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In an update trailer for the upcoming Japanese release of Persona 5 Royal, developer Atlus showed off some updates to palaces and battles to make the Phantom Thieves even more stylish. While the video is in Japanese, there is enough information in what is shown to cast educated speculation on some of the game’s changes.
The trailer shows off a number of combat updates, including purchasing bullets and customizing guns to use elemental effects in battle. In the base game, bullets could inflict status effects, like despair or fear. Now bullets will be capable of striking with elemental effects that were previously attached exclusively to player skills, like electricity or fire.
Another update is Joker’s use of the grappling hook. While the hook was shown off in Joker’s Smash Bros. appearance, fans had yet to see it in the actual game. Now, in the trailer, you can see the grappling hook being used for palace traversal, dodging traps and crossing gaps, but it can also be used to start a battle from a distance. If you see an enemy walking around in the palace, you can grapple yourself right to it, leading to a quick battle in your favor.
There is also speculation in the comments section of the trailer that bullets will automatically refill after each battle instead of after the player leaves the palace, but it is hard to verify without a direct translation.
The trailer also shows off a new collectable item in the palaces, a skull, that can be combined with other skulls you can collect to create an accessory. The accessory seems to be able to grant the character who has it equipped the ability to use a skill they had previously not learned. In the trailer, Ryuji Sakamoto, typically an offensive character, is shown using a healing skill, one he does not learn through typical leveling.
While these all seem like fun and interesting changes to spice up traversal and combat, we will have to wait for an English translation (or the game’s Western release sometime in 2020) to see if this speculation is correct.
For more on Persona 5 Royal, check out the E3 English trailer.
Source: Game Informer
