Persona 5 Royal is an enhanced/bigger version of my already favorite game ever, Persona 5. When I first heard of it, I was like, "oh cool, a new character and more stuff" and as time progressed, I learned that it was much more than a few extra tidbits. Join me as I go through my favorite parts of the game, as well as how they improve upon the original Persona 5. And also, y'know, my very few critiques of some sections.
Let's start with the basics. Persona 5 Royal is focused around you controlling the Protagonist, who most call Joker, when he is put on probation for a crime he didn't commit. For some reason, his parents send him to Tokyo to live with a man named Sojiro Sakura in a coffee shop attic for an entire year. You awaken to a Persona after being sent into the Metaverse, and your friends form a group called the Phantom Thieves, who change the hearts of corrupt adults in society in order to make the world a better place. What this means for the gameplay is mostly the same formula as the previous two games, balancing a high school simulator with phenomenal turn-based combat. Where it differs with Persona 5 though, is social links- I mean confidants now give different abilities to help you in your palace infiltrations when ranked up, rather than just an EXP boost when fusing personas. This is like, the best thing ATLUS could've done when making the game, and it sends the entire series into a really good looking future.
When I played the p5 last year, I slowly fell in love with the time management and well-done dungeon crawling. So when I played P5R this year (almost exactly 1 year after), I fell in love with it again, and was able to appreciate all of the little changes, like the dialogue text looking smaller and just overall better, some little decorations to a few menus, and some of the big changes, too. In Mementos, you can now collect flowers and stamps to trade in to this guy Jose, who is awesome, for more exp or money in after battles, items, and enhancing your Will Crystals. We'll get to those later. Of course, I cannot miss talking about the really, really important new characters. Kasumi and Maruki are great confidant additions with awesome benefits, and if you want the true ending of the game (which you do) then max out Maruki's confidant. That's all I'm going to say about the spoiler-related stuff. Akechi's confidant is now not automatic, and hanging out with him feels much better than seeing him occasionally throughout the game, sippin coffee or whatever and ranking up.
The battle flow has received some improvements as well, like Traits for your personas that give bonus buffs, and some accessories can now give you another skill to use in combat, like another magic attack or a support skill, it can really be anything. In almost every palace there is 3 will seeds to collect, and once you have all of them, you get a crystal with a skill, which can be given to Jose to upgrade it into a skill accessory, which in the late game, is pretty much a game changer. With all of these enhancements, battles can be won really fast and very efficiently.
Although, why would you want to blast through a battle? Because a new battle theme has made its way into the game! Take Over is such a great addition. Its lyrics are basically about "since I know how to play, it's time to say goodbye to your healthbar" with a killer beat behind it. That's not all the new music stuff. there are some more areas, with an updated version of a song from the very first Shin Megami Tensei game?! (Persona was originally a spinoff of SMT for those of you who don't know) And in that area, there's a jazz club you can attend with party members with basically the normal night music, except better. There is so much more music, especially in the secret last palace. Royal also comes with all of the Persona 5 DLC as well, so that means costumes from previous persona games with their battle music, and extra bonus healing items and stuff. That's a really nice detail!
I wish I could've talked more about the ending to the game, but I DO NOT WANT TO SPOIL IT. SO I WON'T. But it's really really good, I'll just say that. All in all, Persona 5 Royal is an even better version of my already favorite game, due to really great improvements to combat and more story stuff. 5 stamps out of 5! I mean I would give it 6, but that would be cheating. So 5!! I love this game and I hope you will too!!