Persona 5 Royal Impressions: Oh shit. Here we go again.

[CritialGaming]

Persona 5 was quite simply one of the best JRPG's I have ever played. Being my first Persona game it drove me to go back and try Persona 3 and Persona 4, both of which I also loved and beat. The persona games are JRPG's wrapped up in school life management games and the combination is frankly rather brillant.

Persona 5 Royal Edition is essentially the updated definitive version of Persona 5 that introduces two new characters which confidants to rank up, as well as a new palace and a shit load of quality of life improvements.

The original game had a couple of problems that were fairly minor but still rather annoying. Like bullets for your gun being limited to one full clip per time you entered the metaverse. Now your character's ammo is refilled every battle, making guns a viable tactical option to use during fights and grinding sessions against enemies that are weak against bullets.

The palaces act as the dungeons of the game and their layouts have been slightly modified in two new ways. There is a grappling hook now and they modified the dungeons for you to make use of traversing the rafters of dungeons as you go along. It doesn't ultimately make any difference, but it does add a bit of new scenery for players who have played the base game already. On top of that Palaces have new secret areas to find which exist in the form of new items called Will Seeds. There are three Will Seeds to find in each palace and collecting them all grants your team a special accessory.

The biggest changes are quality of life changes, and a new ending, which I've not gotten yet. Things like the ammo for your guns are one thing, but the game also gives you extra time on metaverse days. In the base game you could only go to bed if you went to the metaverse, however in Royal you can do something at home each night you go to the metaverse, which gives you extra opportunity to earn stat points and makes it easier to max your ranks in the long run. Instead of being able to borrow one book from the library and DVD store, you can borrow all you want and there are no longer return dates, so the story can no longer accidentally force you to skip a return date.

The new characters are interesting and fun to raise their ranks with. One of which is a playable character who grants you some great abilities like never being surround in battle ever again. Confidant ranks provide much better boosts now as well and there are no longer very many dead ranks meaning you pretty much always get something when you rank up, even if it's just social stats it's better than a flat empty rank.

If you are an achievement hunter, you'll be happy to hear that P5R has streamlined all the achievements and removed all the really grindy and annoying achievements that sat in the base game. You can now platinum the game on a single playthrough because you no longer need to do any collecting of anything to earn that plat.

Basically the game is even better than it was when it first came out, and if you slept on Persona 5 in 2017 when it came out now is a great time to pick up the game and enjoy your quarantine with a 100 hour rpg.

 

[The Eupho Guy_v1legacy]

Is it just me, or is Royal slightly easier than the original game? It might just be that I know how to play now, but I cleared the first palace in one day (After the story bits of course) and defeated the first boss first try on maniacal the other night. I had a few close scrapes and a wipe after trying to tackle my first powerful enemy, but apart from that, it wasn't too bad.

 

[CritialGaming]

Is it just me, or is Royal slightly easier than the original game? It might just be that I know how to play now, but I cleared the first palace in one day (After the story bits of course) and defeated the first boss first try on maniacal the other night. I had a few close scrapes and a wipe after trying to tackle my first powerful enemy, but apart from that, it wasn't too bad.

It's a bit easier for a couple of reasons probably.

1. You've already played the game, and know how to use the mechanics in battle properly.
2. Some of the quality of life things, end up giving your party a bit more power (like bullets regenerating every battle, and enhanced confidant abilities).
3. The will seeds you find in the palaces give you a big renew on your sp allowing your party healing to go much further.

So yes. Easier if you already have a grasp on the systems. However i don't think the difficulty is drastically different to a new player.

 

[The Eupho Guy_v1legacy]

I think the biggest thing that is making the game easier (for me at least) is the grappling hook. There was one situation

Spoiler

in the upper courtyard near the end of the palace that is patrolled by 3 powerful enemies. In the original game you would need to attack at least one to make a hole in the patrol pattern to get through easily. In Royal, you can simply bypass the whole thing by grappling over everything to skip it entirely.

The gun refills after each battle is a nice change, too.

 

[Hawki]

Fits that the review comes from Critical. With a Tifa avatar, he's a JRPG player Personafived.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Worth noting is that every party member has a lvl 11 confidant rank they can reach. Also the new superbosses are great and the gallery mode type room where you can review past scenes was a needed addition.


But yeah p5 is pretty much perfect so not too much you can improve, just add more content and sprouse it up a bit haha.

