Confidant who is hyperfocused on burning ants: Alright Joker... it's a deal then... I'll be your ant burning friend from here on out
*flashback animation*
My sexy hag prosecutor: You must have had some kind of insect combustion expert on your team.. who was it!! TALK!!!!
Me, popping a stiffy so hard I'm about to pass out: i think i hauve mental shutdown syndrome

Great game, ultimately still strictly worse than the other 2 modern Personas if you care about anything else than presentation. Concept is great - who doesn't love silly Lupin heists? The story immediately drills into the core of Planet slop at the start of the Medjed arc and doesn't recover for more than brief moments of JRPG cheese (I like the gooey cheese though). All the Social Links (that's what they're called man) are pretty good, but none are really great unless it's like the two that I missed. The soundtrack? It's great. The UI? Okay this might get assassins sent after me but to me it's very busy for a UI and I think it's a bit overrated in terms of being the be all end all of design for that reason. It is beautiful though.

I really like the additions to the combat system, despite it all feeling a bit overtuned - I died like three times in my entire playthrough and 2 of them were due to not having high enough damage and 1 of them was me nuking myself on a reflect. The baton passing, extra elements and Social Link buffs really help One More stand out as Not Just Press Turn But Worse (it still is worse, but you know, it helps, and it's fun).

Honestly after P3 the whole time management system and Social Links kinda feels tacked on to the other Persona games. Like it was meant for that game in particular and makes total sense with the theme whereas here they are just... systems that surround a JRPG. If that makes any sense. If I'm crazy you can shoot me in the head.

I stopped at the third semester. "Why"? I shouldn't have to justify that. Why didn't you? You should explain yourself. The story is over. If you continued to play for 30 hours you don't care about story do you? You don't give a shit about storytelling at all. You just care about characters and seeing them interact in little set pieces. You're a poser. You just want to play with dolls in your head because the cast functions as premade OCs for your fanfiction when you can't write your own. You're having the Phantom Thieves step in for real relationships in your life. You're pathetic. Sorry.. sorry about that. I don't know what came over me. Forgive me.

Nitpicky Rant Minor Spoiler Asshole Lightning Round:
- I think JRPG creators have realized 60% of people only play the first act and that's why a lot of modern JRPGs are frontloaded nosedive halfway in. Much research to be done here.
- Morgana has decided 30% of my nights simply can't be used for anything
- Please do not give me insanely overpowered DLC items for no reason you crazy bastards
- Why are we still pretending Persona protagonists can be self insert? Please just name him next time. He's stuck in this weird limbo where he's an unvoiced blank slate but also randomly will have lines. Give it up Atlus.
- Could not fuck Akechi Goro
- Morgana cat form? Cute. Cuddly. What a little guy. Love him. Morgana Metaverse form? I'm going to kick him over a building.
- Ban all localization from saying "kek"
- Having the optional dungeon turn mandatory in the final act is insane, it didn't affect me but for those it did I am so sorry
- The in media res flashback structure contributes absolutely nothing other than to do a "Ohhh I actually forgot crucial details" plot twist, it's basically just there to be there
- "The Councillor" Tarot? Really? Come on.
- The final dungeons(s) are basically completely disconnected from the theming of the rest of the game which makes them seem really out of nowhere and lame
- Like 3-4 instances of Japanese being spoken but no subs anywhere. "Just play in English" Haha, no, obviously. Don't be fucking stupid
- Demon negotiation is actually just SMT But Lame
- We have yet to find a good way to hide elemental weaknesses and then show them later and this is no exception

YOU’LL NEVER SEE IT COMINGGGGGG!
I will start this review by saying that Persona 5 Royal is my favourite game of all time. I played this game during COVID and I had a blast with it, to the point where I’ve already played the game four whole times (as I’m writing this review). This is the game that got me into Persona and SMT, and for that I will forever cherish this game as one of my favourites. Gotta thank my friends who told me to try this game, and they were not wrong when they said THIS GAME IS PEAK.

Now let’s talk about the story. This will be spoiler free of course, and these will just be my overall thoughts on the story. The game starts really strong in the first arc (even if the biggest slog of the game is to survive the tutorial that goes on FOREVER). Honestly, this game probably has the most memorable first arc out of any game that I’ve played, it’s just so good. Although the game does start to fall off afterwards, it does peak during a couple of the arcs, and I think the game truly does peak after the late mid-game where everything just becomes peak. I didn’t play the original Persona 5, so the Third Semester was a great part to add in order to flesh out several characters that really needed it. Not to mention, it gave us a great antagonist. Honestly, I have no complaints about the story, in fact, I kind of wish it was longer because I loved this game and wanted more and more and more story, and I ended up having post-game depression after completing the game.

