StarTopic Persona 5 Royal |ST| It's Time to Unveil the Hype You've Been Waiting For

[thoughthaver]

im back to playing this game after pokemon took all my attention

Spoiler

i love how big mad akechi gets after the futaba palace. get fucked you nerd cop.

 

[Hero of Hyrule]

This shit is so great

 

[zumaddy]

Well you guys weren't kidding about Palace 5 being the worst, capped off with a shitty boss to boot. I'm being punished for not looking up his weaknesses beforehand because my Joker doesn't have the right elements to contribute meaningfully to the multiple waves of enemys. Guess I gotta find a Persona with Psi attacks...

 

[lol]

Well you guys weren't kidding about Palace 5 being the worst, capped off with a shitty boss to boot. I'm being punished for not looking up his weaknesses beforehand because my Joker doesn't have the right elements to contribute meaningfully to the multiple waves of enemys. Guess I gotta find a Persona with Psi attacks...

Yeah the boss fight is pretty annoying to deal with, the main gimmick is exploiting weaknesses + using baton pass

honestly, a lot of people just switch to merciless mode for this boss because it funnily makes the fight much much easier (weaknesses/technical deal x3 more damage)

 

[robertman2]

Well you guys weren't kidding about Palace 5 being the worst, capped off with a shitty boss to boot. I'm being punished for not looking up his weaknesses beforehand because my Joker doesn't have the right elements to contribute meaningfully to the multiple waves of enemys. Guess I gotta find a Persona with Psi attacks...

if you're playing a version with the dlc personas, you could always just cheese him wuth izanagi-no-okami

 

[oomoepoo]

I honestly really liked the palace but I agree that the boss is very not fun, especially because he got buffed in Royal, I believe. Almost made me quit the game :v (even though I think it's a fun concept just badly executed)

If you have any items of the "inflicts x amount of y-type damage" now is the perfect opportunity to use them. Also, as the others pointed out, switching to merciless actually makes it easier. Batton Pass and exploiting the weaknesses is key here (also all the waves have two different elemental weaknesses).

 

[SammyJ9]

Well you guys weren't kidding about Palace 5 being the worst, capped off with a shitty boss to boot. I'm being punished for not looking up his weaknesses beforehand because my Joker doesn't have the right elements to contribute meaningfully to the multiple waves of enemys. Guess I gotta find a Persona with Psi attacks...

He sucks in Royal and is just overtuned with the time limit and all. He’s still beatable but it feels like you’re extremely disadvantaged if you don’t have absolutely everything you might need like character switching mid-battle and a lot of other optional perks you may or may not have yet.

Good luck! Switching to merciless can help once you know the weaknesses, or just cheesing it with DLC or something. Sucks he’s kind of a roadblock, especially because once you get past this part, the game is pretty much A+ the entire rest of the way

 

[zumaddy]

if you're playing a version with the dlc personas, you could always just cheese him wuth izanagi-no-okami

This was the key!! Heavy Curse Damage on the wave I was struggling with did the trick. Shout-out to the surprising MVP Yusuke who countered a fair amount of attacks. This piece of trash is now dead and I can go back to enjoying the game after struggling to motivate myself to play.

 

[SammyJ9]

This was the key!! Heavy Curse Damage on the wave I was struggling with did the trick. Shout-out to the surprising MVP Yusuke who countered a fair amount of attacks. This piece of trash is now dead and I can go back to enjoying the game after struggling to motivate myself to play.

rubs hands together awaiting your upcoming reactions

 

[Mekanos]

I always hear about how Ann is one of the best party members but I feel like in both vanilla and Royal she's a glass cannon and I always have to babysit her in battle. Is there something I'm missing? I ended up benching her in vanilla but I'm on the third dungeon in Royal and want to try to stick with her the whole game this time. My vanilla team was Ryuji/Makoto/Morgana, right now I have Yusuke and Ryuji with her and Yusuke has been great, clearly got buffs from vanilla.

