Persona 5 Royal is certifiably one of the greatest RPGs ever made, and its developer Atlus knows this. The latest entry in their long-running franchise has taken the world by storm, spawning concerts, conventions, and a never-ending stream of merchandise. Now the beloved role-playing game has finally made its way to the Nintendo Switch, and it has truly never felt better.

Story

Persona 5 Royal follows a group of high school students who awaken to the power of Persona in order to stop corrupt adults from ruining the world. By entering the Mind Palaces of these adults, the Phantom Thieves (as they call themselves) can steal the corrupting desires and restore a sense of conscience to their targets. But what begins as a simple attempt to better the world collides with the plans of much more influential figures.

As a straight port of the PlayStation title, Persona 5 Royal doesn’t change anything about the game’s story. That said, it doesn’t need to. Royal is already an evolution of the original 2017 game’s story that adds in a few new characters and expands on the role of an existing one. These new additions already served to make Royal the definitive version of the game, and now it’s available in handheld form.

Persona 5 Royal takes big swings narratively, focusing on the corruptible nature of power and how that dynamic exists between adults and teenagers. The main characters wield an extraordinary level of power, but they’re constantly underestimated and overlooked by the older people in their lives. Even confidants like Sojiro begin the game with a dismissive and derogatory attitude.

Royal approaches this topic from a variety of fronts and positions the player at the center of each conversation. Whether you’re speaking with Futaba about how to navigate socialization or Akechi about the psychological impact of fame, it all comes back to that theme of self-awareness and power dynamics. The game’s finale even expands on the original title’s metaphor with a poignant take on the dangers of wish fulfillment.

Gameplay

Persona 5 Royal feels at home on the Nintendo Switch largely because of its methodical play style. There’s no twitchy action or fast-paced movement here, but rather a series of turn-based battles and long conversations between static figures. Sitting down for a play session feels like opening up a good book that also comes with voice acting and background music.

As with the story, nothing here is different from Royal’s previous release, but it does still feel great to take out Shadows as the Phantom Thieves. The staggering depth of combat puts most other RPGs to shame, especially once you unlock new confidant abilities and techniques. The Persona collecting aspect alone would have been enough to justify over 100 hours of game time, but there are dozens of other battle elements to consider as well.

Outside of combat, the high-school sim side of the game is just as enjoyable as ever. While the battles can get a bit repetitive after a while, spending time with Confidants never seems to grow stale. Balancing your time between allies always offers some tangible reward in the form of new background info, a new battle ability, or sometimes both.

While Royal does streamline the process of upgrading social stats and expanding how much free time you have, it’s still extremely difficult to see everything the game has to offer in a single playthrough. And while the notion of sitting through 100+ hours of JRPG goodness multiple times might seem overwhelming, it somehow never feels that way.

Fortunately, this latest version of the game comes with every bit of DLC Atlus ever added. This includes some starting cash, various healing items, and costumes for every member of the Phantom Thieves. New players will have a much easier entry into this world while returning players have all the resources they need to hit the ground running.

Audio and Visual

Persona 5 Royal might have the greatest soundtrack in video game history, and that is not an easy crown to claim. The music still hits all the right notes, striking a beautiful blend of blues and jazz to create something uniquely Persona. It’s just an awesome soundtrack filled with subtle emotional cues and sweeping battle themes, and it’s easy to recall even the most obscure melody long after the game is closed.

It's to be expected, but graphics is the one area where this port does suffer. As with many other Switch ports, there is a fuzziness to the picture quality that I never noticed when playing on PlayStation. Character models and environments still look crisp, but there is just the faintest haze over everything as though it’s being lit poorly. On the bright side, it’s an easy effect to adjust to, as I stopped noticing it after just a few hours.

Now, the Switch release does come alongside upgraded versions for the latest generation of consoles (and a Steam release). These souped-up copies also include 60 frames per second, which looks absolutely incredible. So there are much prettier versions of this game out there, they’re just not portable.

What Could Be Better

The only issue I could find with this port was the aforementioned fuzziness on the screen, and that’s just the Switch’s hardware limitations. While it would be nice to get a 1080p/60fps version running on this handy little machine, we’ll probably have to wait until Nintendo’s next console before we see that level of fidelity. And that’s okay because the game still looks and runs great as is.

Verdict

Persona 5 Royal is just as great a game as it’s ever been, and it is everything I could have hoped for on the Nintendo Switch. This is the way I wanted to play this game from the very beginning, and 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.

Persona 5 Royal launches for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Steam on October 21st, 2022.