Current Events > finally finished persona 5 royal. what do you think of vanilla vs royal? spoiler

(+) Yeah! (+)

This is my first persona 5 playtrough, so i am kinda curious for people who play vanilla first what do they think about royal's content and such.

For me i think royal's content is excellent. I loved akechi from the start and based on their confidant scenes i really feel their rivalry building up as opposite side of a coin.

Kasumi/sumire was good addition and i like her but she is just okay

Maruki is an excellent character with great confidant scenario and i really like the whole 3rd semester content and story telling. His dungeon is super long, but doesnt feel boring because it has interesting mechanics and add substantial depth to maruki's characters and motivation. I find the final fight to be a bit cheesy, but overall the whole extra storyline is very good.

My guess is the biggest difference is what vanilla player think about akechi's character compared to royal's.

This reminds me that I should make my yearly "Maruki did nothing wrong" topic

Also TC, I'm glad you liked Royal. I never played Vanilla, but the third semester was an amazing end to an extremely good game

teep_ posted...

This reminds me that I should make my yearly "Maruki did nothing wrong" topic

Also TC, I'm glad you liked Royal. I never played Vanilla, but the third semester was an amazing end to an extremely good game

Maruki's dungeon is one of the best dungeon i played in jrpg tbh and i played tons of them. The mix of puzzle/exposition is perfect, compared to vanilla's final dungeon which is just combat.

Also maruki is wrong. Healing people is good but what he did is not healing, it's just giving them an illusion.

I played through persona 5 three times total (yeah, that was a lot of hours). Twice for the base game to get the platinum trophy, and a single time going through royal. (I bought the PS5 version of P5 royal on sale at some point, so one of these days I'll make that 4 runs total).

I thought royal was a much better game that base persona 5 (something that I already loved). The various gameplay additions was fun, and I liked messing with the jazz club to make certain party members even more busted. I also liked the new final dungeon and antagonist more than the base game's.

The only thing I'd say was a negative is that because of all those new gameplay additions and making baton pass way stronger the game itself got a good deal easier with a few exceptions. (Not going to lie, I got my shit rocked by the will seed guardian for the musuem palace, and the spacesport palace's boss beat my ass something serious, lol).

They need to come up with a new difficulty above hard, but without certain things merciless gives you (since if you know what you are doing merciless is even easier than the hard difficulty).

When it comes to akechi I thought his fate in the base game was fine. I did appreciate him having a proper social link in royal so you got a bit of a better look into his character, and lets all be honest with ourselves he got a better deal in royal (and they definitely hinted at him getting to live in the new true ending) because of the power of japanese fangirls, lmao.

I like how atlus intentionally made it to where both futaba and haru never warm up to him like that. They will never hang out with him or even play that card game in the den with him. It makes total sense because of what akechi did and was a nice touch.

*Also his navigation lines is hilarious*

I've never played Vanilla, but Royal is one of my favourite games of all time.

I guess reseting gun ammo is nice

The QoL improvements in Royal are great. The actual Royal content is some of the worst garbage Atlus has done.

Mad-Dogg posted...

The only thing I'd say was a negative is that because of all those new gameplay additions and making baton pass way stronger the game itself got a good deal easier with a few exceptions. (Not going to lie, I got my shit rocked by the will seed guardian for the musuem palace, and the spacesport palace's boss beat my ass something serious, lol).

P5R is the first and so far only game I was able to beat on hard difficulty

i only finished vanilla and up to ch4 of royal. I intend to replay and finish royal one day. Seemed like there was a ton of new content and hard to fit it into one play through

Joker / Akechi teaming up as the only ones aware is really cool, and Maruki is much more interesting and engaging as a final antagonist

gameplay wise I loved persona 5 royal

story wise I prefer persona 5 vanilla

Everything I loved about p5 royal's battle system and dungeon design turned out to be royal exclusive, meanwhile I didn't care for the royal exclusive story content and Maruki. When I googled the vanilla ending that P5 had, I was like "yeah this is way better"

Royal seemed to be more focused on Akechi, who I was already scoffing at because they literally redid Persona 4 there again.

