Board 8 > So, I've finally gotten around to playing Persona 5 Royal (spoilers)

(+) Yeah! (+)

This isn't really a playthrough topic, but maybe I'll post some thoughts as I go. I played P5 already on the PS3 (crazy that it's that old), and in the time since, I've played P3 FES, P4, P4G, and P3R, P5T, P5S, and P4AU, so P5R is the only one left... besides the dance games, I guess. But if you're not on Steam, I'm not playing you.

I already know that the new main villain is the school counselor (who's yet to show up for me), that Akechi doesn't die (or he does die, and he has a duplicate or something?), and that the red-haired gymnast girl joins the party so late that it's basically pointless. I guess they couldn't resist adding a new Haru. Don't spoil anything else added by Royal, but regular P5 is fine.

Thoughts so far:

• I always name myself the most aggressively un-Japanese name I can think of in these games, so this is the tale of Ralph Benson. Last time I played P5, I was Brent Johnson.
• Girls I romanced in past games: Makoto (P5), Aegis (P3), Rise (P4), Marie (P4G), Mitsuru (P3R). This time, unless something drastic changes, I am 100% going after Kawakami, whom I regretted not going after even as I played the game the first time.
• I played up to the point where you have your first day where you can actually choose what to do, and Jesus Christ, I have 4:06 hours played right now. The intro to the game was that long... still doesn't hold a candle to FFXIII, though.
• Takemi only sells SP-restoring items at level 5, dammit. Probably means I should just do the palace instead of ranking her up, but I don't want to spend more than one day getting to the point where you have to stop.
• I distinctly remember that your bullets were limited per infiltration, and not per battle, am I crazy? Because I don't remember being able to freely spam bullets, that must have been changed.
• I love how Ann's story is about being abused and objectified for being a woman, and then her superhero costume is to be a sexy cat burglar who whips you and sticks her ass into the air when she's knocked out. And don't say that it's about her taking control of her sexuality or whatever, this is the same game series where you can just dress every female party member in a French maid outfit.
• I checked the "box of supplies that I brought from home," not realizing it would just shower me with items and 100,000 free yen, which the game is clearly not balanced for.
• I didn't realize this during my first playthrough, but Ryuji and Ann are pretty much exactly the same in terms of intelligence and not understanding what's going on with the Metaverse, but Morgana treats her way better. Perks of being a hot girl, I suppose.
• I forgot how effective a villain Kamoshida is compared to the rest of the game. He's just such an absolute piece of shit, and he immediately makes everything so personal that you really want to take him down. I remember that no other villain besides Shido even comes close to him.

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I distinctly remember that your bullets were limited per infiltration, and not per battle, am I crazy? Because I don't remember being able to freely spam bullets, that must have been changed.

Yeah this was a QOL update for Royal

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I forgot how effective a villain Kamoshida is compared to the rest of the game. He's just such an absolute piece of shit, and he immediately makes everything so personal that you really want to take him down. I remember that no other villain besides Shido even comes close to him.

Kamoshida was a phenomenal villain, and original P5 made a grave error in that nobody even came close to him. Royal's extra content does a bit better in this regard.

damn you already got the major stuff spoiled tbqh

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this is the same game series where you can just dress every female party member in a French maid outfit.

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I am 100% going after Kawakami, whom I regretted not going after even as I played the game the first time.

the duality of man

Kawakami >>>> Becky

I'll never understand why people like Kawakami

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I checked the "box of supplies that I brought from home," not realizing it would just shower me with items and 100,000 free yen, which the game is clearly not balanced for.

This is like, the DLC stuff iirc. Atlus loves "Free extra items at the start of the game" DLC.

MZero posted...

I'll never understand why people like Kawakami

Teacher fetish.

Joker and Kawakami having mutual mega blackmail on each other makes for a really fun dynamic. Her storyline also garners a lot of sympathy.

MZero posted...

