Persona 5 is back with new content in Persona 5 Royal. The JRPG this time around adds several hours of content including a new Phantom Thief, cutscenes, a new Palace, and plenty of more reasons to get sunk back in, or jump aboard for the first time. Change the hearts of criminals once again as Joker and all his comrades.

Persona 5 Royal is a 2019-2020 re-release of the original 2016-2017 game, it is developed by P-Studio and published by Atlus. It is available exclusively on Playstation 4 in the West on March 31, 2020.

Editor’s Note: An advanced review copy of Persona 5 Royal was provided by Atlus in support of this review. This review will be taken from the perspective of a first time player as the reviewer is one. This review may contain medium to near complete spoilers for Persona 5 and the extra content in the Royal edition.

The Phantom Thieves return for one more run.

As stated in the editor’s note I’ve never played a Persona game, but I’ve always been aware of the series for several years. I’m still somewhat new to the JRPG scene with very limited but growing experience. Having said that, at first glance Persona seems like a series that you can just play to chill with some downtime, but it gets decidedly dark, very, very, quickly. I’m talking like fifteen minutes in so fair warning to new Persona players there’s some pretty mature themes used in the story and it often gets real fast. If you can take the mature subject matter (and I’m sure you can imagine a few ideas of this) then Persona 5 is a fine game with a standalone story so you don’t have to be too panicked with worrying about having to play the previous installments.

A Persona being activated in Persona 5.

THE GOOD: Persona 5 is a stand alone entry into the ongoing Persona franchise set with its own contained storyline and characters with new Personas and skills to use in order to decimate your enemies. The game often switches between the real world and what it refers to as the “Metaverse” an alternative plane of existence in which the inner desires of one’s heart resides in a “palace” which is often represented as a supernatural version of a real world domain where they often act out these desires. You play as Joker a mostly silent young man framed for a crime he didn’t commit who has the ability to enter the metaverse and subsequently palaces through use of a mysterious navigation app on his phone. Thanks to the guidance of cat-like creature Morgana, Joker teams up with more Persona users and become a group known as The Phantom Thieves to change the hearts of evil adults in an effort to save the world.

Conquer social anxiety with Persona 5 Royal.

Persona 5 is a game that focuses on its social elements just as much as its combat. In the real world you can hang out with friends, meet new people, and make new allies to aide you with unique abilities in the metaverse. In order to do this you must make a pact with them of some kind followed by spending time with them which increases the worth of your relationship as allies and friends. This includes working out, eating together, helping them with their hobbies, etc. As you grow some of your abilities eventually have an effect on the real world such as being able to skip certain classes or getting discounts on healing and support items. Doing certain activities also grows Joker as a person meaning that if you do things that require focus or a certain talent you can improve his knowledge, proficiency, charm, guts, kindness each of which has an effect on the real world and certain individuals in it. These usually take the shape of side quests. You only have a certain amount of days to infiltrate a boss’s palace and steal the treasure necessary to change their heart or its game over. Palaces are often presented in a semi-open map with tons of exploring. You can find rare treasures such as powerful weapons and gear & rare items to sell for huge sums of cash.

The Royal re-release of Persona 5 adds tons of hours of content to an already 50+ hour game.

Combat is fairly standard you have your base attack skill, magic attack skills which can be powerful attacks or debuffs to enemies.  Enemies are known as “shadows” and each have their own weakness, though members of your party also have their own weaknesses which will be discovery over time the further you get. Each battle gains experience which levels up Joker and his friends gaining them new abilities. Eventually you unlock special moves such as Showtime which acts as a powerful tag team attack between two characters in your party. Through story progression the real world map grows and new areas, activities, and shops unlock providing more for the player to experience and enjoy. In addition to the earlier mentioned Metaverse you can also explore mementos which act as a second world map containing areas with mini bosses and some story progression. Some of it has story ties, but it’s very limited in nature. It’s mainly a quick way to gain experience, rare items and to level up. Persona 5 Royal also has an extra menu known as “Thieves Den” which is really just a gallery to view cool art, photos, and videos from the game.

Persona 5 is a game about personal and outer connections.

THE BAD: There’s no native auto save function and it’s annoying as all hell. I have Persona 5 stored on a external HDD which has shitty durability and often times I have to restore or repair it due to a weak port for the adapter causing an improper shut down. I’ve had more incidents than I care to admit where I had to restart at my last save hours prior to where I left off from due to the lack of an auto save. I’m not sure if it’s an issue with the game engine or what but I wish devs would take incidents like this into consideration when they opt to not include auto save in their games. This is an incident that will only effect me and people like me, but it’s 2020 guys let’s not. Also while I personally dig being timed to fight a boss I can see it causing anxiety for some players as Persona 5 is a very time-based game in which every activity you do from going to school and hanging out with friends consumes it. More often than not you’re limited to two to three activities a day including school.

Change the hearts of villains as The Phantom Thieves.

OVERALL THOUGHTS: Though it was my first go into the Persona franchise I had quite the experience with it. I was pleasantly surprised by the dark story and deep characters and I’m sure for some player some of the story will hit a bit too close to home. As long as it doesn’t go too deep for you personally I consider Persona 5 no matter if it’s initial release or the Royal version more than worthy of a playthrough regardless of whether or not you’re a fan.