Characters tend to make or break a game, and considering how character-heavy the Persona series is because of the social sim aspect, I think it does a great job at handling characters. I can confidently say that in the entirety of the game (well besides the antagonists but I do think they make great antagonists because they fill their roles so well), there is only one character that I despise with all of my might, and you meet them in like the first hour of the game. Yeah, some of the NPCs are annoying, but that’s about it. I love the Phantom Thieves as a group, and they all have their different quirks that really make the theme of the game stand out even more. The various characters that the protagonist has are Confidants are also explored deeply through their social links, and I actually care about the majority of them, barring like one or two exceptions, who are mediocre at best. Overall, this game has an excellent cast of characters.

Speaking of Confidants, I just like how they give you different services and abilities to use both in and outside of combat, as well as in Tokyo in general. They make the game much more enjoyable. Some of them also have really great storylines, while some flop and fall pretty meh. However, most of them are great.

I don’t usually talk about graphics because they don’t influence my decision to play games, but I just need to talk about the overall graphics and style of the game. This game pops. From the stylish menu, to the great GUI, I love this game. I can never get over the menu screen and I’ll always love it. The graphics aren’t much, but they’re serviceable for this type of game, especially when they aren’t the focal point of this games success anyways.

Going from style to music. This game is just filled with bangers. Each dungeon has some great background music, and even the regular exploration theme for Tokyo in the forms of Tokyo Daylight and Tokyo Emergency are just such bangers. Not to mention the many battle themes: Last Surprise, Takeover, Rivers in a Desert, Will Power, and probably all the battle themes, they’re all just straight bops. I can’t forget the school music also just being a straight bop. Alas, I can’t end this section without talking about Beneath the Mask which is in my opinion the best OST in the game. I remember when I used to just leave it on in the background when I studied for exams, it was great.

Now I want to talk about gameplay. This game is notoriously known for being easy, especially on the hardest difficulty, where for some reason, attacks that knock down enemies deal x3 the damage. So, if you want the true challenging experience, play on Hard. Besides that, this game was my first introduction to SMT combat (even though it’s a simplified form). The concept of demon fusing was interesting to me, and the game only added more things to do with the demons you collect. Various skills like physical attacks, magical attacks, buffs, debuffs, status ailments, healing, walls, reflections, and even skills that activate on their own, this game has them all. I love the level of customisation you have with the different varieties of demons that are separated via Arcana, and how you can pass on skills from previous personas onto the new persona. I always spend so much time in the velvet room just fusing away to make even more powerful personas. Demon fusing aside, I want to talk about the actual gameplay. I enjoy the 1 More system, but that and all-out attacks just make the game so so easy. And to top it off even more, baton passing is just utterly broken. I enjoy how confidants give the party members different abilities in combat, and even some of them make things like grinding tolerable. I love the gameplay in this game, but it can be easily abused.

Now, I want to talk about the elephant in the room, which is Mementos. Just to avoid spoilers, it’s essentially your grindy dungeon. I HATE MEMENTOS REQUESTS and mementos in general. I hate being forced to go into mementos, it’s so annoying. Each area starts to look exactly the same, and there are rarely any changes that make me excited to go to mementos. Thank god for one of the confidant abilities that allow you to insta-kill enemies and claim the rewards, otherwise I probably would’ve set the game to Easy mode to avoid grinding. I am not a fan of randomly generating dungeons that have multiple floors, and I think this is one of the weakest aspects of an otherwise outstanding game.

Overall, THE GAME IS PEAK! Please consider playing the game, even if turn-based combat doesn’t seem to be your style, you never know, you might find a fan favourite series!

Persona 5 Royal, released just three years after the original in Japan, is what Atlus defines as the ultimate version of the JRPG and is sold to you as such.
However, as digestible as they made the gameplay experience, I sincerely cannot see this as an improved version of what was Persona 5. Since its release, I've been going back and forth on this game, and it's become, perhaps, the most divided I've ever been about a videogame. Over 4 years later, this release haunts me, eating at my head to sit down and figure out just why I feel so dismissive of this game.

The gameplay has been grossly simplified and streamlined, starting with what is immediately apparent. Fights are easier, Persona fusion is much more accessible, inherent traits make Personas far more useful and worth keeping, technical damage is stupidly overpowered and over-rewarding, guns are no longer as limited as they used to be, network fusion is less of a coin toss, and much more.