I'll never understand why people like Kawakami

Love a crooked smile and messy curly hair

- To make sure I take the game as seriously as it deserves, I dress Ralph and Ryuji in dance costumes, Morgana as a maid, and Ann in skimpy Christmas clothing.
- Hm, did doing four baton passes in a row give the "your skill costs no resources" bonus in P5? I don't remember that.
- Important update: I changed Ann to a French maid outfit after all.
- Call me basic, but I just like the default black French maid uniform, I don't need this red-and-white square pattern she has.
- Game teaches you to use the terrain to sneak around and ambush enemies in the opening... and then again, five hours later.
- Jesus Christ Morgana, stop being such a fucking simp.
- I don't remember these first-person MGS "crawling through vents" segments.
- "Skull, if you even dare look up, I'll kick you into next week!" Ann, that joke only works if you're wearing a skirt, not form-fitting pants. I mean, you ARE wearing a skirt, but only because I used a costume.
- Damn game was like "you can fight this strong enemy but only if you really want to;" strong enemy then one-shot everyone who wasn't guarding, so I ran, then he respawned on top of me, forcing me to run away again, wasting a ton of SP and money.
- Stopped at some point, I don't remember how long this dungeon is.

Tag

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I forgot how effective a villain Kamoshida is compared to the rest of the game. He's just such an absolute piece of shit, and he immediately makes everything so personal that you really want to take him down. I remember that no other villain besides Shido even comes close to him.

This is a large reason my interest in P5 waned as I continued along the game. That opening act was SO fantastic in every single way, and that was 100% because of Kamoshida. A truly repulsive, vile, thoroughly horrendous piece of shit that went to heights that nobody after him did, though Shido came mighty close.

When I got his autograph, I remember telling DC Douglas that he did such a fantastic job making that guy a real piece of shit. His convention handler was like "Huh, I've never heard someone say the words "piece of shit" as a compliment before." but realized that since I was talking about a controlling, abusive pedophile.... yeah. Fantastic villain, fantastic performance, fantastic dungeon representing him.

trdl23 posted...

Kamoshida was a phenomenal villain, and original P5 made a grave error in that nobody even came close to him. Royal's extra content does a bit better in this regard.

This was by design, I've heard. The Phantom Thieves needed a strong motivation to decide "We're going to help people by changing the distorted hearts of the pieces of shit of the world" due to personal experience, else they'd have simply changed the first slimeball's heart and called it that. It makes sense. However, where Atlus failed was the subsequent villains. Most of them didn't hold a candle to their opening act, and there wasn't anything fun going on to compensate. Would've been nice if P5 had the same shenanigans as P4 instead of the writing always getting in the way of the cast having fun, which made it harder to care about them. P4 still has the most fun cast dynamic and that carries the whole game, and P5 should've done the same thing once the cast were freed from their tormentors. Royal did a little more of that, at least.

(also tag)

BlueCrystalTear posted...

Would've been nice if P5 had the same shenanigans as P4 instead of the writing always getting in the way of the cast having fun, which made it harder to care about them. P4 still has the most fun cast dynamic and that carries the whole game, and P5 should've done the same thing once the cast were freed from their tormentors. Royal did a little more of that, at least.

Yeah, at least in the original game, it's true that P5 has the least amount of faffing around. But then again, too much, and you get P3, where there are multiple scenes of characters standing around saying "What should we do now" "I dunno let's just keep doing what we were already doing." I've also seen a lot of people say the dynamic between the first four characters works better than after Yusuke-on join, so I'm going to pay attention to see if that's accurate this time.

P5 Strikers showed that the core P5 cast can have great interactions if the plot actually lets them.

I agree with Kamoshida being the worst/best villain by far, but I dont mind the others. Madarame and Okunura were a good middle ground, somewhat plain at first but become detestable by the end. Futaba and Sae are unusual cases. Kaneshiro is the only real miss.

Shido is comically evil. Thats fine but I just preferred Kamoshida way more. I heard that Shido hits harder in Japan though, because corrupt politicians are depicted less often than in American media.

- I didn't say this before, but bravo on Kamoshida's design. He looks like an attractive middle-aged man without having anime prettyboy face.
- Get about 20 minutes into a session, beat a boss, ambush a random enemy, game crashes. You know when my game never crashed? Persona 5 vanilla, on the PS3.

Are you playing on a Steam Deck? I had similar crash issues with P4G when it came out on Steam, and at some point they just kinda quit. At least, until I got to the very end of the game and it would always crash before I could get an NG+ clear data save made

No, just regular-ass PC.

Bitto posted...

Shido is comically evil. Thats fine but I just preferred Kamoshida way more. I heard that Shido hits harder in Japan though, because corrupt politicians are depicted less often than in American media.

I don't know how often corrupt politicians are depicted in Japan, but while Shido is comically evil and just parades around like he owns the country, I mean, that's fine, honestly. That's how it goes.

