Persona 5 Royal

Persona 5 Royal, alternatively known as P5R and called Persona 5: The Royal in Japan, is an enhanced port of Persona 5 to be released exclusively for the PlayStation 4. The game was initially teased by Atlus on December 30th, 2018. It was unveiled after the Persona 5 The Animation OVA, Dark Sun..., was finished airing.

There were no details behind the project, other than that the trailer serves as a teaser for more projects that are currently in development. Another new teaser trailer was released on March 23, 2019, after the second Persona 5 the Animation OVA, Stars and Ours, was finished airing.

After the trailer featuring an unnamed girl with a ponytail was released on March 23, 2019, the next trailer was shown during the "Persona Super Live: P-Sound Street 2019: Welcome to No. Q Theater" event on April 24, 2019. The game was shown off and a release date was confirmed for October 31, 2019 in Japan, along with more information coming on May 9, 2019. Not too long after, a western release was confirmed for Spring 2020.

New Characters/Confidants

 * Kasumi Yoshizawa: An accomplished young gymnast who enrolled to the first semester of Shujin around the same time the protagonist does. Her sister died in a car crash a month prior to the protagonist's arrival. While she is friendly to the protagonist, she does not agree with the Phantom Thieves and refuses to join them because of doubt that their methods are dangerous.
 * Takuto Maruki: A part-time school counselor who enters Shujin Academy following Kamoshida’s arrest. He can understand peoples’ feelings and always helps them whenever needed. Unlike Kasumi, he views the Phantom Thieves very positively, as he believes they can bring justice and make people happy, despite he does not liking their method. Takuto seems to dislike Principal Kobayakawa, as he suspects he doesn’t care about students and has his own agenda.
 * José: A mysterious young puppet-like character who helps the Phantom Thieves in Mementos. Flowers and star stamps are collectable in Mementos, and the player can trade these items with José: flowers are traded with items, and star stamps let him improve the rate in which rewards are given, such as experience, money, and items in Mementos. He may also occasionally upgrade one of your accessories to unlock its true potential.

School Life

 * Sojiro will talk about a 15-year old girl that died in one of the mental shutdown-induced traffic accidents during the 4/10 traffic jam.
 * Royal will be introducing the third school term events, which don't appear in the original version. The third term events have occurances that are considered to be strange and contradictory:
 * Morgana is now a normal human teenager.
 * Ryuji is now part of the track team and is very popular with underclassmen.
 * Shiho didn't transfer schools and is happily hanging out with Ann.
 * The real Sayuri is now in a museum, and Yusuke becomes famous for this.
 * Sae is no longer a prosecutor and is currently unemployed. Instead, she helps Makoto in searching for a university campus for her.
 * Wakaba Isshiki is shown to be alive and well. Wakaba entrusted Sojiro to take care of Futaba while she works and she is currently living with them.
 * Kunikazu Okumura is also shown to be alive and no longer hostile to everyone. Instead, he is now a kind-hearted businessman with no interest in politics. He is now very clumsy, and Haru has to clean up his mess.
 * Because of these strange events, Akechi requests the protagonist's help in investigating the strange turn of events.
 * Seasons are added to the landscape and text messages. For example, cherry blossoms can be seen on the Shujin Academy floor and the messaging app on April.
 * The in-game calendar displays rain and snow.
 * Morgana will no longer pester the protagonist to sleep every night, allowing him to engage in more nighttime activities. He will still not allow the protagonist to go out during important dates such as before exams or after sending calling cards, however.
 * A new location added in Royal is Kichijoji: A popular spot in Tokyo that the protagonist can visit. With a mix of new and old, various cultures and personalities clash in this area that attracts men and women of all ages.
 * A collaboration with Darts Lives: Darts Live’s latest darts machine, DARTSLIVE3, will be fully reproduced in-game. The Protagonist can invite friends after school to play darts. Playing darts with fellow Phantom Thieves will increase their Baton Pass Rank, granting better in-battle benefits, such as an increase to damage and better HP/SP recovery.
 * The protagonist can play pool. As well as increasing Social Stats, playing pool grants an increased rate of critical hits/downing an enemy.
 * The protagonist can invite his confidant to an aquarium, which seems to be a new confidant hangout.
 * The protagonist can bring Caroline and Justine touring around Tokyo during their Confidant events.
 * Goro Akechi's Confidant is now leveled up by hanging out with him, instead of being automatic.
 * The protagonist is required to battle him alone in Mementos to advance it to rank 8.
 * His confidant ability is Detective's Eyes in which the Phantom Thieves can scan the Shadows' weaknesses during the first attack.
 * The Phantom Thieves can take selfies and show them in messages.
 * All maxed girl confidants whom the protagonist didn't date will give him a chocolate they bought at Valentine's day. This includes Sae, which the protagonist cannot enter a relationship with.
 * White Day is added a day prior to the protagonist's departure from Tokyo. The protagonist can date a girl with a romance relationship here.

