THE SHOW'S OVER

     Woof, that took a while.  While I did really like a lot of the revised content, Royal unfortunately left me with a bad taste in my mouth.  I’ll detail the games merits first before diving into what soured me on an otherwise overall improvement on one of my favorite roleplaying games.

The Good

     Core Gameplay -

Improvements across the board.

Gun ammunition replenishing after every battle eliminates the need to hoard ammunition for weaknesses and Down Shots.

Baton Pass being non-confidant locked helps strengthen the still solid press-turn system.

Some of the remixed boss battles are genuine improvements over the original.

The grappling hook makes traversal more varied and provides an avenue for refreshing the returning palaces.

Mementos functions as a much better Tartarus-like with the addition of Jose’s bonuses and new tracks for the different depths, making grinding far less time-consuming and sanity draining.

Skill reworks for almost every Confidant makes unlocking them far more rewarding.

Daily life rebalancing makes maxing out social stats far less tedious.

     Confidants Expanded -

Overall additional positive characterization for the majority of the cast.

The revised translation and additional scenes for the most part add some depth to already well fleshed out characters, avoiding Flanderization into tired stereotypes like many of the spin-offs are guilty of.

The Thieves Den is a fun new addition that allows unlikely combinations of characters to interact with each other on different topics

It made me further enamored with a cast of characters I already loved to pieces.

What’s bonkin?

     Honorable Mention: Pancakes -

Akechi’s reworked confidant gave him the depth and characterization he needed.

His expanded confidant plays up the rivalry between himself and the protagonist to wonderful effect, making him a joy to hate.

His true personality on display in the third semester made him into one of my new favorite party members for just how well he owned being a bastard.

Robbie Daymond’s performance as him in the third semester is a treat to listen to.

     The Councillor -

Almost everything about Dr. Maruki is a net positive addition to the game.

Going through a game full of the worst of society as your obvious enemies, having a genuinely altruistic person as an ally turned enemy with a sympathetic motivation provides a spectacular contrast.

His Palace functions as an even better homage to both the Law faction of classic MegaTen and the eldritch horrors of the first three Persona games than Yaldaboath already did.

His multi-stage boss fight was fun, challenging, and incredibly interesting on a thematic level.

The unpowered fist fight with him as the final battle of the game feels like it was pulled straight from my brain and I couldn’t have enjoyed it more.

     Tunes - 

It goes without saying there’s a number of fantastic new tracks to accompany the already brilliant original soundtrack.

Shoji Meguro just keeps topping himself as an artist and doesn’t look like he’s going to stop anytime soon.

Likewise, Lynn’s unique vocal range continues to astound and make the vocal tracks stand out as some of the best songs in the game.

The Bad

     Violet - Alright, let’s address the elephant in the room.  Kasumi, or rather, Sumire is problematic.

She’s not nearly as bad as Marie was in Golden, but she has many of the same problems.  The game expects you to be in love with her, which makes things uncomfortable from the jump, and only gets worse when she fails to properly endear herself to you.  Her insertion into the plot and the Thieves feels very unnatural at points.

She has self-esteem issues and is victim to personal tragedies that would ordinarily engender some sympathy to her, but these sympathetic traits are handicapped by her own unhealthy methods of coping with them, namely trying to kill you when threatened with facing reality.

Further, the sympathy generated is not enough to make up for her lack of likable traits.  To barely oversimplify, outside of her multi-tiered depression, all she has going for her is wanting to be good at gymnastics, having a sister complex, and being really forward about how much she’s infatuated with the protagonist... despite spending comparatively little time with him.

Her focus on personal ambition over everything else bleeds over into the ending, up to and including her absence when the protagonist is released from juvie and when he leaves Tokyo, only catching him by sheer coincidence.

Where Maruki’s toxic escapism makes him a more compelling villain, Sumire’s just makes her a less likable person.

     General Gripes -

Some writing flaws from the original are unaltered while others are made worse.  Most glaringly, the poor treatment of Ryuji in general as well as his and Mona’s conflict are still horribly forced.

Some changes to the plot are for the worse.  Many of the genuinely fantastic scenes following Yaldaboath’s defeat are full on cut from the game in favor of the new content.  Valentine’s scenes are worse in revision and the new White Day scenes do little to make up for it.

Some of the new music isn’t of the same quality as the original soundtrack.  Take Over is nowhere near as good as Last Surprise, but thanks to how easy and optimal ambushes are, you almost never hear the battle theme that gave the original game so much of its identity.

     Fin -

Holy shit, it’s been a minute since I’ve seen a game shoot itself in the foot at the finish line this badly.

Persona’s 5′s ending is touching and uplifting, a perfect send-off to an amazing experience that reinforces the bonds of the core cast that you’ve come to know so well over the course of the game.

Royal for some inexplicable reason decides to flush that down the toilet and make a decidedly worse version of 4′s ending, that makes your connection to your friends seem like an afterthought.

The whole of the main cast decides they are moving away from each other improbably at the same time and otherwise focusing on their personal goals over maintaining a healthy support group.  Most of the stated goals and means make no sense logistically or otherwise regress characters back into issues the protagonist helped them resolve.  Yusuke is the only character even momentarily perturbed by this.

Worse still, the lonely train ride replacing the touching roadtrip only serves to show off the two new additions to the cast one final time, as well as direct implying Akechi’s survival.

The series about the importance of interpersonal connections and self-improvement through them proposing you should disregard your social life to focus on your education and career comes off as disarmingly tone deaf.