Everybody loves Persona, right? Persona 5 Royal is no different. The Persona series has been one of my most favorite game series of all time and that was before Persona 5 even came out, so once it did, I was super excited. Then Persona 5 Royal came out and my excitement grew even more.

There’s always so much to do and explore when it comes to Persona games, so when the price dropped in November to just $29 for the steenbok version of the game and a Funko Pop, I knew that I had to get it, and I was not disappointed with the game.

GRAPHICS: 9/10

The graphics are easily one of my most favorite aspects of the Persona games. In fact, I would probably say that the first time I ever played a Persona game, it was the graphics that 1st pulled me into the series because all the cut scenes really looked like they were right out of an anime. It’s no different in Persona 5 Royal, if you were to bypass all the actual gameplay and just isolate and watch all of the animated cut scenes, it would be such a treat to watch.

It’s not only the cut scenes that look beautiful either, many of the characters and Persona’s are full of detail, as are many of the environments. The actual battles look really good as well, especially when you’re doing all out attacks, I end up having so much fun looking at those. The graphics of Persona 5 was great and in Royal they look and feel even better, so graphics gets a 9 out of 10.

SOUND: 10/10

The sounds of Persona are another one of the aspects that make the series so good. Everything about the audio is iconic, whether it’s the music, the voice acting, or the generic sounds of the game. I like the music for Persona 5 a little bit less than Persona 4 but there’s still a handful of songs that I love so much, and there’s a bunch of songs that fit so well with the palaces and there are some that really heighten the mood and drama in some areas.

The voice acting is also brilliant. I remember the first time I played the original Persona 5, I loved the voice of Kamoshida, especially in his palace, I thought the actor did a great job with the character. Even random characters have some small amounts of dialogue to make some of the areas come alive.

Lastly, you have the sounds of the game, which are just as great, and the sounds are really highlighted when you’re battling. Listening to the Persona games as a whole is fun and is a great experience by itself. The soundtrack and voice acting along give this score a perfect 10 out of 10 in my opinion.

ADDICTIVENESS: 8/10

Persona 5 Royal is so much fun, especially with all the things to do. I personally wouldn’t say that there’s a lot to do in terms of starting the game over again, but while you’re in the middle of your playthrough, the game gives you so many opportunities to go back and mess around with things.

Whether you’re doing extra exploration of the palace in order to grind your levels, or you’re doing all the different side activities, or you’re focused on leveling up all the confidants, the game knows it doesn’t have to do much in order to keep dragging you back into doing the small stuff.

The game can easily stretch an extra 20 to 40 hours out of you. Plus there’s a bunch of extra stuff to work towards. You do have a New Game Plus mode if you’re really into reliving everything over again, plus Royal added a whole extra bunch of content for you to mess around with. The game just keeps giving you reasons to come back and play some more, addictiveness gets an 8 out of 10.

STORY: 9/10

There’t never anything wrong with the plot line of the Persona games, ever. The stories are always full of life and mystery. There’s usually a ton of drama, lots of emotion and intense action, and things tend to get crazy.

Persona always has good storytelling and the best part is that these stories are long. I already mentioned how the cut scene animations are something straight out of an anime, but the story is the same as well. The length and quality of a Persona plot alone is well worth it’s own anime, which is probably why their actual animes do so well.

I don’t want to talk about the story itself because it’s essentially the story of Persona 5 and that’s a story for another day. If you’ve played Persona 5 already, then you know everything there is to about the story. If this is your first experience playing Persona 5, then you probably don’t care enough about the story side of things for it to matter too much.

All Persona 5 Royal does with the story is added a bunch of content to what the story already was, very much like what Persona 4 Golden did. You get a whole extra semester, extra characters, and a bunch of other stuff. The story of Persona 5 Royal is definitely something fun to keep up with and gets a 9 out of 10 from me.

DEPTH: 10/10

The game just has so much to do. The base game itself was a behemoth and Royal went ahead and added so much to do. If you really take your time doing all the side stuff and leveling up all your confidants, you’re going to spend an easy 200 hours on this game. Just the palaces alone will cost you dozens of hours exploring and battling, with so much space to traverse, and the palaces are only like a 3rd of the depth.

Then you also have the Persona’s themselves. There’s just so many to collect and fuse, and you can fully level all of them up. If you try to fully complete your compendium, you’re going to be spending a lot of time.

Then you also have a ton of other things to do in the real world. You have so many confidants to level up, which alone take quite some time. You have a bunch of side activities and different things to do in a bunch of shops and so much stuff to spend your money on. The amount of stuff to do in Persona 5 Royal easily gets a 10 out of 10.

DIFFICULTY: 4

The game isn’t really hard at all. The only thing that you have to worry about is keeping with your deadlines on when you have to complete a palace by. So you just have to be very careful with how you spend your time. But other than that, the game is easily. If you are having trouble with a boss, all you have to do is go back throughout the palace and keep battling to get more EXP and money and to level up.

If you absolutely have to and you have a day or two to spare, you can leave the palace after you spent a couple hours grinding and then you can work on upgrading all your gear. All you have to do is pace yourself and you won’t have any problems with the game.

OVERALL: 9.2/10

There’s very little to not love about Persona 5 Royal, especially when it comes to the price. The original Persona 5 for $60 was worth it. But getting Persona 5 Royal Wirth all it’s extra stuff for the same price was a steal. On top of that, the price for Persona 5 Royal has been dropping a lot, especially around the holidays when some places were selling the game for only $20, which is a legendary deal.

The game is just so good. If you loved the original game, then you’re going to love Persona 5 Royal even better. If you haven’t played Persona 5 at all but you were a fan of the older Persona games or you really want to get into the series, then this is still a perfect option for you.

The game is amazing and my overall grade for Persona 5 Royal is going to be a 9.2 out of 10. I definitely think it was one of the best video games in all of 2020.

zanderlex : Hello. Thank you so much for such a great review of the game. In principle, I agree with all the points, the game is top. In general, lately I've started to get involved in creating posters. The last time I create through vintage posters, because everything is convenient here, it turns out stylishly and the posters fit coolly into any interior.

zanderlex : Good day. I will say this, at one time I loved to play Persona and this part really went to me very much, it is damn good. You can’t take your eyes off the plot, the last time this happened only with the Witcher. I shoot walkthroughs on YouTube and recently for some reason they started to ban videos. I figured it out, the reason was in the background music, it was banned by copyright. Now I add only free stock music for videos and everything fell into place.

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