I’ve already spent over 120 hours on Persona 5 vanilla, but the thought of skipping Royal never crossed my mind. After all, P5 is one of my favourite games ever.

While I do miss the original title screen track ‘Phantom’, the new one - ‘Royal Days’ - really grew on me, that bassline is too funky:

I named the protagonist Phife Diggy, because Persona ‘5/five/phife’, as well as paying tribute to Phife Dawg of A Tribe Called Quest. But really I’m finding it very difficult to name video game characters these days…

It’s nice to get the P5 costume DLCs for free, I didn’t know that changing to certain costumes like the P3 or P4 school uniforms modifies the battle music. It’s pretty freakin’ cool to hear Mass Destruction!

Physically blocking Kamoshida from walking in the school hallway was pretty amusing. F@#k him in 2017, and f@#k him in 2020.

This time around I really wanted to get together with Ann (…and Hifumi). Her level 9 confidant scene was great, very sweet.

My fav girl is still Kawakami/Becky ❤️, though it’s a shame that the Valentine’s Day dialogue was a lot less suggestive this time around.

I also maxed out Sojiro and Futaba. I really liked the family bond those two have with the MC. There was no way I was gonna go after Futaba, she was too much like a little sister in my eyes.

Shoutout to the NPCs:

  • LeBlanc - pompous customer
  • Yongen-Jaya - drunk salaryman, the two primary school kids, the girl with her aging dog
  • School - stalker girl, starry eyed Phantom Thief wannabe, reporter girl
  • Shibuya - the sun god fanatics, the reporter and her cameraman, the pick-up artist and his apprentice
  • Shinjuku - sleazy guy, dream-chasing girl
  • Kichijoji - undercover dad who’s always after an assortment of food for a ‘client’

Speaking of Kichijoji, this new area was excellent. The darts and billiards were great, as was spending time at the jazz cafe. Meditating at the temple produced some amusing dialogue (shush Morgana), and it’s great to be able to sell sooty gear for good cash.

Jose, flowers and stamps were an interesting addition to Mementos, although I stopped modifying the cognition after a while, as it made the game too easy. The Jose boss fight was enjoyable too, just needed to look for them stamps.

The Thieve’s Den is another welcome addition, it’s great to be able to view the cutscenes, images and listen to the music on-demand. I don’t think I’ll be able to unlock everything though.

The new semester was quite the lull in the beginning, when you were trying to ‘wake up’ your teammates. I was worried that the whole semester was going to be this restrictive, thankfully it’s BAU once you get the whole team back.

The new dungeon was lengthy which is great, except I’m not a big fan of the palace music ‘Gentle Madman’, though I think I’m in the minority.

I honestly found Kasumi to be pretty annoying for most of the game with her uber-politeness. I thought her scenes stuck out like a sore thumb as well, since she didn’t have a lot of interactions with anyone except Joker. Her integration was a lot better in the third semester after her backstory was revealed, and I liked her so much more as Sumire.

(And yes, I romanced her too)

The ‘checkmate’ scene reminded me of Attack on Titan thanks to the grappling hook. I was expecting Joker to pull out twin blades and slice Adam K’s nape. The target even looked a bit like the Colossal Titan…

Swear To My Bones became a favourite track of mine after Royal:

The true ending for P5R was bittersweet, though I won’t go as far as saying that it was inferior to the original ending. I will say that the new endings really make Royal worth playing, even if you’ve already spent 100+ hours in the vanilla version. The fake reality ending was a happy yet depressing one, and definitely worth experiencing too. Another one of my favourite pieces of new music was Ideal and the Real, especially this version which plays during the Maruki ending credits:

I was also able to get the platinum trophy, thankfully everything was very doable. The most time consuming one to get was probably getting the special menu at the maid cafe :3

Like many others, I definitely suffered from post-Persona depression for a few days. Now I eagerly await the next adventure with the Phantom Thieves of Hearts. Bring on Persona 5 Scramble!

…and Shin Megami Tensei V as well!