Persona 5 Royal now lets Joker give gifts to male characters

Persona 5 Royal comes with a host of changes to the original game, and one of these is that Joker is now able to give gifts to male characters (via Siliconera).

Persona 5 Royal is a revamped revision of the original game, and it promises to add a new Phantom Thief, a new Palace, new Personas, new narrative features, and an extra semester. Famitsu has released a few extra details about the new game, and one of these inclusions is an improved Social Link system. 

In Persona 5, Joker could only give gifts to female characters. This would progress their Social Link level, improving their all out attacks, critical chances, and experience point bonuses, and could lead to romantic relationships with Joker. Of course, Social Link applied to the male characters of Persona 5 in just the same way, but the gifts were always associated with the possibility of romance.

The English localisation of Persona 5 is known to be erratic in its quality, and the game’s representation of LGBTQIA themes were criticised to be immature and prejudicial. It is an exceptional game, however, this experience left a sour taste in some players’ mouths. Appreciably, this new Social Link system does not remove these references, but it is a step in the right direction. Furthermore, Famitsu reported that tried and true approaches in Persona 5 may not yield the expected result in Persona 5 Royal. 

If players wish to level their Social Links to the greatest extent, the are advised to pick up the phone when these characters call. But, there is a character whose progress is capped after the third semester, and Famitsu kept shtum on who that might be. 

Though it’s crammed every corner of the original game with new content, Persona 5 Royal won’t actually take you an age to complete. Atlus reckons it’ll have a comparable playtime to Persona 5 because the game has been optimised to reduce load times and the time taken to complete battles and Palaces. Nifty. 

Persona 5 Royal releases to the PlayStation 4 on October 31 in Japan, and the game is expected to launch in early 2020 for the US and the UK.