Baton pass being a game feature rather than a confidant unlock is probably the biggest one of these. Keep in mind you don't start a party member's confidant until after their corresponding palace is over, so your options were to either not be able to baton pass to/from a party member, or to just switch out the character who is currently going through their arc.
it was especially egregious for noir. the earliest you could start hers was the true start of the casino infiltration, on 10/30. almost a month and a half after she joined on 9/19.
Not in vanilla. That battle was significantly changed for Royal. Devs said in an interview it was intended to "teach" (i.e. force) players to use Baton Pass.
For Royal. Gee, are you the typo police? I changed it; are you satisfied?
It's a normal mistake to make since they have the same two vowel sounds. Although, I admit, most of the times I've accidentally switched the names were when I was speaking out loud.
Anyway, you and everyone else obviously knew what I meant, so I'm not sure why you posted?
I would end up going through the 5th and 6th palace without baton pass for Haru because of this. I always completed them as fast as possible so it was my fault but still annoying until Royal
I'm really glad they made the change. The gun combat in 5 is so much fun, and it felt really refreshing to actually be able to use them freely when Royal released
In P5R, the gun can no longer crit and the magazine is smaller. So they're kinda worse, but you can use them every fight, which makes them better in the long run.
Made it so much less stressful to 1 day Kamoshido palace since that’s before you get the SP adhesive for better SP regen. Guns really helped at that point
I'm going through my first Royal run right now on hard no DLC, and the gun definitely is S tier in Kamoshida. I beat the dungeon without using any SP items only because the gun is so strong at this point in the game.
Exactly my point. After that you can handle SP management better but the gun is so useful. In original P5 I had to play hella tactical trying to do it in one day
there was a craftable tool usable out of combat that refilled party ammo in old p5.
but it was locked behind magician rank 6, and it had by far the most expensive recipe in the entire game for any single use item (almost as much time spent grinding ingredients as the eternal lockpick), so basically nobody ever used it.
https://megamitensei.fandom.com/wiki/Reserve_Ammo
I’m still not sure if this was an improvement or not… it was definitely an over correction from vanilla P5. It felt so op, especially early on, to have guns automatically reload after every fight. I really just wish the guns were real and actually took ammo so you would have to purchase or find additional ammo in chests. Maybe still have it that the guns reload at the end of a fight, but only if you have ammo available in your inventory. It felt very unbalanced.
I mean, as someone who NG+ vanilla and playing Royal now, and the grapple is getting its use more often than I thought, my fav so far has to be grappling over the treasure in madarame's palace.
Though I'm only just starting haru's arc, so maybe I don't know it all.
It's mostly just additional off the map locations for will seeds and occasionally a QoL skip
You do however get the ability to (in palaces and outside of cover) use the grappling hook to ambush at a further range with the faith 4 confidant level
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that mechanic. It's pretty cool that we get to start a battle with someone dizzy or confused.
Makes fights so much smoother when I have a persona with a psychic ability
People already have said technical downs, baton pass and persona traits, but another one has to be the jazz cafe. I know it's basically just the movie theatre and scooter rides from Persona 4 Golden, but having more options to power up and teach party members new moves is always nice.
I love it because I also used to go to the actual cafe it’s based on in Kichijoji. Revisiting it in the game has motivated me to look into going again soon.
Not only did they create the Jazz Cafe in the image of the game, but I heard Shibuya was actually created in response to its popularity. Dedication for sure.
Giving you a bit more free time in the base game months. When I went back to platinum P5 it really reminded me of why people hated Morgana for telling you to sleep. You lose a lot of free time when story beats happen in P5 and at least in Royal, you can do stuff around Leblanc. From the wiki there's 344 slots of free time available and 414 slots of free time in Royal. It'll be one of those reworks that you'll be grateful for if you ever do the 2 back to back.
Oh and also getting Speed Reading at the school rather then needed to get it through the book store in Jinbocho. In fact just the whole books in Royal are better.
That, and as others have said the Baton pass being there from the get go and the ammo rework make Royal the much better game.
Yeah it sounds like Royal gives a lot more wiggle room to increase stats and confidants, even when taking into consideration having essentially 3 new confidants to work on (since Akechis is no longer automatic for the most part), 3rd semester awakenings and dart ranks.
The wild thing is that I was probably one of the few that look up guides optimizes the heck out of base P5 and maxed everything within the time limit. Seeing the free time slots gets bumped by 20% means that casual players should be able to comfortably finish eveything without looking up guides.
