The original Persona 5, released back in 2016 on the PlayStation 3 and 4, welcomed gamers to the mundane and everyday activities of your typical Japanese high schooler: hanging out with friends, studying for exams, and of course changing the hearts of corrupt and selfish adults. Since then, the Persona franchise, especially Persona 5, has experienced a breakout of sorts, with Joker being added to the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate roster, a manga and anime series being produced, Persona 4 Golden receiving a rerelease on Steam, and a few series spinoffs being released. And in March 2020, four years after its US release, Atlus brought us Persona 5 Royal, an expanded edition of the original complete with new characters, locations, and mechanics.
After almost 90 hours in Persona 5 Royal, my biggest takeaway is that the game ultimately feels like it could have been an add-on DLC for the original Persona 5, but the creators wanted to sprinkle in just enough of the new content and characters throughout the narrative to warrant a new release. Ninety percent of my time was spent essentially replaying vanilla Persona 5 and waiting for more interactions and story lines with the new characters and locations, most of which wouldn’t come until the final few hours of the game. That’s not entirely a bad thing, as Persona 5 is one of my favorite games of this entire console generation, and any excuse to play it again is welcome. I had always been meaning to replay the original after finishing it the first time, but it was such a unique and emotional experience that replaying it without a fresh mind felt like it would have cheapened it somewhat. So when the trailer for Royal dropped, I was all too excited to jump back into the Persona-verse for a second go around.
My previous game knowledge was both a blessing and a curse, as it allowed me to better manage my in-game time and explore new social links, but it also meant I was skipping dialogue and cut scenes for a lot of the game because most of it is exactly the same as in the original Persona 5. One of the places that knowledge came in handy was in the pursuit of getting every trophy in the game on the first playthrough. Not that accomplishing this feat would be impossible if you hadn’t already played through Persona 5, but it certainly made it easier to manage in-game time and prioritize certain friends and social links by certain deadlines. The good news is that when you are building off of a foundation as nearly flawless as Persona 5 it’s hard to really make a bad game. And while the new characters definitely add to the overall experience, which is surprising given how tightly packed this game is with memorable characters, I just wish you didn’t have to wait until the very end to see the conclusion to their plots. Nothing is more frustrating than pouring countless amounts of time and energy into a social link only to find out you won’t know how or when it will turn out for another 80 hours.
One of the more interesting thoughts about Royal as a whole is how irrelevant it makes the original game. If you are a new Persona player or are interested in Persona 5 at all, there would be seemingly no reason, short of a massive discount, to buy the original instead of going straight for Royal. Why buy a game that is a complete experience in and of itself when a newer version with more content exists on the same console? If anything, Atlus seemingly could have gone the assumed Overwatch 2 route and offered Royal as a discount add-on to the vanilla game, and new players could buy both games together as a package. Regardless, it adds enough content to make it appealing to people who have played the original, new players who always wanted to try the original, or just anyone who wants to escape this current reality and become a handsome Tokyo boy in their next life.
Persona 5 Royal is available exclusively for PlayStation 4.
*Originally posted on Twin Cities Geek on July 29th 2020*