This is my first review of the new semester and I will be reviewing one of my favorite games of 2020. Persona 5 Royal, or P5R as I will be calling it, came out on March 31, 2020 in the US. It is a re-release of Persona 5 but with updates to the game and more content. At a cost increase of of $60 vs. the original P5 being only $20 or free with the Playstation Plus Collection on the PS5, is it worth the price? Keep reading and find out.

P5R’s story starts off with our protagonist being falsely charged with assault and as a result, he is expelled from his high school and his parents send him to Tokyo where there is a high school willing to accept him. On his first day there, things seem strange and he finds himself in another world where he unlocks a power known as a persona.

The story is one of the strongest points of the game because it constantly remains exciting and fun. But there is a point in the story that really annoys me, but due to spoiler reasons, I cannot say. Anyways, in P5R they introduce two new characters, another semester to the school year, a new city, and two new endings which add around 30 hours to the story. I think this new semester of the story they added is by far the best in the game with a great villain whose views are not necessarily evil, which makes this story arc my favorite in the series.

The gameplay of P5R is similar to the original P5 but it adds quality of life updates to the combat system and the social aspects of the game. The gameplay is a dungeon crawler, where you command your character and your teammates to defeat enemies with either your skills, melee weapons, or ranged weapons. The game also includes a social life system where you can interact with friends you make. The more you hang out with them, you level up your social rank with them which can benefit your character in the dungeon parts of the game. You can also do other miscellaneous things such as go fishing or playing baseball. In my opinion, the social life aspect of the game is my favorite. 

Of course, there were improvements to both aspects of the gameplay as well in P5R. The improvements in the social life were small things like pressing square on the map to see where your friends are or if they’re available to hang out, instead of having to search for them. They also added additional dialog with the characters. Also, in the original game, there was always a character that prevented you from going outside on certain days but in P5R they dramatically decreased the number of times you were prevented from exploring the world, which was one of my biggest complaints about P5. In the dungeon crawler parts, they made the combat much smoother and more fun to play.

Definitely, another one of the strongest parts of the game has to be the music. The music is good enough that I added some of the songs to my playlist. In P5R they add around 29 new tracks to the game.

Now I will tackle the big question. Is it worth spending around $40 dollars more? This is entirely my opinion but I say yes. P5 had moments where I felt the game was a little tedious because of some issues but because of the updates in P5R, most of these issues were solved. After playing P5 for almost 300 hours and P5R for almost 200 hours I think that without a doubt P5R is the better game. Also, at times, P5R goes on discount, and last time it was it cost around $30 which I think is a steal. Not to mention, all the DLC from P5 are free in P5R, which costs around $60. The DLC is mostly cosmetics but also includes personas from previous games to help you in battle.

I would recommend this game to people who like single-player games with good stories, also those who like RPG’s and dungeon crawlers.

So that was my review of Persona 5 Royal. I appreciate those of you who stuck around and read the whole thing! This was my longest review so far but I don’t intend to make them this long, I’m just passionate about video games! So I hope all of you have a great day and please keep reading The MTS Times.