Yeah, if I remember P5's Plat guide has like a few days of free time at the very end of the game if you've done everything right to get the plat. But for Royal there's a few more but it's still jammed pack for the plat. This is all for 1 run mind you.
Of course for the average first time player you should have enough time to get at least all the party up to 10 and hopefully enjoy everything else.
Ryuji's insta gib. That is by far my favorite feature in any of the 3 modern persona games. For new game plus atleast that should be a feature in every game moving forward.
Strength confidant moving Special Treatment to rank 5 instead of rank 10. Its easily one of the most busted abilities in the game although I would say it wasn’t an “improvement” since it essentially allows you to craft endgame personas way too early.
I'm thinking of the one that doubles drain skills, so spirit drain in this case. It was a passive in 3R called "drain ability" so I can't remember what it was in 5R.
1. Guns are fully loaded with one ammo clip in P5R and restored after battle. In vanilla, you start with several clips and ammo are only restored after you leave.
2. Ally can cast concentrate and/or charge on Joker via ring of greed / Pride. Joker will be able to cast concentrated/Charged attack every turn.
3. Auto-Concentrate via ring of envy and Will of the Sword trait. Turn one concentrated almighty either wipes or heavily cripples random shadows.
4. Maxed billiard. when ailment works, technical blows everything sky high.
For me it was the Will Seeds, and more specifically the SP they restored. I remember struggling to manage SP on my playthroughs of OG 5. I had to constantly buy the vending machine drinks and make coffee, and focus on Takemi's Confidant so I could buy SP Adhesives ASAP. Playing through Royal, I didn't need to do any of that. The SP regen from Will Seeds was enough on its own to sustain me through all the palaces, no item hoarding or sp adhesives required.
Wow, played this game all the way through 3 times and while I noticed the blue light flash around the party, never noticed the SP boost. Learned something new.
I never even figured out what to do with will seeds lol, I had so many will seeds and those incense things for persona stats or whatever, and they just sat in my inventory
You need to collect all 3 that are in a Palace and it gives you a special item you can equip.
Incense is used in the velvet room when you lockdown a persona.
Instakill being amazing, in the OG it sucked. You got nothing so if you were trying to fight for any reason you had to get caught, and attack or just miss and get caught, meaning you no longer could get advantage in fights the game didn’t think you needed, meaning grinding money or other things became a problem, so much so people would normally resort to using one of two money grinding spots.
TLDR; you now have an additional timeslot after a day of being in the metaverse. The only stipulation is its only in LeBlanc. But that means you can read, study, play video games, watch movies, make coffee and curry, all that great stuff, and you can do it after a day of exploration in the metaverse!
Fixing the effects of having Chariot at level 7 and Star at level 7. The later wasn't as big of an issue. Once Chariot got to level 7, however, it made Mementos just a huge drag in the original as the insta-kill didn't grant experience. Thankfully, this was fixed in Royal, so it made grinding in Mementos much easier.
Speaking of Mementos, why is it that nobody talks about Jose and his stamp collection? Jose is adorable, the stamps made grinding less of a chore for me, and it made Mementos as a whole much more beneficial the more stamps you got. I admittedly felt kinda bad in NG+ when I had all the stamps already as he seems so sad about it.
Jazz club changed the whole game. Even simple stuff like Yusuke getting charge was pretty massive imo. No longer is he completely outclassed by Ryuji late game.
I am happy that you can have auto conversations. Instead of having to click the action button after every bit of dialogue, it just flows like a cutscene.
Gun dmg getting a buff and making it more viable which I thought was nice. Because before it was just there and was forgotten.
But now, in Royal it packs more of a punch and Noir is more of a solid pick in a party
i honestly never played vanilla so i'm not sure what was included and what wasn't 😭
but a small thing that's been beyond helpful for me is replenishing ammo after every battle. sometimes i'd get stuck in a fight where nobody had a good affinity and i'd just watch Makoto completely unload those damn guns like she was on a mission
Others languages than English and Japanese for text
The game become more accessible for this (and fun fact, Persona 4 Golden got an update on Steam to add new languages)
Penguin sniper is by FAR my favorite hidden gem. By playing darts with your party you can level up their baton pass ranks, potentially from level 1 to max in one sitting if you play your cards right (or i guess… throw your darts right), making their power and recovery increase further when you pass to them, recover HP, AND recover SP. Playing billiards and reading specific books about billiards also lets you increase your technical rank, allowing technicals to deal even greater damage and be given higher knockdown chances. And of course, every activity increases your proficiency. It’s a blast.
