Press release (June 25, 2024)

It is with a not particularly heavy heart that I announce the parting of ways between me and Persona 5 Royal. This is in accordance with the “It is Enough to Play A Little Bit of a Game” Policy that I adopted six years ago to preserve my sanity. I thank the Phantom Thieves for their many hours of service and wish them all the best in their future endeavors.

I will now take a few questions from the press.

Why did you drop Persona 5 Royal?

Because it was boring. Next question.

How can you say it was boring after obviously loving it for the past 100 hours?

Clarification: It had become boring. There’s something called “too much of a good thing,” and Persona 5 Royal had just outstayed its welcome.

What exactly was the problem?

1. I was just ready to move on. I thought the original ending of the game was okay despite a few lingering questions, and I’m ready to play other games now. In particular I’d gotten tired of the battles and using the same spells and monsters over and over again.

2. The epilogue (of sorts) revolves around characters I either actively dislike (Akechi) or never really cared for because they didn’t affect much (Maruki, Yoshizawa).

3. I found it especially odd and uncomfortable for Akechi to just join the Phantom Thieves like he didn’t casually murder Haru’s father just a few months ago. And isn’t sorry. And hasn’t paid for his crimes. You know how in some games you can’t recruit character A if you recruit character B? I thought it would be like that and you’d have to pick between Haru and Akechi. But nah, the team acts like they have to work together with the guy who killed Haru’s father and tried to kill Joker, like we haven’t been doing just fine on our own so far. They might put up with it, but I don’t have to.

4. There wasn’t enough interesting content left to do. I had done most of the confidant routes already, and I realized I wasn’t interested in the ones I hadn’t done – Ryuji, Ann, Makoto, Futaba. Yes, there are party benefits to maxing out their routes but no, I still didn’t want to do them.

Any chance of returning in the future?

Never say never, but in practice I rarely replay JRPGs. I don’t even care enough about the ending to watch it on YouTube, so it’s safe to say I am well and truly over this game.

What’s next on the agenda?

Deleting Persona 5 Royal from the Switch and getting all that space back felt really sweet, so I’m going to force myself to either finish or definitely drop Xenoblade Chronicles 3 so I can get that same feeling again. Once I’m done with that, I’m planning to play Tokimeki Memorial Girls’ Side 4. It’s been ages since I played an otome game (they just aren’t my thing any more, if they ever were) and the TMGS games were much better than most of the rest.

For non-Switch games, I’ve dropped Epic Seven for a bit but I’m still playing Love Nikki plus the other games I mentioned downloading last time. I also have the games I mentioned in my 2024 resolutions to try, which I will seriously do in the second half of the year, though it’s very likely that I will be trying them briefly and deleting them sharp-ish. Thus is the life of the discerning gamer.

One more question…

Please direct all other questions to my agent. I’ve got to get back to my video games. XC3, here I come!