So I have finally complete Persona 5 Royal, sadly I have to give it a meh. The game itself is just the original game with a few new events wedged into it. Maybe I thought too highly of Persona 4 Golden, but that game felt like they took some time to change the game to make it more of a game that the creators wanted it to be, which is sad for Persona 5 Royal. That is not to say that they did not add in some fun stuff.

One thing that I enjoyed about Persona 5 Royal was play Tycoon. It is an extra card game that the team added tot he game. The game itself is straightforward yet addicting. I did not expect much from it, but the game took up a lot of my time. Granted, I do think that the harder the mode, the more the computer cheats, but that is not uncommon in card games that are played on computers. Still, I found myself trying my hardest to get all the fun little achievements and stuff like that. Not much else that I could do. Thinking up of the best way to win and keep everyone from playing took up a pretty good chunk of time. Sadly this is the only thing I could get excited for. There are a couple of nice things, but overall they did not add much to the game.

Something like the grappling hook mechanic. Yes, this was a useful thing, especially in the new palace. However, for the rest of the palaces, all it did was afford little more than some extra cool cut scenes. I mean yeah, when you had to swing around and stuff, it was very cinematic, but overall it was nothing to call home about. Whenever you found a grappling hook in the new game, it meant there was a shortcut or something hidden. So you had better do some thorough exploring. The changes in Mementos were nice as well but were probably broken.

To be honest, Mementos was probably always broken. However, the main change to Mementos was perhaps the most game-breaking. You are allowed to find tokens, which will let you modify Mementos. This comes in the form of three things. Boosted experience, up to 200%, boosted money up to 200% and boosted random items found on the ground. This made a lot of stuff easy. For instance, when I finished the game, I had an average level of 97. This is all because killing everything that moved in Mementos was worth my time. Not that I am complaining that the last palace boss seemed to require me to be at that level, even on normal, but it felt kind of empty after a while. In the past iteration, I used to enjoy the challenge of making sure that I could rob everyone so that I could have tons of money. Now I do not have to care about that as my money gets automagically boosted. I mean, I understand why it was done, but it still did kind or rob some of the fun for me. Now let's talk about the new content.

So first off, I love Kasumi, even as cookie-cutter as she is. However, her story leaves something to be desired. I mean, she makes one appearance early on in the game and then sets a few extra cut-scenes in the original game. However, she is played off as wanting to focus on her dreams and does not have a direction, so she just sort of hovers around the team until the end. Even worse, if you do not meet the requirements, you do not even get to go to the last palace. Granted, I guess that is not unusual for most games from the parent franchise.

All in all, the game is Persona 5. If you are a fan of the game, then you will enjoy it. My total time on just Persona 5 at this point has exceeded 370 hours. However, that does not mean they could have done a better job with the game. I personally think that there should have been more intervention of the new characters and plot in the main game ending with the new palace, but that is me. Truth be told, I know why they decided to make this game a full-fledged game and not just DLC. It is because they would have never been able to sell the game as DLC. It relies too heavily on changing critical parts of the story to make itself work. I guess that is just how the game works, though. So there is not much else that I can say. If you feel like adding a few extra hours to your play-through, I suggest you get this game and support the franchise.