 

[Hero of Hyrule]

I always hear about how Ann is one of the best party members but I feel like in both vanilla and Royal she's a glass cannon and I always have to babysit her in battle. Is there something I'm missing? I ended up benching her in vanilla but I'm on the third dungeon in Royal and want to try to stick with her the whole game this time. My vanilla team was Ryuji/Makoto/Morgana, right now I have Yusuke and Ryuji with her and Yusuke has been great, clearly got buffs from vanilla.

Have you upgraded her gear? She can take a good few hits usually, and her magic stat is great.

 

[SammyJ9]

I always hear about how Ann is one of the best party members but I feel like in both vanilla and Royal she's a glass cannon and I always have to babysit her in battle. Is there something I'm missing? I ended up benching her in vanilla but I'm on the third dungeon in Royal and want to try to stick with her the whole game this time. My vanilla team was Ryuji/Makoto/Morgana, right now I have Yusuke and Ryuji with her and Yusuke has been great, clearly got buffs from vanilla.

She’s the best magic attacker in the game, and better than Morgana in pretty much every way; I never found her to be more fragile than any other magic-y party member. If you have Makoto and her for heals that’s really all you need, especially later in the game. Ann is just better optimized for raw magic damage than anyone else.

Everyone is perfectly useable and any party can work, but the classic combo is Joker + PHYS attacker + MAG attacker + mixed support (basically Makoto). I’m a big fan of Ryuji, Ann, and Makoto, but especially in Royal Yusuke is also very good.

 

[Mekanos]

Have you upgraded her gear? She can take a good few hits usually, and her magic stat is great.

She is upgraded, but still the squishiest of my team. Also maybe it’s just bad luck but I feel like I run into ice enemies a lot. We’ll see how this dungeon goes.

 

[Weebos]

Yeah I generally use Ann as soon as I get her until the Royal section at the end of the game, and even then she is still stronger than the other options.

She's very strong, next time I play the game I should intentionally bench her and Makoto just to give the lads some more screen time. I was also thinking of playing with the party members acting freely to relive the true Persona 3 experience lol.

 

[zumaddy]

Just encountered my favourite Phansite post so far

 

[Mekanos]

So far I'm not a huge fan of the changes to the third dungeon, feels like it's easy to get lost and a lot of the pathway progressions are a bit obtuse (like when you have to jump around the rafters to the ground to get the second Wish Seed). Security camera mechanic is kinda meh too.

 

[Chie]

In general I would swap around the party members as their sp burned down. Futabas passive recovery and the sp restore items affected everyone so I just rotated people in and out since everyone gained xp and no one fell behind.

My team for the final boss was Joker, Ryuji, Makoto, and Kasumi

 

[Hero of Hyrule]

So far I'm not a huge fan of the changes to the third dungeon, feels like it's easy to get lost and a lot of the pathway progressions are a bit obtuse (like when you have to jump around the rafters to the ground to get the second Wish Seed). Security camera mechanic is kinda meh too.

I hated the third dungeon in vanilla, and continued to hate it here. Music is amazing, bank heist is a great setting, and Makoto is the GOAT, but actually playing it is miserable.

 

[Mekanos]

I hated the third dungeon in vanilla, and continued to hate it here. Music is amazing, bank heist is a great setting, and Makoto is the GOAT, but actually playing it is miserable.

Beat it last night. I will say the new boss mechanics are… interesting. Ryuji and Yosuke managed to make short work of the pig at least.

 

[thoughthaver]

I'm beginning to get that smash bros speculation bug so i gotta ask in a somewhat relevant thread: what do people think are the chances of joker coming back in the next smash game? sonic and bayo are hard locks so that makes his fate quite interesting. I've seen some people suggesting that he gets replaced with the P6 protagonist but given the 1,000 year development cycle for that game that seems unlikely. and if he does come back do they slap a couple of royal tracks and kasumi on the background of mementos and call it a day or will there be more?

 

[robertman2]

I'm beginning to get that smash bros speculation bug so i gotta ask in a somewhat relevant thread: what do people think are the chances of joker coming back in the next smash game? sonic and bayo are hard locks so that makes his fate quite interesting. I've seen some people suggesting that he gets replaced with the P6 protagonist but given the 1,000 year development cycle for that game that seems unlikely. and if he does come back do they slap a couple of royal tracks and kasumi on the background of mementos and call it a day or will there be more?

