Persona 5 Royal improves on Persona 5 in every way, unfortunately this way is so disconnected storywise that it almost acts as an entirely seperate experience to the main game, being thematically an almost condemnation of the main game's storyline due to how disjointed the two narratives are. However, it is a superior storyline in almost every way, discarding many of the awful villains employed before in favour of one that had some pathos and connection to the themes of the Persona series as a whole of the exploration of the self, rather than the exploration of society the original Persona 5 opted for.

Gameplay takes a simultaneous leap in interesting ideas and a large stumble in difficulty due to said ideas, the new systems at play all make an easy experience absolutely trivial, an example being Persona traits add a lot more customisation to personalising a Persona's playstyle and ability usage but it becomes apparent this system isn't balanced at all, like giving Alice the ability to make instant death spells cost no SP, resulting in Alice killing every encounter that doesn't have an immunity to death instantly and cancelling out most late game random encounters. Ultimately, Persona 5 Royal shines in what it doesn't share with it's predecessor, and what it does share looks even worse in comparison.