The Persona series has a history of reimagining their titles a few years after their release and Persona 5 Royal seeks to revamp the hit title in a lot of ways. English fans finally got their first big taste of the return of the English voice cast in Persona 5 Royal’s English trailer, showcasing some new western voice talents and some of the game’s text and localization. While Japan got to experience Persona 5 Royal all the way back in October of last year, fans finally get the chance to dive back in to Tokyo at the end of March.
On the topic of reimagining Persona 5, Persona 5 Royal seeks to change some key aspects of the original title like adding a brand new Phantom Thief to the crew in Kasumi Yoshizawa. However, Persona 5 Royal seems to be changing more than just in-game locations and character dialogue – it also looks to be changing one controversial scene that many fans of the original game took issue with during its initial launch.
In a recent interview with GameSpot’s Michael Higham, Persona 5 Royal’s Senior Project Manager Yu Namba spoke about one controversial scene that will be getting a change in the upcoming release. The scene or scenes in question involve one of the Phantom Theives, the blonde haired Ryuji, being harassed by two gay NPCs in multiple cutscenes. The scene is played as a running gag of sorts, however the portrayal of the two gay characters was somewhat problematic and fans were quick to speak out about it.
In GameSpot’s interview, Namba elaborated on the team’s initial impression to the original scene saying, “Our team members felt a little bit of awkwardness about when working on it. And with Royal, we were determined to see if we could do something about it at least localization-wise.” Like the other new Persona 5 Scramble title that’s no doubt currently getting localized for the west, the localization team has to put a lot of thought into how they go about tweaking certain scenes.
However, changing scenes in the west is not an easy task, with Namba saying the team had to consult with not only the production department but marketing as well to gauge how fans might react. While the scenes doesn’t seem like it will be removed completely, Namba does make it sound like the problematic nature of the scenes have been resolved. Thankfully, it seems like those who have played Persona 5 but took issue with the scenes won’t have to feel uncomfortable this time around.
With the Persona 5 Royal’s imminent western release almost upon us, the urge to dive back into the Persona’s Tokyo is stronger than ever. While there have been rumblings of Atlus surveying interests in switch ports for their titles, no confirmation has yet to be officially announced. Until then, players will have to stick to their PS4’s to take join the Phantom Thieves’ journey once more.
Persona 5 Royal will release in North America on March 31 for the PS4.
Source: GameSpot
