You Stole my Heart, Phantom Thieves!
Introduction
Excluding the Final Fantasy series, few franchises sparked my interest. I admit, I have not played any Persona games (also known as Shin Megami Tensei: Persona) before this one. That said, since I got the chance to jump into the cognitive palaces of 2020’s Persona 5 Royal, I have never wanted to leave.
Persona 5 Royal was developed by P-Studio, a team created by publisher Atlus to manage the Persona series. In case you have never heard of any of Atlus’ other works outside of this review, they were responsible for cult classic Catherine as well.
Persona 5 Royal is the full package deal of the Persona 5 If you thought the original game was long with its ninety hours of playtime, Royal adds another thirty to it.
Setting and Plot
You play as Akira Kurusu, but for the purpose of this review I will be mentioning him by his codename: Joker. He is the human personification of a blank canvas, sent to Tokyo under probation after being accused of a crime he did not commit. During this time, he has to live out his probation as the ultimate high-school student at Shujin Academy.
By day, you are the ideal student, keeping up with the ever-growing social life of confidants and lifelong friends. By night (or after school), you are the leader of the Phantom Thieves of Hearanime version of Christopher Nolan’s Inception dream thieves.
Your objective is to change the hearts of corrupted individuals by entering a dream-like world called the Metaverse. Through the Metaverse, you can enter these palaces, labyrinths generated from one’s distorted desires, and steal the person’s treasure, the foundation of their corruption.
Alongside a crew of like-minded individuals and a talking cat, your goal is to change the minds of corrupted adults and have them confess their crimes.
In terms of narrative, Persona 5 Royal is very long and well-paced, combining Japanese high school life with a modern fantasy JRPG. While not the most thought-provoking of plots, the game has a lot of heart. That said, it does come with a jaw-dropping twist and enough emotional firepower to make you want more.
Persona 5 Royal is probably the most anime a video game can ever get, with its Japanese high school setting and little furry mascot, and has more tentacles than a calamari buffet. However, it is its dive into Japanese culture and society that makes the game so damn attractive to play.
Characters and Performances
Persona 5 Royal is all about the characters and your relationships with them. Improving your relationship with your confidants grants you extra abilities and bonuses in combat and enriches the game’s narrative in the process. That said, they are all amazing. The length of time you spend with these characters makes you yearn for more once the credits begin to roll.
Your main crew, The Phantom Thieves themselves, are incredibly charming. It is rewarding watching these people evolve into more than just simple stereotypes. Their trials and tribulations stand as the backbone of Persona 5 Royal’s storyline.
Throughout my playthrough, I aimed to get the True Royal ending. That means bonding with Kasumi (Laura Post) and Doctor Takuto Maruki(Billy Kametz), two new characters created for the Royal Edition’s expansion. Maybe I enjoyed being called Senpai, or her sunny personality is just simply that endearing, but Kasumi quickly became one of my favourite characters. It adds that she is also quite the competent combatant, able to brush enemies aside with her Bless attacks. It is hard to imagine the original game without either one of these two, as they melded so well into the game’s plot.
Joker does not talk much during the game’s runtime. Xander Modus, Joker’s voice actor, mostly mutters grunts and one-liners throughout his performance. For the most part, you are accompanied by a black and white cat-thing named Morgana, who does the talking for you. You better get used to listening to Cassandra Lee Morris’ little boy voice, because you are going to hear it a lot from this talking cat!
Morgana’s voice does get a bit irritating after a while as he plays the role of mentor throughout the first half of the game. You will therefore hear him practically all the time. Lee Morris’s portrayal of our feline companion is purr-fect, and so is the script. Yet, until I started to hear the other characters pitch their ideas during combat, I thought I was going to go crazy.
Perhaps, more variety in these lines would have improved the experience; Persona 5 Royal is very large and has a lot of dialogue, so much so that not all of it is voice acted, leaving the characters with throwaway one-liners along with their text. Eventually, Futaba Sakura (portrayed by Erica Lindbeck) and Makoto Niishima (portrayed by Cherami Leigh) take over the battle commentary, giving the cat a break.
Gameplay
Better sit down, everyone; we have a lot to talk about here. As previously mentioned, the game works with a calendar system. The game asks you to manage your life around being the leader of Phantom Thieves, performing well at school, and managing your ever-growing relationships of friends and potential waifus…
Outside school, Joker can perform two tasks a day. These can range from improving your skills or relationships with your confidants, to exploring the palaces inside the Metaverse, where you can hunt down treasure and monsters.
Combat
If you are familiar with turn-based RPGs, such as Final Fantasy X or The Lord of The Rings: Third Age, then you will feel right at home with Persona 5 Royal’s battle mechanics. In combat, four party members are selected to battle, while the others wait in reserve for their moment to shine.
Persona 5 Royal differentiates itself from its peers with its sleek combo system. The system works by discovering an enemy’s elemental weakness and then exploiting it with the right ability. This effect downs the target but does not necessarily kill them. That specific character who managed to down the enemy gets a free turn to either continue their offensive or tag in an ally to target other opponents.
