![]() ![]() Upon your first visit, you automatically play darts with Ryuji, netting even more scenes with him. The Darts Longue is a place home to two mini-games: darts and billiards. There’s also ample time to wander around and explore the vendors and items unique to this area until you reach the Darts Lounge that Ryuji has been raving about the whole time. Speaking with her gives the protagonist a bonus in his Knowledge stat, which is nice. You can choose to speak to the information attendant to learn more about the area, shops, and hangout spots. As a little bonus, there are a few scenes with Makoto tailing the three as they walk around the neighborhood, a nice detail that tied in this segment to the main story well. It’s a nice bonding moment between the two and Ryuji fans will be pleased with the extra scenes starring the dim-witted yet lovable friend and comrade. When Kichijoji opens up, the protagonist, Ryuji, and Morgana explore the area for the first time. This means that this area is the perfect fit for Persona 5 Royal, as it makes for a great spot for the party members to hang out. In real life, Kichijoji is a compact but very popular commercial area in Tokyo with a full range of shops, restaurants, bars, and coffee houses. My time with Persona 5 Royal also introduced me to Kichijoji and its new features. However, Mishima’s short segment is a more than accurate representation since Kamoshida sees him as so completely insignificant that he wouldn’t have much of an impact in his Palace. My only gripe is that I wish Shiho’s segment was longer and more interwoven in the boss battle’s mechanics, considering how important a role she plays in the story proper. It also made me aware of how more intimate and gripping each battle can become as a result. Royal showed me what avenues can be explored in these boss battles and how these additions tied in much closer to each bosses’ arc. Playing through vanilla Persona 5, the concept of adding in two more cognitives was one that didn’t cross my mind. When you find a seed, your party’s health is partially recovered. For instance, Kamoshida’s Will Seeds are known as Lust Seeds. Each one is named after the vice that the particular Palace is fashioned after. You can view the ones collected so far through the map menu. Each Palace has three seeds scattered throughout. According to his explanation, distortions that occur in Palaces due to their rulers’ cognitions gather and coalesce into the form of a Will Seed. Inside this room is another new feature of Royal: Will Seeds, a term Morgana coined for these mysterious items. Using the grappling hook, I came across a secluded balcony and room. I would have killed to have freer exploration that opened up alternative routes to traverse dungeons, such as being able to swing around barriers and above enemies. Although it technically opened up new areas, they’re still predetermined areas. While I enjoyed having a new exploration mechanic available to me (it’s very sleek and suits the aesthetic of the game well), it would have been an even more solid addition if players had more freedom in its use. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing as it takes out a lot of the RNG induced frustration of negotiations, knowing that if you make the right choices, you’ll be rewarded the vast majority of the time. Negotiating with a persona is fun and an excellent way to recruit new Personae to your party (versus doing so with cards in Persona 3 and 4) but as someone coming from more hardcore Megaten titles, it’s much easier to gain their favor in comparison. Persona Negotiations are naturally back, a resurrection of the Demon Negotiations system used in both mainline Shin Megami Tensei titles and the first and second Persona games. I appreciate these quality of life changes as an avid JRPG player who’s more than impatient when sorting through options takes too long solely because of sluggish UI and sloppy menu design. Something else I was pleasantly reminded of is P5's excellent UI as it allows players to instantly choose between several options without wasting time cycling through them, making fights far more efficient.
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