So on the one hand, I have got a lot of opinions about things I feel Royal did wrong in comparison to the bass game, speaking from the perspective of someone who is not yet done with the first dungeon, and that Persona 5’s base game didn’t do as well in comparison to Persona 4 Golden, but on the other hand I’ve always said it’s very unclassy to come at a game right after someone’s just told you it’s their favorite video game of all time, and it’s not like I hate it for all that I just don’t find myself as engaged by it and I’m taking a lot longer to finish it.
So I will instead say that, at least early on, I would definitely add Kasumi to the list of things the game does an absolutely horrible job with, and that represent major glaring flaws. I want an apology from every single person who ever complained about Marie in Persona 4 Golden, because she’s so much worse on every single metric, and nothing I’ve heard about how she’s handled later, whether the twist actually giving her a tiny bit of personality or the fact that she’s apparently barely in the game at the end, makes me feel like they are going to redeem my heavy complaints.
And it’s made even worse by the fact that they had a popular character just sitting there in the shogi girl, who had originally been planned to be included as an additional party member, who was pretty popular and the audience really liked, and when they got a chance to come back for another go they chose to throw in this terribly implemented new character instead. Your review actually let me know that they were not afraid to make story changes so the one excuse they could’ve had vanishes.
It's nice to see another mostly positive review on this game, although I think you could split it into more paragraphs and elaborate on some points. For example, you could explain why the stamps in Mementos "snap the game in half."
I'll concede that implementing Kasumi was tricky, and she could have had a larger role in the game, but at the same time, the twist regarding her means that it's difficult to include her in her party until she resolves her issues.
As for Hifumi, while she is an interesting character, I've never thought she was Phantom Thief material. Since her mother, who serves as her Mementos target, is relatively minor in the grand scheme of things, it would be difficult to incorporate her into the main story, especially adding another Palace. While Royal is willing to make story changes, adding Hifumi would require a far more significant overhaul of the plot than the addition of the third term(in fact, if you don't do Maruki's Confidant, the game after November 18 is identical to the base game.)
At the risk of further pouring negativity all over a happy positive review, she immediately got on my bad side by intrusively shoving her way into a revamped opening tutorial I was otherwise enjoying, being prominently displayed full face when every other character is being kept in silhouette so their later appearances will theoretically be a surprise, and then continuing to be crowbarred into the story via vignettes in ways that really do her no favors, mostly by having people around her look bad so she can try to look better by comparison.
And again, I can’t help but compare her to Marie, which lots of people complained felt forced on the player in a game I generally preferred, and wonder why on earth she isn’t getting the same level of complaints for being, again, far worse on every metric people allegedly disliked her predecessor.
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My favorite game of all time.
Persona 5 Royal took a game that was already a masterpiece and fixed what few flaws there were. Everything about this game is amazing. The story and characters are very compelling, even if it takes a hit in quality in spots. I really enjoyed the social links, not only because they have surprising gameplay depth (playing like a strategy game), but because it was very fulfilling helping people become happier people. The graphics and artstyle are absolutely amazing and look stunning despite being a PS 3 title that was ported to PS 4. The music is absolutely killer, not one track falls flat or is unmemorable. Quite possibly my favorite soundtrack of any game. The actual gameplay holds up well. RP Gs usually get quite repetitive for me but the amazing (for the most part) dungeon design coupled with the battles that emphasize managing enemies and exploiting weaknesses was both fun and never got stale. I also felt the story-to-gameplay ratio was more balanced than 4 where it was 75% story with occasional gameplay. My only real issues with the game are Okumera’s arc takes a large hit in quality in both writing and gameplay and certain changes in Royal (namely stamps in mementos) snap the game in half. This is a game I can find myself playing for very long stretches of time and is one of the few 80 hour games I have replayed. Overall the game is a masterpiece, a term I use very sparingly, and is well worth anyone’s time, vanilla or Royal. 10/10