The Persona franchise is quite easily one of my favorite RPG franchises of all time. Each game covers a powerful theme, and the mechanics and characters always make for an engaging experience. Now that Persona 5 Royal (and soon Persona 3 and Persona 4) is on Switch, a whole new audience can enjoy the franchise.

Before I go too deep into this review, please be aware that Persona 5 Royal is not something that is suited for younger audiences. There are mature topics throughout the entirety of the game including (but not limited to) abuses of power, exploitation of others, murder, and suicidal ideation. Please be aware of this before playing if you are sensitive to any of those concepts.

Persona 5 Royal is the definitive edition of Persona 5. Not only does it have all of the previous DLC, but it also contains (like Persona 4 Golden and Persona 3 Portable before it) a “third semester” a new character, and a true ending you can obtain if you max out the Confidants (Social Links in previous games) of your allies and various NPCs in town areas.

Without going into spoiler territory, the premise of Persona 5 Royal is that you play as the protagonist (canonically named Ren or Akira) whom you can name yourself. He is a high school student who is sent to live with a family friend after wrongly being accused of attacking a man. This injustice leads him to meet other characters who have had some form of injustice done to them.

They find themselves able to enter the Metaverse (not the Facebook one), a supernatural realm where human cognition manifests creatures called Shadows. By summoning Personas and stealing “Treasures” from the Palaces in the Metaverse, the group known as the Phantom Thieves can cause mental changes and fight these injustices. However, there is more going on than meets the eye.

I don’t want to give away too many more details in regard to the plot, as the story is a big draw in the Persona franchise. However, Persona 5 Royal (like previous games) takes place in two main segments. There are life simulation segments where each day you go to class or (on weekends/holidays) go out into the city to interact with NPCs. Usually, each day is split into Day/Night segments, and you can only see certain NPCs and do certain things on certain days, at certain times.

This is where Confidants come in. By interacting with NPCs, you can (if your stats are high enough) spend time with them to raise their Confidant rank. By doing so, you can gain new shops, increase effectiveness in the Metaverse, or become more efficient in doing things such as making tools and studying. Confidant ranks also provide an XP bonus when you fuse a Persona that matches that confidant, we’ll get into that later.

Some NPCs require your “Social Stats” to be at a certain level. There are various ways to raise Social Stats, from doing an eating challenge at a certain restaurant to reading books or watching DVDs that you can purchase. However, it is important to keep in mind that everything you do in Persona 5 takes time. Because of that, most people opt to play through Persona 5 Royal twice, because it is easier to max Social Stats and Confidants on a New Game+ playthrough.

That isn’t to say it is impossible to get the true ending on your first playthrough, but I guarantee you’ll need to follow a day-by-day walkthrough in order to do that. Some people may not like that, while some people might prefer it since Persona 5 Royal will likely give you over 100 hours in a single playthrough.

When you aren’t going around Tokyo doing various things, you’ll be in the Metaverse. Palaces have a time limit of a certain number of days. If you don’t complete them in time, you’ll get a game over. However, in between Palaces (and just on nights you want to level), you’ll be able to go to Mementos. Mementos is similar to the Midnight Channel from Persona 4 Golden, or Tartarus in Persona 3.

It is a randomly generated dungeon with a certain number of floors. As you progress through the story, more floors are unlocked and you can progress deeper into Mementos. This is where you’ll be able to do the majority of your grinding, as well as find specific Personas you couldn’t find in the Palaces. There are even quests (tied to a certain Confidant) to collect or fuse certain Personas, so this is important.

In Persona 5 Royal, as in Soul Hackers 2 or Shin Megami Tensei V, you’ll have to negotiate with shadows if you want them to join you. I prefer the Soul Hackers 2 version to the Persona 5 Royal version, because in Royal it is a lot harder to understand what the right answers are to get them to join you. In fact, the negotiation mechanic in P5 Royal is probably one of the more obtuse systems in the game.

Combat in Persona 5 Royal is similar to other entries in the franchise. Elemental weaknesses are key, since exploiting them can get you extra turns and even potentially open things up for an All-Out Attack. However, a new mechanic is the Baton Pass, which allows you to pass a turn over from one of your other party members. This is useful in case an enemy is resistant to one character’s preferred element etc.

It is hard to really describe the complexity (and engaging nature) of the combat and Persona 5’s gameplay overall without getting into spoilers. However, Persona 5 Royal is just as strategic and engaging as any other entry in the series. On top of that, whether it is with the music or the art direction, Persona 5 Royal just oozes style.

Playing on the Nintendo Switch works just as well as it does on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5. In fact, aside from some graphical enhancements on the PS5 version, there isn’t much of a visual difference between the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch versions. There isn’t any slowdown or lag, and being able to take Joker and the Phantom Thieves on the go is a great thing. It gives me nostalgia for playing Persona 4 Golden on my PlayStation Vita during a family road trip.

The controls for Persona 5 Royal on Switch are solid, the content is incredibly dense and replayable, and overall it makes for a phenomenal experience. This might seem like high praise considering the wealth of RPG content on the Nintendo Switch, but as far as RPGs go, Persona 5 Royal is one of the best on the platform now. This is even more accurate considering there are multiple difficulty options that can work for any level of experience with RPGs like this.

If you are looking to get into the Persona franchise, I would say that Persona 5 Royal is a great option for you, especially on the Switch. Considering Persona 4 Golden and Persona 3 will be coming to Switch in 2023, this is the perfect time to get started and experience this wonderful franchise for yourself.

A Nintendo Switch review copy of Persona 5 Royal was provided by Atlus for this review.

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Persona 5 Royal

$59.99 USD

10

Score

10.0/10

Pros

• Fantastic Story
• Deep, Engaging Gameplay Systems
• Over 100 Hours of Content
• Switch Version Plays Very Well
• Multiple Difficulty Levels