Persona 5 Royal

North American box art
Japanese Name	ペルソナ5 ザ・ロイヤル (Persona 5: The Royal)
Developer(s)	P-Studio Sega (Switch conversion)
Publisher(s)	Atlus (JP) Sega (WW)
Release Date(s)
Nintendo Switch	WW: October 21, 2022
Nintendo Switch	WW: October 21, 2022
Platform(s)
Genre(s)	Role-playing Social simulation
Download Size	14.2GB
Rating(s)
ESRB	06
PEGI	04
CERO	03
ACB	04
USK	04
SMECCV	04
GRAC	01
CID	05

Persona 5 Royal<sup>(JPJapanese: ペルソナ5 ザ・ロイヤル

Romaji: Perusona Faibu Za Roiyaru)</sup>, otherwise abbreviated as P5R and released in Japan as Persona 5: The Royal, is a role-playing game developed and published by Atlus for the Nintendo Switch. Originally released in 2019, it is an enhanced port of Persona 5 (2016), the sixth main installment of the Persona series, itself a part of the larger Megami Tensei franchise. It was released worldwide on October 21, 2022.

Sypnosis

The protagonist, wrongfully convicted as a result of an unintended altercation between himself and a corrupt politician, is forced to move away from his hometown to the city of Tokyo, moving in with a family friend and coffee shop owner Sojiro Sakura for a year while on probation. During this time, he enrolls in and begins attending the local Shujin Academy, where his prominent criminal record causes him to be shunned by faculty and students alike. However, upon making friends with a group of misfit teens who are similarly outcast, he is quickly faced with the depth of corruption plaguing the city, spearheaded by various adults abusing their position of power. Disgusted by these revelations and wishing to exact justice on them, he and his friends awaken to their Personas, physical manifestations of their subconscious spirit. With this new power, they form the Phantom Thieves of Hearts, becoming a group of masked vigilantes that infiltrate an alternate realm known as the Metaverse in order to confront those with distorted desires, forcing redemption onto them through a "change of heart".

Gameplay

Persona 5 Royal is a role-playing game where the player assumes control of the main protagonist, a high-school student living in Tokyo for the whole year while attending school at Shujin Academy. Like its predecessors Persona 3 and Persona 4, the game is a hybridization of traditional role-playing and elements of life simulation games, where student life is populated with leisurely activities to partake in or part time jobs to pursue in order to increase the protagonist's various attributes: Knowledge, Guts, Proficiency, Kindness and Charm. The levelling of these social stats will also influence the protagonist's performance in battle, as certain stats will grant passive buffing effects while in combat. The game's overworld is also affected by a constant day-night cycle and various weather conditions that can determine which activities and jobs are available at any given day. Chief among these activities is the option to pursue and grow character relationships through a system known as "Confidants", which builds on the "Social Link" system present in Persona 3 and Persona 4. During these scenarios, the protagonist can converse with select characters that he meets over the course of the game's story, including every major party member and additional supporting characters, in order to improve his relationship with them. Furthermore, maxing out a Confidant at Rank 10 with any female character opens the option of pursuing a romantic relationship with them. Outside of such instances, maxing out any given Confidant will yield performance enhancements while assuming your Phantom Thief identity. Completing Confidant routes with party members grants access to various abilities for use in combat, such as the "Baton Pass" skill, which allows the player to manually pass their turn upon landing a Critical Hit onto another party member, while boosting their attack capabilities. Maxing out any Confidant outside your party will also present rewards such as key items and battle equipment, as well as an increase in the protagonist's experience and amount of money (in Yen) received upon completion.

