I'm going to go straight, no way can I form a definitive opinion despite having spent a good handful of days enjoying Persona 5 Royal. We are facing a game that needs hours and hours, dedication and on top of that, its definitive version contains extras that are more clearly seen in the final part of the game. So it's time to be honest, you are before an analysis in progress, where the opinions of the first 30 hours of a title that offers more than 100 hours of game are poured.
Having clarified the details, I welcome you to analysis in progress of Persona 5 Royal, the definitive edition of one of the most acclaimed JRPGs of recent years and -in general- one of the best games that the last decade left us. In the troubled times in which we live, a game is launched where on the one hand we must make normal student life, while with our other personality we make those whose hearts have been corrupted see the evil of their actions and reflect on their way of being.
Persona 5 Royal arrives translated into Spanish, something that fans had asked for since the original title was announced and that unfortunately did not happen at launch. This decision follows the pattern of the efforts that some developers are making with Japanese niche games such as Persona themselves or the Yakuza saga, so that they arrive adapted to a multitude of languages, partly to blame for the success among fans by word of mouth.
As I already anticipated at the beginning this is not going to be a complete analysis of Persona 5 Royal, but an opinion of a fragment of the game. Although it serves to get used to the idea of what awaits us, to understand the mechanics of combat and how daily life appears in the universe of the title, it is impossible to have a definitive opinion. On the other hand, like many of you, this will be my first Person. So take this as a text about someone entering the Persona universe for the first time and playing a quarter of what the title can offer.
Phantom Thieves
Persona 5 Royal puts us in the shoes of a troubled teenager. In fact, the first thing we see of him when we take control is a robbery of what looks like a casino. After the outcome of various events we find ourselves going back to the beginning of the story, where we will live each and every one of the days that have led us to the situation in which we find ourselves.
The boy, to whom we will put our name, seems just the opposite of someone problematic. He got in trouble for defending a girl who was being harassed, but it seems that the cross of attacking someone in Japan (even if it is for defending someone) is too heavy and society repudiates you. His arrival at a new Institute does not change things too much, since there are his colleagues who speak ill of him without knowing him.
The boy is socially repudiated and cannot find his place, but he is just his other self, his Person, the one that makes things change. As the days pass, certain events make Joker -name with which his peers will know him- enter into a relationship with a multitude of people, be they colleagues from the Institute, unknown on the street, strange beings born from the subconscious, a cat?, old people…
Persona 5 Royal proposes many different themes, but the main concept of the P-Studio title is to present us with a story where each person's cognition makes us understand the world in one way or another. Where our existence is based on pretending that we are not, wearing a mask that when we take it off lets out the light that is our true Person.
Stealing hearts
This saga, born as Shin Megami Tensei spin-off, has managed to outperform (at least in the West) the original. Despite being part of its own saga and being considered a division of a universe formed by another franchise, it is not necessary that we previously know other titles of Person. Persona 5 Royal introduces itself to new and old players with a multitude of tutorials and explanations that make the universe we are in clear to us as we go along.
Persona 5 Royal is a deep game, with an adult theme, but it is in charge at all times to make the player not feel lost or need 6 games to know where they are in the story. The rules of the universe are explained. What is a Person? How do you fight? What should we do to improve our relationships? All the questions that we have in relation to the mechanics of the game are answered organically, making the learning curve constant and reward the player for everything he knows as he plays.
The main objective of Persona 5 Royal is divided into two, like the worlds we meet. On the one hand is our life as a normal student and on the other is our role as Joker in the cognitive universe. As students, we should lead a normal life, studying, staying with friends, establishing relationships with all the people that interest us. We can even look for work to earn a salary.
Everything we do during our lives as a normal person influences our Person. Relationships with other people strengthen ties, empowering us. Meanwhile, we must improve our attributes such as intelligence, courage, dexterity … Improving as normal people makes our other version, our true Person, stronger.
As a Joker, our mission will be to destroy our friends with those people who have been corrupted by their own desires. In the Persona 5 Royal universe, every human being has a shadow, a kind of being that arises from our deepest desires. Those who become corrupt develop more powerful shadows, reaching the point of creating a Palace, a kind of dungeon where there they keep as treasure those deepest desires.
The Ghost Thieves they are a group of friends where everyone has been able to take off the mask and let their Person out into the world. These humans have the ability to use their People to defeat the shadows in turn-based strategic combat that manages to give some mechanics with years and years behind them some fresh air. The goal of these thieves is to make these corrupted beings capable of taking on all the damage actually caused and rehabilitating themselves. Steal their hearts, their deepest desires, that's what they do.
