Persona 5 The Royal Reveal

The incredible reveal for Persona 5 The Royal otherwise known as P5R was nothing short of amazing. The trailer hit me with feelings of awe and anxiety with a dash of nostalgia as it reminded me of the P4G reveal way back when. An excellent new track with a new character reveal and tons of new additions to the game, it'd be ridiculous to call myself a Persona fan and not cry at the sight of it all.

Adding new tracks along with a graphical boost is to be expected though people have been claiming that the 4K support is astoundingly different. I don't quite see it that way but I shall reserve judgement till the day I boot it up on my end. For what it's worth, I don't think 4K does anything for the aesthetics used in games like Persona, Trails or Tales but I reckon I'd prefer having it there than not at all.

The real meat of this trailer though comes in two forms: a new party member and tons of new content added on top of the original game. The new party member in question is a girl named Kasumi Yoshizawa and she seems to have a very big role to play in this version of the game. That does not come as a surprise to me however as even Marie from P4G had a very prominent role despite being an NPC. We received footage of Kasumi in her Phantom Thief getup along with some combat and story gameplay with her front and center. Heck, even the cover art has her splashed next to Akechi!

What does this mean for the main story of the game? I'm not quite sure as I initially imagined her having a more villainous role given her dialogue in the initial reveal. Could this actually be the case? Could she be a female replacement to Akechi for the extra story content? I wouldn't even be surprised if they brought another God into the picture regarding her involvement a la Marie from P4G. Whatever the case, I love her design and can't wait to welcome her to the party!

Besides that, it seems Atlus took the whole 'we need more friendship scenarios' to heart and are clearly going to deliver on this for P5R. They've added a whole new semester of school to go through along with a new area of Tokyo to explore, new minigames and story scenarios involving your friends, a new Confidant, new date locations, faster traversal in dungeons and heck, even new dungeon designs! It's just all a big chunk of NEW and EXTRA CONTENT slapped over what I sunk over 100 hours into. I'm not even surprised if I have to take 200 hours to Platinum this game. But will it be worth it? Oh you can bet your ass it is.

The game hits Japan at the end of the year but I feel blessed that the English version only hits in 2020 (I'm assuming somewhere in the first quarter). But why would I prefer that? Trails of Cold Steel 3's English version is rumoured to be out in November of this year and well, I'd prefer to not splice two heavy JRPGs into my gaming windows.

Also, human Morgana!?