A new trailer was recently dropped for Persona 5 Royal on the PlayStation YouTube channel. In this Morgana, Joker’s annoyingly lovable sidekick gives a lovely guide to both Persona 5 and what changes Persona 5 Royal will bring to it on March 31st this year. It attempts to act as a guide for returning and new players to gather some necessary information before going in. It also features new phantom thief Kasumi in a funny improv style fitting the goofy yet heartfelt nature of the game itself.
What information have we “liberated?”
It starts its flow of information by giving a brief description of what exactly a Persona is. An admittedly right place to start. It elaborates on this by revealing that they are the manifestation of someone’s identity. When one takes off their mask, they no longer bend to societal whims and instead live for themselves. A lovely ideal prevalent throughout Persona. In this sense, Kasumi acts on behalf of the audience in a very clever way as she is not as knowledgable as the original phantom thieves would be. Through the background video, It announces the return of the Persona Cait Sith, a character from Shin Megami Tensei and Devil Survivor.
A keen eye would spot multiple new things in this trailer. For instance, Madarame now uses the “counterfeit” move in battle. This presumably would make one of the tougher bosses from Persona 5 even more robust.
What is a palace?
Palaces are perhaps the most important places in all of Persona 5. They are a metaphysical world based on one’s cognition of their world. The phantom thieves’ main goal is to steal the treasure from within one’s palace to inflict a change of heart in someone. This is often done to make someone repent their evil deeds. Morgana and Kasumi’s VO work well to elaborate on how to perform this, they also show off a little bit of Joker’s Grappling hook.
What are confidants?
Confidants are mostly a tangible way of understanding relationships within Persona. It shows Kasumi in-game, a possible date with her, and a new character called Jose. It intentionally leaves Jose’s backstory somewhat guarded but does say he affects the current system of mementos. Morgana then introduces us to Takuto Maruki, a researcher and teacher at Shujin Academy, who is entirely new in Persona 5. Moving on from confidants, Morgana elaborates on Kichijoji, a new area you may take confidants to. It features an aquarium, darts, pool table, and more to do with your in-game pals.
What is the thieves’ den?
The thieves den is a new customizable hangout for all the phantom thieves. It has a direct link to the velvet room and metaverse and features an easy way to look at confidants, enemies, and more. You can listen to in-game music(which is fantastic by the way), see stats, look at concept art, and even play cards. Ryuji would no doubt lose this.
That’s all Morgan managed to liberate, but he promises, “you haven’t even seen the wildest stuff yet.” A challenge to play the game to find out, and I’m definitely going to take that challenge.
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