This is a review of Persona 5 Royal released in 2020, made available on all major platforms in 2022. See here for our review of the original Persona 5.
What is Persona 5 Royal?
Persona 5 Royal is the expanded version of the original Persona 5 game, similar to Persona 3 FES or Persona 4 Golden. Royal uses the original Persona 5 as a basis to create a more definitive version of the Persona 5 experience.
If you aren’t familiar with the Persona franchise, another notable comparison would be the third versions of older Pokémon games, such as: Crystal, Emerald, or Platinum.
Persona 5 Royal as a game, however, is a Japanese Role-Playing Game, merging dungeon-crawling, turn-based combat with day-to-day social simulation in perfect harmony.
Juggle your day-to-day life as a second-year high schooler with being a notorious Phantom Thief; capture and utilize Personas (heart made manifest) to fight against corrupt figures in society and steal their twisted desires.
Is Persona 5 Royal the same as Persona 5?
Not quite, while Persona 5 Royal tells the same overall story as the original Persona 5, there are many differences and improvements that set the game apart from its base form.
However, a player will be able to play either Persona 5 or Royal to get an understanding of the game and its main cast of characters.
If you’d played Persona 5, but not Royal, or are unfamiliar with how the Persona series typically works, you may be asking yourself: ‘what’s the difference between Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal?’
Persona 5 Royal re-imagines the original Persona 5.
Here is an overview of the differences between Persona 5 and Royal:
- Added playable third semester
- Added a new member of the Phantom Thieves and new Confidants
- Reworked certain Confidants
- Reworked and/or expanded certain Palaces
- Expanded on the Baton Pass system and added new minigames to support this
- Added new Personas
- Added more character interaction scenes
- Improved and refined certain Confidant abilities
- Added Challenge Battles
There are many more tweaks and improvements in Royal beyond those listed above.
Is Persona 5 Royal Canon?
It could be argued that either of Persona 5 or Persona 5 Royal could be canon.
Typically, the updated versions of the Persona games become the canon entries in the series, however, things might be different in Persona 5 Royal’s case. Persona 5 Royal released after the follow-up Persona 5 Strikers.
As a result, Persona 5 Strikers could be argued to be the sequel to the original Persona 5, making Persona 5 Royal non-canon.
Ultimately, the decision is up to you whether you consider Persona 5 Royal to be the canon game or not. Whichever makes your playing experience more enjoyable!
Is Persona 5 Royal good?
Persona 5 Royal takes a great basis from Persona 5 and build it to something truly phenomenal. From the new additions to improvements on existing elements, Persona 5 Royal is the definitive experience that all players should try. Regardless of whether they’d already played the original or not.
This review will discuss the various changes and improvements made between the original Persona 5 to Royal. If you are interested in knowing more about Persona 5 and its gameplay mechanics. I recommend reading my Persona 5 review for a broader overview of the game.
One of the greatest changes to Persona 5 Royal is the new characters that it introduces and the newly playable third semester.
Two new characters have been added to Persona 5 Royal: a new first-year student, Yoshizawa, and a school counselor, Dr. Maruki.
Both of these new characters are absolutely fantastic new additions to the Persona 5 story, especially Maruki. His character is by far my favorite in Persona 5 Royal.
Not only does his inclusion not feel intrusive, but scenes he has with other members of the Phantom Thieves help to build out their characters and give further insight into them as people. This is something that you only really notice the original game lacked when you get these new scenes.
The development team also seem to have taken on board the feedback from players of the original game pertaining to the jokes surrounding Haru’s screen time.
Both of these new characters are intertwined with the story, having the opportunity to spend time with them throughout the course of the entire game.
Speaking of Haru’s screen time, her as well as a few other characters receive a few more scenes throughout the game to establish them a lot more in the world – which I greatly appreciate.
One of these characters is Akechi. In the base Persona 5, he had a few scripted moments prior to late-game where he and the protagonist would interact to boost his Confidant rank.
Akechi’s Confidant has been completely overhauled in Persona 5 Royal.
He’s no longer an automatic Confidant, and you get to spend time with him as you would the majority of the other side cast. During this time, you get to learn a lot more about him and what drives him as a character.
He was an interesting character in the original game, but this change makes him even more compelling and entertaining and I’m so glad that made this change for Royal!
Overall, everything added to the story of Persona 5 Royal hits the mark perfectly, it makes the player feels as though this was always the way the story was meant to play out.
Honestly, it makes the original game feel so obsolete by comparison.
If I have one gripe with the game, it would still be the routine structure that persists from the base game. New party members join in the same rigid way, where when you reach a new story Palace, you’ll gain a new character.
