Persona 5 Royal is finally making its way to PC, Switch, and Xbox X|S, and players who haven't had the opportunity to experience the highly acclaimed Japanese RPG masterpiece will finally be able to lose themselves in its charming and utterly fascinating world. A social-sim with heaps of combat, RPG elements, hilarious interactions, and a story that absolutely captivates, Persona 5 Royal is a big step up from its original and will captivate both old and new players and even those that dislike RPGs or JRPGs.

When developer P-Studio and publisher Atlus first released Persona 5 in 2017, they were obviously hoping for success with the newest game in the long-running Persona series. Both companies probably didn’t expect to be releasing a game that would garner almost universal praise for almost every characteristic and attribute that games are judged with. Now, after over 5 million copies sold before coming to PC, Switch, and Xbox, as well as a multitude of awards and cast members making their way to other games like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate or Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight, it isn’t hard to see why Persona 5 Royal might be one of those titles where its greatness won't soon be forgotten.

Fans experienced with the original version of Persona 5 won’t find any drastic changes to the game they fell in love with. Instead, the Persona 5 Royal version works hard to improve almost every part of the game without taking anything away. There are new friends as well as new enemies, changes to most boss fights, more clothing options for the squad, a new interactive gallery mode called Thieves Den, new music to enjoy, and a few tweaks to puzzles and some gameplay that most won’t notice but will enjoy all the same. There are even new combo attacks where characters team up to devastate their opponents together. Though these new attacks aren’t usable until deeper into the game, it is just an example of P-Studio and Atlus adding something fun to an already enjoyable system without taking anything away.

One of the biggest changes previous players will notice first is the addition of new social contacts. In a game that already had quite a few options for what to do in the player's day-to-day life, these additions are valuable alternatives to what was originally offered and expand the user's choices significantly. Players will be pleasantly surprised at what some of these new associates can give, while still remaining completely optional. There are still awesome benefits to maxing out these new relationships, and most add surprising thought and context to a game already full of deep thoughts and cognitive issues.

The tweaks to Persona 5 Royal’s boss fights are mostly positive changes, with some exchanging the order of the boss's different phases during the fight, while others have added entirely new phases to the conflict. Those that have memorized the fights in the original Persona 5 won't find it too difficult to quickly pick up on the differences and how to deal with them, but a few boss fights did get significantly easier due to their rearranging, while a few got more difficult, but most changes added definitive improvements to player engagement overall.

Persona 5 Royal also received a noticeable graphical upgrade from its days as a PS3 game. The game is more colorful and impressive than its already gorgeous original version, and fans will be struck at just how pretty the game can be even outside its anime cutscenes. Character graphics are crisp, enemies are well-defined and don’t sink into or stand-out from backgrounds, and traveling around the various areas doesn’t cause framerate drops or any stuttering. The aforementioned cutscenes are still a highlight of the game and anyone who isn't paying attention might think the game was stopped, and an anime show or movie was turned on instead based on its quality.

Fans of the original Persona 5 will undoubtedly notice that right from the start there is a rather large list of summon-able shadows that didn’t exist in the original. Some of these have skills that might seem overpowered given the ease at which they are obtainable but the trade-off of having these overpowered shadows early on is the a higher SP cost. Some users will see this as a crutch and avoid it entirely, while some may find that having an overpowered ally makes the game more gratifying. Either choice can work, and they aren’t needed to enjoy the game at all but are a nice option in case someone gets stuck somewhere.

These changes might not sound like a lot, but they all mesh together to make a great game even better. Something as simple as the new grappling hook can give players a sense of vertical depth that the original version lacked. In fact, a lot of the new secrets located in dungeons are put at the end of a grappling hook location, making it a tool that can expand explorable areas. It is also used in some places to change how puzzles are solved entirely, making a few of the challenges slightly easier than before. Most puzzles within Persona 5 are pretty simple already, but this change at least adds a wrinkle to some players' problem-solving that helps make them a little more memorable.

