Those who can understand Japanese can already start to get excited about the upcoming Persona 5 re-release, subtitled Royal, which is scheduled to come out in Japan on Halloween of this year. Due to the time investment inherent in localizing a game with a large amount of dialogue, the English-language release of Persona 5 Royal will not be available until Spring 2020. Until then, Atlus has released the game’s opening cinematic to tide over fans during the wait.
First of all, the music, which is and always has been the most important part of Persona 5, is incredible. The video features a new addition to the game’s already stellar soundtrack titled “Colors Flying High” with vocals by Lyn Inaizumi, who previously provided the vocals for “Life Will Change,” “Wake Up, Get Up, Get Out There,” and pretty much all of the best songs on the original game’s soundtrack. This new song was already released in May of this year, but the addition of a hyper stylized opening video sure does make it shine all over again.
The visual style of the new opening resembles that of the original Persona 5’s opening cinematic, its characters drawn in an anime style, in semi-abstract, red environments. However, gone is the film grain effect added over the original opening, and whereas previously the anime style used was flat and minimalist, the characters in the new opening much more resemble how they look in the game’s anime cut scenes, with far more detail in their designs. It’s as if the sparkle on the golden R in the Persona 5 Royal logo is representative of the state of the game as a whole: newer and shinier, which naturally means more anime.
All of the Phantom Thieves are in attendance (in both their Phantom Thief and civilian outfits), including new addition Kasumi Yoshizawa, who gets her own introductory clip doing a stylish dance with an umbrella separate from the rest of the team, who are otherwise having the times of their lives tossing around a crystal heart and then destroying a city kaiju-style.
While this cinematic is but a small appetizer for what by all means looks to be a lavish, multi-course meal to come, it will have to tide all of us non-Japanese speaking plebs over until next year.
Source: Anime News Network
