Persona 5 Royal (2019)

Halfway(?) through the first month. Still pretty confined on what I'm allowed to do so I'm considering this as still part of the tutorial phase. That said, the tutorial is quite long and even with that, not everything has been explained yet. The game's hard to put down though so I could see someone finishing the long tutorial in only a few seatings.

Started with Japanese voice acting but fumbled something and accidentally restarted in English. This is much more convenient somehow, and I don't feel like I'm missing anything so I haven't changed it back. With the game's complex themes, I found the cursing dialogue fitting but not loving the gender stereotyping.

My biggest, and probably only real beefs with this game so far:

-they didn't seem to balance all the added content in the Royal version at all for new players. They just dump tons of useful items, money, accessories, Personas, etc on or in very easy access for the player. This combined with apparently making the dungeons smaller and bosses easier make me question who this version was for? The game has been a bit of a cakewalk so far on Hard and I feel a bit mixed about how I should be enjoying managing resources like money to fund my adventures but can't cuz playing Royal at all is apparently like plugging in a cheat code for smooth sailing.

-The sheer amount of features and stuff going on at once feels a little excessive at times, like I'm 50+ hours in and still unlocking battle perks and mechanics to make battles even more one sided. Also characters talk over one another and spam the same voice lines makes me feel battle voice line triggers were an afterthought.

I hadn't played a persona game before, and tbh I am enjoying this game a lot. Characters bounce energy well off each other. The plot is constantly moving and the life sim aspects are really neat. However, iv had two main quarrels with the game. I haven't beaten it yet so these comments arnt really set in stone but rather a spur of the moment.

The first is in the 5th palace, the Mona and ryuji argument felt like a bit of a cheap way to throw another character into the plot. In my opinion i found the argument to be justifiable on both perspectives, but it leaned more into Mona's perspective more. After, it just ended with Mona saying "I'm going to prove im useful" which i guess is inspiring but for me it didnt feel it met really any solid conclusion. i was expected the character arc to end in an honest apology from both mona and ryuji, both admiting that they may have lacked perspective or had taken things to heart.

The second issue I have is just the personality of joker, the dialogue choices, while sometimes amusing, never provide a huge response, all three options range from what's morally right to a bit funny. I also understand that he's meant to be a soulless anime character that players can introject themselves into, but in terms of character, you might as well be able to name him like a Pokémon trainer. When players discuss jokers personality from the game, do they get it from the anime scenes? Because where else do you really derive a personality from joker?

Obviously ill keep playing, iv sunk around 80 hours into the game in the last week, and I do believe a lot of the time the writing is great, just two little nitpicks with the game I had.

Edit: ended up deleting an unnecessary sentence with little structure

THIRD SEMESTER SPOILERS

Ladies, gentlemen, and NB's, after 60 hours, I have reached peak fiction again. The third semester.

My favorite detail in Royal is that most of the faceless NPC's now have these huge smiles on their faces. Really look at the faces. .The result of Maruki changing reality. A world too happy means a world with no growth.

Before Maruki's rule:

After Maruki's rule(look at the NPC's at the right):