This review contains spoilers
persona 5 royal is a game that has some interesting points to make and takes full advantage of the structure and tropes established in modern persona to convey them. while on one hand the extreme amounts of bloat and padding based on the calendar system causes frustration, on the other you see a game deeply concerned with the status quo of japanese politics and the collective complacency seen in the country towards injustice. the message couldn't be more overt -- whether it's the off-kilter, rebellious art deco style of the entire game or the haywire urban setting, p5r presents itself as more subversive and less clean than its predecessors.
i think most of my gripes with this game are because of how inconsistent and lopsided it can be. the gameplay is a little snappier and more engaging in some ways to all of its predecessors, with classic demon negotiation brought back from the older megaten games, but the game simply isn't designed well around its own battle system. often times, bosses resort to DPS sponges or gimmicks that aren't particularly difficult, but just annoying. like in most megaten games, the hard mode isn't particularly well-balanced, and demands a certain level of grinding in order to not get cheesed by the occasional unavoidable instakill.
palaces are an upgrade from the TV world in that there's some semblance of an engaging hand-crafted dungeon, but even the best dungeons in the game (sae, maruki) have a tendency to just drag on for way too long. factor in the frustrating amount of filler dialogue explaining the obvious and you have dungeons that feel a lot more draining and a lot less consise than past persona games.
p5 also suffers in general from the same problem that 4 does: important moments in characters' growth are sidelined to optional social link development. if you end up missing a couple ranks in some of your party members, their inclusion in the cast can feel really hollow. in a game that's less character-focused than, say, persona 2 or 4, you often feel like one of your cast members you neglected to rank 10 feels half-baked and unappealing.
the new royal story additions are great. maruki and sumi are solid additions, but they suffer from being part of a very solid arc attached to a game that already hit its climax and raised its (albeit underwhelming) stakes already with the original final boss.
to get back to my main point, persona 5 royal has a gargantuan runtime but doesn't use it particularly well. rather than it being a substantial 100+ hours, it feels like you've been exposed to around 20 ignoring all of the padding. in the future, atlus should look at past games and consider slimming down their future output. i think it's unreasonable to expect them to abandon best selling traits of the series nowadays like its calendar system, but a hypothetical persona 6 needs to be more aware of how it's pacing itself.
i think most of my gripes with this game are because of how inconsistent and lopsided it can be. the gameplay is a little snappier and more engaging in some ways to all of its predecessors, with classic demon negotiation brought back from the older megaten games, but the game simply isn't designed well around its own battle system. often times, bosses resort to DPS sponges or gimmicks that aren't particularly difficult, but just annoying. like in most megaten games, the hard mode isn't particularly well-balanced, and demands a certain level of grinding in order to not get cheesed by the occasional unavoidable instakill.
palaces are an upgrade from the TV world in that there's some semblance of an engaging hand-crafted dungeon, but even the best dungeons in the game (sae, maruki) have a tendency to just drag on for way too long. factor in the frustrating amount of filler dialogue explaining the obvious and you have dungeons that feel a lot more draining and a lot less consise than past persona games.
p5 also suffers in general from the same problem that 4 does: important moments in characters' growth are sidelined to optional social link development. if you end up missing a couple ranks in some of your party members, their inclusion in the cast can feel really hollow. in a game that's less character-focused than, say, persona 2 or 4, you often feel like one of your cast members you neglected to rank 10 feels half-baked and unappealing.
the new royal story additions are great. maruki and sumi are solid additions, but they suffer from being part of a very solid arc attached to a game that already hit its climax and raised its (albeit underwhelming) stakes already with the original final boss.
to get back to my main point, persona 5 royal has a gargantuan runtime but doesn't use it particularly well. rather than it being a substantial 100+ hours, it feels like you've been exposed to around 20 ignoring all of the padding. in the future, atlus should look at past games and consider slimming down their future output. i think it's unreasonable to expect them to abandon best selling traits of the series nowadays like its calendar system, but a hypothetical persona 6 needs to be more aware of how it's pacing itself.