In this sea of gameplay improvements, there are a few things to note as negative.

Persona fusion is simplified and aided by the presence of “Fusion Alarms”. At random times, often more than you’d think, the Velvet Room will enter a state of “alarm”. During this sequence, fusion will be considerably more rewarding and unique, often yielding results that are insanely beneficial, and not in a particularly balanced way. Even if your fusion ends up botched, you’ll get excellent fusion fodder that you can use to build whatever you’d like. On paper, this sounds fun, and for the first few moments it truly is, until it starts to get redundant and hand-holding, completely disallowing the game to pick up in difficulty even up to the very end. Fusion Alarms are FREQUENT, way, way too much. In a JRPG, it’s simply not fun to melt anything in your way because the game throws what’s optimal at you, and you’d need to be seriously stupid to not pick up what it’s giving you or to find yourself in a situation where you’ll have to do some serious fusion planning.

Technical damage is much more rewarding than simply striking a weakness, and this makes complete sense. What doesn’t, however, is just how devastating landing a technical is. This ends up making Merciless a cakewalk with the increased weakness damage, which in and of itself is an already deceivingly easy difficulty.

On the gameplay side, this is all I can really complain about. Other than that, it’s worth noting just how much more digestible a game it’s become. The grapple hook allows for some creative and fresh detours, and the added free time makes the whole game feel a little less strict. There’s something to note about the inherent traits as well, as well as how party members start with Baton Pass rather than earning it.

If Royal’s only issues lay in the gameplay, I would’ve loved this game to bits, despite how permissive it was. But as I went on and on, the game started to weigh me down, confuse me, and irritate me.

Palace after palace, going through the motions, you’ll start to feel something off, especially if you’ve played the original game.

Persona 5 Royal doesn’t feel like Persona 5, and you can cut the two apart so well that it’s disheartening. It’s right there that you start to realize that P5R isn’t an improvement; it’s an addition. It’s something separate from the original that doesn’t want to improve anything of its original self; it only seeks to grow until it’s entirely overtaken the flaws that were there, and it hopes to god you won’t notice that by the end, you’re playing a different game entirely.

The first disservice P5R does to its predecessor is how badly it waters down its aesthetic and artistic direction.

From the title screen, Persona 5 makes its aesthetic and style known almost immediately. “Phantom” starts playing; it's bass-heavy and jazzy; its sounds are deep and simple; and it stays subtle. You’re met with nine figures in red. The only thing that’s clear about them is their masks, and as a new player, it’s left entirely to your imagination what these characters will look like later on or what purpose they’ll serve within the game. The backdrop is a train station, and while it’s simple, it’s also so well represented that it makes these characters pop out so much more. This title screen is stylish and subtle; it knows what it’s doing, and it doesn’t need a lot of spectacle to get a message across.

Persona 5 also sports an excellent intro, which is only there to introduce some very surface-level information about these characters and show you what this game’s art style is about. The animation purposefully picks some very specific coloring, making some things pop more than others, and displaying these characters in an elegant, almost theatrical approach. Want to find out more? Play the game yourself. And every time you pass by that intro, you’re going to be thinking about the next party member, what they’ll be like, and what they’ll bring to the plot.

Persona 5 Royal takes a different approach, not only in its menu but also in its intro. “Colors Flying High” is fine on its own; it’s not a particularly good song, nor is it all that bad. It’s hard to match the energy and style of the original, and besides, Persona 4 Golden hadn’t really hit the same heights as its predecessor either. However, what’s really an issue is the opening animation itself, which not only has embarrassingly bad animation (compared to the original), but also (hilariously so) makes it its sworn duty to show you Ann’s ass as one of the first scenes, reinforcing one of the biggest disservices Persona 5 ever did to its characters. The rest of the intro is so forgettable that I had to watch it at least three times to even write this, and it loses direction once they just start... smashing shit? In their new winter outfits, no less, for some reason beyond me. It’s loud, flashy, and lacks direction.

Persona 5 Royal’s menu is another massive miss on my end. The secluded and mysterious subway station has been replaced with the bustling streets of Shibuya; our red figures now wear their whole ass outfits; and the music replacing “Phantom” is “Royal Days," a higher-pitched, more vivacious track. This track, just like the majority of the new additional OSTs, while fine on their own, always left me with the impression that they tried too hard. This doesn’t ease you into its aesthetic; it doesn’t leave you guessing either. This title screen and intro flaunt themselves so clumsily that they fall flat almost immediately. There’s an insurmountable lack of class and elegance, stuff that Persona 5 held. We’re talking about phantom thieves here, and the word “phantom” should be reflected in what I’m seeing pretty accurately; they lay low, they’re underground, there’s no need for this level of spectacle. They were in a subway station for a reason; they didn’t wear their Metaverse outfits for a reason.