It's why I'm fine with P5 Strikers picking up from where p5 vanilla left off rather than Royal.

Not a big fan of vanillas ending, or last third in general, but royals third semester is the best the game gets after Kamoshida for me. The last third of 5 is a big slog to me, so i was pleasantly surprised when the third semester drew me in as well as it did.

Also has some of my favorite songs in the series. Marukis battle themes are incredible.

Royal is better overall. And for people that don't like royals additions, just avoid them then. You'll get the vanilla ending.

Royal is the better experience wholesale, but Sumi left a lot to be desired. Neither of the extra companions really felt earned in either of the deluxe games, Golden or Royal.

Sumi never felt like a proper thief, more like Joker's pet.

They did it a lot better with Sophia

Also P5 Royal's ending was weirdly ominous compared to P5's ending being more upbeat.

I enjoyed Royal overall. I just wish that they did more to incorporate the new things into the entire game. Like, I would have loved if Kasumi joined the party when she first gains her powers, instead of only joining for the new dungeon after the main story. Because they forced us to buy the whole game over again, just to experience that extra semester. At least give more meaningful changes to the main game.

NoxObscuras posted...

I enjoyed Royal overall. I just wish that they did more to incorporate the new things into the entire game. Like, I would have loved if Kasumi joined the party when she first gains her powers, instead of only joining for the new dungeon after the main story. Because they forced us to buy the whole game over again, just to experience that extra semester. At least give more meaningful changes to the main game.

Would have been a double edged sword like the much hated Marie from P4 Golden. They were so terrified of fans loathing the new introduced character once again (as they should be) that they were hesitant to involve her and just inserted her in a couple scenes here and there.

I think it was bullshit I couldn't carry my vanilla social stats over to Royale for a new game plus. I could also kinda do without the new content lol

I understand why people dont like the Royal ending as much as OG but I also appreciate it as very intentional and purposeful. The exchange for rejecting Marukis ideal world is that the gang have to deal with real life getting in the way. I was really impressed by the games acknowledgment of the weight of that choice.

What were the QOL improvements?

I loved Royal so much, the only thing I prefer in base 5 is Last Surprise as the primary battle theme

Doe posted...

I understand why people dont like the Royal ending as much as OG but I also appreciate it as very intentional and purposeful. The exchange for rejecting Marukis ideal world is that the gang have to deal with real life getting in the way. I was really impressed by the games acknowledgment of the weight of that choice.

Yeah, that is what i really like about royal. They gave weight to the whole rejecting maruki thing and everything in the 3rd semester was excellent (maybe except combat because i were already too OP even playing on hard difficulty, the 3rd persona evolution for party members are OP too)

Noname13 posted...

What were the QOL improvements?

There's honestly too many to name off the top of my head.

1. Reworking Ryuji's instakill
2. Retooling, and frankly, fixing Mementos. Complete with different music for each floor and the entire system with the flowers and stamps.
3. The addition of Kichijoji providing some much needed merchants and party socializing.
4. Extra features added to the Velvet Room.
5. Several boss and Palace reworks that add depth, flavor, or both.
6. Changing a story based Social Link into a regular confidant based one, adding necessary complexity to a character that, in my opinion, left a lot to be desired.

And I'm sure there's more.

CM_Ponch posted...

I loved Royal so much, the only thing I prefer in base 5 is Last Surprise as the primary battle theme

I know, =(

Ambushing opponents is too easy in persona 5, so you will rarely hear last surprise ever again.

I feel like persona 3 reload has a better balance when it comes to ambushing......its still possible to get the timing off so you will still actually hear mass destruction a decent amount for the screw ups.

That, or they just need to simply include a "primary/ambush" theme toggle in future games.