That's not what I recall reading elsewhere, but it's been a while and I obviously misremembered. Too long for me to really be bothered by it, though obviously I'd have liked to have seen Hifumi elevated to party member in the remaster either way.

Hopefully at least they might add some things to do/places to go into her romance route so it's not just playing shogi at Kanda all the time.

 

Release date for this is March 31st

https://www.gameinformer.com/2019/12/03/persona-5-royal-finally-gets-a-release-date

 

So, Royal's out. Reading in some places that it's a bit of a disappointment in terms of new content. Think I'm going to sit back and wait for more reactions before I throw down sixty bucks on this, since I'm on somewhat limited funds at the moment and have other games that I want to get coming up.

If anyone here on DLP gets it, do a good brother a solid and post your thoughts.

 

Well, it's got an insanely high metacritic. 44 reviews and 95 last I checked.

Problem is, they're likely only the crazies that would replay the game.

Basically Royal has just taught me to never get a Persona game on day 1 ever again.

 

From what I'm getting, everything that was in the base game is mostly unchanged and you get like two months of added content tacked on at the end. Not worth buying at full price IMO, and if I get it at all it'll be after waiting for the inevitable price drop. Unless I hear something here that changes my mind. Right now, I'm just going to wait and spend my money on the FF7 Remake.

Like, I'm not trusting the opinions of review sites (paid shills).

 

Every review I've been hearing/watching is that it's worth the full price. I'm off work tomorrow and it's my only plan for the day.

 

Let me know what you think here, if you'd be so kind.

 

I watched one of the Japanese playthroughs. My opinion is if you're playing for the story, don't bother. If you're playing for the gameplay, it might be worth it.

If you haven't played the original, though, it's a strict upgrade.

 

@LT2000
Playing through now. Bit of background: I played through once when Persona 5 first came out. Greatly enjoyed the game and story. Was a great experience; that said, I have not played it again since it released.

Now, my experience with Royal: It's an upgrade in every way. Gameplay it's much more enjoyable. Graphics are better. Voice acting even seems better than I remember it. There are also a lot of little changes to the storyline that are fascinating and offer more depth than what was before. There are newer personas to fight/gain. You have more time in the evenings and such to improve your skills so it doesn't feel like as much of a time crunch.

Ultimately, I'd categorize getting this into three categories:

Recently Played and Enjoyed Persona 5: Wait for price to go down. It will likely feel like a slog otherwise.

Enjoyed Persona 5 but haven't played in a while and forgotten some of the story: Worth buying full price.

Never Played: Insta-buy. This is a 9/10 potentially 10/10 JRPG. Very enjoyable.
--- Post automerged ---
Da fuq. For some reason post was all backwards.

 

Coming in as someone who chows down on SMT and Persona content... Royal doesn't feel like the old games.

The difficulty is absurdly low even playing on Hard (Merciless is just an Exp Blockade and more frustrating than satisfying in any way shape or form)

Gameplay improvements are great and convenient, but to the point where if you have an inkling of what you're doing you can speed run it in your sleep.

Gameplay Spoilers

Spoiler

Will Seeds throughout the Palace restore SP as you go, there's three of them lying around but they're generally well spread out enough you can now do dungeons in a day bar plot devices. And the items they give you for finding them are broken.

Mechanic is, you find three and each one you find restores your SP a little so you can continue exploring. Find all three and it turns into an accessory you can wear. Madarame's for instance removes all weaknesses. You can't be knocked down as the protagonist. It's cheap, but amazingly efficient.

Guns now reload for every fight, so as long as your not fighting anyone with Resistance you can just unload on the enemies and conserve SP that way as well.

And Baton Passes, Fuck BATON PASSES.

Instead of raising them in Slinks you automatically start with them and they automatically chain from one person to the next. So Yusuke can Rising Slash for 1k damage at LVL 10 and I just chained it into him Wiping boss Madarame down easy.

If you've played SMT or Persona, but explicitly SMT cheesing Royal is incredibly simple.

Positives, new Confidants are fun. You can take the twins out into the world which is pretty neat ala Elizabeth and less go to bed but you're now able to chill and stat grind around LeBlanc but the main content is still 2-3 palaces away from now and I'm just fast forwarding the old content and only watching the new.