 

[Catfood220]

Is it just me, or is Royal slightly easier than the original game? It might just be that I know how to play now, but I cleared the first palace in one day (After the story bits of course) and defeated the first boss first try on maniacal the other night. I had a few close scrapes and a wipe after trying to tackle my first powerful enemy, but apart from that, it wasn't too bad.

It's a bit easier for a couple of reasons probably.

1. You've already played the game, and know how to use the mechanics in battle properly.
2. Some of the quality of life things, end up giving your party a bit more power (like bullets regenerating every battle, and enhanced confidant abilities).
3. The will seeds you find in the palaces give you a big renew on your sp allowing your party healing to go much further.

So yes. Easier if you already have a grasp on the systems. However i don't think the difficulty is drastically different to a new player.

I think having the baton pass ability unlocked from the start makes the combat much easier than in the vanilla game. While it does speed up combat a bit, it does remove the challenge when say Morgana can knock down one enemy, Joker the second and Ann the third to set up an all out attack. Even tough enemies don't stand a chance. I found that towards the end of Palaces the first three would almost be out of SP while Ryuji would be almost full because it rarely got as far as him having to attack. Madarame (I know I've spelled his name wrong), the second Palace boss is quite easy because of this, I was disappointed when I beat him because he was one of the bosses in the vanilla game that gave me most difficulty.

I think I prefer the gun combat the way it was too, having to ration bullets made the game a bit more tactical in my opinion.

Anyway, I'm enjoying it I've been playing it since last Friday, its Persona 5 with some additions so its great. I think next time though, I'm going to play it on a harder difficulty to see if it gives me some challenge.

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

Trying to avoid spoilers until I play, most likely in vain. But I'm surprised at the 'infinite ammo' thing since unloading a full clip from a gun is usually stronger than a physical attack (especially once you learn Down Shot), and making them a limited resource made sense. Maybe if there was a confidant that increased ammo count or allowed refills, but now it sounds like you'd hardly ever need to use regular physical unless it's a skill.

 

[Yoshi178]

i bought the game but meh. it's sitting in my backlog until i get through Final Fantasy 7 Remake, The Wonderful 101 remastered and Xenoblade Chronicles definitive edition.

too many games coming out at the moment.

 

[CritialGaming]

Trying to avoid spoilers until I play, most likely in vain. But I'm surprised at the 'infinite ammo' thing since unloading a full clip from a gun is usually stronger than a physical attack (especially once you learn Down Shot), and making them a limited resource made sense. Maybe if there was a confidant that increased ammo count or allowed refills, but now it sounds like you'd hardly ever need to use regular physical unless it's a skill.

Meh.To me the gun change made sense. BecUse having only 1 clip of ammo for the entire duration of your trip to the metaverse meant the gun was basically never used in the original version. I would use it when an enemy was weak to it and only if it wasnt also weak to a spell i had. Even then there where gun type damage spells from some of the persona in the game that basically made the guns useless entirely.

So this change is welcome for sure imo.

 

[CritialGaming]

Fits that the review comes from Critical. With a Tifa avatar, he's a JRPG player Personafived.

I am not as much of a jrpg fan as you might think.

I am a diehard Final Fantasy 7 fan. But most Jrpgs tend to make me lose interest after a few hours.

Though i usually like most jrpgs better than i like western rpgs because most western rpgs are terrible or even more of a slog.

Nice pun though

 

[dscross]

I think I'm burnt out on Persona. I beat 5 quite recently, then I beat 4 and I'm halfway through 3. I'm not sure I can be bothered to play through such a long game again just for the extra content. Does it not feel a bit bloated? I thought P5 was waaaaay long enough for me.

 

[Hawki]

I am not as much of a jrpg fan as you might think.

I am a diehard Final Fantasy 7 fan. But most Jrpgs tend to make me lose interest after a few hours.

Though i usually like most jrpgs better than i like western rpgs because most western rpgs are terrible or even more of a slog.

Nice pun though

Yeah, the post was more an excuse for the pun - I know puns are terrible, but, y'know, cabin fever with lockdown and all that.

Speaking personally, I generally prefer JRPGs to WRPGs as well.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

I find Jrpgs and Wrpgs are going for completely different experiences. Jrpgs are very narrative focused, they're basically a playable anime series all compressed into a single game. The southpark games were like that where you had basically a southpark season in game form.

Wrpgs are more about freedom and expression and self-inserting and exploration, those types of things.

