Persona 5 Royal

In a series first, this doesn’t take place in a fictional Japanese town, big or otherwise. Taking place in Tokyo in the ‘10s, you the Protagonist are sent there for rehabilitation after being convicted for a crime he didn’t commit. Taken in by a family friend, Sojiro Sakura, you begin big city life at Shujin Academy (which if you look closely, fits the theme of law/rebellion with the emblem looking like a police badge, and Shujin can also be read as ‘prison’ in Japanese) though it seems not all is well in civilized society. At first we see Kamoshida, a gym teacher/coach who abuses the male students and takes liberties with the females, there’s no hard evidence and no one seems to want to come forward. You meet Ryuji Sakamoto and later Ann Takamaki, but not without getting dragged into the Metaverse, a place beyond reality accessible via a strange phone app that installed itself. There you’ll meet Morgana, a cat-like figure who swears they are not a cat who teach you the ins and outs of to navigate the Metaverse, and how our antagonists built these palaces there. Here, you can infiltrate these palaces to hopefully give our villains a ‘change of heart’ by stealing their treasure, something that means the world to them. Along the way, our crew will have to awaken the power of Persona, that is, a manifestation of their true self with special powers as well as a matching costume.

You’ll control the Protagonist in real time when out in the real world, in the palaces. When its time for battles, you’ll switch to turn-based, using melee weapons, firearms, or your Persona’s abilities.

I’ll add if you have a save file from Persona 5 vanilla, and start a new game, it will detect it and will give all the Persona 5 vanilla DLC for free. That means all costumes, some extra yen to start your epic, music you can swap the battle theme for, and strong Personas. Though as of this writing, all the Persona 5 Royal DLC is also free which includes more costumes, music, and souped up Persona to terrorize the bosses with.

Specifically for our Protagonist, they’ll be taken at times to the Velvet Room, which series regulars will know its another place beyond space and time to meet Igor, your guide for your journey, and their assistant, who is your attendant to help keep track of and fuse Personas, which I’ll talk about in a sec. In past titles, the Velvet Room would be a blue room with a pianist and singer, later add an artist, be a fancy elevator, and a fancier limo. Here, the Velvet room is a euphemism for a prison, with prison garb to match, as he’ll have to rehabilitate himself and society from a tragic end. Igor will guide, but n ot spell our what needs to happen, and each title from 3 onward, would get a different attendant to handle, archive, and fuse the Personas you capture. The Protagonist has the power to use multiple Personas, whereas the rest of Phantom Thieves have just one, and there quite a few to collect. Here, your attendants are your ‘wardens’ Justine and Caroline, two kids with eye patches who don’t cut the Protagonist much slack.

You’ll meet other members who will join your cause, awaken their powers, confront their own insecurities to take down corrupt adults who take advantage of a society that either doesn’t care or looks the other way. Each villain section can be treated like an arc from an Anime how its setup, follows through, and then leads to the next arc, with some interesting sections in between.

New to Royal is new character Kasumi Yoshizawa, who weaves in and out of the revised plot. A rhythmic gymnast who’s at Shujin by scholarship, we’ll see her from time and time, though she won’t join your group fully. She will awaken to her Persona, and there will be a section or two where you and her go into mysterious areas. Also new is Dr. Maruki, the new school councilor who’s a new social link who always seems to have a good stash of snacks on hand. Also new is the additional term, which the game calls the 3^rd semester which is technically an oxymoron, as semester implies 2 halves. Still, there’s a 3^rd term that goes just past the main game if you do a few social links right which will have Kasumi’s full involvement. That’s all I’ll say for now in terms of story, just that to maximize the new character’s social links as soon as possible.

For series vets, the gameplay loop is refined damn near close to perfection. Though for our new comers, don’t let the name fool you. Despite it being the 5^th entry, this is the perfect place to start. While there are many familiar trappings of jRPGs such as turn based battles, character roles such as front line attackers, support, healers etc, Persona has a different structure that sets itself apart from other big name franchises. From the obvious that it takes place in a modern setting with fantasy elements vs high fantasy, magic-tek, to how time works. You’ll start in the normal world, usually at school, explore the area. From there you can pick activities that will up your social stats. You’ll need social stats such as knowledge, proficiency, charm, guts, etc as there are some activities, people that need a certain level of said social stat. You can explore the many prefectures to do activities such as taking part time jobs for money, eat out, work out, catch fish to name a few. You can talk to people to up your social link with them, which is based on one of the major tarot aracana.

See, The tarot, is one of the major themes in Persona, with yourself as the Fool Arcana, and your party members, and non party have their own. By talking to them, helping them out, you get to know them better, raising your social link, and also unlocking certain perks that will aid you in battle. In turn, the Personas you find in the Metaverse are also classified into major Arcana, and while you can capture them via negotiation (Persona 5 calls it a Hold Up) and level them up one by one. The Personas are based on various myths, legends, folklore from around the world and new to Persona 5, more recent characters. From the poster child Jack Frost, to Japanese, Egyptian, Greek, Chinese, etc, the game will also give a brief description if you’re so inclined to learn more about them. Its better to fuse the many Personas you’ll gain and if your social link with a particular person of a particular Persona, you’ll get bonus experience when the fusion is completed, skipping many levels, and if its high enough, max the Persona out already. That’s the basics, though you attendants, Justine and Caroline (who they themselves are also a social link) will go over the intricacies far more in depth.

During all this, these activities take a certain amount of time in the day, so you’ll need to plan your day accordingly; next thing you know, its night time and you’ll have Morgana who will ever so gently remind you to go to sleep. When it comes time to explore the Palaces in the Metaverse, you’ll see your enemies in a form of a blob which if you sneak up on them, can get the first turn. Now the common thing in the Shin Megami Tensei series is that its about attacking your enemies weakness, while they’ll exploit yours in turn. If this sounds similar to Pokemon, you’d be correct, though this series beat Pokemon by four years with its first game using this mechanic. Over time, this has been expanded upon, such as if you hit the enemy weakness, you get an extra turn, can have another take their shot via baton pass. Once they’ve been all it, you can do an all-out-attack which will do massive damage. Though if enemies catch you off guard, it can raise alarm levels, they’ll be actively looking for your crew. Its broken up into phases such as doing recon to find the route to the bosses treasure, then calling out the boss in real life, then going back and taking on the boss, hopefully changing their heart in the process. During this journey, you’ll meet your party members, named the Phantom Thieves of Hearts, as their struggles tie into the story. Specific to Persona 5, it can be seen as a seasonal anime, divvied up into arcs that have their own specific plot, while tying to an overall narrative.