Persona 5 Royal came out relatively quickly after the original Persona 5 leading to tons of questions from fans. In that sense, it has more in common with the enhanced Persona 3 version 'FES' than the four-year-wait for Persona 4 Golden.
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Persona 5 Royal didn’t have nearly as much time as P4G, but it has so many fundamental differences that make it feel just as significant an upgrade as these other releases. Countless pieces of brand-new content raise the quality of this already great game, as well as some upgrades to the mechanics and enemies that make it feel surprisingly fresh.
Updated on August 1, 2023 by Quinton O'Connor: With the recent PS5, Xbox, and PC launches of Persona 5 Royal, even more people are learning firsthand what the big deal is with this critically acclaimed game. We've included additional details on what to expect if you should happen to be playing Royal years after the original version's release.
10 Kasumi Joins The Phantom Thieves
Perhaps the clearest and most significant addition to this game is Kasumi Yoshizawa -- a new character introduced to the Phantom Thieves with her own Persona and Social Link adventure to learn her backstory. On a mechanical level, this gives you more options for team buildouts and many Bless abilities for a great new range of attacks.
On a story level, Kasumi primarily complements the game’s previous story rather than adding something new. These kinds of character additions can often try to be more significant such as Persona 4 Golden’s Marie. But, for the most part, it’s something you won’t miss too much if you aren’t especially interested.
9 Velvet Room Challenge Fights
Another primary addition to the game is its inclusion of Velvet Room Challenge Battles, plenty of which are available normally, whilst others are unlocked via DLC. Some of the DLC fights even revolve around characters from past Persona titles. If you're picking up Persona 5 Royal for PS5, Xbox Series, or PC, however, you've got free access to all these spiffy extra fights.
This is a spectacular addition -- particularly for hardcore players wishing to try something a little more difficult. There are plenty of item and experience awards for completing these difficult fights. Most important is the story you can tell of making your character strong enough to take on such intimidating foes.
8 The Thieves Den
Another cool source of new stuff is a huge chunk of secret unlockables through the Thieves Den. This addition involves a hideout for you and the Phantom Thieves to hang out and chat. This can be fun to hang around in, but completing challenges and interacting with them will unlock behind-the-scenes content like concept art and music.
This is a fairly small thing in the grand scheme, but the Thieves Den is still a lot of fun to hang out in just for the extra dialogue. Nonetheless, having these collectibles means that you’re able to fill out more bubbles as a completionist, giving you even more to do than the original Persona 5.
7 The Kichijoji Jazz Club
There’s another new hangout for you to visit in Kichijoji in the form of a jazz club, and it has a lot more to do in terms of building your character. This space is an area to hang out with certain social links, play games to raise your stats, and even drink a daily co*cktail to raise your party member’s combat stats.
This is a fun place to go, but being able to modify your team on such a fundamental level is a huge boost for those who want to play in a very particular or unusual way. Even if you don’t like doing many side activities, the jazz club's still fun if you have some spare money and time.
6 New Battle Themes
Though we've covered most of the new content, most of the significant changes to the game have to do with altered mechanics and effects. These are most easily seen in the updated headshots for dialogue, but even more significant is a new standard battle theme that plays during combat.
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This is an extremely refreshing and necessary change for anyone playing for the second time. Listening to the first part of the same song for so many hours gets repetitive in a single playthrough after all. The quality of these updated themes could be debated compared to the original fight song, but it spices things up well.
5 Morgana Takes A Backseat
While this might seem small, one of the greatest changes in Persona 5 Royal has to do with how often Morgana will talk to you in the game. The original game was the victim of several memes due to Morgana telling you to go to bed, regardless of all the things you could potentially do at night.
Thankfully, this game includes far less of that due, in part, to new events like the previously mentioned jazz club giving you activities to do in evening hours. This also makes Morgana far less irritating to have beside you at all times which makes the social parts of the game way more tolerable.
4 Mementos Stamps
There’s another gameplay addition that ends up feeling more like a tweak but makes it a much more significant quality of life improvement. Mementos can be a chore to drive around and fight in and, besides finishing certain social link events, it feels almost pointless to regularly visit and grind in compared to palaces.
The introduction of Stamps makes it more bearable as they give you gameplay buffs that make the random mobs feel more rewarding and go by much quicker. This was not the strongest aspect of the original game but now feels much more worthwhile to go through for side quests and experience points.
3 Free Grappling Hook
Exploring the palaces already leads you to tons of secrets and hidden pathways. Somehow, Persona 5 Royal lets you explore even further with new hidden areas to jump across for treasures and mobs. Rather than jumping or using events, you literally are given a grappling hook early in the game to let you access hidden points around the map.
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This is especially generous for the later parts of the game when you’ve already become fed up with exploring dungeons and would rather hunt for secrets quickly than spend forever digging around various floors for random chests at the end of a maze. It’s small, but a great way to find extra satisfying secrets and items to help you along the way.
2 Tweaked Shadow Madarame Fight
The last major difference between Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal is its palace boss fights as many of the worst fights have been given a totally new life in the remake. The first of these, Shadow Madarame, wasn’t an inherently bad fight to begin with. But it feels pretty quick when you figure out the strategy of using certain move types to hit each painting.
Persona 5 Royal mixes it up by having Madarame take one additional form creating clones of himself that each attack with a different elemental attack. This extra stage makes it far more dynamic -- especially after the first Palace Boss with its titanic size and special attack to help weaken it.
1 Improved Shadow Sae Fight
The fight against Madarame was made more fun in Persona 5 Royal, but the one against Sae went from being abysmal to one of the most interesting in the game. Despite being in a casino and having a heavy gambling theme, there’s very little chance used in the original game. The roulette has a small number of outcomes and is dealt with quite quickly.
In the new version of the game, Sae uses the roulette to determine her attacks which leads to more elemental moves and a greater variance on what you’ll deal with. This makes it feel like a climactic showdown against someone who truly feels like the master of her domain rather than a simple boss fight to continue the story.
Next: Persona 5 Royal: How To Unlock The Third Semester