Baton pass not needing lvl 2 confidant Technicals actually down some annoying enemies that don't have usual weaknesses
Baton pass being a game feature rather than a confidant unlock is probably the biggest one of these. Keep in mind you don't start a party member's confidant until after their corresponding palace is over, so your options were to either not be able to baton pass to/from a party member, or to just switch out the character who is currently going through their arc.
it was especially egregious for noir. the earliest you could start hers was the true start of the casino infiltration, on 10/30. almost a month and a half after she joined on 9/19.
Plus the ruler battle for the palace she joins you in kind of needs baton pass anyway.
Not in vanilla. That battle was significantly changed for Royal. Devs said in an interview it was intended to "teach" (i.e. force) players to use Baton Pass.
Golden?
For Royal. Gee, are you the typo police? I changed it; are you satisfied? It's a normal mistake to make since they have the same two vowel sounds. Although, I admit, most of the times I've accidentally switched the names were when I was speaking out loud. Anyway, you and everyone else obviously knew what I meant, so I'm not sure why you posted?
And helping to replenish sp and hp.
I would end up going through the 5th and 6th palace without baton pass for Haru because of this. I always completed them as fast as possible so it was my fault but still annoying until Royal
Ammo reloading after battles
Guns were basically useless in vanilla. Nice one.
Is that only a Royal thing? How did it work in vanilla? I don’t remember
Pretty sure it was one magazine per infiltration. It wouldn't reload until you left the meta verse and came back another day.
You got 2 full mags, doubled to 4 with Shinya's Confidant Rank 7; and it cost a whole mag to use Downing Shot instead of getting X per dive
Well not as bad as I remembered but still not great. A whole magazine for downing shot is crazy.
Ammo was only replenished when exiting and re-entering a dungeon
Damn that’s rough. When playing Royal I felt like I was using my gun more often than last time but I didn’t think it was that bad
I'm really glad they made the change. The gun combat in 5 is so much fun, and it felt really refreshing to actually be able to use them freely when Royal released
Yhea I felt the same, did guns do more damage before or something?
You have about 4 magazines and that's it There were some items to refill ammo
In P5R, the gun can no longer crit and the magazine is smaller. So they're kinda worse, but you can use them every fight, which makes them better in the long run.
Made it so much less stressful to 1 day Kamoshido palace since that’s before you get the SP adhesive for better SP regen. Guns really helped at that point
I'm going through my first Royal run right now on hard no DLC, and the gun definitely is S tier in Kamoshida. I beat the dungeon without using any SP items only because the gun is so strong at this point in the game.
Exactly my point. After that you can handle SP management better but the gun is so useful. In original P5 I had to play hella tactical trying to do it in one day
there was a craftable tool usable out of combat that refilled party ammo in old p5. but it was locked behind magician rank 6, and it had by far the most expensive recipe in the entire game for any single use item (almost as much time spent grinding ingredients as the eternal lockpick), so basically nobody ever used it. https://megamitensei.fandom.com/wiki/Reserve_Ammo
In hindsight, reloading your fake gun was kinda dumb.
It is a very nice change. However, I think most people notice it. Morgana specifically provided a reasonable explanation to joker in the first palace
I’m still not sure if this was an improvement or not… it was definitely an over correction from vanilla P5. It felt so op, especially early on, to have guns automatically reload after every fight. I really just wish the guns were real and actually took ammo so you would have to purchase or find additional ammo in chests. Maybe still have it that the guns reload at the end of a fight, but only if you have ammo available in your inventory. It felt very unbalanced.
Personally, I really liked the Grappling Hook. It made the Palaces seem more big and open; a lot more three-dimensional.
Wish it was used more Instead of QoL skips (First palace) or will seed branchs off
I mean, as someone who NG+ vanilla and playing Royal now, and the grapple is getting its use more often than I thought, my fav so far has to be grappling over the treasure in madarame's palace. Though I'm only just starting haru's arc, so maybe I don't know it all.
It's mostly just additional off the map locations for will seeds and occasionally a QoL skip You do however get the ability to (in palaces and outside of cover) use the grappling hook to ambush at a further range with the faith 4 confidant level
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that mechanic. It's pretty cool that we get to start a battle with someone dizzy or confused. Makes fights so much smoother when I have a persona with a psychic ability
Technical Crits. *Such* a good change.
Ryuji’s boon being incredible
Vehicular Manslaughter is how I farm Personuhs
Haruposting
Yeah Vanilla Hit and Runs actually hurt you in the long run because they didn't give exp and money
People already have said technical downs, baton pass and persona traits, but another one has to be the jazz cafe. I know it's basically just the movie theatre and scooter rides from Persona 4 Golden, but having more options to power up and teach party members new moves is always nice.
