Persona 5: Royal - My thoughts so far!

By Sam Coles:

You know it’s odd how my video game tastes have evolved since I have gotten older as well as becoming a writer within industry, if you were to tell me to play a game like Persona seven years ago I would have laughed and chugged down a pint of beer and played Call of Duty. Now that I’m older and more open when it comes to art I’m willing to try out different games, so to my surprise Persona 5 is rather good and excellent dare I say it. I just want to give my first impressions, so this is not a full review as I understand this game to be a really long game so I can’t really give a proper review. I’m going to summarise my experience of the first 10 hours of the game.

Let’s start off with the story of Persona 5, at first it starts off normal enough (well in terms of J-RPG standards), where you are making daring escape as the main character Joker with an upbeat and jazzy soundtrack (which I will get into later). Where you have oddball characters, somewhat ham fisted dialogue and a slow introduction with the combat. So far pretty standard stuff for a J-RPG, but then things take a dark turn with certain subject matters.

There were many elements that I was not expecting with this game’s narrative, subjects such as domestic abuse, teachers taking advantage of vulnerable students and suicide. It’s something I was not expecting, as you have a talking cat in your party it almost gives Hideo Kojima a run for his money in terms of tone, but bizarrely it works really well. It’s an interesting concept of everyone’s inner thoughts or Persona, have their own alternate reality which makes for a unique narrative. The bright presentation is very deceptive of its overall tone.

Now let’s talk gameplay and it is pretty interesting, it’s your standard turn based combat you expect from a J-RPG. However unlike other games in the genre it’s fast and doesn’t feel like you are waiting forever, it’s not easy by any means but it is easily accessible to people who have never played games like these. It is easy to grasp but somewhat hard to master, as you have to make decisions that sometimes involve not killing your foes let me explain. Within a few hours of the game you are taught more combat tactics and one of these is hold up, what this entails is that you can hold up enemies if you stun them and what you can do is either rob them of money or items, ask for information, steal their power for your own or just flat murder them in a cold blooded fashion. It adds a new layer of depth and bits of morality, as it is more than just “kill the bad guy”.

Moving on from the standard attacks you have the titular Persona summons, these are tied to each character and stem from their inner personality such as Skull who has a Pirate who manifests within him and causes absolute devastation. However the main character code named “Joker” can use multiple Personas, which make these attacks and summons thematically appropriate to the game. They aren’t just there for the sake of it, they tie into the narrative which is great!

The presentation and music of this game is what immediately stands out, as soon as you boot the game up you are presented with a beautifully animated introduction with some of the funkiest music I have heard in a video game. The visuals obviously take ques from Anime, and the cutscenes are well done coupled with the English dub that is actually good for once in this sort of game. The music is a mix of funk and orchestral, which make for a good time throughout where I found myself bopping my head up and down with the beat. The music overall is a big thumbs up and I recommend looking up the soundtrack, even if you haven’t played the game.

Overall my time with Persona 5 so far has been excellent, it manages to balance a goofy and dark tone without it being jarring which is something I can appreciate. Not only that the combat is easy to grasp, but it is not easy as some of the enemy encounters can be tough. Plus the excellent presentation coupled with the funky soundtrack, which had me dancing in my seat made for an amazing experience so far. I can’t wait to play more!