Alongside day-to-day life as a student, the protagonist and his friends will also explore the Metaverse, an alternate realm physically embodying the distorted desires of corrupt people, as a vigilante group known as the Phantom Thieves of Hearts. These segments are structured in a similar fashion to other games in the Megami Tensei franchise, consisting of dungeon-crawling and turn-based combat. During the story, the party will visit a set of story-related dungeons known as Palaces, facilities erected from the minds of the plot's various antagonists, in order to defeat said individuals and force a "change of heart" within them. These Palaces are populated with common enemies known as Shadows, manifestations of suppressed psyches that take the form of various mythological deities, in a manner similar to the demons in other Megami Tensei games. Navigation will partially involve the use of stealth in order to avoid being spotted by said Shadows, as being caught while infiltrating a Palace will raise its security level, to the point at which the party is forced to flee the dungeon and return the following day when said level reaches 99%. The protagonist will additionally be required to solve puzzles within these Palaces, by employing the use of a secondary insight ability known as the "Third Eye", capable of highlighting key objects that the player can interact with, or enemy strength relative to the party itself. Throughout Palaces are sporadically placed "Safe Rooms", where the player can enter to save their game, heal their entire party, or manually travel to other Safe Rooms located elsewhere within the Palace. The player has a strict deadline on how long they can take to complete a Palace, as failing to do so will fail to progress the story, resulting in an automatic Game Over.

In addition to the story-sensitive Palaces, a general dungeon is also accessible to the player known as Mementos, a Palace born from the subconsciousness of humanity itself. Mementos is procedurally generated in a similar fashion to Tartarus in Persona 3 and the various dungeons inside the TV World in Persona 4, taking place on several randomized floors filled with Shadows to defeat to obtain additional experience, items and money outside the main story, and can be accessed at any time during the day unlike the main Palaces related to the plot. Every now and then, the player may also be asked by non-player characters (NPCs), to fulfill certain requests that require venturing into Mementos to either complete a task, or redeem a highlighted individual whose depth of corruption isn't yet strong enough to form a Palace of its own.

Turn-based combat involves a battle system known as "1 More", first introduced in Persona 3. Battles involve the party attempting to defeat a set amount of enemies using a combination of physical and magic-based "Skills" granted by their Persona. These scenarios typically involve exploiting the enemies' given weaknesses to specific Skill types, granting the party advantages in battle. The protagonist is unique in that his Wild Card ability grants him access to multiple Personas that he is able to cycle through mid-battle, unlike his party members who are restricted to their given Personas. If any party member strikes an enemy's given weakness, they are granted "1 More" turn to perform an additional action, and these turns are able to be prolonged if enemies are continually exploited until all of them are knocked out. Upon all enemies being knocked "Down", the party initiates a "Hold Up!", during which the protagonist can decide on one of three actions: Requesting money or items to be handed over by the enemy, negotiating with the enemy to have them join his party of acquired Personas if they are on par or lower than his level, or performing an "All-Out Attack", an unavoidable Skill which involves the entire party piling up on an enemy or enemy group for significant Almighty damage.

In and outside of Palaces, the protagonist can visit the Velvet Room, a realm existing between dream and reality operated by Igor and his attendants Caroline & Justine, where the player can opt to fuse Personas in his party to create a new one that inherits the skills from those fused, or re-summon a previously fused or discarded Persona that is registered to the Compendium, a book that tracks every Persona the protagonist has acquired over the course of the game's story. A newly fused Persona's strength is also governed by its Arcana, correlating to the strength of the player's Confidant with another character, often granting additional experience and skills dependent on how highly ranked said Confidant is. Also, Personas can be sacrificed in various ways, also styled after styles of capital punishment. "Hanging" grants a sacrificed Persona's experience points to another chosen Persona, and "Electric Chair" sacrifices one to create a high-end item. A Persona can also be sent into "Solitary Confinement", where they undergo intensive training and gain additional skills quicker than normal. The number of days a Persona must remain to gain strength lessens based on its arcana strength.

Gameplay Changes & Additions

Persona 5 Royal adds numerous elements on top of the original release of Persona 5, including new characters, story elements and gameplay alterations:

New Characters/Confidants

• Kasumi Yoshizawa: An accomplished young gymnast who enrolls in Shujin Academy around the same time as the protagonist. She is a great admirer of the protagonist and one of the few people in school who treats him kindly. Though not an official Phantom Thief at first, she briefly assists the protagonist during the events of the original game. She wears a black mask with silver accents and wields rapiers and rifles in battle.
• Takuto Maruki: A part-time school counselor and researcher of cognitive psience who enters Shujin Academy following Kamoshida's arrest. He is a genuine, understanding person and always helps students whenever needed, being among one of the more popular members of the school faculty. He is one of the protagonist's new Confidants in the story.
• Jose: A mysterious young boy who researches humans and helps the Phantom Thieves in Mementos. Flowers and star stamps can be collected in Mementos, and the protagonist can trade these items with Jose in his shop: flowers are traded for items, and star stamps allow him to change Mementos' cognition, improving the rate at which rewards are given, such as experience, money and items.