Tagging in allies grants them strength and health bonuses that open a whole new dimension with its gameplay. There have been fights where I managed to instantly one-shot a powerful opponent thanks to all the buffs. I would also mention that enemies can also utilise this technique, and when done well, they can leave your party crippled.
Watching your party rip apart a group of tough opponents is satisfying, to say the least. Sometimes, a well-timed tag-in can be the difference between life and death. Admittedly, some fights can be a slog to get through if the enemy does not have any weaknesses, which require one to think more outside the box.
Once you managed to down all the enemies, you have the option to hold them up at gunpoint. Hold-ups leave you with a bunch of opportunities: you can either perform special team attacks called showtimes, in which you can eliminate the enemies with style. There is also the option to steal items and money from weakened opponents. Finally, you can convince an enemy to join your crew and become one of Joker’s Personas, granting Joker new abilities.
Personas
Personas are weaponised spirits created through character personalities when pushed to the brink of desperation and rebellion. These spirits manifest in the Metaverse and provide characters with the powers and abilities they need to fight. Aside from Joker, most characters get exclusively one persona with its own unique set of spells and techniques. Most party members are granted a single element type from their Persona.
While single element type is annoying, it does help promote the combo tagging system mentioned previously. You can work around this with items, but they don’t do as much damage as spells.
Then we have Joker, who functions as the party’s wild card, as he is the only member that can use multiple Personas in battle. This s means he can swap between different set of abilities based on the Persona he has equipped at the time.
He can also recruit enemies to fight as his Personas, gaining their abilities through multiple based on their personalities. An example would be a blissful Persona who would like to hear cheerful answers. If you answer their questions correctly, they will fight alongside you. This feature took a lot of experimentation, and I wasn’t always able to recruit Personas to my side. Once your new friends become too weak, you can fuse them through guillotine execution in the fancy butcher shop called the Velvet Room.
Confidants
Confidants are allies that you meet throughout your adventure. These include the Phantom Thieves themselves and the local inhabitants of Tokyo. These mostly helpful individuals provide you with assistance and benefits during your time in the Metaverse.
Building your relationships with them is a crucial growing aspect of the game. Increasing your standing with them can generate more powerful Persona fusions and add more options during combat. However, since you are allowed only two opportunities a day to socialise with these characters, it becomes increasingly challenging when keeping up with all the relationships when more are added into the mix.
Some characters even require specific skills before one can even approach them, because, if you don’t have the boldness of a man staring death in face, then you definitely can’t talk to the cute girl who sits in front of you in class.
Palaces and Preparation
There is a certain degree of preparation needed while venturing inside these palaces. These moments of planning are where the calendar system shines brightest, as one must carefully deal with a countdown in in-game days while trying to hunt down and steal a person’s treasure.
Inside these palaces, you must explore their labyrinths and find the treasure laying inside. Travelling inside these colossal areas is a test of endurance, which may take multiple in-game days before reaching any headway. I should also remark that one needs at least two days to send a calling card before finally stealing a person’s heart. I did not manage to prepare the calling card until the very last moment and failed horribly during my first Palace.
Sending out the calling card is signaling the game that you are ready to take on the palace boss. Before sending out the calling card you can prepare by purchasing new weapons and equipment, exploring areas of the palace to get in some training, or just bonding with your mates.
Animation and Presentation
If there is one thing Persona 5 Royal manages to dish out in spades, it would have to be its dedication to its presentation. This entry in the Persona series is probably one of the most stylish games to date. While the character models are not much to look at, P-Studio disguises their greatest weakness with flashy sprites and stellar animation techniques.
The game’s anime aesthetic is what sells it, with cutscenes that look like they came from an animation studio. Whenever these cutscenes were to appear, my eyes would be glued to the screen, giddy with anticipation. Special techniques such as Showtimes are given a similar treatment, dazzling players with flashy animation before cutting over to a 2D character pose with the enemies exploding violently behind them.
Even the dialogue boxes are given an exceptional treatment, with mood changing portraits of main characters, complete with lip-flaps. These little details add a lot of emotions to the otherwise static models.
Sound and Music
Persona 5 Royal not only has a slew of fantastic effects and animations but an excellent soundtrack to boot. The themes composed by Shoji Meguro made several moments outside of battle feel almost serene. Even locations such as palaces have these relaxing melodies. However, it is Leblanc Cafe’s Beneath the Mask that stands out with its soft jazzy tones.
After sending out your calling card, the game explodes with an assortment of catchy tunes sung by Lyn Iniazumi. Dashing madly through a palace on a do-or-die mission before taking on the boss with Life will Change is an exhilarating feeling that builds anticipation.
Conclusion
Persona 5 Royal may not have the same high budget that Square Enix managed to shove into Final Fantasy 7 Remake, but it can still stand tall with its attention to style and complex characters. It is one of those games for which the developers, composers, and animators worked as one to deliver a remarkable piece of work.
If you are a fan of any of the games that I have previously mentioned in this review, then you will love Persona 5 Royal and vice versa, of course. After concluding this complete package, I think I will explore Persona 4: Golden on Steam or even jump ahead to try out Persona 5: Strikers, which will be releasing in the coming days. For Atlus and the Persona series, the future is looking bright.
