Persona 5 Royal is a turn based JRPG initially released on PS4 in 2019-2020 and soon to be released on all other consoles/Steam October 31st of this year. It was developed and produced by Atlus and falls under their Shin Megami Tensei franchise. Royal is an expanded edition of Persona 5, which released in 2016-2017. It includes a third semester with new characters and a new final boss.
P5R follows the story of the Phantom Thieves, a group who use the Metaverse (not that one) to change the hearts of people. The game opens with the protagonist being put on probation and sent to live with a family friend in Tokyo, after defending someone being assaulted. He transfers to Shujin Academy, begins meeting others with similar power, and they form the Phantom Thieves to challenge corruption in the world.
The gameplay is half exploring dungeons and fighting demons and half social simulator. The dungeons, known as Palaces, are unique to each major villain with guards, puzzles, and items that match their overall aesthetic. The social simulator aspect involves going to school, spending time with people, working part jobs, and going to many unique locations. There's also a side dungeon called Mementos where you can do side quests, which has a more traditional, procedurally generated layout.
The music is more jazz influenced than past Persona games, but still maintains rock, rap, and electronic influences too. Some of the now series-iconic songs have come from this game, Beneath the Mask (rainy day version) being one of my favorites.
What I appreciate the most about this game are the overarching themes that drive the story. The main cast have different traumas in their lives that ultimately brought them together, but one by one they work through that pain. It made me so much more invested seeing characters work through things that many of my friends and I have struggled with too. Watching the cast slowly grow their confidence and look to the future gave me many emotional moments and made this game feel worthy of a mega.
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I want to bounce off the suggestion of a game teaching healthy lifestyle and creation of social space with my personal experience:
I am a Melee player. It is extremely difficult to compete in Melee. One may expect a toxic, selfish and alienating environment created by the competitiveness, but the opposite happened. Development of skills became a collaborative effort. I'd credit this to Melee's infinite depth.
When a new technique is brought into the metagame it cannot be horded. By nature of competing publicly that technology is submitted to the metagame. Attempts to horde the tech hurt the player by setting them behind, being unprepared for counters developed by others. Players who openly share their tech are able to develop counters faster than horders.
What this created is a community focused on not just self-improvement, but collective-improvement. My experience with Melee taught me many transferable skills that have dramatically improved my life and that of those around me.
EXACTLY
20XX/UnclePunch doesn't happen unless there is some fundamental understanding that the growth of the individual player is tied to the growth of the playerbase at large. I think that Melee has a lot of specific issues such as top players ducking new blood, the NFT shit, etc but even with all of those faults, Melee has had a much more positive impact than something like, Night in the Woods (a game I really like). You meet people who are willing to give you rides and spot you some help if you fall on hard times and you recreate that social body through getting falco spiked over and over. It feels rewarding to cultivate, it's fantastic!
Plus, if you wanna get consistent, you're gonna have to learn how to be healthy. You need to get decent sleep, you need to give your hands proper rest, gotta pick up some cardio, eat right, or you're going to drop shit and lose games you should have won because you can't physically keep up. If you're doing things right, FGs leave you better off than when you came in.
There are two reasons I got in shape as a teen: Melee and God Hand. Constancy and lucidity demanded that I have a healthy body. I wouldn't be the antifa super soldier I am now if it weren't for those games.
A moment that hit me was arriving at someone's house to play Melee and see all these shredded players talking about good eating habits, not drinking soda, meditating, etc.
I'm not going to wash away Melee's problems. The sexism is rough, but oddly the community is supportive of trans people. I suspect that comes from the same place a successful communist society would need strong foundation in intersectionality: You need every participant you can get. The larger problems seem to fester in top players, ironically a byproduct of the game's competitiveness.
Sure you could learn healthy habits to compete better, but consider this: Mang0
Mango was pretty shredded back when I met him. His skill has hit a cap in recent years. Outside of his Losers Boost passive, he's outclassed by newer players.