It's my turn
Don't think that I was going to overlook the topic of turn-based fighting. Personally, I have never been a great advocate of this type of combat, except when they are performed particularly well. The South Park titles developed by Ubisoft are an example of fun turn-based combat and Persona 5 Royal becomes the most recent exponent of this mechanic.
I have already told you that I have been almost 30 hours with the title and I would say that new concepts are still being introduced on how certain enemies react to a type of attack, how I can combine critical hits, a system of weaknesses and strengths to the Pokémon and others . In summary, the fighting gameplay in Persona 5 Royal is that of turn-based fighting, but with so many nuances and so much strategy that make every fight different.
On the other hand, they also help the enemies, who enjoy a great variety and who – returning to Pokémon – we can catch if we can weaken them and chat with them. To convince them to join our cause we must have developed conversation skills that allow us to convince the highest level, but also each one has a different personality, so when chatting with them we will have to find the correct answer (jokes, sincerity, aggressiveness, tranquility …). If we like them they will become one of the People that we can use in combat.
The double life
By day the gameplay of the game is "limited" to a kind of student simulator. Persona 5 Royal becomes an RPG where each answer has a different impact. We can plan our day to day: go to class, meet friends, watch DVDs at home, study, read a book, work, take a bath, go to the psychologist, visit the doctor, help at home … As I said, all those Activities impact skills and relationships that serve us in the cognitive world.
It is precisely in the cognitive world where we find the playable challenges of Persona 5 Royal. Here the combats will take place through Palaces, the aforementioned dungeons that will have a multitude of enemies, roads, rooms and rewards. These Palaces are formed by beings of great power that have become corrupted and there are a few scattered throughout the game, which serve to advance the narrative and mark their possessor as the main enemy of that part of the plot of the game. In the Royal edition we find a Palace more than in the original version, which means (minimum) about 10 hours of extra play.
Each Palace will take us through several phases, the main one will consist of exploration. We must tour the Palace and unlock safe rooms that allow us to travel quickly from one point to another. Once we find the treasure room of the Palace, we will have to wait to notify the person in the real world that their wishes are going to be stolen, so that they materialize. So it's time to go back to the Palace and steal that treasure. The procedure will take us more than 2 visits since fully exploring a Palace will tire the team and in battle they will perform worseYou also have to go back to the real world to send the notice.
Once we stole the treasure from a Palace it disappears forever, so when the Thieves find a new target, they can visit the Mementos, a kind of procedurally created cognitive world where we meet a multitude of enemies and we can complete secondary missions, defeating corrupted beings of a lower level.
People who steal your heart
I insist, it does not take long enough to make a final assessment of the game and I have a multitude of characters to meet, but In Persona 5 Royal the characters are one of the pillars of the game. In these first 30 hours I have found colleagues with whom I have already developed a strong bond and who manage to reach the heart. P-Studio has created characters with virtues and defects, human, that make you feel and that you can empathize with them and their causes.
On the other hand we have designs, one of the strengths of a study like Atlus that has brought us so many wonders since its creation. Not only the designs of each character, but the one of the menus, the loading screens, the victory screens and the battle summaries, the enemies, the intricate Palaces … Every artistic detail of the game is carefully taken care of, as well as a location in Spanish that must have cost his work, since Persona 5 Royal is one of those games with a good amount of text.
The powerful narrative load of the game means that at all times we have text on the screen and this adapts to the design of each scene, so we can see letters flying in the air forming the word "murmur" when we hear people whisper, "Pi" when our phone rings, "meow" when a cat talks to us … The menu screens are a good example to see how well everything has adapted to maintain consistency in design. For its part, the game comes with Japanese and English dubbing.
A really special game
Persona 5 Royal is one of the biggest recent exponents of the JRPG genre thanks to careful gameplay and unique characters. A peculiar plot in a special universe that is difficult to understand at first, but with a game that strives to make players understand as much as possible what the developers want to tell.
While waiting to spend a multitude of more hours, I can only recommend a special game that will rob you of all the time you have in your life. About the news of this Royal version, I can tell you little. It is true that the new character is dropped several times throughout the main story, but I have not yet reached its plot, as well as the extra Palace or other novelties, even so, I think that the fact that this version arrives translated into our language is enough incentive.
Persona 5 Royal is a very careful game that leaves you wanting more every time you leave a game session, one of those that make you think and plan what you want to do the next time you take control. Of course the Ghost Thieves are good at stealing hearts.
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