Like, 99.99% chance he'll be back.

It's more likely they add Akechi as an echo or something than cutting Joker

 

[Mekanos]

I'm beginning to get that smash bros speculation bug so i gotta ask in a somewhat relevant thread: what do people think are the chances of joker coming back in the next smash game? sonic and bayo are hard locks so that makes his fate quite interesting. I've seen some people suggesting that he gets replaced with the P6 protagonist but given the 1,000 year development cycle for that game that seems unlikely. and if he does come back do they slap a couple of royal tracks and kasumi on the background of mementos and call it a day or will there be more?

I don’t see Joker ever being replaced, he’s basically the Cloud of the series now. As long as Sega is on board I would be surprised if they drop him, at worst he might be DLC again.

I do hope we get some more music, and an Assist Trophy would be great, but I don’t think they will change anything about Mementos.

 

[Linkstrikesback]

I don’t see Joker ever being replaced, he’s basically the Cloud of the series now. As long as Sega is on board I would be surprised if they drop him, at worst he might be DLC again.

I do hope we get some more music, and an Assist Trophy would be great, but I don’t think they will change anything about Mementos.

This was looking to be true of Yu Narukami until he was usurped as well. As long as they don't drop the ball on persona 6, they can move on from Joker.

It depends a lot more on what's next for smash bros (and to a lesser extent, Persona), because if Smash is another iterative game, it will certainly save a lot of time if they can reuse a bunch of existing content over having to make entirely new things.

 

[zumaddy]

CHAMPAGNE FLUTES AND DINNER SUITS THAT

 

[Hero of Hyrule]

This was looking to be true of Yu Narukami until he was usurped as well. As long as they don't drop the ball on persona 6, they can move on from Joker.

It depends a lot more on what's next for smash bros (and to a lesser extent, Persona), because if Smash is another iterative game, it will certainly save a lot of time if they can reuse a bunch of existing content over having to make entirely new things.

Eh, the scale of P4's success and P5's success is totally different.
P4 sold 2.5 million over its entire life, that's with all the versions and re-releases included; P5 sold 2 million at launch alone, and at this point is at 6.5 million+, more than almost all FF games (including FF7R) and every DQ game.

P6 would have to similarly catch lightning in a battle like P5 did, and while that's not out of question, it is much harder now that people are familiar with Persona, rather than it catching them off guard like 5 did.

CHAMPAGNE FLUTES AND DINNER SUITS THAT

YES

Now from here through to the end of the game, it is just relentless masterpiece level stuff.

 

[robertman2]

Eh, the scale of P4's success and P5's success is totally different.
P4 sold 2.5 million over its entire life, that's with all the versions and re-releases included; P5 sold 2 million at launch alone, and at this point is at 6.5 million+, more than almost all FF games (including FF7R) and every DQ game.

P6 would have to similarly catch lightning in a battle like P5 did, and while that's not out of question, it is much harder now that people are familiar with Persona, rather than it catching them off guard like 5 did.


YES

Now from here through to the end of the game, it is just relentless masterpiece level stuff.

Iirc P5 is at like 8 million now

 

[Chie]

Eh, the scale of P4's success and P5's success is totally different.
P4 sold 2.5 million over its entire life, that's with all the versions and re-releases included; P5 sold 2 million at launch alone, and at this point is at 6.5 million+, more than almost all FF games (including FF7R) and every DQ game.

P6 would have to similarly catch lightning in a battle like P5 did, and while that's not out of question, it is much harder now that people are familiar with Persona, rather than it catching them off guard like 5 did.


YES

Now from here through to the end of the game, it is just relentless masterpiece level stuff.

To be honest I think Persona 4 did very well considering the platforms it was released on initially (the original version and golden).

-The Ps2 two years after the ps3 and Wii and three years after the 360.
-A doomed handheld that was quickly abandoned by its maker and faded away.

P4 did well enough for them to do a bunch of multimedia stuff around it for several years. You don't do that for a modest success.

I do think that if P4 had been released elsewhere it would have done better.

I know they reused tje game engine and ps2 era assets (should still release on ps2) but a quick and dirty port to the ps3, and even the 360 or Wii in addition would have all helped it a lot being on a modern system.