School Life

• A new location added is Kichijoji: A popular spot in Tokyo that the protagonist can visit. With a mix of new and old, various cultures and personalities clash in this area that attracts men and women of all ages.
• A collaboration with DARTSLIVE: DARTSLIVE’s latest darts machine, DARTSLIVE3, is fully reproduced in-game. The protagonist can invite his fellow Phantom Thieves to play darts together. This is a completely new minigame in the series. Playing will increase the ally's respective Baton Pass Rank to help in battle.
• The Phantom Thieves can play billiards, an activity which can increase a random Social Stat. In addition, it can help boost the group's Technical rank, increasing Technical damage and Down rate.
• The protagonist can invite a teammate to Jazz Jin to drink virgin cocktails. Depending on the drink, certain stats of party members can be boosted, or they can learn new skills.
• The protagonist can visit an old temple to meditate, increasing his maximum SP.
• A clothing shop has been added where instead of being washed, Sooty Clothing can be traded in for points, which can be redeemed for rewards.
• Numerous other vendors have been added in old areas as well as in Kichijoji, selling more unusual or powerful items, usually accessories.
• The protagonist can invite his Confidants to an aquarium in Shinagawa, a new Confidant hangout spot.
• Another new hangout spot is Nakano, a shopping district filled with many trendy stores.

• Yoshizawa is one of the new Confidants the protagonist can hang out with. Her Arcana is the new, unnumbered Faith.
  • Her Confidant abilities allow ambush from a distance with a grappling hook, and help the group avoid being surrounded by enemies when they're attacked.
• The protagonist can also bond with the aforementioned school counselor Takuto Maruki, of the new Councillor Arcana, numbered with the Arabic numeral 1 rather than the Roman numerals of the other Arcanas.
  • His Confidant abilities grant the protagonist a chance to automatically remove status effects inflicted on him and automatically recover SP when it's running low.
• Instead of being automatic, Goro Akechi's Confidant is now leveled up by hanging out with him.
  • His Confidant ability is Sleuthing Instinct, which gives the protagonist a chance to instantly reveal a random affinity of an enemy at the start of battle. The upgraded version of this, Sleuthing Mastery, has a chance to reveal all affinities of a single enemy.
• Some original Confidants' abilities have been modified, being able to grant the protagonist new perks as well:
  • Ryuji's ability, which let the protagonist automatically take down underleveled encounters, now only activates when he's dashing. He also makes it easier for the protagonist to dash without being spotted.
  • Caroline and Justine's Confidant, once maximized, reduces the fee the protagonist has to pay for summoning Personas.
  • Iwai's customization has been completely overhauled: now all guns can be modified in various, but specific ways. For example, the gun's accuracy or attack power can be increased, or one stat can be boosted further at the expense of the other. Additionally, guns can be customized to afflict Burn, Shock or Freeze.
  • Chihaya's ability to reveal all of a Confidant's remaining abilities is unlocked early, and she can reveal the ideal dialogue choices while hanging out with other Confidants.
  • Ohya's scoops, which reduce the Security Level, have been overhauled.
  • Shinya increases the odds of afflicting ailments with guns.
• The protagonist can bring Caroline and Justine touring around Tokyo, separate from their Confidant events, and they will reward him with Skill Cards for doing so.
• Similarly to female Confidants, the protagonist can now give gifts to male Confidants.
  • There are also no more gifts that require the protagonist be in a romantic relationship to give away.
• The protagonist's free time has been slightly rearranged on the calendar.
  • In addition, on certain evenings, the protagonist now gains additional, but more restricted free time, granting him the ability to perform activities within Café Leblanc.
• Most of the daily activities from the original game have been modified or expanded.
• A "Thief Assist" command has been implemented during the daily life sections of the game, with the intent of helping players navigate the options available to them on a daily basis.
• The Valentine's Day event is now updated with additional content.
• For the first time in the Persona series, White Day can be celebrated, which occurs prior the protagonist's departure from Tokyo. He can go on a date with any romantic partner. If he doesn't have one, he ends up hanging out with Sojiro.