I also saw a lot of people in the leadup to P5R argue that Joker will never get a female version like P3 because the first chunk of the game only makes sense as a boy, which I don't know if I agree with, but obviously it would require a lot of rewriting, and while that's obvious for the Kamoshida parts, I remember people specifically saying a girl would not be believable as having beaten up Shido in the opening.

P5R never crashed on Switch for me.

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I remember people specifically saying a girl would not be believable as having beaten up Shido in the opening.

It's not that a girl couldn't beat up Shido. Joker doesn't really even do that anyway. So anyone who said that is dumb. But it makes less sense for the courts to go along with the narrative, if not Shido responding the same way at all.

But I also personally wouldn't give a fuck if they just said screw it.

- Most of the cutscenes just have you in whatever clothes you have equipped, but then some randomly put you in the default costumes. Why? I don't know.
- Wow, the game added the ability to find gross skull fruits. And I don't care if you call it a "will seed," that's clearly a fruit.
- Man, I really don't want to go back and try to get whatever item was in the courtyard guarded by red enemies. It's probably good, though, ugh.
- God, I forgot about the female torso mannequin decorations as you progress in the castle. God, the columns that held up by statues of just a teenage girl's boobs and ass, at one point you have to climb up a statue's ass to reach a higher level, this is A++ material. This is one of P5's biggest advantages over the other games, is that the dungeons are hand-crafted to their creators' sins. Like, sorry, P3 and P4 fans, but P5's dungeons are so absolutely superior in every single way that they're not even comparable. The tower in P3 suckssssssssssssssssssssssssssss, I said it. And while P4's dungeons are better than P3's, the only thing in them that's really as good as P5's method is the TV title screens that appear over the shadows' heads at the entrances. I laughed really hard the first time one appeared.
- But then again, I distinctly remember that none of the dungeons in this game except the casino even held a candle to Kamoshida's. His is just so gross and unforgivable, it's perfect, I couldn't possibly love it more. It would be even better if all of the enemies were hot women and penis monsters, but sadly we have to put up with guys on horseback and kelpies and so on.
- I could *swear* this penis monster looked way more penisy in the past. Like, it's just the head of a penis on a goop body here, I remember it being longer. Am I just crazy? I'm talking about the one that's not in a chariot.
- Stopped at the hall of raising and lowering blocks, which I think was the last or second to last save point in the original. Because you get SP restored from the will seeds, I'm doing infinitely better than in the original game, where I had to exit the dungeon around here.

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It would be even better if all of the enemies were hot women and penis monsters,

Gotta save Lillith and Mara for late game

kevwaffles posted...

It's not that a girl couldn't beat up Shido. Joker doesn't really even do that anyway. So anyone who said that is dumb. But it makes less sense for the courts to go along with the narrative, if not Shido responding the same way at all.

But I also personally wouldn't give a fuck if they just said screw it.

That's a sensible reading, actually. Although I suspect Atlus' reasoning for not including it is that it won't cause enough people to buy the game who wouldn't otherwise buy a male-only version. But I'll admit, since I already played P5, if there was a female option, I'd have tried it this time. Same thing for P3R.

I really wonder if P6, when it comes out in 25 years, will have a female option by default.

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Although I suspect Atlus' reasoning for not including it is that it won't cause enough people to buy the game who wouldn't otherwise buy a male-only version.

Oh for sure. That's definitely the root of it.

But knowing that was their decision in advance may have influenced some of those narrative choices. Because P4, despite having no version with a FemC seems to not have made those same choices.

P3P is just a super weird anomaly all the way around. It's weirder that they did an alternate Female MC there than that they didn't do one for P4 or P5 tbh, and that's not just in hindsight.

I suspect the reason is because they actually understood that P3's social link lineup actually generally fucking sucked and understood they needed to do something to fix it, which led to them actually putting in the effort.

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P3P is just a super weird anomaly all the way around. It's weirder that they did an alternate Female MC there than that they didn't do one for P4 or P5 tbh, and that's not just in hindsight.

I suspect the reason is because they actually understood that P3's social link lineup actually generally fucking sucked and understood they needed to do something to fix it, which led to them actually putting in the effort.

I feel strongly that it was just an attempt to get people to buy a second copy of a game they already beat that is otherwise inferior to the original.

kevwaffles posted...

Oh for sure. That's definitely the root of it.

But knowing that was their decision in advance may have influenced some of those narrative choices. Because P4, despite having no version with a FemC seems to not have made those same choices.

Genuinely wonder if we'll get a P4 remake before P6.