Jrpgs you almost never self-insert, you just experience a story of a character like reading a book, but more viscerally cause you're actually doing the things that you'd otherwise be reading about or watching in a movie or manga or what have you.

 

[dscross]

I find Jrpgs and Wrpgs are going for completely different experiences. Jrpgs are very narrative focused, they're basically a playable anime series all compressed into a single game. The southpark games were like that where you had basically a southpark season in game form.

Wrpgs are more about freedom and expression and self-inserting and exploration, those types of things.

Jrpgs you almost never self-insert, you just experience a story of a character like reading a book, but more viscerally cause you're actually doing the things that you'd otherwise be reading about or watching in a movie or manga or what have you.

what do you mean by self inserting?

 

[Hades]

I'm really not a fan of what they did with human Morgana.

First off he's way too old for a character that's depicted as so boyish. With his small size, high pitched voice and relative immaturity Morgana should be younger then the rest. It also retroactively damages his relation with Ann. The little brother figure going all star eyed over the older girl is cute but Morgana being the same age makes his behavior towards Ann kinda creepy. He also loses Cassandra Lee Morris as a voice actor upon being human which further takes away from Morgana's charm.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

I'm really not a fan of what they did with human Morgana.

First off he's way too old for a character that's depicted as so boyish. With his small size, high pitched voice and relative immaturity Morgana should be younger then the rest. It also retroactively damages his relation with Ann. The little brother figure going all star eyed over the older girl is cute but Morgana being the same age makes his behavior towards Ann kinda creepy. He also loses Cassandra Lee Morris as a voice actor upon being human which further takes away from Morgana's charm.

Myeah, having supposedly ancient beings act pretty immature is one of the more annoying things of Japanese media. Could've been worse tho. It's pretty common to turn such characters into a girl who both acts and looks like a precocious pre-teen for otaku to fap to. It's ok tho cuz she's really 700 years old.

 

[Marik2]

 

[Hades]

I'm really not a fan of what they did with human Morgana.

First off he's way too old for a character that's depicted as so boyish. With his small size, high pitched voice and relative immaturity Morgana should be younger then the rest. It also retroactively damages his relation with Ann. The little brother figure going all star eyed over the older girl is cute but Morgana being the same age makes his behavior towards Ann kinda creepy. He also loses Cassandra Lee Morris as a voice actor upon being human which further takes away from Morgana's charm.

Myeah, having supposedly ancient beings act pretty immature is one of the more annoying things of Japanese media. Could've been worse tho. It's pretty common to turn such characters into a girl who both acts and looks like a precocious pre-teen for otaku to fap to. It's ok tho cuz she's really 700 years old.

Its not really the same thing since Morgana never really is implied to be ancient. He's not some thousand year cat god acting like a kiddy cat but a kiddy cat who really is just a kiddy cat.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

I find Jrpgs and Wrpgs are going for completely different experiences. Jrpgs are very narrative focused, they're basically a playable anime series all compressed into a single game. The southpark games were like that where you had basically a southpark season in game form.

Wrpgs are more about freedom and expression and self-inserting and exploration, those types of things.

Jrpgs you almost never self-insert, you just experience a story of a character like reading a book, but more viscerally cause you're actually doing the things that you'd otherwise be reading about or watching in a movie or manga or what have you.

what do you mean by self inserting?

It's the process of coming up with an imaginary personality for your protagonist in order to fill in the blank slate you are given. Instead of viewing this story you're being presented with and being told your motivations and your desires from the way the protagonist behaves in a Jrpg, in wrpgs you're more free to make the protagonist behave however you want them to.

The tradeoff is that you can't create as interesting of a narrative from a game developer standpoint if you can't set in stone the protagonist's personality. The more freedom there is, the more this is an issue, because good luck trying to tell a story about how much this group is bad and must be stopped by all means if your game lets your hero join it. You can't have a consistent theme like that if your game lets the players act in ways not logically consistent with it. So what ends up happening is that wrpgs stories tend to not go for such types of plots with clearly defined boundaries and opt for more open-ended gray situations where there's no right or wrong and everything is ambiguous.


The benefit, of course, comes in the fact that these games have way more replayability because how you play your character can change how things pan out very significantly so you will wanna try different things and see how they end up, and also you get more of an opportunity to play things in your preferred way, which is better or worse depending on your feelings of whatever default protagonist the game you're comparing it to has and how much you like or dislike them.




Ultimately, like I said, it's different experiences, and I do like both kinds, it just depends on what I'm looking for at the moment.