This review contains spoilers
Persona 5 Royal is a confusing expansion game. For my thoughts of Persona 5 Vanilla, you can read my other backloggd review for it as ultimately Royal has not changed my mind about the original and in fact had only reinforced my views.
Royal is an interesting expansion, as all the gameplay mechanics that were added, from new locations to have more events to do during the scheduled free time, the bonus free time events, the new battle mechanics including updated gun utility, emergencies in the Velvet room, expanded baton passes, and more are all welcome changes and I think the game is better for them. However, the story additions are hit or miss.
The new scenes added into the base game are some of the weakest in terms of writing I have seen in the series. With a few exceptions, these only highlight and show how weak the relationship between the Phantom Thieves is and only highlights the core flaw in how little chemistry they have together as a group. Notable examples come up with Yusuke and Ryuji's team attack conversation, and Haru and Makoto's team attack conversations feeling like they were written by robots considering how awkward and clunky they felt for introducing their show time attacks. There is still an exception for this, such as the barbecue cleanup event near the start of the game, but largely all of the added in scenes in Royal into the base game are very weak.
That being said, the writing toward the end game content and Maruki was incredible. Maruki works as a perfect antagonist to the Phantom Thieves, being the logical extreme of their actions in the Metaverse. To be able to condemn Maruki, you must first condemn the actions of the Phantom Thieves, and to believe the Phantom Thieves are correct is to believe that Maruki is correct in their forms of vigilantism. Maruki is highly sympathetic and an excellent morally complex villain who when standing next to the laughably evil villain of Shido in the game fits in well. Everything involving Maruki also gives me hope for future Persona games, such as bringing back the ideas of Personas going berserk, having Personas communicate with their user like Sumire, having a Persona user in control of their own palace/metaverse/TV World, and even expanding on ideas about unique powers to wild cards revolving around the Metaverse. These ideas were all excellent and make me excited for potential story beats in the future of P6.
All of that being said, while the narrative writing toward Maruki was excellent, it did not fit into the rest of the game's themes of rebellion. To say that you are rebelling against Maruki's world is a bit of a stretch and feels out of place as opposed to seeing him as a rival since he is using the same methods that the Phantom Thieves use. Yaldaboath by comparison as a final boss encapsulates those themes of rebellion best, and Maruki being after him weakens those themes a lot. Maruki in the end then only feels like side content, or REALLY GOOD DLC, as opposed to being an organic and natural part of Persona 5.
As well, all of the character writing is incredibly weak aside from Maruki, and some new additions toward Akechi in his social link and third semester. Sumire while being charming and having an excellent narrative in the story, has very weak character writing along with the rest of the Phantom Thieves. This is very disconcerning considering that Persona is a series that is founded on the ideas of character, character growth, accepting oneself, relationships, etc. that are all cores of the series. So, while I have confidence now that the new content in Persona 6 following this new writer will likely have an excellent narrative and story, I am very concerned and am looking toward Persona 6 with trepidation due to its weak character writing.
All in all, Persona 5 Royal is something I would say is worth playing if you have already played and enjoyed Persona 5 Original. However, nothing new added here is going to change your mind on the original game. If you already dislike the Phantom Thieves and the narrative, then this game will not change your mind, and the tacked on DLC of Maruki while being excellent does not feel naturally incorporated into the game. Though, if you already liked Persona 5 original, the new content added will be something you enjoy greatly, and Maruki will simply be a side dish that is ordered to help with the rest of the main dish. I am not sure I would recommend this as your first Persona game if you had not played any of the games before.
Amazing art, mediocre story with some highlight moments, excellent gameplay, ok characters, fantastic soundtrack, and an overall style that is hard to compete with. 4 / 5.
Royal is an interesting expansion, as all the gameplay mechanics that were added, from new locations to have more events to do during the scheduled free time, the bonus free time events, the new battle mechanics including updated gun utility, emergencies in the Velvet room, expanded baton passes, and more are all welcome changes and I think the game is better for them. However, the story additions are hit or miss.
The new scenes added into the base game are some of the weakest in terms of writing I have seen in the series. With a few exceptions, these only highlight and show how weak the relationship between the Phantom Thieves is and only highlights the core flaw in how little chemistry they have together as a group. Notable examples come up with Yusuke and Ryuji's team attack conversation, and Haru and Makoto's team attack conversations feeling like they were written by robots considering how awkward and clunky they felt for introducing their show time attacks. There is still an exception for this, such as the barbecue cleanup event near the start of the game, but largely all of the added in scenes in Royal into the base game are very weak.
That being said, the writing toward the end game content and Maruki was incredible. Maruki works as a perfect antagonist to the Phantom Thieves, being the logical extreme of their actions in the Metaverse. To be able to condemn Maruki, you must first condemn the actions of the Phantom Thieves, and to believe the Phantom Thieves are correct is to believe that Maruki is correct in their forms of vigilantism. Maruki is highly sympathetic and an excellent morally complex villain who when standing next to the laughably evil villain of Shido in the game fits in well. Everything involving Maruki also gives me hope for future Persona games, such as bringing back the ideas of Personas going berserk, having Personas communicate with their user like Sumire, having a Persona user in control of their own palace/metaverse/TV World, and even expanding on ideas about unique powers to wild cards revolving around the Metaverse. These ideas were all excellent and make me excited for potential story beats in the future of P6.
All of that being said, while the narrative writing toward Maruki was excellent, it did not fit into the rest of the game's themes of rebellion. To say that you are rebelling against Maruki's world is a bit of a stretch and feels out of place as opposed to seeing him as a rival since he is using the same methods that the Phantom Thieves use. Yaldaboath by comparison as a final boss encapsulates those themes of rebellion best, and Maruki being after him weakens those themes a lot. Maruki in the end then only feels like side content, or REALLY GOOD DLC, as opposed to being an organic and natural part of Persona 5.
As well, all of the character writing is incredibly weak aside from Maruki, and some new additions toward Akechi in his social link and third semester. Sumire while being charming and having an excellent narrative in the story, has very weak character writing along with the rest of the Phantom Thieves. This is very disconcerning considering that Persona is a series that is founded on the ideas of character, character growth, accepting oneself, relationships, etc. that are all cores of the series. So, while I have confidence now that the new content in Persona 6 following this new writer will likely have an excellent narrative and story, I am very concerned and am looking toward Persona 6 with trepidation due to its weak character writing.
All in all, Persona 5 Royal is something I would say is worth playing if you have already played and enjoyed Persona 5 Original. However, nothing new added here is going to change your mind on the original game. If you already dislike the Phantom Thieves and the narrative, then this game will not change your mind, and the tacked on DLC of Maruki while being excellent does not feel naturally incorporated into the game. Though, if you already liked Persona 5 original, the new content added will be something you enjoy greatly, and Maruki will simply be a side dish that is ordered to help with the rest of the main dish. I am not sure I would recommend this as your first Persona game if you had not played any of the games before.
Amazing art, mediocre story with some highlight moments, excellent gameplay, ok characters, fantastic soundtrack, and an overall style that is hard to compete with. 4 / 5.
2 Comments
Based cat review
Dalaamclouds
1 year ago