The FemC isn't being brought back because it would be a ton of work to please a vocal minority. It really doesn't go any farther than a simple cost:benefit analysis. Maybe Atlus is wrong, and having a female protagonist option would increase sales enough to offset the extra development time, but either way that's what they believe.

Every WRPG dev believes it's worth the work. Alas.

- Ryuji, standing in a room of gold and a floating magical aura: "That treasure thing's gotta be in here!"
- God, I totally forgot about the little girl Velvet Room attendants. They're honestly not as terrible as you'd expect from the premise, but Elizabeth is still so much better than these two. At least they don't return for Strikers, but then again, neither does Igor. Will he return in P6, now that his Japanese VA died? Or will we just get a succession of new attendants? Because we've already had ditzy teenager, sexy mid-20s, angry preteen, emotionless preteen, and pleasant preteen. Actually, I think that Chinese Persona spinoff introduces a new attendant, but I don't know anything about it. Does anyone else?
- Oh, the challenge battles let you fight the main characters from P3 and P4? Neat. "Cognitive echoes," sure, whatever. I know some of those other games involve time travel to justify why everyone knows each other as teenagers. It'd be funnier if instead of the main characters, you have to fight, like, Akihiko and Chie. It's strange that the game just lets you fight all of them immediately instead of opening them up over time.
- One thing I forgot about Persona and its elements is that weaknesses never make any sense. You see a flower enemy in Pokmon and you think "oh, grass is weak to fire, so I should use flamethrower." You see a flower enemy in Persona and think the same thing, but then you learn it's actually weak to carnivals and you can't use Agi, you need to us Shrompblaf, or Shrompblafidyne if you've got the SP for it.
- Took me two tries to get all the rewards for the first challenge battle.
- Got to the part where Morgana tells you that you need to go back to the real world and leave a calling card, but I have SP left over, and something inside of me refuses to leave until I've used all of it up grinding enemies.

- I just realized that the unit of currency in this game isn't the Yen. It's just called "money." As in, "536 money gained" after fights.
- 6:52 into the game, and I'm finally done with the first part of Kamoshida's Castle.
- I just realized that Makoto, the perfect student, doesn't dress in her full uniform like every other girl. It's fine for Ryuji and Ann, because they're idiots, and Haru, because she's wealthy, but Makoto logically should be in a full uniform.
- Argh, I need to send out this calling card, and that's also a day.
- It feels like cheating to look up what days people are available on, but whatever.

According to the network thing, many people on this night studied at Leblanc, but I can't do that when there are customers around. Am I missing something? The only things I seem to be able to do are make infiltration tools and work out.

Talk to the customers and they should leave

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Will he return in P6, now that his Japanese VA died?

I think Igor returns in P6. Because, if you don't remember... the real Igor shows up at endgame after Yaldy is unmasked, and this twist was done brilliantly to not only disguise the fact that Igor's VA had died but also get a chance to introduce the nugai so the transition wouldn't be as difficult for Japanese gamers (who are unaccustomed to recasts).

Ugh the existential hesitation of what to do on a rainy day: study or send the calling card.

hombad46 posted...

Talk to the customers and they should leave

I did talk to the guy once, guess I needed to twice?