As for golden that should have just been done for the 3ds. I guess when the project started they couldn't have known how things would turn out, but i think golden would have done better there.

P5 got released on the ps4 in a good point of its life so it was in a better spot to do well. How things turn out for p6 we'll have to based on where and when it gets released.

 

[Hero of Hyrule]

To be honest I think Persona 4 did very well considering the platforms it was released on initially (the original version and golden).

-The Ps2 two years after the ps3 and Wii and three years after the 360.
-A doomed handheld that was quickly abandoned by its maker and faded away.

P4 did well enough for them to do a bunch of multimedia stuff around it for several years. You don't do that for a modest success.

I do think that if P4 had been released elsewhere it would have done better.

I know they reused tje game engine and ps2 era assets (should still release on ps2) but a quick and dirty port to the ps3, and even the 360 or Wii in addition would have all helped it a lot being on a modern system.

As for golden that should have just been done for the 3ds. I guess when the project started they couldn't have known how things would turn out, but i think golden would have done better there.

P5 got released on the ps4 in a good point of its life so it was in a better spot to do well. How things turn out for p6 we'll have to based on where and when it gets released.

Oh yeah I absolutely agree platform choice is the reason for P4G not getting bigger (that as well as there being lower tolerance for Japanese media in that edgelord late 2000s era); I’m just saying though, reasons notwithstanding, P5 was the breakout moment to a degree far beyond anything P4 managed to achieve. It’ll be very hard for the next entry to see similar growth over P5.

Iirc P5 is at like 8 million now

I think that figure included Strikers and Dancing too lol

 

[robertman2]

Oh yeah I absolutely agree platform choice is the reason for P4G not getting bigger (that as well as there being lower tolerance for Japanese media in that edgelord late 2000s era); I’m just saying though, reasons notwithstanding, P5 was the breakout moment to a degree far beyond anything P4 managed to achieve. It’ll be very hard for the next entry to see similar growth over P5.


I think that figure included Strikers and Dancing too lol

oh i didn't know it had strikers too lol

 

[Mekanos]

I'm still not 100% sure how Darts works given that I managed to gain points hitting close to the bullseye but at least I upgraded Ann's Baton Pass

Also this game sucks because I can't romance Yusuke

 

[zumaddy]

I'm still not 100% sure how Darts works given that I managed to gain points hitting close to the bullseye but at least I upgraded Ann's Baton Pass

Also this game sucks because I can't romance Yusuke

Dude is seriously telling Joker he is an inspiration and guiding light, takes him on a romantic boat ride out on a lake, is the guy who stays over most often at Leblanc and ATLUS screams "NO HOMO!"

 

[SammyJ9]

Dude is seriously telling Joker he is an inspiration and guiding light, takes him on a romantic boat ride out on a lake, is the guy who stays over most often at Leblanc and ATLUS screams "NO HOMO!"

There's a lot of troll-y moments with Yusuke, like his comment about how he's going to switch to 'wearing as little as possible' during one of your hangouts.

I do wish you could date him, plus like... any of the other male confidants, but there's also a pretty good interpretation of Yusuke being Ace that I like, too. I can't remember who did it but I remember seeing a video discussing that.

 

[Hero of Hyrule]

Really hope P6 allows gay romances. P4 and P5 both have at least one character each that seems almost written for that.

Yusuke is one of them. He's just a fantastic character in general. His oblivious eccentricity is incredible, and Ganondorf brings him to life with an incredible performance to boot.

 

[SammyJ9]

Really hope P6 allows gay romances. P4 and P5 both have at least one character each that seems almost written for that.

Yusuke is one of them. He's just a fantastic character in general. His oblivious eccentricity is incredible, and Ganondorf brings him to life with an incredible performance to boot.

lol Ganondorf, I forgot about that. And here's hoping. We still have no idea what P6 even looks like, so it's always possible. Yosuke in P4 would have been SO much better if he could end on either dating you, or at least having a change of heart and accepting that part of him or something. Wasn't that cut scene for his Rank 10 basically that?

