R.I.P Billy Kametz, gone far too soon
120 hours. If you did it in one go it would take 5 whole straight days of nothing but playing Persona 5 Royal. If we add to that a previous attempt at Royal that lasted until the 40 hour mark before I dropped it + my original persona 5 vanilla run (which was staggered across many months) I have played persona 5 for about 240 hours. Which judging by my steam account would make it my 9th most played game of all time. And after all that I can confidently say that Persona 5 Royal is... alright.
Persona 5 is an interesting entry in the series because in theory its the best one, the baton pass seems like a no brainer in retrospect, the palaces being actual handcrafted dungeons is the fully realized version of what Persona had always tried to be (there's hints of this in a certain final dungeon in P4), the soundtrack is absolutely stellar and every social link having a gameplay benefit just makes a lot of sense and enhances the core appeal of the game.
And yet I think P5 is my least favourite of the modern persona games (overall I still hate P2:IS more but Im planning on replaying it soon). For one thing the crop of social links is somewhat weak. Not that they're terrible but there are very few that are actually memorable : the politician, iwai, mishima and maybe takemi? are the only truly great ones IMO. Most of the others are forgettable and especially most of the female social links which uhh might not be a coincidence given some of the game's treatment of women. Smarter and more articulate people have already written about it on this page so just go to them for more on that.
I think a game like Persona 3 benefits from having a more mixed quality of character stories ; it has the worst social links in the series (gourmet king, ken, the athletes etc) but also the absolute very best (akinari, mutatsu, bunkichi, tanaka). Speaking on comparisons to Persona 3, they are kind of opposite ends of the spectrum. P3 starts pretty slow and kind of boring/meandering for a lot of it (strega are still some of the worst antagonists in the series) but pulls off the best ending in the series (havent played Eternal Punishment so idk) whereas Persona 5 is pretty frontloaded in terms of quality.
-Spoilers for Persona 5 and Royal from now on-
Presumably this is why the Royal Additions were made to serve as an epilogue of sorts, replacing the boring final boss of P5 who was just a generic shonen JRPG giant God thing that didnt feel anywhere near as climactic as beating down the guy who was single handedly responsible for most of the events of the game. It replaces it with a much greater character with a really interesting storyline and makes a much more compelling villain thematically for the game than boring old yabbadabbadoo or whatever his name was... is what I would say if they didnt make you fight the boring villain again anyways. Why?! You're already rewriting the plot of Persona 5 in post, go all in! fuck the stupid god of control thing.
Another thing that sort of comes with the format that I found annoying was in this final battle with an interesting sort of puzzle element that tests everything you've learned you defeat him in a low key sort of confrontation where despite not wanting to your differences in philosophy come to a head which can only be resolved with a duel, the game still pulls the whole "this isnt even my final form!" bullshit and I was pretty annoyed ngl. The fight really only needed to be like 10 minutes long but I guess thats not "spectacular" enough even though we already did this whole song and dance for Yaldabaoth!
Another Royal addition I was very mixed on was the character of Kasumi. I was originally playing the game in Japanese until she came around and I had to switch it over to english cause her voice, cadence and tone actively damage my head. Its like scratching a chalkboard. Her actual character is well... ok I guess. I admire the attempt but it just compounds the fact that there is a lot of dead weight in the phantom thieves; not just gameplay wise but even storywise they start to blend together a tad. Did you know Ryuji was canonically born on July 1999? Just like I was. That means most of the Phantom Thieves are my exact generation and maybe If I had played Persona 5 when it came out in 2016 I would have had much more of a connection. Unfortunately I played P4G as my first instead.
In general the party dynamics of P5 are arguably the weakest of the series and obviously a lot of this is just personal opinion but they just don't quite connect with me the way the P4 and 3 and 1 cast do. Also Morgana manages to be more annoying than Teddie somehow, who at least had the decency to fuck off once in a while. Love being told what to do by a cat in a game about rebelling against authority.
I apologize for anyone who's actually read this far cause I imagine this is almost incoherent at this point but I honestly don't know how to write anything about this game in any way thats actually well structured, Im just shooting from the hip at this point.
The Royal additions also rebalanced the combat in ways that are mostly for the better but also made an easy game even easier. I played on merciless and still embarassed most late game bosses. But the focus has never really been the combat challenge so whatever.
Okay, so Ive spent this entire review talking shit about this game but Im giving it an 8/10 so what gives? You see, I am actually an IGN staff member. In all seriousness Persona 5 Royal for all its faults has kept me coming back to it for 120 goddamned hours. There is enough of the good stuff I come to this series for to make it worthwhile : namely cheesy shonen tropes and the hybrid game model that is so wonderfully addictive.
Modern persona is a bit like XCOM or Total War in that having a management side complement the "combat" side of the game makes each a welcome change of pace from the other and constantly gives out rewards that pass from one side to the next, giving that "just one more day/turn" that makes these games so compelling. The gameplay "loop" has never been more appropriately named and honestly it is like digital nicotine to me. Add to that a truly excellent soundtrack and a UX that is absolutely dripping with style and there is a lot of things I will overlook in all of these games in favour of their positives.
