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au-tumn-al · 4 years

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So after 110 hours, I finally beat Persona 5 Royal. Before going into complete FFVII mode, I wanna lay out all my thoughts.

Blah, blah, blah, spoilers for everything under the cut.

To start off, I loved Royal. The gameplay was so much fun and it felt like such a natural evolution from vanilla P5. Probably my favorite change was what wad done with Baton Pass. Trying to pass to your entire party was very fun and very satisfying, especially if Joker got the ×4 or even ×3 and got to abuse a possibly charged Hassou Tobi lategame. It was pretty broken, but I don't mind things being broken once you go to the effort of figuring things out. Speaking of broken things—

Showtime attacks are super cool. I didn't know what to think of them at first because of how stupidly strong they are, but after I got to some harder boss fights where doing about 1k damage per attack would only get rid of about a small fraction of the shadow's health, I wasn't complaining.

(Also, I never actually got to see Joker and Violet's showtime. Oops.)

The fact that the damage scaled like that was really good, especially once you get into the third semester where party members have severe and colossal damage moves and even healer Morgana can do 150 damage per basic attack without buffs on an enemy without debuffs. The enemies' damage output remained kind of sad though, but uh....you can't win 'em all ;;

To finish showtime talk, Joker and Crow's showtime was heccin' great. I never skipped it. It was Batman in my animu JRPG so it was 10/10. It also did way more damage than most of my party members' showtime attacks so ey. It finished off that Yoshitsune request boss too with around 2.4k damage so I'm obligated to like it. On that note, how is showtime damage calculated? Do certain showtimes do more damage, or does it just depend on the offensive stats of the party members using it?

Technical damage was beefed up too, and I probably should have tried to take advantage of it more than I did but I never figured out how to make technical damage reliably knock an enemy down. I know that there was a way to do it but I never figured it out. Yes, yes, I know it was because I skipped tutorials but everything else was so busted, I never felt the need to go back and read said tutorials. I did read that book about technical damage though in-game, but it just added more technical combinations.

Onto other changes though, it could have been because I was playing on hard, but status ailments became about 10 times more useful. ...Actually, no, it was definitely because I was playing on hard, but even so, I felt like more bosses were weak to them when compared to P5. They went back to being mostly immune to them, especially in the new semester, but during and before October or so, status ailments became invaluable. It could have been because I sucked that much, but my party members, and even sometimes Joker, would get left with double or even single digit HP by near everything, even if I debuffed and buffed. Queen got regulated to a forget bot, but man it carried me through some boss fights. ... i.e., Kaneshiro's fight. Well, that and Mona's confuse.

I liked the Will Seeds too. They were a fun way to kind of change up the palaces and for me to hunt down. Even though yeah, they are pretty broken (especially with the accessory you get from the 2nd palace being able to get rid of elemental weaknesses for whoever has it equipped, not to mention the ability to give charge or concentrate to another party member), I still can't say I used them over my SP adhesives most of the time. I used the one that got rid of elemental weaknesses on Crow, but that was just because I could only use him and Joker at the time and did not want enemies to get another move on him to get another chance to hit either of them.

The changes to Mementos were amazing. Like the rest of them, they were pretty busted, but still. Amazing. I feel like I'm in the minority with this, but I didn't mind Mementos. In fact, I kind of liked going through the grind of going through it. Although...tbf, I kind of liked Tartarus too. Its 264 floors were a bit much, but I liked being able to turn off my brain, put on a podcast or YouTube video in the background for me to listen to then go through Tartarus in one or two in-game nights.

Back to Mementos, collecting stamps and flowers for Jose was fun, and being able to change the cognition for Mementos was busted. Since you can get EXP from auto-killing, you get over-leveled very fast. It doesn't help that you have to backtrack floors for stamps since they randomly generate, so you get even more money, experience, and items. On the bright side though, no, I didn't need to wander around singing "I've Been Working on the Railroad" with Mona and Skull for an hour and a half trying to find the materials for the Eternal Lockpick (which was renamed in Royal to Permapick ... I guess???)

