Atlus has been teasing a new edition of the wildly popular Japanese RPG Persona 5 and the cat is finally out of the bag. Persona 5 The Royal has been officially revealed and the team outlined new additions to game in a trailer.
Persona 5 The Royal will launch in Japan on October 31, with an English version coming sometime in 2020. The game looks like it will be an enhanced version of Persona 5, similar to how Persona 3 FES and Persona 4 Golden updated and expanded on their original titles. As far as the story goes, it will include the third semester of our hero’s lives, which was not told in Persona 5.
In the trailer, we see a new area to explore called Kichijoji, multiple new social links, a new aquarium, a bar where players can play darts or pool, and a fresh addition to the game’s Phantom Thieves. Read our original review of Persona 5 to get an idea of what the base experience is like while considering a future investment into Person 5 The Royal.
The new red-haired young woman sprinkled throughout the Persona 5 The Royal trailer is Kasumi Yoshizawa and the Japanese website describes her as a gymnast who “entered the Shichi Gakuen in the spring of the same year as the protagonist’s transfer (translated via Google Translate).” The new social link is part-time counselor Takuto Maruki and is the subject of the Le Consultant arcana. He’s been assigned to his position to speak with students “triggered by an incident of a certain teacher that happened in April at Syuden Academy.”
Kichijoji is a new space where various cultures will fuse into a space that attracts the young and old. There are also new recordings being added to the game, composed by Meguro Shoji, and the game will feature visual enhancements for those playing on the PS4 Pro. Newcomers or those that found Persona 5’s vast collection of activities overwhelming can take advantage of the new “Daily-Day Assist” command to get suggestions on what to do in the game’s world. We don’t know how deep this new function works, but it would be nice if it kept track of the player’s blossoming social links and helped to keep the momentum going or clue them in on other options that have become available at a given time.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.