When Atlus revealed that Persona 5 Royal would be a standalone game and not a DLC add-on, many wondered about what exactly would be added to the game. Now that the game is out in Japan and some fans are finding that it’s not exactly what they expected. It seems that Persona 5 Royal has a lot less content than fans thought it would.
A number of fans who’ve gotten the Japanese release have taken to various Reddit threads to express their disappointment. The main issue is that, aside from a few extra scenes, nothing that Atlus added to Persona 5 Royal seems to be something that couldn’t have been added to the base Persona 5 via an expansion instead.
ALSO: Report: Persona 5 Royal makes you rebuy your DLC
(Slight Persona 5 spoilers below)
For Persona 5‘s main story, the only things that have been added seem to be a minor cameo for Haru and an introduction scene for character Kasumi Yoshizawa. The problem with the latter however seems to be that Kasumi basically disappears for the rest of the game after that scene. She only reappears in the new story chapters that take place after where the original game ends. This is in stark contrast to Persona 4 Golden‘s Marie who played a much larger role in that updated re-release.
Aside from these, the only big changes to the original portion from Persona 5 seem to be some new moves for the palace bosses. No new story routes seem to have been added, nor do there seem to be any new romance options (much to the chagrin of Sae Nijima fans).
The supposed disappointing release of Persona 5 Royal has drawn negative comparisons to another, recent Japanese RPG release — Capcom’s Iceborne expansion for Monster Hunter World. With the latter offering nearly a full game’s worth of content as a $40 expansion, Persona fans are now asking why Atlus couldn’t have done the same for its flagship RPG, especially since Atlus has done the same before with Persona 3‘s FES add-on disc in Japan. That said, all of the above is just based on early reports since as the game just came out in Japan.
