The New Classics #71: Persona 5 Royal

 

The backstory: Rewind all the way to summer 2019: I received Persona Q2 – New Cinema Labyrinth in the mail, and proceeded to play it fresh off the wrapping. I had oodles of fun despite a few setbacks, and vowed to play the original Persona 5 on PS3. Fast-forward to late 2022: Persona 5 Royal is gracing the Switch, to universal acclaim; and it’s lounging in my Switch spot, hopefully for many hours to come.  

 

 

The game: I knew that recent Persona games were story-heavy affairs; however, I hadn’t anticipated that the cutcenes/gameplay ratio would be so skewed in favour of the former. I got to fight a grand total of three battles in thirty minutes of play, and had to sit through a mountain of cutscenes of various lengths to reach these three fights. Sure enough, some RPGs won’t even let you fight at all during their introduction sequence; and obviously, P5R will let me fight more at some point. However, this is the New Classic era: and stuff like ‘not so bad’, ‘could be worse’ and ‘will get better later’ don’t cut it anymore.  

 

 

Granted, P5R is not all about battles, and there are other gameplay elements in the early stages; however, these gameplay elements don’t qualify as worth playing as far as I’m concerned. Running from point A to point B while being interrupted by cutscenes is not my idea of fun gameplay; and I swear I nearly threw a hissy fit — and my Switch through the window — when the game asked me to commute. As in, ‘go to school using public transportation, and change lines while you’re at it’. Are you friggin’ kidding me, Atlus? Now, excuse my French — but I do commute IRL, and that’s the last bloody thing I wanna do in a darn video game. 

 

 

Sure enough, I was glad to be reacquainted with P5R’s splendid character design, and with its flashy, slightly campy aesthetics; but that is honestly not enough to keep me hooked. I’m thinking that I might as well purchase the official art book if I wanna feast my eyes on the P5 crew on a regular basis. 

 

 

The verdict: I cannot go against my gaming instinct: although I’ve been pinning for P5R for three years, I ultimately don’t like it. That’s slightly disturbing, and I’m honestly a bit sad; but I won’t dwell on it. For one, there are plenty of other great games out there; for another, I still have Persona 5 Strikers to try, and thus another chance to handle the P5 crew! Now, this raises another burning question: is the canon Persona series even for me at all? That’s something I’m gonna have to verify, dear fellow gamers!