PERSONA 5 ROYAL

You should see this JRPG in a crown

Bet you never saw this coming. Like Persona 3 FES and Persona 4 Golden before it, this is a massively expanded rerelease of a mainline Persona game with more characters, challenges and story elements added. That’s all well and good but we’re especially excited about one quality-of-life improvement in particular: you no longer have a strict bedtime enforced by your talking cat.

We jest, but only slightly – and Morgana still tells you to get an early night on important story days anyway. However, given what was already one of the biggest JRPGs on PS4 just got even bigger, you’re going to need that extra time in the evenings. Those after-school hours are prime time for packing in socialising and getting to know your Confidants, and Royal not only beefs up existing social links, it also introduces a few fresh faces. Front and centre of this updated version

is Kasumi Yoshizawa, a gymnastic prodigy who initially starts at odds with the Phantom Thieves before eventually joining their cause. Representing the Faith arcana, you’ll need to pay special attention to her; if you want to play Royal’s brand-new ‘third term’, which significantly extends the story past the point where the original game ends, you have to max out her Confidant rank before the middle of December during the in-game year.