Synopsis:
Don the mask of Joker and join the Phantom Thieves of Hearts. Break free from the chains of modern society and stage grand heists to infiltrate the minds of the corrupt and make them change their ways! Persona 5 Royal is packed with new characters, confidants, story depth, new locations to explore, and a new grappling hook mechanic for stealthy access to new areas. With a new semester at Shujin Academy, get ready to strengthen your abilities in the metaverse and in your daily life.

Publisher: Sega
Reviewed on: PS4 (Pro Unit)

Cast: Xander Mobus, Cassandra Lee Morris, Laura Post, Max Mittelman, Matthew Mercer, Erica Lindbeck, Carrie Keranen, Billy Kametz, Xanthe Huynh, Erika Harlacher, Olivia Hack, D.C. Douglas, Robbie Daymond

Developer: Atlus
Director & Original Story Concept: Katsura Hashino
Art Director: Masayoshi Suto
Character Designer: Shigenori Soejima
Composer: Shōji Meguro

Let me get the elephant out of the room quickly — I never finished Persona 5. I got three palaces in and stopped for some reason. That said, this is easily the version to play, as it not only adds some fantastic new characters and locations but also fixes all of my complaints about the original release back in 2017.

From the moment Persona 5 Royal begins with its flurry of fast animated colours and jazz-pop music, it’s hard not to smile. The game has a unique art style and presentation that’s only been improved here, although hardcore fans may not love the new intro video. What hasn’t changed is the core Persona 5 experience. You’ll be spending the majority of your time exploring Tokyo, spending time with your friends as you build relationships with them and learn about their lives. You’ll take on part-time jobs to build your charm and earn cash; read and study to improve your knowledge; and then dive into the metaverse where you’ll battle shadows in fast-paced, stylish, turn-based combat.

The game begins very similarly to how it did three years ago. Our protagonist, codenamed “Joker,” is escaping a casino with many security guards right on his heels. What he’s done, and who the many voices talking in his ear are, is all a mystery to you. Very quickly Persona 5 Royal reveals its changes as you use a grappling hook to skip a section of stairs from the original game and as a new character appears to help you in a battle.

Joker is caught escaping the casino, and then the game is told through flashbacks as he recalls his year up until that point and the adventures he has at both school and in the metaverse, as both Joker and his growing crew of Phantom Thieves pull off a heist that changes the cognitions of criminals, causing them to admit to their horrible crimes.

Sprinkled throughout the same story structure are new scenes with Kasumi Yoshizawa, the new Phantom Thief introduced in Persona 5 Royal. She’s the draw point for returning players and has been the focus of the majority of Persona 5 Royal’s marketing efforts; however, she’s not implemented into the early parts of the game very well, and at one stage you simply don’t speak or see her for months. Most of your time with her is one-on-one and it feels disjointed from the main plot. You’ll spend most of your time with her in the new semester that extends past the original ending. Here her story is extrapolated and she becomes a really interesting addition to the team — which makes her absence from the upcoming Persona 5 Scramble somewhat confusing, especially when I can already see her becoming a lot of players’ new “best girl” if they see her story through to the end when it becomes really unique.

You won’t get to spend time with Kasumi in the metaverse for a long time, so don’t expect to unlock her early. She is very kick-ass, and I love the story behind her metaverse costume and her rapier weapons.

The other major new character is Takuto Maruki, whom you’ll meet early much like Kasumi. Takuto is a part-time school counsellor whose addition works super-well. After each palace, you’ll get to see him talk to a member of the Phantom Thieves about what’s going on in their head, letting us see a new side to the team.

All of the new characters are most important when you hit the third semester — a new extension that potentially adds twenty hours or more depending on how much you have left to do in that end-game period, plus a brand-new dungeon.

Somewhat effortlessly, Atlus manages to extend the ending and rework the story in small but meaningful ways to make the third semester not only make sense but feel like the way the story was always meant to be told. After you beat the original game’s final boss, it’s hard to imagine what could come next, but the new palace and story elements in Persona 5 Royal are easily the most memorable of the whole game — and some of the most emotional.

Two of my biggest complaints with Persona 5 were running out of SP too fast in palaces/dungeons and the guns feeling useless. Both have been changed in Persona 5 Royal and now combat moves faster than ever to keep up with the flashy presentation.

