Alright, know this is once again an older one, but I finally finished up Persona 5 Royal.
@DONTH8 suggested this one to me a few years ago and I put it on the Steam wishlist, kept putting it off. When I did finally get it I had my doubts. Well, finally sat down and played through it all and I got to say it's superb. It's old school turn based JRPG with some twists. The story isn't set in a fantasy world or in a post apocalyptic setting, rather it's in a modern day Japan. You play as a high school kid that is wrongly accused of assault. The person you try to protect is a woman who's being abused by a man high up in the food chain. He uses his power to have you arrested instead. You're forced to transfer schools, and problems follow you.
Now, you're probably asking yourself "What kind of RPG setting is modern day Japan? What kind of fights can you possible have as a high school student?" That's where this game gets creative. Not to spoil too much, but about a week into your new high school, a big event triggers profound changes. You get access to all kinds of powers, which you use to take down a number of different bad guys. The cool thing is you're not really killing these bad guys, you're out to change their hearts and force them to confess to their crimes so they face justice. How you achieve that is pretty unique. Again, I don't want to spoil too much. The only reason I mention any of that is because I found myself hating that first week of school before everything changes. While I think Japanese culture is interesting and there were some unique things there, that first week you're basically just attending classes and meeting people, which is important but also kinda boring in the grand scheme of things. Trust me when I say that after the intro period, the plot goes pretty hard and pretty fast.
Combat wise it's turned based as mentioned, although there are wrinkles involved. You get abilities via "Personas" which is an entirely huge thing within the game itself, but I don't want to speak too much on those and how you level/acquire them. Enemies typically have weaknesses to certain elements, and if you hit the enemy with such a weakness you can often stun them. If you stun all the enemies in the same turn then your party can open up and basically do a super blitz style attack which often finishes off the trash mobs. There's a number of other things you can do though. If you do stun a target by hitting them with a weak element it will give your character an extra turn, which you can use to attack again or "Baton Toss" to another party member (Who may have other elements available to stun enemies you haven't hit yet). There's also several neat team up attacks that you unlock over time. These attacks usually get triggered randomly, but they're pretty cool, and some of them are funny or pretty corny at least. The bar scene with Ryuji and Yusuke gets me every time:
As mentioned, I wasn't really feeling the game during that first in game week of play, but after things heated up I really got into it. When it comes to RPGs I'm a big character guy. If you don't have well fleshed out protagonists and antagonist(s) then I feel like the story often falls flat. This game does both exceptionally well. There are really no characters that get left in the dust or forgotten, every character is pretty well fleshed out. The team you form creates a strong bond, so much so that you actually rank up your "Confidants" over time (Which includes NPCs that help you along the way, not just party members). Ranking up these Confidants not only unlocks extra abilities where they can help you in combat (Or out of combat if they're NPCs), but it makes your own main character stronger because your abilities are tied to your strength with said Confidants. In fact, to achieve the best possible ending you actually need to have hit a certain level with a few specific Confidants by a certain date (It's not hard to do, unless you're unaware of the date requirement). When you're not fighting bad guys, you basically want to be spending your time hanging out with your Confidants, building relationships, along with working on your Social Stats (Knowledge, Charm, Guts, Proficiency, Kindness). Raising Confidant levels is most important at first, although there are a few Confidants that require certain Social Skills to be leveled before you max them, so you can't neglect the Social Skills. There are ways to do both at the same time, like going to a Cafe to study with a friend, that can kill two birds with one stone. I genuinely love the party of characters they give you in this game though, there really isn't a dud in the bunch, although I definitely have my favorites ( ❤️ to Lady Ann and Yoshizawa, Ruyuji is great for comic relief and a best bro). It's not just the main characters that are fleshed out well though, the game does an excellent job building up most of the antagonists. There's nothing like a bad guy that you love to hate, and there are a number of them in this game...some real assholes that scratch that "revenge" itch. It makes for a good story in the end.
I don't often talk about music in games because most are hit and miss. I really liked this soundtrack, and it's hard to describe. It's listed by fans as Acid Jazz, with some Pop/K-Pop and some Rock. There's a lot of really sweet tunes in this game, especially during the palace sections and boss battles. Some people compare it to the anime Cowboy Bebop as well, which makes sense because even the art style is very similar (I absolutely love the Anime and Comic Book styles in this game, btw). The music is just very different from anything else I've ever played before, and it's quite catchy imo. Here's just a few of them as examples:
It's hard for me to find any major faults with this game, mostly nitpicks. Like I said, it starts a little slow (Many RPGs do), but that changes pretty damn quick. There's a couple cringey parts maybe about Japanese culture that might give someone pause (Lookin' at you Kamoshida), but most of the game is pretty normal. There's a lot of down periods in the game. For instance, you'll have 2-3 weeks to take down a bad guy, which means you can pretty much take your time exploring their lair and fighting to clear a path to the boss. If you get done early before the target date you basically have a couple weeks in game of down time where you're just hanging out with buddies to build Confidant levels, or you're leveling Social Stats, or you're making money at part time jobs, etc. That can be a bit repetitive, but at the same time I never felt like I was searching for things to do. If anything I wished I had more time because I always felt like I was having to prioritize certain relationships and push off doing other things that I would have also loved to be taking care of. For instance, one Confidant you can only meet up with on Sundays, and I constantly found myself pushing that person off to hang out with more important people. As it turned out, that particular Confidant has a cutoff date where you can't visit him anymore after roughly late October (Most Confidants don't have this). As a result I didn't end up maxing that level, although it wasn't a big deal (The Completionist in me died a little bit though). That's a pretty small thing to nitpick though, it didn't affect anything really. I missed out on a trivial Ability that I would have never used. So, the extra down time is really always welcome because there's no shortage of tasks you can be doing and you're often scrambling as it is. If there was anything else I could criticize I would say the extra "Royal" boss/palace, which takes you through January - February on the calendar...it wasn't my favorite. Basically after the main game, if you unlocked the "Secret Ending," the game will continue into Jan/Feb and you fight another boss. To me the storyline wasn't quite as good as the previous boss, although there were some major, major twists here. It was still good, don't get me wrong, but I almost wished they could have swapped the final bosses I guess. Made more sense to me.
Bottom line: Fantastic story, awesome characters, bad guys that you love to hate, a fun twist on the old school Turn Based combat, killer soundtrack, neat visual style. I never saw myself playing a game about a bunch of teenagers in Japan fighting to change the hearts of adults...but this game did a great job getting me invested in the plot, and at times they tugged on the heart strings a bit. I wish I hadn't put off playing this game for so long now, because top to bottom it's one of the best RPGs I think I've played in awhile and I've played a bunch lately that have been pretty good. There is a New Game+ once you finish so you can go back and try some different things, level up Confidants you missed, try some other Romances (Don't feel like you need to be a 1 woman guy though! Date them all if you like!). If you haven't played this one and are looking for a really unique style of RPG, I highly suggest checking this one out if you've never played it.
