Persona 5 Royal

The thief theme runs through everything. The hero's first Persona was going to be Mephistopheles, but Arsène, a nod to Arsène Lupin, took his place because he fit the theme of breaking free from society's limits better. The school is called Shujin, which sounds like the Japanese word for "prisoner".

Katsura Hashino first built the story around a backpacking trip across the world, then brought it back to Japan after the 2011 earthquake.

Royal adds a new Phantom Thief, Kasumi Yoshizawa, another Palace and a third semester. One reviewer liked that the semester fixed the original's abrupt ending.

Clear your calendar. Some reviewers warned that even the original might feel too long to some players. Players leave 96% positive out of 93,862 reviews, critics give it 95 on Metacritic. By our Recommended Score it is #10 of 4,736 games.

Liked it? Try Persona 3 Reload, a remake of the 2006 entry with the Tartarus tower in place of Palaces, Persona 4 Golden, with a murder investigation in a small country town, and Metaphor: ReFantazio, a fantasy by the same Hashino about a tournament for a murdered king's throne.