 

[Hero of Hyrule]

lol Ganondorf, I forgot about that. And here's hoping. We still have no idea what P6 even looks like, so it's always possible. Yosuke in P4 would have been SO much better if he could end on either dating you, or at least having a change of heart and accepting that part of him or something. Wasn't that cut scene for his Rank 10 basically that?

Iirc it was the rank 9 scene, and it was in the game until so late in development that even English voice files have been found for it in the data?

But yeah, it’s a real shame they didn’t commit to that.

 

[thoughthaver]

just got through the Hawaii section

Spoiler

bit of a slog honestly but whatever. yusuke's plane being conveniently re-routed from california to hawaii (wouldn't they just re-route it to a nearby west coast airport or put it into a holding pattern until the weather was clear?) was pretty funny. i don't know why they bothered with that explanation and just had his school come along but it's fine.
makoto being the obvious designated romantic interest cuz lol that section had the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
wish they didn't just show you the SIU director evilly planning everything tho. cops are pricks but you don't need to show them being pricks all the time. a bit of a show-don't-tell moment.
going into the okumura section if the game and i can already tell I'm gonna have some real spicy thoughts by the end of it.

 

[Mekanos]

I never finished my New Game+ of P5 in English, but my first playthrough of both 5 and 5R are in Japanese and Tomokazu Sugita is fantastic as Yusuke. If I do a NG+ of Royal it will be in English as well. Not too sure how likely it is I finish my vanilla NG+ though, that's a lot of P5 lol

 

[robertman2]

as far as a gay romance goes, I'd rather have Akechi over Yusuke

Spoiler

Fits better thematically with the third semester, and he's just a significantly more interesting character

 

[Hero of Hyrule]

just got through the Hawaii section

Spoiler

bit of a slog honestly but whatever. yusuke's plane being conveniently re-routed from california to hawaii (wouldn't they just re-route it to a nearby west coast airport or put it into a holding pattern until the weather was clear?) was pretty funny. i don't know why they bothered with that explanation and just had his school come along but it's fine.
makoto being the obvious designated romantic interest cuz lol that section had the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
wish they didn't just show you the SIU director evilly planning everything tho. cops are pricks but you don't need to show them being pricks all the time. a bit of a show-don't-tell moment.
going into the okumura section if the game and i can already tell I'm gonna have some real spicy thoughts by the end of it.

Sorry, what do you mean by the Makoto comment? I don't remember anything at that point that indicates one is preferred over the other, but maybe I am not remembering?

 

[Mekanos]

Sorry, what do you mean by the Makoto comment? I don't remember anything at that point that indicates one is preferred over the other, but maybe I am not remembering?

In vanilla the scene I remember the most for this was in the fourth palace.

Spoiler

The team is dodging flying debris from Shadow Wakaba and Joker dives and saves Makoto. They share a little moment and Joker gives a confident chuckle. I thought it was cute.

Dunno if this scene is in R though, haven’t gotten to it yet.

 

[thoughthaver]

Sorry, what do you mean by the Makoto comment? I don't remember anything at that point that indicates one is preferred over the other, but maybe I am not remembering?

Spoiler

i picked the makoto option during the hawaii trip since picking up girls with ryuji sounded like hell. just thought it was funny that you got the option for an intimate moment with her and not ann. dunno tho do you get other options that i missed out on?

 

[robertman2]

Spoiler

i picked the makoto option during the hawaii trip since picking up girls with ryuji sounded like hell. just thought it was funny that you got the option for an intimate moment with her and not ann. dunno tho do you get other options that i missed out on?

Spoiler

there's Ann, Kawakami and Hifumi options depending on your confidant rank with them

 

[thoughthaver]

Spoiler

there's Ann, Kawakami and Hifumi options depending on your confidant rank with them

Spoiler

oh lol i got owned then for barely doing any confidants

 

[Hero of Hyrule]

In vanilla the scene I remember the most for this was in the fourth palace.

Spoiler

The team is dodging flying debris from Shadow Wakaba and Joker dives and saves Makoto. They share a little moment and Joker gives a confident chuckle. I thought it was cute.

Dunno if this scene is in R though, haven’t gotten to it yet.