P5R plays mostly the same as its original; very little is altered aside from gameplay, for better and for worse. The 3D models are still just as hideous as ever, with Kasumi and Maruki obviously being better made than the rest of the cast. Some of the errors in the English localization weren’t even addressed, and the new text options leave much to be desired. The Italian localization, for instance, bases itself off of the English script, and this is probably true for the rest of the other languages, and excuse me for not trusting the same localization team that gave us “This isn’t small potatoes.” and “Prosecutor turned lawyer.”. I don’t have to explain what losing things in translation is, but it happens quite often in Italian, with a fair share of horrendous misspellings too. I know Persona 5 has tons of text, but this isn’t and should never be an excuse for poor quality.

On the topic of plot, P5R disappoints me so greatly that it’s clear why it’s so engraved in my memory as one of the most saddening experiences I’ve had in gaming. To keep this as spoiler-free as I can, I’m going to speak vaguely but also very angrily.
A narrative that has nothing to do with the original premise of the game forgets to even make itself gray enough to give you a choice, and that is so deathly afraid of doing so that it forces you to make the “right” decision by offering you insanely high stakes. Bad ending content was cut, further showing just how incompetently the consequences of this ending were handled and how pointless the entire dilemma ends up being. Kasumi is a scapegoat for the plot, waifubait, and an overall bleak and uninteresting character.

Atlus and its formula of re-releases encourage a lazy, unhealthy, and deceitful practice of game development. Why buy this game when you can wait three years and play an “objectively” better version of it? The implication that the devs didn’t do their best this time, but they might later, or that they might get their grubby hands on something that was already flawed and glue shit on top, is simply disheartening.

I have my problems with Persona 5's bloated story, its cheesy and weak writing, the fact that the game peaks with the first palace narrative wise, the game's themes and messages being frequently contradicted to tell an unfunny joke or a strangely inappropriate sexual one, and the characters being done kind of dirty in the narrative many times. I don't think this game is a masterpiece as I once did back in 2018.

However, Persona 5 does more than enough to almost make you forget about its failings. Its got an absolute BANGER of a soundtrack, its style is unmatched, the characters are a joy to experience thanks to their great voice actors and good enough character writing, and the big one, the gameplay is MY JAM. What ultimately ends up saving P5 for me is the gameplay loop of thief by day, highschool student by night. While not all palaces hit the same high quality, it's still awesome to experience them. It's great to see what kind of narrative storytelling is done through these palaces to bolster their palace rulers, even if most are one dimensional baddies. I love the act of combat and recruiting demons to fight on my side. I love fusing personas and seeing what kind I need for the fights ahead. I love recruiting new party members because not only is it a new homie, but it's someone new that I can experiment with. I love planning my schedule to maximize my dungeon adventures and my time hanging out with some legitimately compelling characters. Both the social sim and dungeon crawling aspects of the game blend and complement each other beautifully.

Persona 5 gets a lot of stuff wrong, but it gets more than enough right to make this adventure still worth experiencing. Plus, this is the Royal edition, which makes some incredible QOL improvements and adds, and I'm not kidding here, the best section of the entire game. Even if it is at the end and extends this already bloated game.

Also! This PC port is great! Bit miffed about no ultrawide, and the 120fps cap is a bit annoying, but in the amount of time I've had with this version, it runs great on my gaming PC and on my Steam Deck.

Even though I sounded a bit negative, I still ultimately very much recommend this game!

This is such a miracle of a game, there is literally so much content to dive into. The social simulation is easily the most engaging aspect, and every character is so fun and their storylines are really entertaining. After beating it, I feel like a chapter of my life has concluded.

