‘Persona 5 Royal Remastered’ game review

The announcement about the remastered release of  Persona 5 Royal not only for PlayStation 5 but also for other consoles might have irked a section of the game’s fanbase. A whole new legion of non-PlayStation gamers can now experience the Japanese Role-Playing Game masterpiece. Originally released as  Persona 5 in 2016 and re-released as  Persona 5 Royal in 2019 with more content, it is regarded as one of the greatest role-playing games of all time.   

Persona 5 Royal is part-high school drama, part-metaphysical heist. It is about a high school student, known by his pseudonym (Joker), who gets transferred to a new school after being falsely accused of assault and put on probation. As Joker, you team up with other misunderstood delinquents like yourself. And, you can access their minds. 

You will travel across a realm called Metaverse, which has physical manifestations of suppressed psyches that are modelled after mythological characters. You will be thrust into multiple variations of Tokyo, twisted by those powerful yet corrupt hearts.

Persona 5‘s story has one large complex arc comprised of sub-arcs. In the real world, you are a high-school student, studying for exams and hanging out with your friends. In the Metaverse, however, you have dark and scary battles to fight.

Persona 5 Royal brought many changes to the already exciting turn-based battle system in the game’s previous version. It also added a few exciting characters. Also, your character can collect and control several forms, like demonic Pokémon. In the real world, you get to explore areas in Tokyo, such as Kichijoji, Yongen-Jaya, Shibuya and more.

Persona 5 has a comic-book noir style. The environments — from the slightly washed-out Tokyo to the bright mind palaces, look great. The Switch version of the game has crisp 2D visuals, but the environments have low-res textures. Early in the game, where you had to find the Ginza line, I spent a lot of time squinting at the splotchy textures trying to read the signs at the station. 

Cross-saves would have been a really useful add-on. Except for that,  Persona 5 Royal is a must-play game that looks and plays well on any platform you choose to play it on.