Persona 5 Royal: An Incredible Game
- The Persona 5 Royal game starts with a bizarre bit of onscreen text narrating to the player that “This story is a work of great fiction.”
- This disclaimer has a voice, asserting that any similarities to real people are incidental as seemingly a part of the efficient intro to the game.
- In the end, the voice asks you to agree with the ongoing statement before letting you progress.
- It’s a different moment that Persona 5 never returns to, at least not directly.
- And also, I imagine many English-language players leave wondering what the point of it was.
- These strange kinds of disclaimers are uncommon enough in most games, but they present it as a part of the experience makes it mystifying.
- However, the reality of its presence deliberately highlights how much of Persona 5 is based on actual Japanese events and politics.
Comical View
- Persona 5’s stance, which is almost comical, is that adults cannot take care of the problem and can’t trust.
- While that’s obviously a generalization, reality proves that the education ministry is still failing its students in some key ways.
- Atlus’s game postures that people need to take control of their own lives for real change to happen and make their voices audible because nobody else will.
- Is this a naive stance to take? Sure, in many ways, but it’s still efficient nonetheless.
- The 5th arc in Persona 5 revolves around Okumura Foods, a giant corporation having rumors to be one of Japan’s “black companies.”
- In Japan, the black company is a term that refers to an exploitative workplace.
- Kunikazu Okumura is the president of the company in-game.
- Despite his outstanding success in the business world, he views his employees as nothing but replaceable cogs in his giant machine.
- To illustrate this, they represent in his palace by toy robot enemies.
- Due to his upward status and political ties, however, he’s untouchable by the law.
- The Phantom Thieves target and bring him down by stealing his heart.
References to real world events
- There are plenty of direct and indirect references to real-world events in Persona 5, and the examples are simply the tip of the iceberg.
- Atlus’s latest giant wears its themes on its sleeve.
- And also, while it doesn’t offer a proper fix to Japan’s biggest societal problems.
- It’s good that a big game like this is willing to criticize all things in such a public way.
- These kinds of tent-pole releases are good and rare to direct in their criticism.
- In a post-2011 tsunami Japan, it would not be terribly surprising if we see more of this kind of commentary moving forward.
- If we are interested in digging up more of Persona 5’s influences.
- I highly recommend looking into zaibatsu, the lost decade, black companies, and current Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
- The villainy is strictly grounding in reality (save for some late-game elements).
- Helps making it different from the world-ending monsters of P3 or the magic TV antics of P4.
- Ironically, Persona 5 ends up a much darker game than its two predecessors because of the way it tackles Japanese news headlines.
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Review Persona 5 Royal – Video game, Comical view, References to Persona 5 Royal, and More.