AS PERSONA 5 TURNS INTO ROYAL, I CAN’T GET EXCITED ABOUT UNMASKING IT ALL OVER AGAIN.
P5 Royal getting taken to task by our resident Phantom Thief? You’ll never see it coming
Thinking of trying to run me through? Hold on! I love the original release of Persona 5 for all the same reasons you do: the characters, the battle system, the stylish flair permeating everything. But often we are best equipped to criticise that which we love. After three years of nibbling away at 100-plus hours of JRPG action, clearing my schedule for hour-long boss fights and racing past what feel like three different perfectly good end points, I’m faced with the prospect that actually all that wasn’t the ‘definitive’ experience.
It’s rad that Royal will give you another shot at Goro Akechi’s story. But, poor choice of words aside, the reason the ace detective has such a fervent fanbase of would-be defenders is because his story originally ends like a shot through the heart (sorry, I’ll stop now). Injustice is the whole point of his eventual fate. Maybe Royal’s new redemption arc will prove more satisfying, and it’s likely this rerelease will knock it out of the park just like Golden did before it, but I just can’t find it in me to wake up, get up, get out there for yet another heist.
THE MASK SLIPS
It’s not just that I need space before diving back into a hundred more hours and then some of Persona 5. I’ll head back to Shujin Academy eventually, but it won’t be thanks to any save transfer goodies in Royal – because there aren’t any. The extent of this rerelease’s changes and additional content will justify the price of re-entry for many, especially in light of the series’ proven track record with Golden and Fes. What I’m worried about is copycat behaviour leading to a trend of far less thoughtful, incrementally iterative rereleases. Well, a trend worse than things are now with multiple copies of Final Fantasy IX to my name.
It’s not hard to see why the opportunity to redress pre-existing narrative beats is so appealing, but I hope this doesn’t give way to a future of stories where impactful consequences are patched out over time. (You absolutely do not want to get me started on what one Detroit: Become Human patch did with its menu hostess, Chloe…)