For anyone brand new to the game, Persona 5 Royal is a turn-based RPG where the party fights against and captures creatures from mythic tales and stories, a staple of the Megami Tensai series of games for years. Users have a variety of ways to make their targets submissive enough to be captured, and captured creatures (or shadows as they are known in-game) can be fused together to create others. Persona 5 Royal even expands on this basic system by giving characters more ways to down or capture targets, but the system as a whole is a joy to play with very few annoyances. It has even drawn in many fans who dislike turn-based combat, only to find themselves eager to capture or kill their next foe to see its skills or who it can be fused with to create an elusive shadow. When not fighting shadows the game switches to a more social-centric focus giving players choices on where, and also whom, they want to spend their time. Activities can vary from fishing, visiting temples, going to movie theaters, or just eating in a maid café. Users are given a lot of chances to increase their rapport with other characters during these times by just hanging out, choosing locations to visit together, or even going on dates. Increasing the protagonist's relationships with people can grant small or huge bonuses that can greatly affect the way users go about playing.

It is difficult to discuss even the smallest aspects of the story without concerns about spoiling a valuable first-time experience. Going in with the least amount of knowledge will allow new players the same type of joy that first-time users had back in 2017. The game weaves a riveting tale from start to finish, with themes of self-reflection and the difficulties in changing someone's heart and how their experiences and doubts can intertwine throughout not only their lives, but also everyone around them as well. It really doesn’t drag anywhere except maybe during the in-game days waiting to ascertain the next target, but even then there are so many social choices to do in the interim that it’s actually hard to be bored.

Standard RPG components are all here: upgrading armor, melee, and ranged weapons with money or finding new ones while exploring dungeons, a leveling system that determines who players can capture to fight for them, and enemies with weaknesses and strengths that you determine as you battle them. It might sound basic, and in truth, most of the combat feels pretty standard when starting out. Find a weakness, attack it with that weakness, then enjoy the victory. Persona 5 Royal does this loop so well, while adding in special skill uses and battle cutscenes, most users won’t get bored until they’ve delved extremely deeply into the game. Juggling monster skills can be a little intimidating at first with just how many skills each can have and if players want to maximize their abilities. It’s daunting sometimes, but after many hours of playing most users will figure out ways to streamline the process of figuring out which skills to keep and which to abandon.

The game's music remains one of the most positive aspects of the game, with only minor additions to battle music and fixes to a few bugs left over from the PS3 days. It still carries some of the catchiest tunes to ever grace a video game, and was another part of what captured the hearts of the fans so easily. It’s such a good blend of different musical styles, from pop to funk mixes and everything in-between, that users won’t even want to skip the games opening cinematic tune. Every sound effect carries weight behind it, every voice carries their characters' personality well, and none sound so off-putting that it ruins the immersion. The differences in the Japanese and English voices can be hilarious sometimes, but it doesn’t change how well they go with their respective characters.

While a lot of dialogue is voiced amazingly well, some story sections and messages on the protagonist's phone are just conversations that need to be read. Some users may feel slightly put off by having such a large amount to read, but it never feels like it drags the story down or slows progress in any meaningful way. There is a fast-forward button, but using it on a first play-through will cause players to miss some very important plot points. The game also had a few z-axis lighting issues on the PC version, but these are barely noticeable without looking for them. Also, anyone looking for a game that will challenge them with puzzle-solving will need to look elsewhere. Most puzzles in dungeons merely require finding an item, defeating a specific enemy, or remembering a set of codes to turn off alarms and are not difficult to solve at all.

When Persona 5 came out in 2017, it stole the hearts and minds of millions of gamers. Many players who avoided the JRPG genre entirely would find themselves strangely captivated by the tale of the Phantom Thieves. Some even found themselves searching for and playing previous Persona games simply based on how good Persona 5 is. From its captivating music and memorable story to its gorgeous style, every aspect of the game seems to mesh together and work incredibly well. Each piece builds up and compliments the next, until the game is justified in standing atop the RPG genre as royalty. With its release onto PC, Switch, and Xbox X|S, Persona 5 Royal will finally conquer the last locations it had been absent from, and a whole new set of gamers will get the chance to undoubtedly fall in love with this masterpiece.

Persona 5 Royal releases on October 21, 2022 for PC, Switch, and Xbox X|S. Game ZXC was provided a PC code for this review.

Persona 5 Royal

Persona 5 Royal acts as the definitive edition of the beloved RPG experience from Atlus. Players will once again hop into the shoes of Joker and his crew, with access to both the base game and over 40+ items worth of DLC content. Players are able to explore Tokyo in a new way, unlock Personas, and customize the Thieves Den to meet their needs. The novel storyline also has multiple endings, bringing more replay value to the table.