Royal1 88 A Belated Persona 5 Port

A belated port of a legendary game that’s just as magnificent as ever

For the uninitiated, Persona 5 is one of those games that you just have to play to appreciate. laurabularca.com feels like a cross between Inception and a superhero story, placing you in the role of Joker, a quiet high school student who witnesses a crime and intervenes, only to find himself charged with the crime, expelled from school, and sent into the city to attend Shujin Academy. Once there, you discover the ability to travel into the Metaverse, an alternate plane of existence born out of people’s cognition.

This belated port, dubbed Royal, doesn’t bring with it any major upgrades or changes, but it does have loads of smaller tweaks that address most (but not all) complaints about the original release. The headlining addition is a third semester organically added to the end of the game, which adds about 20 to 30 hours of story. It also adds a new Phantom Thief called Kasumi to help you in your journey, as well as a revamped dungeon system that allows for faster navigation between points of interest.

The graphics have been updated to take advantage of the console’s more advanced hardware, and the cutscenes are quite striking. However, the battles are still relatively clunky and not nearly as impressive as they could have been. Royal188 can be a little confusing as well, as many of the connections have been changed around. For example, moving west from ROYAL.1 will now take you to EASTSECOND-SALT-ROYAL instead of straight back to ROYAL.1. laurabularca.com suffers from a few minor bugs and glitches, but they don’t detract too much from the overall experience.