The first thing you should know about Persona 5 Royal is that it isn't a sequel or spin-off of Persona 5. It is, in fact, more of an expanded re-release of the original game (although it qualifies as a remaster on PC, PS5 & Xbox Series consoles) with quality-of-life improvements, new mechanics & various additions to the story. So Royal does supersede the original game both in canon and as the superior version of the game.

As for thoughts on the game itself, the story is solid. The opening arc does a great job of easing newcomers into the mechanics & world of this game while also getting them invested in the plot & characters fairly quickly. The rest of the story is consistently pretty engaging, with the new Royal content being pretty seamlessly integrated with the original Persona 5’s story (until it isn’t, but at that point, it’s clearly supposed to be jarring for story reasons I won’t get into here) & building off of the original’s themes, at least to someone like me who didn’t play much of the original/vanilla Persona 5. The villains, while generally hate sinks with little nuance, are enough to keep you invested in the narrative & there are a couple of more nuanced antagonists later on. The game even manages to have quite a few tear-jerking moments. There are some dry stretches though, with the section right before the Okumura arc being the worst part of the story, filled with Idiot Ball moments & generally less interesting events outside of maybe the Hawaii trip.

The Confidants, essentially a series of side-stories where Joker helps either his fellow Phantom Thieves or an eclectic set of his peers & down on their luck adults with their problems, are a mixed bag. Some have both an engaging arc & great gameplay benefits, some have one but not the other & then you have the ones that are completely useless and suck (LOOKING AT YOU OHYA). But this part of the game is definitely appreciated overall.

The combat is also a highly polished and smooth experience for a turn-based RPG. There is a certain flow & rhythm to the combat that makes even standard encounters engaging, something I can’t say about most turn-based RPGs. Although I will say that Mementos (a large, randomly-generated dungeon that you can access at almost any time) can get a little stale toward the end of the original game’s arc, but the new third semester added in Royal adds a new floor to Mementos that makes things a little more interesting again. Palaces on the other hand don’t get stale as there’s a lot more variety in what you’ll do in any given Palace & none of them outstay their welcome. My only real issue is that after the introductory Palace, none of the remaining ones (except maybe parts of the Okumura & Cruise Ship Palaces) really have much of a challenge when playing on Normal difficulty if you’re levelling certain Confidants (including ones you have to max out to advance to the third semester).

Outside of Palaces & Mementos, the life-sim gameplay sections are fun & interesting at first, but later on as you max out your social skills & Confidants, there really isn’t much to do. So that’s disappointing. Before that though it is a solid gameplay loop & I can see how it can become addictive.

As for the visuals, they really are as striking and distinctive as they are made out to be. It definitely has a sense of style & flashyness that sets it apart from other RPGs. And the music is also SO GOOD. Lots of bangers on this game’s soundtrack.

Conclusion Overall, Persona 5 Royal is a great JRPG that is an excellent entry point into the genre for newcomers & may go down in history as this generation’s Final Fantasy VII. But it’s not a perfect game. There are some balancing issues & a lack of things to do outside of dungeon crawling toward the end and the story has a couple rough patches, but this doesn’t stop it from being a phenomenal game that’s worth playing, especially now that it’s more accessible than ever.

Ratings

Creative score (story, gameplay, voice acting, art direction): 9/10

Technical score (graphics, audio, performance)): 7/10

Business Practices score: 6/10 (Not the worst I’ve ever seen, but Atlus really do love milking Persona with lots of DLC costumes & Personas as well as spin-offs & crossover appearances in other games like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate & Nier Reincarnation)

Overall score (my thoughts on a game’s overall quality, does not consider the business practices unless they are detrimental to the experience): 9.5/10

First off, the gameplay. The combat is a middle ground between traditional turn-based JRPGs & strategy RPGs like Fire Emblem. Like Fire Emblem, Trails in the Sky uses a grid system which controls where your characters can move. But like a traditional turn-based JRPG, you have an overworld and are teleported to a separate dimension for battles (at least that’s how it feels). I will say that, as someone who hasn’t played many turn-based JRPGs & didn’t enjoy a more traditional one like Dragon Quest XI, I actually did enjoy this battle system at times. I say at times because random encounters with standard monsters got old after a while.

