Persona 5 Royal
PS4
We’ve never been so happy to hear trumpets. After sliding between cover spots in Kamoshida’s palace, we ambush a patrolling Shadow, and Persona 5 Royal’s wonderfully brash battle theme kicks in. ‘Take Over’ is a perfect addition to Persona 5’ s acid-jazz soundtrack, an audible strut of a tune that might well trump ‘Last Surprise’ (just as Persona 4 Golden’s ‘Time To Make History’ upstaged, er, whatever the other one was). Then again, after having heard the same song for 100 hours on our original playthrough, almost anything else would be music to our ears.
Royal is the next refresh in a series tradition, an enhanced edition of the turn-based-battlerslash-life-sim which adds a wealth of things to see and do – mechanics, activities, story arcs, endings, places, characters and, of course, jams. Our demo starts in Persona 5’ s first dungeon, giving us an overview of how much difference Royal’s additions make. Which is to say: not a huge amount, but enough. As we fight through the gaudily decorated corridors of the lecherous gym teacher’s psyche, the protagonist’s hand occasionally glows blue; it’s a sign there’s a grappling point nearby. Activating our Third Eye (read: Eagle Vision) ability allows us to spot it, then press X to zip up towards it. This new mechanic adds an extra layer of exploration to Persona 5’ s palaces, and might offer useful shortcuts to returning players keen to speed up their runs – as well as granting access to skullshaped hidden items called Wild Seeds, though our protagonist can’t seem to figure out what they’re used for just yet.
When it’s time to face Kamoshida himself in a ‘new’ boss fight, we find ourselves disappointed, however. The clash is, beat for beat, largely the same: we prevent the lollingtongued monstrosity from healing by attacking his goblet, then choose a party member to steal his crown while he’s distracted. The only additions are brief mid-fight cameos from two of Kamoshida’s victims. The first is Yuuki Mishima; the second is a bunny suit-wearing Shiho Suzui, and a stark reminder of many of Persona 5’ s more uncomfortable directorial choices. Suzui, who suffered sexual abuse at the hands of Kamoshida, is so dressed because she’s a mental projection of Kamoshida’s objectification of her (Ann’s projection appears as a bikini-clad, cat-eared Valley Girl version
Adds a wealth of things to see and do – mechanics, activities, story arcs and endings
of her), but this inclusion as ‘extra content’ in Royal feels a little exploitative.
A new real-world location in the form of Kichijoji is a far more welcome, and compelling, addition, offering a new place to explore with Confidants and to buy helpful items. The stylish Tokyo commercial suburb is brimming with charm, its warren-like streets – lined with chattering people, food stands, and secondhand clothing stores – cosied up against an imposing
Buddhist temple. In a bar called Penguin Sniper, we rank up our Baton Pass ability (which allows us to cede a move in battle to another teammate) with Ryuji by playing darts, which we throw using the DualShock’s motion controls. The higher the Baton Pass level, the more of an advantage we get: our current standing gives us a boost to damage and lets us recover some HP. And, of course, there’s a new character to recruit to the Phantom Thieves. Kasumi Yoshizawa is a student at Shujin Academy and a fiercely competitive gymnast with a troubled past – her new palace, with its seated audience and battle stage, appears to nod to the pressures of performing.
It’s something Atlus must surely be feeling. Persona 4 Golden’s Vita-exclusive release provided an irresistible incentive to revisit Inaba or discover it for the first time, in stolen moments on planes, trains and automobiles. It seems that Royal, however, will remain exclusively on PS4 – notably, it’s still absent from Nintendo’s console-slash-handheld hybrid. Currently, it’s hard to imagine a few grapple-points and a round of darts being enough to tempt us into another 100-hourlong time investment, let alone paying another full-price entry fee. Should that Switch announcement ever come, there’ll be good reason to sound those trumpets.