Yeah sometimes you gotta talk twice

I think it's actually rng how many times it takes

- I like how the game has Makoto and Sae in the crowds of places, but they obviously stand out so much because they don't look like the generic NPCs everywhere.
- "Why do products that come from overseas always seem to work?" As someone who went to Europe and bought a bunch of weird German candy to compare it to American candy, lemme tell you, we're doing just fine as-is. Though I guess America is overseas to Japan. You win this one, Atlus.
- "Who are these Phantom Thieves of Hearts people?" says the student standing directly next to the only three delinquent kids in the school who all have unique models.
- I have difficulty believing Ryuji is smart enough to figure out how to sneak into the school and covertly put those calling cards everywhere without being seen.
- I really like how the game has difficult, more upbeat music when you infiltrate the palace a second time to steal the treasure, so it feels like you're on the offensive.
- As someone who played P4G last year, I've gotta say... I don't LOVE Morgana, but he's definitely a step above Teddie. I'll take simp over pervert, although I can't really think of any good definitive Morgana moments, whereas Teddie at least has the fashion show.
- You know, I just realized that Kamoshida's version of Ann has catgirl ears, and Ann's actual Phantom Thief outfit is later a panther. I guess Kamoshida knew a little more about her than she did? But I love how he views he as just this brainless sex toy, it's so gross and perfect.
- "True, she's a total idiot, letting you manipulate her, trying to commit suicide..." Ann: Professional Victim Blamer.
- I love how Kamoshida's monster form is this just hideous naked sex king, with a trophy-goblet full of women's legs, as part of his theme of how being a creepy sex pervert is bad... but then the game just let me dress Ann as a French maid. And make no mistake: Ann was dressed as a French maid for the entire battle.
- FUCK I just realized I forgot to go back and check for a treasure chest in the courtyard of strong enemies, oh well.
- Wait a fucking second, Ann no longer pushes her ass into the air when she's unconscious?! Now she just lays on the ground like a pleb. Okay, I retract 2.4% of what I said earlier.
- It's a really cool little detail that when you have to choose who steals the crown, they each have different dialogue, and Ryuji and Morgana both say basically "I'm ready," but Ann complains that Kamoshida is looking at her.
- Wow, when I failed to distract Kamoshida enough, and Ann ran back to her spot in the party, she did the like 'cartoon running' animation instead of moving like Ann should move, very odd.
- The MVP of today's battle is Slime, for being the easiest 'resists physical' persona to obtain.
- "Noooo! My precious!" Man, even in 2016, that's the most dated reference ever.
- You know, I know it's explained ten seconds later that killing a shadow of a person causes the person in real life to die, but I'm just saying, Morgana, when you say to Ann "Do you want to finish him off? It's your choice," you're leaving out an important detail.
- "Go ahead and finish me off."
- "So, that perv kept clinging to his past glory." Ryuji, honestly, if I had an Olympic medal, it would be the only thing I talk about. I don't blame Kamoshida for this one one at all.
- Even in 2016, I don't believe you could run a DVD rental business.
- Why yes, Justine, I WILL summon Berith, but only because it's the only low level Heirophant persona.

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I really like how the game has difficult, more upbeat music when you infiltrate the palace a second time to steal the treasure, so it feels like you're on the offensive.

Life Will Change was excellent at setting the tone for the heist days

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It's a really cool little detail that when you have to choose who steals the crown, they each have different dialogue, and Ryuji and Morgana both say basically "I'm ready," but Ann complains that Kamoshida is looking at her.

That's to tell you that sending Ann is a bad idea because Kamoshida is focusing on her

Yeah you literally cannot succeed if you send Ann

Guess Im stupid!

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- Even in 2016, I don't believe you could run a DVD rental business.

DVD rental stores are still around and thriving in Japan in 2025

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Guess Im stupid!

So I'm not gonna say you're stupid, but I will ask what was your reasoning was for picking Ann there?

hombad46 posted...

So I'm not gonna say you're stupid, but I will ask what was your reasoning was for picking Ann there?

I knew I had to do enough damage in X rounds to Kamoshida, and I didnt want to waste time healing. Ann was already at low health, so I figured sending her was the optimal move since she wouldnt need to be healed during that time.

Oh, that's reasonable, yeah.

MZero posted...

DVD rental stores are still around and thriving in Japan in 2025

This is the biggest plot twist of the entire game.

Yeah, you can even see them in some of the more recent Yakuza/LaD games. One of them even has a conversation about it.

- Sae: "You must have had someone with medical expertise, tell me who it is!" Gee, could it be the sketchy doctor who lives five feet away from me?
- I remember that there's some point at which Sojiro's confidant ranking gets locked by the story, and you can't increase it until something happens, or something like that? How high can I get him right now?
- I have never once in my entire life waited by a washing machine for the entire duration of its usage. Even when I had to use a public washing machine when I was in Germany because the hotel said it would charge 80 dollars (fucking hotel), I just walked around for two hours or whatever.
- Is it weird of me to say that all of the nameless background NPCs clearly have a different skin color than all of the named NPCs with portraits?
- I know Ann is stupid, but she can't decode the meaning of "My country, right or wrong?"
- Not having enough confidants that I can do one every day is infuriating. And needing rank 2 guts to continue Takemi this early is killer.
- The fact that you can't tell how far you are to a rank up in a skill is absolutely infuriating.

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I remember that there's some point at which Sojiro's confidant ranking gets locked by the story, and you can't increase it until something happens, or something like that? How high can I get him right now?

Rank 4 is the cap for a while

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The fact that you can't tell how far you are to a rank up in a skill is absolutely infuriating.

You can get a general idea by using the bathroom