As a diehard, I'm disappointed overall. I probably will be until the end when I hit the new content and I'll have to reevaluate. I am however, someone who can probably get there in 1-2 weeks. If you've played P5 and you're going to take time with P5R like a month or more, can easily see you dropping it due to repetitiveness.

 

It's true that it's less challenging than the original (clearing Kamoshida's Palace in one go is a genuine trial in a fresh playthrough of vanilla P5, but I managed to do it easily here) but I still think it's been a massive improvement. So many quality of life upgrades and new things to see and do. I don't really play Persona for challenge though. Plenty of mainline SMT games to turn to for that.

New girl is pretty alright, contrary to expectations. I've only had a couple of cringe moments with her (shoehorning her into the game's intro in the casino was pretty terrible in particular). I also find Akechi much more likeable in this version now that he's been given a proper confidant line rather than just having him level up with story progress.

 

So far the QoL changes have been amazing. And I really don't mind being able to 1 day palaces so easily because it allows you do the real min maxing in the social part of the game.

And fairly enjoying Kasumi, Akechi and Maruki so far, well written and fun interactions.

The only problem really, is just how long the game is and as a result how long it takes to get to the new content.

 

FFS this game difficulty spiked the fuck out of Okumura. Was not expecting that at all. I barely managed to scrape past on the fourth try, and had to chew through a lot of my item stock to do it. I will definitely come better prepared for that fight in any subsequent playthroughs.

 

I just got back from Hawaii and have to agree with much of what has been said in the thread. But damn it, Persona 5 got me hard a couple of years ago and I do not mind coming back to this world. Can't wait to really see the new content in the third semester.

Also, does anyone else think that Akechi sounds thirsty af every time he wants to hang out? I'm actually liking his confidant but man, does that guy really want to get it on with Joker.

 

Okumura fucked me up. I had to restart the day before and go buy some items. The difficulty spike was real.

 

I would've had to redo the entire Palace if I hadn't been able to manage him with what I had. I didn't make a backup save the night before because I wasn't anticipating any problem with him.

Gearing up for Yaldy now btw. I spent quite a bit of time in Mementos rolling alarms and fusing for endgame gear.

 

Done. Brute forced the final boss on the first try. Things got hairy a few times because I didn't quite know the mechanics for the fight, but I got through anyway. I found the new ending to be a little disappointing, but not as bad as what I'd been hearing about it. I think it was necessary for it to be a little less 'perfect' than in the original version, considering the entire theme driving the third semester conflict.

 

Only just beat Shido. Ended up dropping it for a few weeks but some friends were giving away mini-spoilers and I decided to push through while I still don't know what happens.

The Okumura boss battle was irritating. Had a heads up from friend that was spoiling it all so I levelled the Twins to access higher level personas. Marched in there with Forneus and someone else in the 60's and made it fairly routine.

Changing Mementos's cognition, combo'd with Ryuji's ambush insta-kill has been awesome for farming. Can just run around a floor and pick up 50/60k before moving on in the deeper levels. Which has gone straight into fusing. I've probably spent 20/30 hours locked in the Velvet Room toying with the Fusion Alarm, Gallows etc;

A neat trick is Alarm Gallows Fusion, Double XP (If you fuse a treasure by the way, it's 5x XP) on fusions, or more interestingly no Exp but huge stat boosts if it 'botches'. Been making an endgame Arsene because I won't play this again for probably a year or two and want to do it before the new content.

Anyways the stat boosts have been wild, at LVL 49 he's got 73 AG because it just launches a stat into the stratosphere if it fails. His build so far is awful due to bad rolls, but planning on fixing that over the new content/coming weeks. Need to do a huge Mementos grind to farm the yen needed though.

Fleshed out the twins fully, accessed Budget Overlevelled demons and rocked up to Shido with Satan and Abaddon. Basically prepping myself to get as quickly as possible through the dungeons and boss battles when the new content picks up.

 

Final thoughts now that I've finished it was that the new content was... Okay.

For me it wasn't worth full price, but I didn't come away entirely displeased. It's probably a game I'll have mixed thoughts on for a long time. Looking forward to the NG+ content though.

Anyone that fused Attis had the time of their life though, his innate trait is horrifically busted.

Spoiler

Trait allows Ambushed moves to be used at any time and he comes pre-loaded with Thermopylae.

Was dropping 30 SP Luster Candy to help cruise to the finish line.