Phantom Life

• A new palace appears as the available dungeon in the third semester,
• There is a new area in Mementos with a brighter, monochrome coloration, noticeably different from the previous areas seen in the original game. Enemies from the Depths of Mementos and the Qliphoth World can be encountered there.
• During the third semester, should their Confidants be maximized, the party will receive new, stronger third-tier ultimate Personas, as a result of a fusion between their initial and second-tier Persona. In the process, each member will receive a special, signature skill.
• Akechi returns as a playable character in his Black Mask attire together with Loki.
• The Phantom Thieves have unison attacks called "Showtimes," unlocked over the course of the story, where two members can unite and attack an enemy together. It uses no resources, just like All-Out Attacks, and works even for enemies that cannot be Downed, though only one enemy can be targeted.
• New types of Shadows can appear in Palaces and Mementos:
  • Savage Shadows are exceedingly strong enemies with a glowing red aura that cannot be negotiated with unless their health is reduced to very low levels (about one-quarter).
  • Disaster Shadows appear, which have higher stats and will only attack when they are targeted first. They drop rare items and cause an explosion that damages nearby enemies once they are defeated.
• Special items known as Will Seeds appear within all Palaces, restoring a small amount of SP upon pickup. There are three to collect per Palace, and once obtained, they combine to create a powerful accessory, bestowing unique skills related to the rulers of the Palace they came from. Bringing these accessories to Jose allows him to upgrade them to a stronger variant with more useful properties.
• While traversing Mementos, there's a rare chance to stumble upon Deviations, special areas with different layouts and effects, which can be positive or negative for the group.
• The protagonist can use a grappling hook to reach higher places and ambush enemies from afar.
• Futaba has her own All-Out Attack.
• The behavior for all major bosses has been altered or expanded on, and the artificial intelligence for many foes has been significantly improved.
• Lavenza, like her Caroline and Justine counterpart, can be fought in Mementos in New Game Plus during the third semester.
• All party members immediately have Baton Pass accessible without having to have their Confidant established.
  • Additionally, each party member now has their own individual Baton Pass rank, which adds more effects as they rank up, such as a larger damage increase and HP or SP recovery. Ranking up can be achieved through playing darts.
  • Furthermore, the 4th and last Baton Pass in a single turn allows for the respective party member to use any skill with no HP or SP cost.
• Each party member's Shadow negotiation ability in Hold Up, which grants the protagonist a chance to try again should he anger his target, now always works, but only under specific circumstances. The requirements for this to occur vary between party members.
• Technical damage now has an innate chance of Downing enemies.
• Technical attacks can be ranked up by playing billiards. Doing so will increase their power, and grant greater chance to Down enemies.
• Psychokinesis skills can now induce Technical damage against enemies inflicted with Forget.
  • In addition, after buying and reading "Knowing the Heart" from Jinbocho, more Technical combinations are added, meaning ailments will add vulnerability to more elemental skills.
• If a target is afflicted with Freeze, their resistances (but not Drains or Repels) to Physical and Gun skills will be temporarily removed.
• Dizzy, Forget and Confuse now end after the target is hit.
  • Additionally, Confuse ends 1 turn earlier in comparison to other ailments.
• The Reaper is now immune to Despair, meaning he can no longer be defeated easily during Flu Season weather.
• New Personas that haven't appeared in Persona 5 have been added.
• Some Personas and their Shadow counterparts have had their attributes altered or their movesets revamped.
  • Additionally, the Arcana of certain Personas has been rearranged.
• New enemies are added to various locations within the game, along with previous enemy pools being shuffled somewhat.
• The skillsets of most party members have been slightly tweaked.
• Several new skills have been added.
  • In addition, the effects of Giant Slice, Headbutt, Terror Claw, Swift Strike and Dream Needle have been changed.
• The catalogue of items has been expanded on.
  • Additionally, certain items from Persona 5 are no longer available.
• Accessories can grant usable skills in addition to passive effects, and equipping them on party members can greatly diversify their movesets. A majority of these can only be obtained through itemization.
• Personas now have traits, abilities which can be passed down through fusion and grant automatic effects in battle and are separate from the Persona's pool of skills.
• Personas can have their stats directly boosted in Lockdown through incense, special items that can be bought in Kichijoji or obtained via negotiation.
• The Security Meter in Palaces now starts at 40% instead of 0%.
• Treasure Demons can now appear inside random Shadow encounters.
• Guns now reload after every battle, rather than having a set number of ammo per dungeon visit. To compensate for this, total gun ammo is drastically reduced.
• There are several new Mementos Requests, with some appearing during the third semester.
• The Velvet Room can sometimes enter a fusion alarm state, beginning from the time of the third heist, allowing the protagonist to:
  • Fuse stronger Personas with a different skillset than usual;
  • Itemize Personas for more powerful weapons, armor, accessories or skill cards;
  • and gain more experience when strengthening a Persona via the Gallows.
  • The alarm ends upon exiting the Velvet Room, manually ending it by speaking to the wardens, or when an accident occurs. To balance the improved capabilities, there is a greatly heightened chance of a fusion accident to occur, and certain fusion accidents can create bizarre Personas with incredibly specific or odd skillsets.
• Challenge Battle, a mode akin to training quests from Shin Megami Tensei IV appears, allowing the party to battle waves of various enemies on a special stage in the Velvet Room.
  • Copies of the protagonists of Persona 3 and Persona 4 are also available as DLC boss fights using this mode.
• The Merciless difficulty and dual audio functionality are available in Royal immediately, rather than having to be downloaded as DLC.
• Every difficulty aside from Normal and Hard have had their modifiers tweaked from the original game. If one has not played any Persona game before, Normal should be fine, since the greater variety in ways to take down enemies and increase stats makes this game more manageable than the original version:
  • Safe (previously "Safety") changes the damage modifier from x2 to x1.6, EXP from x3 to x1.5 and money from x5 to x1.5.
  • Easy changes EXP and money from x1 to x1.2.
  • Merciless changes the damage modifier from x0.8 to x0.65, and EXP and money from x0.4 to x1.2.

