Persona 5 Royal Review

Persona 5 Royal takes you back to the Phantom Thieves’ debut adventure and its memorable characters, locations, bosses, and music and improves upon it in every way imaginable.

Although similar to the original story, a lot of things are different from before in terms of gameplay. For one, the game added a whole new area to the game’s overworld, where things like darts, pool, and other activities help enhance the gameplay in the actual combat, giving boosts to baton passes from the first game. Along with this, the new showtime attacks are a welcome showcase of the game’s style while at the same time getting across the personality of the characters. Some of the other changes to gameplay include the grappling hook and Will Seeds, which add more variety to the puzzles and dungeons of Persona 5, Mementos being less grindy than it used to be many more. All the changes are significant and add to the game more than subtract from it.

As for the story, the story adds three new social links to the already massive number of social links in the game. Well, technically two since Akechi was already one, but you can now hang out with him to progress it just like the rest, so it’s different. Then we have our new character Kasumi who, without giving too much away, adds to the plot of both the old and unique story in a significant role, especially in the newly added third semester.

The story was already outstanding by itself, with various themes of trying to change a society to become something better. Still, the third semester adds a more exciting and poignant theme to the story: Trauma and the need to overcome obstacles over getting rid of them and moving forward.

Overall, Persona 5 Royal creates a story that adds a lot more to the universe of Persona 5, and the Phantom Thieves’ original adventure is improved tenfold in this game. As a result, persona 5 Royal gets a 9/10.