Your guns now refill their bullets after each battle instead of after leaving a dungeon, making them a clutch move at times and an easy way to unload decent damage. It made me care to upgrade them and even customise them with various elemental effects later in the game.

The Baton Pass ability — which lets you extend turns by hitting enemy weaknesses — is now something you’ll unlock with each character by default. You’re also able to level it up by playing a darts mini-game in Kichijōji, a new area that contains several new shops and stat-building places to spend time. Levelling Baton Pass is well worth it: max Rank 3 will see that character’s HP and SP return slightly upon every pass. Persona 5 Royal makes passing around your team not just a faster addition to combat early on, but also super-necessary for some of the new enemy additions as you take advantage of elemental and technical bonuses.

Talking about style, new powerful combo moves unlock periodically — called “Showtime attacks” — that see two characters team up to perform a flashy, massive special. They can be super-clutch finishers that save your team’s life.

Recovering SP inside a palace is easier than ever thanks to several factors and overall makes clearing a palace in one day a much easier prospect — which is necessary to allow more time to work on maxing relationships and stats in the real world. Each palace now has three “Will Seeds” to find; each one gives your party a slight SP restore, making them worth seeking for that alone, but if you collect all three you can take them to a new character in Mementos to receive a rare accessory.

Palaces have seen slight and sometimes glaring redesigns because of the grapple hook addition. You can only trigger it at certain locations, so don’t think you’re just swinging about freely. Mostly it’s a way to reach hidden chests above you, but there are a couple of times it’s used in really exciting ways, and seeing Joker flying about on a grappling hook just fits his character.

Bosses have seen slight to major changes. After looking up the originals, I was surprised just how much in some cases. I’m annoyed that one boss is still very similar to the original — the fight is tedious and a standout for being easily the most boring and uneventful in the whole game — especially when other bosses were changed more drastically.

In your day-life, things have also been improved in a way that may annoy hardcore fans. It’s now easier to level up confidants and find the time to work jobs, study, or just spend an evening messing around in various locations. Most of this is thanks to having more days to work with — the third semester gives you breathing room and simply more days to do stuff.

You still can’t do evening activities after leaving the metaverse without unlocking a special ability, but Morgana will no longer drive you up the wall telling you to go to sleep nearly every single night. This extra time was super evident as I smashed through my books and maxed my stats very early. I loved this; it made the game a lot less stressful and allowed me to max all but one confidant by credits without guides or strict day-to-day schedules.

I did speed through a lot of the early game as it was, for the most part, exactly the same as the original, which led me to a final playtime of 105 hours. If you’re playing for the first time, you’re probably looking at closer to 150 hours — more if you haven’t played a Persona game before and don’t understand the general rhythm.

For a decent amount of my playtime I was in Mementos, because there’s actually more to do there now. A brand-new character shows up early in your first visit to the RNG dungeon called Jose — a mysterious young child chasing flowers which now float in bubbles inside Mementos like item bubbles in the original game. You’ll also find star stamps at random locations and at the end of each level. Taking these to Jose lets you use flowers to buy items (including some very good SP-restoring ones — my fave) and use stamps to adjust three factors within Mementos: XP, item, and money gains. Each level only has a limited number of stamps, but you better believe I found them all ASAP and turned the XP boost to the max to level super-fast.

The game looks just as good as it did at release thanks to the unique, defining art style and animated cutscenes. There are apparently improvements on PS4 Pro, but I honestly couldn’t notice anything. New UI updates and songs may fly over my head since I didn’t finish the original, but the soundtrack — old and new — slaps.

There’s a new in-game achievement system that lets you unlock coins to spend in the “Thieves’ Den,” a hub area accessible from the main menu or in-game. Inside the Den you can play a card game, interact with the Phantom Thieves, place statues of Personas, play music, watch unlocked cutscenes, and more. It’s nothing groundbreaking, but a nice addition — and the in-game achievement list will give hardcore fans something to strive for, as it’s much harder than the PSN trophy list.

If you’ve played Persona 5 before, the time and effort needed to see the new story content might be a big ask, but it’s undoubtedly worth it. Kasumi becomes one of the most interesting characters in the game, and the way the story comes together in the final semester brought a tear to my eye. If you’ve never played Persona 5 or failed to finish it like me, then Persona 5 Royal is the definitive way to play one of the most stylish, emotional, and engaging RPGs of all time.

(Persona 5 Royal code provided for review)