The story on the other hand is pretty good & has plenty of charm. It starts out as a pretty low-stakes affair, with Estelle & Joshua travelling from one city to another, being contracted to deal with whatever local crisis the citizens are dealing with and getting the assistance of a colourful cast of characters along the way. But as they get closer & closer to their goal of becoming senior Bracers, the stakes get higher & higher, building towards a heart-breaking cliffhanger ending that will leave you eager to start Second Chapter (the game’s direct sequel) but nevertheless wraps up most of the game’s overarching plotlines.

The amazing thing is that, even though this game & Second Chapter were supposed to be a single game, but got split into two games to make its targeted release date, it feels like this story was always meant to be a two-parter! Either that’s a testament to how good of an idea the two-parter angle was or Falcom did an excellent job making the split work. Either way, multi-game arcs are seemingly the standard going forward, so it’ll be interesting to see if I feel the same way about the Crossbell & Cold Steel arcs. It’s definitely a very JRPG trope-heavy plot, but that’s not a bad thing so long as the plot itself is engaging, which this one is.

As for the technical aspects, the visuals hold up pretty well for an almost 20-year-old game (perhaps this is due to the 2D sprite art used for the characters just inherently aging better than 3D rendering), although the environments (which do seem to be rendered in 3D) haven’t aged as gracefully, but still fare better than most games from this time period that aimed for a more realistic art-style. And the music! Oh, boy is the music great! Created in-house by Falcom’s Sound Team jdk, the OST of Trails in the Sky is full of bangers & I’ve already added quite a few of them to my liked songs on Spotify!

Conclusion Despite it’s age, Trails in the Sky is a pretty good RPG with a fun & captivating story that balances telling a self-contained story & kicking off the ongoing narrative that defines the Trails series to this day, paired with gameplay that, while far from perfect, estabilshes a decent foundation to build on in future games. I just hope that the rest of the saga can at least live up to the standard this opening chapter has set in my mind…

Ratings

Creative score (story, gameplay, voice acting, art direction): 8/10

Technical score (graphics, audio, performance)): 7.5/10

Business Practices score: 8/10 (Nothing egregiously bad, but Falcom’s hesitation regarding releasing the PC version in the West when it was clear that the PSP’s struggles here were a key contributor to the initial release failing commercially does knock off a few points, but I’ll save the details of that for when I finish & review Second Chapter)

Overall score (my thoughts on a game’s overall quality, does not consider the business practices unless they are detrimental to the experience): 8.5/10

Campaign is pretty good. Not the best COD campaign & not all of it's changes to the COD formula work (looking at you armoured enemies & tank boss fight), but it's a good time and tells an engaging enough story.

Multiplayer can be fun if you jive with the faster time to kill, relatively more restrictive movement & more tactical feel, but if you prefer a faster-paced, more arcadey shooter you're out of luck and would be better off buying MWIII instead (which is a pretty overt course-correction in this direction and whose existence flys in the face of the 2 years of post-launch support that were promised for this game).

Haven't played much of Spec Ops, but it's 100% much better than MW19 if you're into this sort of thing. Similar story with those Raids (although I haven't touched those at all).

The menu is also terrible BTW. Feels more like a streaming service than an actual game.

Overall, I recommend Modern Warfare II for the campaign, but not at $70 USD/$90 CAD. Wait for a sale. Multiplayer wise, unless what I described interests you I'd just skip this game and get MWIII instead. I kinda wish I didn't have to choose between recommending and not recommending, but considering most people buy COD for the multiplayer... I'm gonna have to go with No for this game in it's current state...

Ratings:

Creative score (story, gameplay, voice acting, art direction): 7/10 (would be an 8 or so if not for Infinity Ward's decisions with multiplayer & that terrible menu)
Technical score (graphics, audio, optimization): 8/10
Business Practices score: 4/10 (exclusive content on PlayStation, microtransactions & a FOMO-inducing Battle Pass, not to mention the broken promises of 2 years of post-launch support)
Overall score (my thoughts on a game’s overall quality, doesn’t consider the business practices unless they are detrimental to the experience): 7/10