There are a few changes I would make to possibly streamline the experience. If I'm waiting for a deadline to come up, I don't think I need to read a long text chain about it every single night. Several palaces seriously outstay their welcome, and not knowing how to fuse the ultimate personas you unlock kind of sucks. I also really wish the bosses made better use of the Baton Pass system, as it's the best thing the combat has going for it (although I realize the system was reworked for Royal)

Sometimes you just have to disappear for a month and play an Extremely long video game. In summary - I loved Persona 5 Royal and its many many flaws

Let's get the worst out of the way - I do think the game undermines a lot of its own messages/themes by being unable to break away from certain tropes or cheap gags. The first Arc of the game deals with a teacher that uses their position of power to sexually harrass students. However, four different romantic options are adults also in a position of power while the character you control is a minor. The adult characters also acknowledge Joker being underage if you romance them, and some basically have a line of dialogue that's like "welp guess I'm a pedophile now!" which was certainly Something. The other thing is, I myself am an adult and the adult characters are actually pretty great but I couldn't help but feel just kinda skeeved by the whole thing - especially when I don't think the game would lose anything by making our protagonists college students or whatever. I also think it's made worse by Persona's romance options being Very hetero centric and listen before you give me shit for saying that, imagine if the writing team had one extremely unhinged fujoshi on it - that shit would go SO fucking hard, like Joker and Akechi's dynamics are already one of the best parts of this game...... basically it's just a bit silly that a minor dating their teacher was an option before dating your male best friend right? Plus Government Mandated Homophobic/Transphobic Persona Scene would be scrapped

But anyway - P5R is a very long game, split up into multiple gameplay sections. You have preset story moments, the dungeons and the life sim aspects. All of it generally flows pretty well, although I wasn't the biggest fan of Mementos which are minor side quests in a randomly generated dungeon. That was definitely pretty dull at points and could've had the number of floors reduced. In regards to the life sim aspects, I never felt like I didn't have anything to do (besides the last week or so of January where I COULD NOT FUCKING FIND LIKE HALF THE CHARACTERS AAA). I really liked the side stories of characters like Iwai, Yoshida and so on. The palaces/dungeons are....fine? Even though I never needed more than one ingame day to get through them, I still thought a few of them felt a bit too long

I do think Persona's combat has more depth to it than other turn based combat games but still never feels super challenging outside of the Okumura boss fight, which is a huge difficult spike that demands a lot more strategy and planning than any other fight that comes before it. I think the game could've preppred you better for this one - maybe make the difficult increase more gradual instead of a sudden hit to the face

In terms of presentation, it's almost flawless. The soundtrack is great and the stylish UI is literally infamous. The voice acting, character potraits and anime cutscenes get no complaints from me either - it all combines together to make a really expressive experience

Also, I will say - I think the Royal content is what really brought everything together for me, and honestly kinda where a lot of aspects peak. The characters and extra development it brings are just SO damn good, after feeling a bit mixed by the base game's final arc

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.

Yeah... I don't know, I think these games are just not for me. Got around 10-15 hours into both P4 and P5 and they are pretty much doing nothing for me. While P4 kind of struggles in every department, P5 does go to great lengths to improve what P4 fails at, yet the game fundamentally is still just boring, there is nothing for me to latch on to that makes me want to continue either of them. Even with P5's vastly improved combat system that introduces neat gimmicks like the exploding enemies, baton pass, and Undertale-esque talking to obtain personas (which is a far better system than whatever P4 had), the gameplay still somehow sucks and becomes repetitive insanely quickly. The style is absolutely stunning, and I love how everything looks from the UI to the actual interior of palaces, the music is soothing but not overbearing at times so it's easy to listen to all the tracks, but this unfortunately isn't enough to warrant me continuing it at all. The story, while it should be a latching point because of the way it is set up, is undermined by shallow writing to characters who deserve more, because it is fun being with most of them (which also applies to most of P4's cast). Palaces are a lot more fun to navigate than Dungeons due to the Phantom Thieves ability which are really fun to use, but sometimes feel obtuse with how precise some of them are. I find that even the slice-of-life aspect has vastly more variety than P4, but still succumbs to mindless repetition that I do not see myself enduring for another however many hours this game is. These are games I would like to actually enjoy, and see through to the end to understand why so many people love them, but I don't understand why so many people are willing to continue after such uninvolving and time-consuming beginnings that may lead to an incredible revelation or writing feat far further into the game, which I do not have the patience for. I may pick either game up again later, but for now there is basically no reason for me to continue them at the moment.

This was an attempt to broaden my horizons, It was my first ever experience with a turn based game. While I found out I do not like this gameplay style, I did not play 140 hours so I could say I played one. It was genuinely a compelling narrative with interesting themes and diving deep into Society as a whole and what is Justice and what is our Distorted Desires. The gameplay on the other hand was not my cup of tea and I found the boss fights frustrating more than anything. Lots of bs with puzzles and poorly designed pacing as well. Although I did not like the gameplay, I am thankful I saw the journey through and got what I got from this experience that’s considered peak jrpg