Persona 5 Royal

Genre: Turn-Based Monster-Collecting JRPG

Players: 1

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Review:

(Note: This game is included in Persona Collection, along with Persona 3 Portable and Persona 4 Golden.)

When Persona 5 was first released in 2017 on PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4, it was heralded as one of the greatest RPGs of all time. While this game made use of common themes and monsters seen throughout the Persona series (and by extension the Shin Megami Tensei franchise the Persona series is a spin off from), its completely original story and characters, stylish presentation, and creative game mechanics delighted fans and critics alike.

Then, despite that many already saw the game as a masterpiece, it was greatly expanded in a 2020 re-release on PlayStation 4 called Persona 5 Royal. This version of the game got multiple new playable characters, new NPC “Confidant” characters, new places to explore, new minigames to partake in, new music, an improved visual resolution, multiple quality-of-life improvements, and an entirely new unlockable “Third Semester” that has an entire new dungeon “palace” as well as new enemies… and a whole slew of other additions and refinements that I couldn’t possibly hope to get into in depth or they would take over this review. Suffice it to say that this represented a gigantic expansion of an already massive game (just completing the main game is estimated to take roughly 100 hours).

For years, the game remained a PlayStation exclusive, despite fans begging for ports to other platforms. Developer Atlus seemed to almost be teasing Nintendo platform owners with numerous spin-offs based on Persona 5, but not the game itself – The Nintendo 3DS received Persona Q2, which heavily features Persona 5’s characters, and the Nintendo Switch received Persona 5 Strikers, an action-focused game with a plot that acted as a sequel of sorts to Persona 5… all without Nintendo fans being able to play the game these titles were largely based on. This all ended in 2022, when we finally saw Persona 5 Royal coming to PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.

So, after all that build-up, all that hype, is the Nintendo Switch version a good port? And does it still feel like it deserves all the praise that’s been heaped on it?

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”I’m a shape shifter … what else should I be?”

One of the most immediately apparent things about Persona 5 is that this game is very likely the most stylish RPG ever made. Not only does the game feature some absolutely gorgeous anime-style character designs and an absolutely legendary jazzy soundtrack, just about every corner of this game is filled with stylish flourishes, from the way conversations are presented as dynamic animated 2D portraits, the excellent animation in all the game’s characters, the generous use of fully-animated anime-style cutscenes, and the way even the most mundane of game menus is presented with a stylistic flair and with some over-the-top menu transitions. While on a technical level the game’s 3D visuals are merely very good (with a good amount of detail and lots of cel-shaded characters mulling about busy environments), this game’s outstanding sense of style pushes it over-the-top to be one of the most visually memorable games ever made.

Of course, if we’re going to talk about the technical side of things, the Nintendo Switch version of Persona 5 Royal does have to scale a few things back from other versions of the game – texture resolution takes a bit of a hit here, with the overall resolution being 1440x810p in docked mode, with the portable mode being 960x540p, all at a rock-steady 30FPS framerate (thanks for Digital Foundry for the numbers!). In addition to this, the Nintendo Switch version of the game has some pretty nasty aliasing issues.

The result is a game that’s still visually-stunning, and absolutely playable, but it’s not visually up to par with other modern versions of the game.

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”So you know that we’re out there … swatting lies in the making”

I would be remiss if I discussed this game without talking some about the plot and characters. In short, Persona 5 mixes the fantastical and the mundane in ways that make for a truly engaging story, with a full cast of memorable, likable characters. The story follows a high schooler who finds himself on probation after stepping in to save a woman from a lecherous man only to find himself in hot water for alleged assault.

Already under scrutiny and suspicion from everyone around him, and in the midst of a string of highly-publicized fatal accidents, things get more complicated for the protagonist when a mysterious app appears on his phone, and soon after he finds himself transported to the “palaces” of various antagonizing people he encounters, and finds himself transformed into a masked vigilante. Together with his growing band of friends, they begin to call themselves the Phantom Thieves, and seek to steal “treasures” representing the warped desires of the malicious rulers of the palaces.

This somewhat high-concept story is well-grounded by the fact that the characters all live in what is roughly analogous to our modern world, and dealing with problems that hit far closer to home than the fantastical enemies of the “palaces”. They are also, I should warn you the sort of thing that I feel I should provide a TRIGGER WARNING for, because these problems include physical abuse, sexual coercion of minors, and suicide, in a world with highly corrupt authority figures. Needless to say, this game gets intense in a way that the big demonic monsters and large amounts of blood have nothing to do with (although those things are here too).

