How About These Fish, Huh?

[rionaleonhart]

A few months back, I told my mum about a client I had who was worried all his poems about piss might make people think he was into watersports, and then I had to explain what 'watersports' meant. Ten minutes later, she asked, 'Do you think he was winding you up when he said people might think he was - what was it called - a rain merchant?'


Between work, other games and overambitious projects, I've slowed down on Persona 5 Royal, but here are the notes I've been making here and there over the last three (real-world) months! I'm in mid-November; I've cleared the casino Palace but haven't yet sent the calling card.


PERSONA 5 ROYAL LETS ME INVITE RYUJI TO THE BATHHOUSE

Ryuji goes 'You got it made, man!' and both choices are great: 'Wanna move in?' and 'I live in an attic.'

Ryuji's enthusiastic about being asked to move in as we bathe together.

I'm choosing all the flirtiest options with Makoto and I have no regrets. I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed her dynamic with the protagonist. The whole 'fake dating' storyline is a lot of fun.

'I guess b-boyfriends... um, really can be... reliable...' Makoto's so awkward right after we start dating, and it's very cute.

It seems weird that we never celebrate anyone's birthday. Maybe every character's birthday falls two days before we meet them.

No, I just checked and Ryuji's birthday is on 3 July! You should have said something, Ryuji; we could've hung out! If I replay this game, I'm going to look up everyone's canonical birthday and spend time with them on that day if possible.

I really love how Sojiro gradually, grumpily warms up to us.

I love this 9 October hangout with Futaba where we bump into Iwai! Delighted by the opportunity to describe Futaba as 'basically my sister', and by the fact that Futaba's terrified of Iwai at first but then nerds out over model guns with him.

I really like the rank 10 non-romance confidant scene with Ann. She's a person who values her friends so strongly.

Aww, Kasumi notices I look like I haven't been sleeping well and asks if I'm okay! She's very sweet.

I didn't notice on my first playthrough, but there are Hallowe'en decorations and people in costume around the city if you wander Tokyo on the 31st of October!



Poor Haru. The time between defeating Okumura and the press conference is agonising; you know something's wrong, but all you can do is reassure Haru that things will be fine, because the protagonist doesn't have the same knowledge you do.

Royal adds a GRATUITOUS DANCE SCENE and I'm sort of delighted.

Given that Persona 5 Royal actually lets me spend time socially with Akechi, I'm reflecting on his furious loneliness in the original game. Will the same scenes play out here? Is Rei genuinely reaching out to him in friendship, whereas Akechi can only believe that they're playing a cat-and-mouse game, because surely no one would spend time with him without ulterior motives?

Ooh, I do like Akechi luring me into Mementos alone so we can duel. And going 'well, I want to see whether we could kill each other, but we probably shouldn't actually duel to the death when we're working together.'

The line 'I'm going to be entirely honest with you: I hate you' immediately makes Akechi/Joker much more shippable to me. Ryuji/Joker is still where my heart lies, but I can see why this pairing is so popular!

'Make certain that you never forget: I am the one who will defeat you.' This is great. Akechi needs to calm down.



The problem with Akechi's design is that, whenever he's talking, I'm just thinking about how much and how undeservedly I love Light Yagami instead. Light and Akechi would absolutely loathe each other.

Comments

[rionaleonhart]

The game definitely seems confused about what it's doing with Kasumi! The dance scene point is a really good one; the game's put so much emphasis on how she's been struggling to perform, so I was a little surprised that that scene went 'she was incredible and then everyone clapped'.

this is what I paid a second amount of $79.99 (plus tax!) for.

Wow, yes, the fact that I only paid £10 for the original game and £25 for Royal probably helped to prevent any resentment.

AND ANOTHER THING. RHYTHMIC GYMNASTICS ARE THE MOST BORING FORM OF GYMNASTICS. Fuck you and the balance beam you never actually balance on, Kasumi!

This is my favourite part of this rant. Beautiful.

[pict]

Yeah, as soon as the five minute dance scene was over, I put down my PS4 controller and didn't go back to it for about a week. It defeated me. Hence, my very dramatic emotional collapse. I don't know if I'm the same person I was before.

[pict]

Final thought (for now): it really is a shame that most of the updated re-release resources went to Kasumi when the game already has so many great ladies that we could have been spending more time with instead. Haru gets approximately three extra lines of dialogue over the course of the original storyline and [spoiler mumble spoiler]! ...I'll, uh, I'll get back to that one.