Because of the changes you can make to boost item, money, and EXP gains, Mementos became the prime grinding area. Even more than the card shuffle thing in P3. Since you got so much EXP from ramming shadows even without leveling up EXP gain. I put all my stamps into getting more items and money until I couldn't anymore and I had near max every single crafting item, and never had to worry about the cost of anything ever. Combined with the money gains from killing shadows, you can also pick up sellable treasure from the item cubes in Mementos and it can end up selling for well over a million yen. So getting to max didn't even require Joker abusing the confuse status ailment or abusing the shadows with "You can do better than that."

I didn't mind the Mementos music, even when I was playing the game without something else playing for me to listen to, but now that Mementos does have new music, yeah, I realize now how much better it is. I wouldn't listen to it alone like I would Rivers in the Desert or anything, but it was a nice change. I listened to one of the songs before the game had its western release and didn't like it all that much, but actually playing the game while hearing it made me actually like it.

I got to level 99 though before the game was over. It made it so Joker and Crow were able to tag-team the Reaper then kill it in 3 turns. I had thought that trophy would have been a lot harder to get lol. It was pretty weird seeing the Reaper in such clear lighting though due to the new Mementos area though, I have to say.

Onto the bosses though...

I loved the changes to the bosses (except the 5th one but that's just because I hate everything about the 5th palace, even if Royal did make it about a million times more bearable).

Kameshida having cognitive Shiho and Mishima as helpers for the boss fight was such a good change, and made him about that much more hateable.

Madarame's boss fight in vanilla P5 was the hardest boss in the game for me, even on normal mode, but it was made so much easier in P5R. Madarame didn't bring back his painting form, but instead brought back elemental versions of himself specifically so the player can abuse Baton Pass. Baton Pass combos are extremely satisfying to pull off, so I enjoyed it immensely. Honestly, having that as the second boss in the game was so much of a better decision than what was in P5. That, or I'm still salty about all the deaths I had from fighting him the first time.

Kaneshiro was definitely harder, and I was a little stuck when he called his cronies out to guard him. Mona and Queen using confuse and forget while Skull and Joker attacked Kaneshiro made it a lot more bearable though. I also kept using spotlights on Joker so the enemies would attack him. He had Shiki Ouji equipped and they only ever did physical moves when my status effects missed, so I was never at risk for losing the fight. ... And then of course Skull and Queen finished it off with a showtime attack after Mona got yeeted.

Sphinx mom was a lot easier. I didn't know that the right dialogue choices made it so Oracle would guard you until someone told me, so I was sitting there surprised at how much easier it was lol. I did get stuck at the end though because it didn't look like I was damaging it. I thought Oracle needed to bring back the crossbow so I just kept buffing and healing. It took about 10 minutes for me to get bored and start attacking it again and it turned out I could attack it, but it was just that sphinx mom's HP wasn't visually moving before eventually going down. Joker still used Shiki Ouji which had learned an immunity to wind so. Easy victory (ignoring the part where I'm a dumbass).

I switched to easy mode for Okumura. I just did not care at all. I hate his palace, I hate the music, and the enemies could range from being easier to kill than the enemies in the first palace to being a pain in the ass, so I wanted to have it be over. If I didn't have an unreasonable hatred for the 5th palace though, I probably would have liked the change. It was challenging without being complete BS, at least much more challenging than how it was originally in P5. Having the enemies run off though did get pretty annoying when I was trying to beat it legit but I was just so done at that point, it was more on me than the game lol.

Part of the reason why I was so eager to get through Okumura's palace though was to get to Sae's palace. Because I love Sae's palace, and just in general, the entire month of November. It has amazing story bits, still the height of P5's story if you ask me, a great palace, and Whims of Fate is one of my favorite tracks from P5's OST. Sae's boss was even changed to when she spins the wheel, whatever element it goes to, she uses that element and her resistances would change. I loved that, and it was extremely fun to take what you more or less should have learned about enemies' attacks and their correlating weaknesses and use them for a boss fight. So much better than the original where you don't need strategy at all other than "hit her hard lol."

Shido's boss fight was changed to be super climactic. They made it easier for the sake of Joker being able to confront the dude that got him a criminal record and directly ruining his life, and I can't complain. It felt amazing to 1v1 him. The game fixed the possibility of being screwed by it by having him attack in a certain order like the twins do in their special fight, so that was nice at least.