Phantom Life

 * A stronger type of Shadow called Kyouma will appear in Palaces; These Shadows will only make a move if the party attacks it and will have higher stats. They drop rare items and causes an explosion that damages nearby enemies once they are defeated. However, repelling their attacks or defeating them via despair will cause them to be defeated normally instead.
 * Some Personas that could only be obtained through fusion on the original game, alongside some new ones, will be appearing as Shadows in Palaces and Mementos. The new ones are as follows:
 * Biyarky
 * Hastur
 * Macabre
 * Mishaguji
 * Cait Sith
 * Tam Lin
 * Atavaka
 * Chimera
 * Fafnir
 * Vohu Manah
 * The Phantom Thieves can use grappling hooks to reach higher places.
 * Futaba will have her own All-Out Attack.
 * The Phantom Thieves will have simultaneous attacks called "showtime," seemingly unlocked through story-gated cutscenes, which can attack Shadows together. This works even for enemies that cannot be downed, and is free like All-Out Attacks.
 * They are accessible if:
 * A party member obtains a Baton Pass;
 * A party member loses 50% of their health or lower;
 * An enemy is critically injured.
 * Akechi is shown in his Black Mask form as a playable character, with his true Persona being usable as well.
 * Some bosses' behavior will be altered from the base game.
 * Cognitive copies of Yuuki Mishima and Shiho Suzui will appear as a part of Shadow Kamoshida's Golden Medal Spike animation by lending him a volleyball. They can be killed in order to interrupt the attack and are weak to physical.
 * Madarame is now a significantly different boss; He will start in his portrait form with Artist's Grace and Restore instantly and once exposed will never return to portrait form, instead fighting with fire, ice, elec and wind-based copies of himself with crippling weaknesses against the opposite elements they represent, but repels the same typing as them. They also resist physical.
 * If his HP is extremely low, he will summon clones that start out with the sleeping status.
 * Shadow Kaneshiro's phases are reversed; he summons Piggytron from the start which functions identically as its original incarnation. After defeating the Piggytron he must then be defeated on foot. His on foot version is heavily buffed in this game as he summons a pair of bodyguards resistant to all elements and can spam technical damage with sleep. Shadow Kaneshiro himself also resists physical and will perform a multi-hit attack while alone, although he can only use it once due to his gold vault running out of money after the attack.
 * The cognitive Sphinx will insult Futaba as usual, and Joker can choose to agree with it or disagree. Agreeing with it feeds in Futaba's depression and makes her less likely to restore the ballista.
 * Okumura will now summon exactly 4 of each rank of his robots with a total of 8 waves of enemies instead of the former 6. After the first wave is defeated, he will summon a cognitive Haru which allows him to perform a debuff against the party, a buff to one of his robots and a self destruct order to another one at once. After defeating the MDL-ED Execurobo, he will summon the cognitive Haru to self destruct after a turn, in which he reveals himself as vulnerable.
 * The second form of Shadow Sae will use the roulette to decide the affinities of her attacks. These attacks can be of any element, including almighty.
 * Shadow Shido's chariot forms resist respectively physical and magic instead of repelling them. His Samael forms have new unseen attacks as well as a reliance on heavy buffs such as Heat Riser and Tarukaja. Once he is on his last phase and is low on health, he will isolate Joker for the final battle to be one-on-one.
 * Yaldabaoth's sins now last for two turns instead of one turn.
 * Treasure Demons can now appear inside random Shadow guards.
 * Confusion ends after a turn and ends after the target is hit.
 * The Security Meter starts at 40% instead of 0%.
 * Baton Pass will have a new effect on gameplay depending on its color.
 * A "Daily Assist Command" will be implemented during the daily-life sections of the game, with the intent of helping players navigate the options available to them on a daily basis.
 * Party members will receive a new stronger ultimate Persona, unlocked during the third term events. This will snap them out of the reversed events.
 * During the third term events, there will be a new unknown Palace.
 * There will also be new areas in Mementos with a brighter, monochrome coloration, different to the areas seen in the base game.
 * The Persona 3 and Persona 4 protagonists will be DLC boss fights.