Spoiler

Yeah, this scene and the one where Makoto is clinging on to Joker's leg during the power outage in Soeiro's house have strong ship vibes, but to be fair Joker ends up getting scenes with like with all the women party members; Ann and Kasumi's are extremely overt through the story, with the latter especially getting more than all the others put together, but Ann also gets a lot at the start, and iirc Haru and Futaba both have at least one each as well. So I don't really take this as a confirmation that one is meant as canon over the others, as much as I just assume that there are scenes for all of them, players just tend to notice the ones for the character the may prefer.

Speaking as a Makoto man myself lol

Spoiler

i picked the makoto option during the hawaii trip since picking up girls with ryuji sounded like hell. just thought it was funny that you got the option for an intimate moment with her and not ann. dunno tho do you get other options that i missed out on?

Spoiler

There are different requirements for getting the romance option for this event. For Ann, you need to be Rank 9+Romance. For Makoto, you need to be Rank 5. For Kawakami, you need to be Rank 7 or above.

There are similarly different requirements for later events too. I think they did it this way so that in the absence of a clear player preferred choice, everyone would get the chance to be the "default" in at least one event

 

[zumaddy]

Oh yeah now that I've played both, the SMTV/Persona 5 comparison reviews really are ridiculous. SMTV has a very lonely and somewhat alien atmosphere while P5 is set in a bunch of cities with your friends always with you.

as far as a gay romance goes, I'd rather have Akechi over Yusuke

Spoiler

Fits better thematically with the third semester, and he's just a significantly more interesting character

I just did Akechi's Rank 8 and boy howdy did that have some subtext lmao

 

[thoughthaver]

Spoiler

Yeah, this scene and the one where Makoto is clinging on to Joker's leg during the power outage in Soeiro's house have strong ship vibes, but to be fair Joker ends up getting scenes with like with all the women party members; Ann and Kasumi's are extremely overt through the story, with the latter especially getting more than all the others put together, but Ann also gets a lot at the start, and iirc Haru and Futaba both have at least one each as well. So I don't really take this as a confirmation that one is meant as canon over the others, as much as I just assume that there are scenes for all of them, players just tend to notice the ones for the character the may prefer.

Speaking as a Makoto man myself lol

Spoiler

There are different requirements for getting the romance option for this event. For Ann, you need to be Rank 9+Romance. For Makoto, you need to be Rank 5. For Kawakami, you need to be Rank 7 or above.

There are similarly different requirements for later events too. I think they did it this way so that in the absence of a clear player preferred choice, everyone would get the chance to be the "default" in at least one event

Spoiler

im literally only doing the supports that you get via text messages and basically ignore the ones where they just want to hang out/wont increase the bond. the perils of doing a blind run i guess.

 

[Hero of Hyrule]

Spoiler

im literally only doing the supports that you get via text messages and basically ignore the ones where they just want to hang out/wont increase the bond. the perils of doing a blind run i guess.

Hey, if it helps that’s exactly how you should play it on the first go lol. Blind runs the first time are much more organic and help immerse you in the world so much more.

 

[robertman2]

Oh yeah now that I've played both, the SMTV/Persona 5 comparison reviews really are ridiculous. SMTV has a very lonely and somewhat alien atmosphere while P5 is set in a bunch of cities with your friends always with you.


I just did Akechi's Rank 8 and boy howdy did that have some subtext lmao

it gets even more subtexty! have you been doing the maruki confidant?

 

[komicer]

Oh yeah now that I've played both, the SMTV/Persona 5 comparison reviews really are ridiculous. SMTV has a very lonely and somewhat alien atmosphere while P5 is set in a bunch of cities with your friends always with you.

I remember reading someone describe the difference between the SMT and the Persona series. In SMT, you fight your friends with demons. In Persona, you fight demons with your friends.

 

[oomoepoo]

Oh yeah now that I've played both, the SMTV/Persona 5 comparison reviews really are ridiculous. SMTV has a very lonely and somewhat alien atmosphere while P5 is set in a bunch of cities with your friends always with you.


I just did Akechi's Rank 8 and boy howdy did that have some subtext lmao

Is it still subtext if they're basically one slip up away from violently making out?

On a more serious note, I have complicated feelings about him but I absolutely love the support conversations with Akechi.