Thieves Den

• The protagonist may visit his own personal "Thieves Den," a fourth-wall breaking recreational area unrelated to the story. It is the protagonist's Palace.
• While in the Den, the protagonist can change his appearance to any of the Phantom Thieves and explore it in their guise.
• In the Den, one can watch cutscenes from the game, listen to the soundtrack, and view various artwork.
• The protagonist is able to customize his Palace as he pleases, and depending on what is placed, he'll be able to listen to conversations between cognitive versions of his Confidants.
• The Den has an Award wall, which is gradually decorated with accolades for various accomplishments divided into School Life, Battle and Phantom. Such examples include opening 40 locked chests, spending over one million yen at Untouchable and washing 10 pieces of sooty laundry.
• The protagonist can play a card game, "Tycoon," with the rest of the Phantom Thieves. The rules are based on Daifugō (大富豪^*)

Nintendo Switch port additions and differences

• The Nintendo Switch version of Persona 5 Royal has a max resolution of 810p in TV Mode with the UI and menus displaying at the native 1080p output, while the resolution in Handheld Mode is 540p with menus and UI presented at the native 720p output of the Switch console's screen.
• The Nintendo Switch version will be localized in Simplified Chinese (subtitles only).
• All censorship of specific content initially exclusive to the Chinese/Korean releases of Persona 5 Royal on PlayStation 4 have now been applied worldwide to the 2022 re-release.
  • The Japanese Rising Sun emblems on Ryuji Sakamoto's sneakers have been censored.
  • The Almighty-type Skill icon which also resembled the Rising Sun, has reverted to its earlier pre-release spiral design.
  • The Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha DLC costume pack from the original release of Persona 5 has been removed from the 2022 re-release of Royal on all platforms, despite its inclusion in most territories for the PlayStation 4 version of Royal. This is due to the character's resemblance and inspiration derived from Imperial Japanese officers, a point of cultural insensitivity and controversy in Chinese and Korean regions, where the game was also made available.
• The Nintendo Switch version carries over the majority of functions performed by the DualShock and DualSense controllers in the PlayStation versions of the game:
  • The darts minigame is still motion-based, but instead uses the Joy-Con Controller or Nintendo Switch Pro Controller for positioning and executing throws in TV Mode, while moving the Switch console around using the gyroscope is required in Handheld Mode.
  • Petting the Morgana Car within Mementos on the Nintendo Switch is done by touching the car directly on the screen.