Other

 * The original Persona 5 storyline will remain essentially unchanged, and there will be new anime and game cutscenes. There will be an untold story that will be revealed in Royal. The third semester story is take place after defeating Yaldabaoth.
 * Royal will have a gallery mode where one can watch anime scenes (including the original version opening animation) or view artwork. Atlus will reveal more information in future.
 * Atlus hinted there will be more Akechi involvement in events, including an answer to his cliffhanger fate. Additionally, the latest PV-02 trailer shows Akechi, in his "Black Mask" form, fighting alongside the Phantom Thieves, heavily implying that he has indeed survived.
 * The trophies in Royal will be slightly different than the base game's ones.
 * The western release of the game will come with both English and Japanese audio options, as well as multiple language text, whereas in the original version the dual audio setting was only available as DLC.
 * Merciless difficulty will be present in Royal from the start as well.
 * The protagonist can buy costumes in Harajuku, which can be worn in Palaces and Mementos, although legacy and crossover costumes still require DLC. The costumes are based on Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight.
 * There will be new character portraits.
 * All Phantom Thieves and several Confidants will receive both new midwinter casual clothes and school uniforms.
 * The improved graphics are now based on Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight. The game runs in 60fps with 4K support for PlayStation 4 Pro.
 * Haru Okumura's existence is foreshadowed earlier in the game.
 * The Velvet Room can sometimes enter red alert mode and allow the party to fuse stronger Personas with a different move set than usual.
 * A mode akin to training quests from Shin Megami Tensei IV will appear in-game, allowing the party to battle various Personas in the compendium.
 * Lavenza will appear more often.
 * Kaneshiro's voice has a higher pitch.
 * Lala Escargot is fully voiced.
 * A brand new bad ending has been added.
 * During the third semester, the protagonist is given a mercy offer by Takuto to accept the dream world resulting from his excessive cognition manipulation powers as his reality. Should the protagonist accept, everyone will remain in his dream world where Morgana is a human, Wakaba and Okumura are revived, Sumire Yoshizawa identifies herself as Kasumi Yoshizawa, Yusuke reconciles with Madarame and Joker became friends with Akechi. During the 15th of March, Haru and Makoto graduate while the party celebrates as Takuto gives them a photoshoot and the protagonist recognizes something is not right. The credits display everyone fulfilling their wishes and the post credits display the party having fun at leblanc.
 * This ending can also be triggered during the day before Takuto is fought; when the protagonist was remindered by Takuto that Akechi is a fake made by him, he is offered by Akechi an option to express that he wants this Akechi to stay forever. Choosing this option will lead to a double configuration by Akechi; Should he proceed, he will get the same ending as above.