Thankfully, the way the story is written and the way the characters respond to these challenges is well-done and humanizing, with the cast being relatively three-dimensional. One of your first party members, Ryuji, comes across a bit dim-witted and hot-headed, but you soon find that he was deliberately targeted and thrust into an unfamiliar situation, leaving him flailing both for solid ground to grab onto, and some way to fight back against his antagonist. And it’s pretty much immediately apparent that the alleged school slut Ann is anything but promiscuous, and merely a victim of a combination of a lecherous teacher and a vicious school rumor mill.

The nuance is furthered here by some excellent voice acting all-around that adds wonderful depth and nuance to all the characters. I will note that there are occasional places where the localization isn’t perfect, and the result can be dialogue that’s written in a way that can be a tad too… anime-y… but the voice cast does an admirable job with the dialogue they’ve been given, and for the most part that dialogue is wonderfully written.

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”Better think … about your game … Are you sure … your next move’s the right one for you?”

The amazing presentation and story this game provides players with would be enough to set this game apart from the majority of JRPGs, but the gameplay here manages to push the envelope too. It starts with gameplay that should be pretty familiar to anyone who played a Shin Megami Tensei game or one of the franchise’s spin-offs – It’s a Turn-based RPG where enemies have elemental weaknesses that award extra turns to attackers, and those same enemies can occasionally be negotiated with to join your side. In this game, this means that they join the protagonist’s stable of “Personas” in a way vaguely similar to Pokemon, but with Shin Megami Tensei’s usual twist that you can only possess a limited number of these demons at any given time, and must smash them together in fusions to create better, stronger demons.

On top of this, the game adds a number of systems both in battle and out of it. Rather than using a melee attack, magic, or item, players can also opt to have their character spray enemies with bullets, making for another potential source of an elemental weakness. The game also adds a “baton pass” move that lets your character pass on to allies the bonus turns earned from striking an elemental weakness.

Outside of battle, things are pretty interesting as well. The game makes use of an in-game day-night cycle and in-game calendar, and players have a limited amount of time to accomplish tasks in-game. This effectively means that you can take only a certain number of distinct actions in a given day, and must decide which of those actions to do, with a final due date for completing the current dungeon. Just to be clear, this doesn’t mean you have a timer ticking down while you do things, but rather that certain actions take up a predetermined amount of in-game time that elapses after you select it.

Now, I normally don’t care for time limits in RPGs, but thankfully the time limits here are pretty generous, and generally just mean that you have to be thoughtful about what to focus on and can’t just grind your party to absurd levels before moving on. The game provides a good number of choices here too – you can work jobs to increase your money, you can spend time with your party members and/or friendly NPC characters called “confidants” to build up those relationships to receive bonuses, you can spend your time crafting special items, and yes, you can spend time grinding in the dungeons if you prefer.

The wide range of activities to do, along with the additional options built into an already-solid combat system, make Persona 5 an RPG that doesn’t just look and sound great and have a great story, but a game that’s a lot of fun to play as well.

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”You can’t lose … With your colors flying high”

In the end, it’s not exactly any shocking thing to say that Persona 5 Royal is one of the greatest RPGs ever made. As I noted, people have been saying that sort of thing about Persona 5 for a half a decade now. However, I can add my voice to that crowd, and also say that it is a truly great RPG in pretty much every way. The Nintendo Switch version gets a bit of a graphical downgrade from other versions, and while this doesn’t affect the gameplay, it is noticeable. However, even this flaw does little to mar what is otherwise an absolute must-have game on Nintendo Switch.

tl;dr – Persona 5 Royal is a Turn-Based Monster-Collecting JRPG, and a game that is rightly praised as one of the greatest RPGs of all time. The game has an amazing visual style that is unforgettable, a wonderful jazzy soundtrack, a gripping story with memorable characters, a fun and engaging combat system, and tons of things to do outside of combat. The Nintendo Switch version unfortunately takes a hit in its graphics, but this is a small flaw in an otherwise absolutely must-have game.

Grade: A

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2022 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Best Port / Remake

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