Development

A Nintendo Switch version of Persona 5 Royal was confirmed on June 28, 2022 during that day's Nintendo Direct Mini: Partner Showcase, alongside ports of Persona 3 Portable and Persona 4 Golden. The Switch version's announcement followed the prior confirmation that the game would be ported to Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5 and PC weeks earlier.

A week ahead of the game's launch, P-Studio producer Kazuhisa Wada participated in a commemorative interview regarding the series' 25th anniversary with Famitsu, where he revealed that publisher and Atlus parent company Sega was responsible for handling the conversion of Persona 5 Royal for Nintendo Switch and other platforms, marking a change in the developer's strategy for multiplatform titles, as certain games had either been handled internally with minor assistance from optimization developers (Persona 4 Golden on Steam for PC), or had been outsourced to third-parties (Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne HD Remaster and Catherine: Full Body for Switch).

Release

Persona 5 Royal was released worldwide for Nintendo Switch on October 21, 2022, in both physical and digital formats. In Japan, the game costs ¥7,678, while it is priced at $59.99 USD/$79.99 CAD in North America. In addition to the standard physical and digital editions, a special edition of the game known as the "1 More Edition" is available for purchase exclusively through the online retailer Shop Atlus, bundling a physical steelbook edition of the game with a Grimoire Art Frame, specialized art prints of the main party members, a replica of the briefcase bag worn by Goro Akechi, and a deck of Arcana Tarot Cards, packaged in a special "Treasure Chest Box" based on the Chests found in the game's various dungeons. Alternatively, the special steelbook physical edition of the game was made available with pre-orders and launch week copies of the game. The English digital version of the game on Nintendo eShop will be 14.2 GB in size, approximately three times smaller compared to the original PlayStation 4 release.

Reception

As with the game's vanilla release in 2016/17 and the initial PlayStation 4 version of Royal, P5R on Nintendo Switch received widespread critical acclaim, with the title currently sitting at a score of 94/100 on aggregation site Metacritic, indicating "universal acclaim". It became the second highest rated Nintendo Switch game of 2022 under Valve Software's Portal: Companion Collection, and is currently the 6th highest rated Switch title of all time on the site, tied with Tetris Effect: Connected (2021). Nintendo Life awarded the game a perfect "10/10" score in their review write-up, exclaiming it to be "the very definition of ‘required reading' for JRPG fans". The review praised the game's presentation as doing "an outstanding job of emphasizing style without sacrificing function", additionally remarking that it "looks brilliant on Switch" . Additional lauding was directed towards the game's even split between social simulation and traditional MegaTen role-playing mechanics, the voice performances of the English cast, the character art by Shigenori Soejima, and the musical score by Shoji Meguro with lyrics by Lyn Inaizumi, with special mentions made towards her delivery in the game's vocal tracks, which reviewer Matthew Vogel exclaimed "does an excellent job of setting an effective atmosphere". Publication GameTyrant exclaimed in its similar perfect score review, "Atlus and Sega have outdone themselves with this port. It runs beautifully, feels great, and is every bit the Persona experience I’ve been craving on Switch since 2017". CGMagazine bestowed the game a 9/10 score in its review, recommending existing players to buy the game on Switch for "anyone who is familiar and wants an excellent version on their Nintendo handheld".

