I would probably play the other games to. And that leads us to today, after I played Persona 3 and 4 earlier this year and finally played Persona 5 Royal after waiting all these years. And it was incredible.
First, I would like to go through all of my negatives with this game as I’d rather end this review on a positive note than a negative one. First issue I have is the cast of characters. This is by far the weakest cast of any of the Persona games I’ve played. This isn’t me saying they’re bad characters but they feel a lot more one-note than previous casts and they don’t really bounce off with each other like previous casts as well. It feels less like a friend group and more a group of people who happen to know each other through the MC. My other negative is that, just like Persona 4 Golden, it is painfully obvious when the original game was supposed to end and where the new content was added. I would’ve much preferred if the new content was more smoothly transitioned to from the main game.
And thats it. Those are pretty much all my negatives for this game. Onto the positives.
The story this game presents you with is incredible. There’s so many twists and turns and, despite having probably one of the biggest cast of main characters in a Persona game, each one get their own time to shine and go through their own arcs. The gameplay is the smoothest and cleanest the series has ever been, bringing back the series’s staple mechanics like the One More system and weaknesses to adding in completely new mechanics that add more strategy to the gameplay like Baton Passes, Negotiations, Gun damage, etc. This is also by far the most stylish Persona game with it’s UI. Everything pops with the game’s gorgeous artstyle with loads of detail being put into every part of the UI that makes the game a joy to look at. I also love the addition of the Phantom Thieves suits/costumes, it helps make each character that more unique and really helps exemplify their personalities. Another great thing about this game is the personalised dungeons (now named Palaces) return from Persona 4 but are even better now with them being fully designed dungeons that you actually can truly explore instead of randomly generated rooms each floor. The Palaces themselves are a treat to explore (except Okumura’s), with each having vivid imagery that gives you a great look into a character’s personality.
Persona 5 is one of the best games I’ve ever played. I would highly recommend it to anyone that is even the slightest bit interested as it is one of the best gaming experiences you can ever have.