Yaldabaoth's boss fight was the same. Still easy enough, as long as you're careful. Or...not careful but extremely lucky. I wasn't able to finish it off while it was charging up its almighty attack, but my entire party ended up dodging it so it didn't even matter lmao. Now that I think about it, it very easily could have been because of that one Will Seed accessory that makes you dodge attacks but... I don't care. I was still super lucky I didn't get wiped and be forced to start the fight over starting from the Holy Grail.

The new boss... Uhm... It was taking way too long so I ended up cheesing it with Haru's third persona's new move that basically makes you invincible for a turn halfway through the fight. ^^; Noir was a Vault Guardian bot, Queen just healed and took advantage of one of the tentscles' nuclear weaknesses to Baton Pass to Crow when she could, and then Joker and Crow did all the work. Crow's third tier persona's almighty move kicked ass and you know what else kicked ass? Hassou Tobi abuse. The other 2 phases weren't even really fights, so at least that kept it from dragging too much, despite all the phases it had.

When Joker and the boss had that punch-out fight though, I lost my shit. I was laughing so hard I started to cry and my back was hurting. I don't even remember why I thought it was so funny, but I was laughing my ass off. I couldn't even press X to get Joker to punch because I was laughing so hard. Right before it happened, I joked to my sister that a tutorial would pop up and suddenly the gameplay will have the controls from that P4 fighting game and you have to learn that in order to have one last showdown. And then I got the prompt to punch. Then Joker punched. And I started laughing.

11/10 would punch Adam Kadmon man again

On the topic of the new stuff though...

Kasumi/Sumire/Violet was pretty fun to use but badly, badly overshadowed by both Joker and Crow, at least during boss fights. She offered to join the party before Shido's palace and she really should have joined then. Maybe she would just be absent for the Mementos dungeon & Yaldabaoth/Holy Grail boss fights, but she should have been there for Shido's palace. I liked her wanted gimmick of being the crit'er, but when you get her, Mona's third tier persona learns an AOE Lucky Punch, Joker already has high crit, and I would always baton pass to Crow because of his severe almighty AOE ×3. Plus, the way I built my Joker with practically exclusively two personas, Yoshitsune and Kuguya Picaro, he was already the phys and light attacker except with the addition of being able to have an auto-concentrate at the start of every fight (I have no idea why—it's something with Yoshitsune but idk what it is), the charge skill, Yoshitsune's nature of tripling the effect of charge, and the additional electric damage. She should have been a party member before the new semester. Obviously this isn't the case for everyone, but for me personally, I didn't often find use for her, especially since she can't do colossal or even severe magic damage. She is a very good physical party member, but again, Joker already covers that better than any other party member can, including Skull.

Crow was a great party member though. I used him in every request and boss fight after I got him. I was a little salty he couldn't switch back and forth from Loki and Robin Hood but I suppose if he did, he'd make Violet even more obsolete lol. I liked Loki while playing P3, so I'm glad I was able to use that persona again. He had Debilitate which was amazing. Queen learns Checkmate when getting to the third tier persona, which is an AOE version of it, but honestly, whenever I was fighting a boss that I thought needed it at that point in the game, I didn't need it to be multi-hitting. Plus, it costed about 90 SP and no way I was using that over her healing, defense buffs, and nuclear damage.

But anyway, back to Crow, I loved using him. He basically turned into my almighty damage dealer, even with his somewhat weaker magic, at least compared to his strength stat, but considering the final boss fight, it was extremely helpful. It did take up a lot of SP, but I had 5 Somas, a ton of SP restoratives, and had basically asked Kawakami to make me either curry or coffee every single night I was able to, so I pretty much had an infinite supply of it.

