Persona 5 Royal

I came into Persona 5 Royal the way a lot of RPG lifers do: already aware of the hype, slightly suspicious of it, and ready to clock every filler quest that wasted my time. What I found instead was a game that earns almost every one of its hours, which is saying something when the runtime can stretch past 120 depending on how deep you dig. The structure splits cleanly between two worlds: the real-world Tokyo calendar, where you attend Shujin Academy, build social stats, and deepen bonds with your Confidants; and the Metaverse, a cognitive shadow-realm where the distorted desires of corrupt adults take the form of hand-crafted Palaces ripe for infiltration. The Phantom Thieves steal literal hearts by worming their way into these Palace dungeons, ambushing enemies from cover, exploiting elemental weaknesses for the One More extra-turn system, and then hammering knocked-down enemies with All-Out Attacks. It is genuinely one of the sharpest turn-based combat engines the genre has produced, and the Baton Pass mechanic, which transfers a damage-boosted turn between party members, adds a tactical layer that rewards attention past hour 40. Royal is the expanded version, and the additions are substantial rather than cosmetic. A new Phantom Thief in Kasumi Yoshizawa, a whole new district in Kichijoji complete with a darts minigame, Showtime Attacks that pair two teammates for cinematic specials, Disaster Shadows that explode on death and damage adjacent foes, a reworked grappling hook traversal across Palace layouts, and a full third-semester story arc that retroactively reframes everything before it. The Confidant system, P5's evolution of the Social Link mechanic from earlier entries, is the engine that keeps the real-world half from feeling like obligation. Every named character has a personal arc running on its own rails; investing time in them pays off in passive combat perks and, more importantly, in writing that actually treats those characters as people rather than stat delivery mechanisms. Honestly, the game is not above criticism. The five-hour tutorial before free agency is a genuine patience tax for new players. Mementos, the procedurally generated subway dungeon that handles most of the sidequests, remains the dullest part of the experience even with Royal's quality-of-life tweaks like Jose's item rewards and the Morgana-bus speed bump. Some players have noted that the group-text chatter repeats key plot information well past the point of utility, which reads less like naturalistic dialogue and more like padding. A minority of critics also found the main narrative, for all its stylishness and thematic ambition around systemic injustice, stops short of interrogating its own premises as rigorously as it could. These are fair points. The PC port itself is functional and supports up to 120fps, though framerate can dip on busier Tokyo streets, and the graphical options are sparse by PC standards. For RPG players who have never touched the series, this is the correct starting point. The Confidant system is the best argument the genre has made in years for letting social simulation carry as much weight as combat, and the Royal-exclusive third semester is not a tacked-on epilogue but a full narrative gut-punch that recontextualizes major characters. Returning veterans who cleared vanilla P5 face a steeper proposition since the early game is identical for dozens of hours, but the payoff in the back third is genuinely new enough to justify the revisit. The LGBTQ representation remains a documented weak point, with localization changes in Royal softening but not resolving the original game's issues in that area. Eyes open going in.

Monika · Scout Team

RPGs

Be the first to comment on Persona 5 Royal.