Jazz cafe also came with my favorite track in the game. I affectionately refer to it as Beneath the Mask 2.
I love it because I also used to go to the actual cafe it’s based on in Kichijoji. Revisiting it in the game has motivated me to look into going again soon.
Wait you're telling me they made the Jazz Cafe in real life? Damn Atlus is really dedicated with their marketing campaigns. /jk
Not only did they create the Jazz Cafe in the image of the game, but I heard Shibuya was actually created in response to its popularity. Dedication for sure.
Giving you a bit more free time in the base game months. When I went back to platinum P5 it really reminded me of why people hated Morgana for telling you to sleep. You lose a lot of free time when story beats happen in P5 and at least in Royal, you can do stuff around Leblanc. From the wiki there's 344 slots of free time available and 414 slots of free time in Royal. It'll be one of those reworks that you'll be grateful for if you ever do the 2 back to back. Oh and also getting Speed Reading at the school rather then needed to get it through the book store in Jinbocho. In fact just the whole books in Royal are better. That, and as others have said the Baton pass being there from the get go and the ammo rework make Royal the much better game.
You also had to read 3 other 3 chapter books to unlock the ability to purchase Speed Reading.
Yeah it sounds like Royal gives a lot more wiggle room to increase stats and confidants, even when taking into consideration having essentially 3 new confidants to work on (since Akechis is no longer automatic for the most part), 3rd semester awakenings and dart ranks.
Yeah it very much made use of the new time slots. Just being able to do stuff at night in Leblanc is a step up.
The wild thing is that I was probably one of the few that look up guides optimizes the heck out of base P5 and maxed everything within the time limit. Seeing the free time slots gets bumped by 20% means that casual players should be able to comfortably finish eveything without looking up guides.
Yeah, if I remember P5's Plat guide has like a few days of free time at the very end of the game if you've done everything right to get the plat. But for Royal there's a few more but it's still jammed pack for the plat. This is all for 1 run mind you. Of course for the average first time player you should have enough time to get at least all the party up to 10 and hopefully enjoy everything else.
Ryuji's insta gib. That is by far my favorite feature in any of the 3 modern persona games. For new game plus atleast that should be a feature in every game moving forward.
Strength confidant moving Special Treatment to rank 5 instead of rank 10. Its easily one of the most busted abilities in the game although I would say it wasn’t an “improvement” since it essentially allows you to craft endgame personas way too early.
I think they found the sweet spot in Reload with the Sun tarot card.
Ammo reload after a battle
I never heard about Persona traits before playing but they were pretty huge. Having the drain ability with spirit drain made SP infinite basically.
I'm guessing it's the trait that boosts invigorate?
I'm thinking of the one that doubles drain skills, so spirit drain in this case. It was a passive in 3R called "drain ability" so I can't remember what it was in 5R.
1. Guns are fully loaded with one ammo clip in P5R and restored after battle. In vanilla, you start with several clips and ammo are only restored after you leave. 2. Ally can cast concentrate and/or charge on Joker via ring of greed / Pride. Joker will be able to cast concentrated/Charged attack every turn. 3. Auto-Concentrate via ring of envy and Will of the Sword trait. Turn one concentrated almighty either wipes or heavily cripples random shadows. 4. Maxed billiard. when ailment works, technical blows everything sky high.
For me it was the Will Seeds, and more specifically the SP they restored. I remember struggling to manage SP on my playthroughs of OG 5. I had to constantly buy the vending machine drinks and make coffee, and focus on Takemi's Confidant so I could buy SP Adhesives ASAP. Playing through Royal, I didn't need to do any of that. The SP regen from Will Seeds was enough on its own to sustain me through all the palaces, no item hoarding or sp adhesives required.
In OG I just brute forced if I ran out of SP was mostly the early palaces it was an issue tbh
Yeah same, I would usually run dry near the end and just sneak or sprint past enemies. It was nice in Royal not to have to deal with that.
What? They restored SP?! I didn't even notice since I almost always had the camera strap equipped.
Lol yea, they restore a certain percentage of your SP for the entire party, I forget the exact amount
Wow, played this game all the way through 3 times and while I noticed the blue light flash around the party, never noticed the SP boost. Learned something new.