It helped that P5R made Akechi a much more likable character too. I liked him all right in P5, but didn't find him all that sympathetic, and thought that the characters treating him so sympathetically was extremely jarring considering all the horrible shit he did (which includes making orphans of both Haru and Futaba). That still kind of holds true, but since you can actually build a social link with him outside of the story, you can see more of his character and it improved him in leaps and bounds. Not to mention that his 8th confidant rank was....something else ^^; having a section of the new story too with just Joker and Akechi, (and kind of Sumire too, but mostly just those two) was awesome. I loved seeing them team up to punch Adam Kadmon man in the face. Plus, having more time with him in the Phantom Thieves without pretense had him going "I am surrounded by idiots" basically the whole time he was there. Like—I even felt disappointed that Akechi was actually dead and he didn't survive. That's a huge improvement over from me wishing one of the dialogue options was "fuck you lmao" during his death scene at the end of Shido's palace when he asked the Phantom Thieves to promise him to change Shido's heart.

For Sumire though, she had a good character arc. Like her gameplay though, she was badly overshadowed by both Akechi and Maruki. Even still, I liked her character arc and everything, and her social link. Even if I ended up liking Kasumi more in the end anyway rip

That's kind of all I have to say about her, oof. She was good, but other elements took attention away from her pretty badly.

Maruki though... Maruki was amazing. He was a fantastic antagonist because I got to punch him in the face, his palace was amazing, I loved the music, the different sections were cool, and I even liked the color maze bridge puzzle thing. I definitely wouldn't like it so much if I ever replayed it, especially if I try to get that final Will Seed, which wasn't hard, but did take kind of a while, but I don't think I will be so it's not a problem.

He had such good motivations, and the fact that he didn't ever actually hurt anyone other than when he punched Joker in the face made him really sympathetic and redeemable to me. At the end of the day, all he actually wanted to do was make people happy and not have to suffer, and was willing to destroy himself in order to achieve it. But just like with every belief, it went too far and he took away people's free will and ability to pick for themselves. The kind of moral question about the entire thing was very interesting, and I kind of wish it was more further addressed. There should have been Sojiro or some other character that was perfectly happy in Maruki's alternate reality so they could challenge the Phantom Thieves in a way Maruki wasn't able to. Still, what was done was really good and I liked it a lot.

...

Even all that said, I have no idea why the hell Joker could not use Satanael. There was such a perfect opportunity to use it once Maruki evolved his persona to Adam Kadmon, a giant persona. Hell, it was still small when compared to Satanael. It's after beating Yaldabaoth so Joker should have access to it. It would have been epic to be able to use a giant Satanael in a normal-ish boss fight. I'm sure there are some explanations as to why, but the game never mentions it or even acknowledges Satanael so it doesn't count and I'm still bitter. The writers forgot that Joker has a persona literally as big as a cognitive god and that kind of broke some immersion for me. Immersion completely went out the window once Joker and Maruki started punching each other but STILL. Satanael's not that great a persona, but having it show up in the story again would have been so awesome to use a persona about as big as Shibuya more than once.

Hardly comparable to my beef about Satanael, but I wish that while the party members were acting as Phantom Thieves, or at least while they're in the metaverse, the names on their text boxes would change to their Phantom Thief names. There's no reason why they didn't, especially since the characters exclusively use their Phantom Thief names to call each other anyway. It's not a huge deal or anything, but I would have liked it.

I loved Royal, and totally think it's better than P5 vanilla. Its new semester kind of takes away from the superb ending of the vanilla game, but the new stuff still makes up for it. Don't get me wrong, you can still get the original ending from the vanilla game in Royal, at least I'm pretty sure you can, but it involves you missing out on all the new content, including Violet as a party member and getting Crow back, plus Joker's showtimes so it's not worth it imo

I wasn't actually looking forward to the game when it was announced, or even planning on getting it, but I had the Phantom Thieves' edition pre-ordered for me as a Christmas present so I wasn't going to...not play it lol. I'm extremely glad I got it though, even if I otherwise wouldn't have, and now that I have finished it, I'm very happy with the game. The gameplay's improved by leaps and bounds, and the new content was all amazing.

... And I got to punch Maruki in the face.

I did end up getting the platinum trophy for Royal too, so despite the Phantom Thieves den thing, I don't see myself going back to it, at least any time soon. It was an amazing experience, but I can set my sights back to FFVII now lol.

...Although, I did hear you can fight the twins and Lavenza so uhhh maybe i won't be shelfing it so soon—

#persona 5 royal #persona #p5r spoilers #personal #long post

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