In other media

As a result of the game's ensuing popularity, Persona 5 and its associated elements have made recurring appearances in various media both within and outside the Persona series. Like Persona 4 before it, the game received a number of spin-off titles either building on its story or involving the game's characters. The cast of Persona 5 (excluding the supporting cast exclusive to Royal) were featured in the crossover dungeon crawler RPG Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth (2018) for Nintendo 3DS, alongside the respective casts of Persona 3 and 4, as well as the female protagonist from Persona 3 Portable. In the vein of Persona 4: Dancing All Night (2015), the game also received its own rhythm game spinoff, titled Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight (2018), which featured the primary cast dancing to various songs or rearrangements of tracks from the original game. In a first for the series, Persona 5 was the subject of an action RPG spin-off game titled Persona 5 Strikers (2020), a crossover between the world of Persona 5 with the gameplay of Koei Tecmo's flagship Musou games developed by their subsidiary Omega Force, and released for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and PC. The game's cast has also been the subject of recurring inclusion both in games developed by Atlus and external studios. Notably, costumes based on various Persona 5 characters have appeared in games such as Sonic Forces (2017), Phantasy Star Online 2 (2018), Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE Encore (2020) and Soul Hackers 2 (2022).

The main playable protagonist Joker has also appeared physically in numerous other titles both within and outside the Persona and Megami Tensei franchises. He appeared in a seperate downloadable content (DLC) campaign for the Atlus puzzle-platformer title Catherine: Full Body, which is notably produced by alumni associated with the Persona series in addition to having implied connections to its continuity. Joker could also be used in the game's multiplayer modes as a standalone character. Most significantly, Joker and the Persona series were represented in the Nintendo Switch fighting game Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (2018), making an appearance as the first piece of post-launch content included in the paid Fighters Pass Vol. 1 expansion pack, which released on April 17th 2019. Alongside Joker being added to the roster as a playable fighter, a stage based on the Mementos dungeon was included, as was the addition of 11 music tracks, including select sampled or rearranged music from Persona 5, as well as a Persona 5-themed Spirit Board containing Spirits representing the Phantom Thieves of Hearts, Igor, and the duo of Caroline & Justine. Another Spirit based on the Persona 5 Strikers character Sophia was added to the Spirit Board to coincide with the launch of the aforementioned game, and could only be obtained by linking the Nintendo Switch version of P5S with a Nintendo Account that has SSBU save data present on it.

Trivia

• Billy Kametz, Takuto Maruki's English voice actor, passed away on June 9, 2022 due to complications with colon cancer. Despite his voice performance being repurposed from the game's original release in 2019, the Switch version of Persona 5 Royal marked one of his final acting credits for any games on Nintendo platforms, alongside his reprisal of Ferdinand von Aegir in Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes earlier that year.
  • At the time of his death, Kametz was also dating voice actress Erica Lindbeck, who provides the English voice for Futaba Sakura / Oracle in Persona 5 Royal, Persona 5 Strikers and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
• Persona 5 Royal on Nintendo Switch is the first main, numbered entry in the Persona series to be released on any Nintendo console.
• Super Smash Bros. series director Masahiro Sakurai played through the original release of Persona 5 while developing Ultimate. According to him, he had managed to max out nearly every Confidant route in the game, but barely missed the window to complete the route for party member Yusuke Kitagawa.
  • Sakurai would later write an editorial for the Japanese magazine Famitsu in November 2016, where he praised Persona 5 for its character art, game mechanics, music, Persona designs, story and dialogue. He would single out particular acclaim for its Graphical User Interface (GUI) design, calling the aesthetic of the menus, "magnificent."
  • He would later reveal in a seperate column that he was inspired by Persona 5's menu design and art direction when creating the user interface for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
• According to Atlus themselves, Persona 5, Persona 5 Royal, and their various spin-off titles comprise approximately 48% of the 15 million unit-total sales from the Persona series as of the fiscal year ending September 2022, not taking into account the sales of Royal on Switch and other additional platforms beyond PS4.

External links

• Persona 5 Royal at Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• Persona 5 Royal at GameFAQs
• Official website
• Persona 5 Royal on Nintendo eShop
• Persona 5 Royal at Megami Tensei Wiki, the Fandom wiki on Megami Tensei.