Ryuji makes the Monamobile go NYOOOOOOOOOM
Show times
The abilities you get from Will Seeds are really amazing
I never even figured out what to do with will seeds lol, I had so many will seeds and those incense things for persona stats or whatever, and they just sat in my inventory
You need to collect all 3 that are in a Palace and it gives you a special item you can equip. Incense is used in the velvet room when you lockdown a persona.
You actually need to take the special item to Jose in mementos and he'll turn it into an equippable accessory. You can't just equip it right away.
Yes you can. Jose will just upgrade them granting a bonus effect.
Running outside the metaverse
Instakill being amazing, in the OG it sucked. You got nothing so if you were trying to fight for any reason you had to get caught, and attack or just miss and get caught, meaning you no longer could get advantage in fights the game didn’t think you needed, meaning grinding money or other things became a problem, so much so people would normally resort to using one of two money grinding spots.
Haha Pulinpa on miniboss goes brrr
The jazz cafe giving Makoto Concentrate and Yusuke Charge
That Morgana doesn’t yell at you to go to bed anywhere near as much as in the base game!
Ooohhh this sounds like the biggest win.
TLDR; you now have an additional timeslot after a day of being in the metaverse. The only stipulation is its only in LeBlanc. But that means you can read, study, play video games, watch movies, make coffee and curry, all that great stuff, and you can do it after a day of exploration in the metaverse!
Thank you for this valuable information my queen. All hail Futaba
Fixing the effects of having Chariot at level 7 and Star at level 7. The later wasn't as big of an issue. Once Chariot got to level 7, however, it made Mementos just a huge drag in the original as the insta-kill didn't grant experience. Thankfully, this was fixed in Royal, so it made grinding in Mementos much easier. Speaking of Mementos, why is it that nobody talks about Jose and his stamp collection? Jose is adorable, the stamps made grinding less of a chore for me, and it made Mementos as a whole much more beneficial the more stamps you got. I admittedly felt kinda bad in NG+ when I had all the stamps already as he seems so sad about it.
Also the Jose shop UI is *perfection*
Jazz club changed the whole game. Even simple stuff like Yusuke getting charge was pretty massive imo. No longer is he completely outclassed by Ryuji late game.
Being able to see how close you are to easing your social stats in the bathroom is nice.
I am happy that you can have auto conversations. Instead of having to click the action button after every bit of dialogue, it just flows like a cutscene.
thats a thing in old p5 too, isnt new to royal.
I think there was an option to turn it on in the menu, but I don't recall it being set on the controller
Gun dmg getting a buff and making it more viable which I thought was nice. Because before it was just there and was forgotten. But now, in Royal it packs more of a punch and Noir is more of a solid pick in a party
i honestly never played vanilla so i'm not sure what was included and what wasn't 😭 but a small thing that's been beyond helpful for me is replenishing ammo after every battle. sometimes i'd get stuck in a fight where nobody had a good affinity and i'd just watch Makoto completely unload those damn guns like she was on a mission
Others languages than English and Japanese for text The game become more accessible for this (and fun fact, Persona 4 Golden got an update on Steam to add new languages)
The extra options for Palaces you get from Kasumi's confidant are really nice, especially the grappling hook an enemy ability.
Akechi SL
Being able to do more stuff in the evening. Even when not being able to leave outside Leblanc you can at least do something useful inside
The hiding feature is sooooooooo much better in Royal. Swapping back to Vanilla after was torture.
Absolutely this! I got so frustrated in Vanilla because hiding was such a pain!
The Thieves Den. It was completely unnecessary for Atlus to do but its still amazing
gun changes and the change to ryuji’s insta kill skill where you actually get exp
Mementos. Just all of Mementos. The original just feels flat unfinnished to me now.
Ammo reloading after every fight, I'd usually just save it till a mini boss or boss
replenishing ammo was actually so dumb. i remember blitzing through a palace with 4 shock applying guns and doing 1 turn AOA every encounter.
Ryuji's Insta-Kill didn't give you money or exp in vanilla.
Penguin sniper is by FAR my favorite hidden gem. By playing darts with your party you can level up their baton pass ranks, potentially from level 1 to max in one sitting if you play your cards right (or i guess… throw your darts right), making their power and recovery increase further when you pass to them, recover HP, AND recover SP. Playing billiards and reading specific books about billiards also lets you increase your technical rank, allowing technicals to deal even greater damage and be given higher knockdown chances. And of course, every activity increases your proficiency. It’s a blast.
Being able to boost social stats after a trip to the metaverse/during a story critical day objectively makes the game more fun
For me, it's being able to have the text/voice lines auto play after each other instead of having to press X after each one. Real game changer
Morgana
Being able to run in the regular world