120 hours. If you did it in one go it would take 5 whole straight days of nothing but playing Persona 5 Royal. If we add to that a previous attempt at Royal that lasted until the 40 hour mark before I dropped it + my original persona 5 vanilla run (which was staggered across many months) I have played persona 5 for about 240 hours. Which judging by my steam account would make it my 9th most played game of all time. And after all that I can confidently say that Persona 5 Royal is... alright.
Persona 5 is an interesting entry in the series because in theory its the best one, the baton pass seems like a no brainer in retrospect, the palaces being actual handcrafted dungeons is the fully realized version of what Persona had always tried to be (there's hints of this in a certain final dungeon in P4), the soundtrack is absolutely stellar and every social link having a gameplay benefit just makes a lot of sense and enhances the core appeal of the game.
And yet I think P5 is my least favourite of the modern persona games (overall I still hate P2:IS more but Im planning on replaying it soon). For one thing the crop of social links is somewhat weak. Not that they're terrible but there are very few that are actually memorable : the politician, iwai, mishima and maybe takemi? are the only truly great ones IMO. Most of the others are forgettable and especially most of the female social links which uhh might not be a coincidence given some of the game's treatment of women. Smarter and more articulate people have already written about it on this page so just go to them for more on that.
I think a game like Persona 3 benefits from having a more mixed quality of character stories ; it has the worst social links in the series (gourmet king, ken, the athletes etc) but also the absolute very best (akinari, mutatsu, bunkichi, tanaka). Speaking on comparisons to Persona 3, they are kind of opposite ends of the spectrum. P3 starts pretty slow and kind of boring/meandering for a lot of it (strega are still some of the worst antagonists in the series) but pulls off the best ending in the series (havent played Eternal Punishment so idk) whereas Persona 5 is pretty frontloaded in terms of quality.
-Spoilers for Persona 5 and Royal from now on-
Presumably this is why the Royal Additions were made to serve as an epilogue of sorts, replacing the boring final boss of P5 who was just a generic shonen JRPG giant God thing that didnt feel anywhere near as climactic as beating down the guy who was single handedly responsible for most of the events of the game. It replaces it with a much greater character with a really interesting storyline and makes a much more compelling villain thematically for the game than boring old yabbadabbadoo or whatever his name was... is what I would say if they didnt make you fight the boring villain again anyways. Why?! You're already rewriting the plot of Persona 5 in post, go all in! fuck the stupid god of control thing.
Another thing that sort of comes with the format that I found annoying was in this final battle with an interesting sort of puzzle element that tests everything you've learned you defeat him in a low key sort of confrontation where despite not wanting to your differences in philosophy come to a head which can only be resolved with a duel, the game still pulls the whole "this isnt even my final form!" bullshit and I was pretty annoyed ngl. The fight really only needed to be like 10 minutes long but I guess thats not "spectacular" enough even though we already did this whole song and dance for Yaldabaoth!
Another Royal addition I was very mixed on was the character of Kasumi. I was originally playing the game in Japanese until she came around and I had to switch it over to english cause her voice, cadence and tone actively damage my head. Its like scratching a chalkboard. Her actual character is well... ok I guess. I admire the attempt but it just compounds the fact that there is a lot of dead weight in the phantom thieves; not just gameplay wise but even storywise they start to blend together a tad. Did you know Ryuji was canonically born on July 1999? Just like I was. That means most of the Phantom Thieves are my exact generation and maybe If I had played Persona 5 when it came out in 2016 I would have had much more of a connection. Unfortunately I played P4G as my first instead.
In general the party dynamics of P5 are arguably the weakest of the series and obviously a lot of this is just personal opinion but they just don't quite connect with me the way the P4 and 3 and 1 cast do. Also Morgana manages to be more annoying than Teddie somehow, who at least had the decency to fuck off once in a while. Love being told what to do by a cat in a game about rebelling against authority.
I apologize for anyone who's actually read this far cause I imagine this is almost incoherent at this point but I honestly don't know how to write anything about this game in any way thats actually well structured, Im just shooting from the hip at this point.
The Royal additions also rebalanced the combat in ways that are mostly for the better but also made an easy game even easier. I played on merciless and still embarassed most late game bosses. But the focus has never really been the combat challenge so whatever.
Okay, so Ive spent this entire review talking shit about this game but Im giving it an 8/10 so what gives? You see, I am actually an IGN staff member. In all seriousness Persona 5 Royal for all its faults has kept me coming back to it for 120 goddamned hours. There is enough of the good stuff I come to this series for to make it worthwhile : namely cheesy shonen tropes and the hybrid game model that is so wonderfully addictive.
Modern persona is a bit like XCOM or Total War in that having a management side complement the "combat" side of the game makes each a welcome change of pace from the other and constantly gives out rewards that pass from one side to the next, giving that "just one more day/turn" that makes these games so compelling. The gameplay "loop" has never been more appropriately named and honestly it is like digital nicotine to me. Add to that a truly excellent soundtrack and a UX that is absolutely dripping with style and there is a lot of things I will overlook in all of these games in favour of their positives.
3 Comments
right? Morgana's big moment is like the worse part of the game lmao. Teddie's big moment actually fits with the main theme of the game of "facing yourself" and self actualization and all that
i like morgana the most, i think he's a funny lil fella
BlazingWaters
1 year ago
I still havem't played Royal yet but that's cause I've been waiting for the opportunity, it's a large timesink for a game I'm more than likely gonna walk away from saying "yes it's alright".