Persona 5 Royal

You’ve seen the screenshots. The red. The menus that look like they were designed by someone who listens to jazz in a pinstripe suit. The cat. You’ve thought “that looks cool but it’s not for me — I don’t play anime games.”

Persona 5 Royal is the game that makes you realise ‘anime game’ isn’t a genre. It’s an dismissal. And it’s wrong.

You play as a high school student in Tokyo who, after being falsely accused of assault, transfers to a new school and discovers he can enter the “cognitive world” — a manifestation of people’s twisted desires. You and your friends become Phantom Thieves, stealing the hearts of corrupt adults to make them confess their crimes in the real world. It’s a game about abuse of power — by teachers, by employers, by politicians, by anyone who has power over someone else and uses it.

But that’s the plot. The game is something else. Half of it is a dungeon-crawling turn-based RPG with the Press Turn system — hit a weakness, get an extra turn, exploit the enemy’s vulnerabilities. The other half is a social simulator: you go to school, hang out with friends, work a part-time job, read books, go to the gym. Every relationship you build (Confidants) unlocks gameplay benefits — new abilities, new personas to fuse, combat advantages. The two halves feed each other. You want to hang out with your friends because you care about them AND because it makes you stronger in combat.

The style isn’t decoration. It’s communication. Every UI element, every transition, every menu is animated with such confidence that the game feels alive in your hands. No game has ever made navigating a menu feel this good. The soundtrack — acid jazz, J-pop, rock — is so good it makes other games feel sonically dead.

100+ hours. You’ll finish it and immediately want to start again. Not because there’s more to do — because you miss the world.