Unfortunately, this is something that they couldn’t easily fix without overhauling the entire game. This is evident with how the handle the integration of the new characters and the focus of the third semester.
It’s clear that the team had a much better understanding of how they could introduce characters when developing Royal, but they still couldn’t avoid that same routine when the time comes for a new party member.
The combat of Persona 5 Royal is still the same as it was in the original Persona 5: a turn-based RPG that allows you to utilize the various powers of Personas to defeat your foes.
However, One example of how Persona 5 Royal improves the elements of the original is the update to through how gun ammo works.
In the original game, each of your characters’ guns have a limited number of ammo; once you’ve depleted that ammunition, you won’t get any more until you next enter the Metaverse. This made them forgettable sub-weapons that would rarely see utility.
However, in Royal, your ammo is replenished at the end of each battle. It’s such a small tweak that made the overall flow of dungeon crawling much more enjoyable. Now, you don’t need to worry about conserving ammo just in case you run into a Shadow that only has a weakness to Gun type attacks.
It’s such a simple update, but changes like this are littered through the game and it just improves the overall Royal experience.
Another improvement to the flow of combat is the changes made to the Baton Pass mechanic.
A feature introduced in the original Persona 5, a Baton Pass allows you to pass your turn to another party member after exploiting an enemy’s weakness to earn a ‘1 More’. In Royal, this mechanic has been expanded to become even more useful.
Through participating in a game of darts with a few of your party members, in the newly explorable area of Kichijōji, you can increase your Baton Pass level up to a max of 3.
Each new rank grants you a boost to your Baton Pass in the form of buffs. By maxing the rank out, you can not only increase the power of your follow-up attacks, but also regain some health and SP.
This is a huge boost to combat and is a really great incentive to play strategically, especially against higher-level bosses.
The overall combat in Persona 5 Royal should be the baseline that all new Persona titles should build from.
Base Persona 5 established a better approach to battle UI that improved upon standard menus, and Persona 5 Royal pushed an already fun system to even higher heights.
Persona 5 Royal is a fantastic RPG.
There are a couple more improvements made in Royal that are outside of combat, and more with the day-to-day social sim. elements.
An issue that many players found in the original Persona 5 was with Morgana and how he’d restrict your evening activity after events in the game.
Persona 5 Royal removes this restriction for the most part, and goes the extra mile to allow you (after achieving certain Confidant levels) to even go out in the evenings following Metaverse escapades.
This helps to improve the freedom you have on a day-to-day basis and helps you maintain better control over your time.
It’s especially great when you’re aiming for a 100% playthrough maxing out all Confidants in the game. Thank you, Atlus!
Persona 5 Royal isn’t just a great expansion of Persona 5, it’s a better game than Persona 5 and with Persona 5 Royal now being available across all major platforms, I’d be stupid to not recommend this game over its base counterpart.
How long is Persona 5 Royal?
A newcomer playing the game for the first time may be looking at anywhere above the 100-hour mark to beat the main story.
However, anyone familiar with the story of Persona 5 will be looking at a much shorter time.
I was able to earn the Platinum trophy for the game on my first playthrough, clocking in at exactly 80 hours.
For anyone that is interested in completing more of the game’s side content available through the Thieves Den, regardless of whether you’ve played the games before, you’ll easily come closer to the 200-hour mark.
There’s definitely a lot of content here for your money!
Is Persona 5 Royal worth it?
Without question, Persona 5 Royal is the best way to play the Persona 5 games! The sheer number of quality of life changes and the entire third semester make the game infinitely better in relation to its predecessor.
If you’re torn between deciding whether to play the original Persona 5 or Royal, even if Royal costs a little more, you should definitely choose this version for the most complete experience.
Persona 5 Royal Rating
Persona 5 Royal isn’t just one of the best new-age Persona experiences you can have, it’s one of the best RPGs you can play. Whether others consider Persona 3 or 4 better, this is definitely a game worth your time.
Positives
- Expands on almost everything that made the original game incredible
- Fantastic third semester expansion with seamless integration
- Improves Phantom Thieves’ character interactions
- Adds much needed quality of life changes
Negatives
- Palace-to-Palace structure relatively unchanged from the base game
Time logged at point of review: 85 Hours
Played on: PlayStation 4
Available on: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series, Nintendo Switch, Steam
I hope this review has helped you decide if you want to play Persona 5 Royal.
Have you played both Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal? If so, which version did you prefer? Let us know in the comments.
If you want to see more of our reviews and more of our thoughts on the Persona 5 series, you can find links to them below:
