Video: Digital Foundry's Technical Analysis Of Persona 5 Royal On Switch

It’s looks pretty good. I’m glad after all these years that people have been asking they finally get a port, not a cloud port, an actual persona port, and it’s looks fantastic.

@Snatcher resi 8 cloud port wasn't bad. I was bored and I was like it's only 40 bucks that's really just pocket change.

Every single video that guy makes he complains about the Switch, he doesn't seem to understand what makes it stand out and why people are willing to give up on raw pixel counts to have portability. Other Digital Foundry members seem to get it, this dude does not.

@Larams I just don’t like cloud in general but it’s nice to hear it ran well, but sadly my internet would never allow it. And this doesn’t go for everybody but I can just get it on literally any other console and enjoy it without the problems that comes with cloud.

@Rika_Yoshitake Gotta be honest, I have never listened to him with the sound on, didn’t even know they talked lol, does he really?

Portability always takes priority for me, especially for a game like Persona. So I don't mind the minor graphical sacrifices.

As always, I appreciate the tech analysis from DF though.

I’m surprised the docked resolution is so low. I’ve been playing it on my 4K tv and it looks nice and sharp to me.

@Rika_Yoshitake Except he makes very valid notes that the resolution should absolutely be higher than it is considering P5 was originally a PS3 game.

It's fine to be happy with what we got, but it's very reasonable to wish a better job had been done.

@LunarFlame17
The games visual style could play into that.
it has a very stylised and clean look to it,

50ish hours in. It plays and looks great.

Normal people: This is great! I'm having a lot of fun.

Digital Foundry: The wesowution is tewwibwe, this is unaccepabwe!

I'm fine with the way Persona 5 Royal looks on Switch. I imagine that the negatives he mentioned were implemented so that a rock-solid 30 fps could be maintained, and I'm totally okay with that.

Idk why some people act like the switch is this powerful console, it really isn’t, but it’s appeal is portability, which is something I can’t do with any of my other console, it’s even why I even double dip a lot of the time, I owned hallow knight on my ps4, but the appeal of portability made me really want to give it a go, and what do you know, it became one of my favorite games!

@IronMan30 Hahaha you win. That was perfect and completely accurate.

Digital Foundry according to reality: It is a close match, but the best Persona 5 portable experience is on the switch instead of the more expensive and powerful steam deck.

Digital Foundry according to fanboys: Bad resolution, unaccepabwe!

The low res textures downgrades are a real disappointment, not to mention only 540p in portable mode. Since the Switch has 4GB Ram, I would have thought there was no need to lower texture resolution that much.

Fanboys on NL failing to cope as per

They're literally a tech analyse channel. Fanboys on here need to accept that instead of crying that they say it how it is.

I used to like this channel, but...meh.
...
"less than ideal"?...Game looks and runs perfectly fine to me.

Oh yeah I forgot, 30fps, that pretty much makes this game unplayable on Switch according to "everyone". lol

@Doktor-Mandrake I don’t think people are fanboying, just saying what did you expect? It’s a switch, it’s never going to run better or similar to a ps4 or pc.

Persona 4 Golden was subnative on PS Vita and looked fine. I'm sure the same is true here.

A lot of it is down to artstyle. This runs at the same resolution as SMT V, but that game is noticeably softer looking when undocked.

Anyway, people need to chill. The analysis itself is fair. A game not being perfectly optimized doesn't mean you're not allowed to fully enjoy it.

I think the Steam Deck warped their minds over what would be considered "good" for portable games.

@Snatcher

It's a a biased perception to say "...seem to be acting like it's a sucky port..."it just helps to paint people as some kind of fanboy that neither grasp the video or at worst are spouting nonsense without having seen the facts.

• They not once say anything against the frame rate on the Switch version, it is a rock solid 30 fps, same as the far more powerful PS4 and XBox one, and they clearly said so. Saying "omg, 30 fps is unplayable to some etc etc" is just fanboy straw talk in this particular case. The frame rate for this particular port is PERFECT and they make it clear in the video itself.
• As they clearly show, the only port that actually fails at the frame rate test is the Steam Deck. And is a testament in favor of the Switch port and the video creators opinion of Performance>Resolution that they recommend the Switch version over the Steam Deck version beacusenof this, less resolution, but a rock solid performance makes for a better handled experience.

I'm sorry, but jumping from this positives and the less than ideal resolution, to reach the conclusion of "digital Foundry is saying it sucks"...it sounds like fanboyism, or plain delusionism.

@Yomerodes Well I said seems because I have yet to watch it with audio, just going off of peoples reaction to it, so they could have been vary fair, and people are just overacting or just don’t like the dude lol.

Edit: I looked at my comment, ok it looks really biased,, and worded poorly just let me edit it a bit lmao.

The state of Nintendo fanboys... The game was made for the PS3, a console that came out about 16 years ago. It's not unreasonable to expect it to run better. It runs at half the framerate of a SNES game and at only a slightly higher res than the PS1. But I guess it was worth waiting for like 6 years after P5 originally came out (a bit less for Royal) because now you can play the (worst version of the) game while sitting on the toilet, right?

@Matroska

And here we see how it goes both ways.

Compared with the PS3 version, The switch port runs better (stable frame rate) looks better (810 vs 720p) and has far more content (Royal improvements). And compared with the PS4 Royal version (that released not that long ago as you well say) it runs at exactly the same frame rate, has the exact amount of content plus all the paid dlc included, but it does take a hit in resolution. Less than ideal, but an all around solid port.

Oh, and no, the less stable version to play on the toilet is actually the Steam Deck port.

@Yomerodes Really? I’m gonna actually watch the video, pretty good port if it runs better then the ps3, because that would be pretty bad if it ran worse.

@Snatcher I mean I could say the same thing.. what did you expect? Them to make a tech analyse video and not talk about the tech?!

@Doktor-Mandrake Touché. Alright fair enough.

Digital Foundry is sometimes “tech snob bs” but 540p mobile res is still bad, not 3DS bad but could do better

Who cares about the tech nerd crap. I'm confident the game plays well just like every port I've tried. If it really was sub par quality the Switch version wouldn't have scored 94 on metacritic.

«Slightly blurry in handheld mode...» And «graphically looks worse than other Atlus titles on Switch»... So, P5R looks on Switch worse than overrated Catherine: Full Body... That's sad. But... I've played and completed Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes, which is «slightly blurry» (and have not stable framerate) in handheld mode as well, but I've enjoyed the game. So... I'm still want P5R and will play it on my Switch (in handheld mode only), and I will buy it when I will have a good opportunity to do it. Oh, also... At least, P5R in handheld mode looks better than Bayonetta 3.

It’s the ‘less than ideal’ for me. I think that’s harsh, and they said something similar about No Man’s Sky, a miracle experience on Switch, but nah, not good enough for these guys.

It’s hard to find distraction free time to sit a play a 80+ hour jrpg on the TV. Very happy to finally be able to play P5 portable. 30 fps on a stylised anime turn based life sim is perfectly fine… Resolution is decent and looks good on the OLED screen very playable.

These DF videos have always been a bit pointless, I could understand the purpose of these videos better if they compared pc graphics but they are comparing consoles which are technically out of date before they launch…

I don't really understand the problem people are having. Its just an analysis. I am not into portability nor do I own multiple consoles, it is what it is for me and I am having an awesome time with p5r. That being said I wouldn't mind if nintendo made their next console a bit more powerful so that I can get a watered down port of persona 6.

@electrolite77 And I have been called out, yes I will admit I didn’t watch the video with audio, I only saw how it looked and poorly assumed everyone else was just right, sorry.

@Yomerodes Haha, my thoughts exactly.

I think it's interesting that that they said they preferred playing P5R on the Switch OLED over Valve’s Steamdeck. Personally, that’s all the praise I needed to hear.

@yuwarite I think they also did it because they wanted the game to be less than 16gb so it could all be on the cart, the game is 30gb on ps4, 41gb on steam and it's 14,5gb on switch. I rather have all the game on cart and it runs great it's a great port. And by the way vanilla p5 on ps3 was 16,1Gb.

Already owned and played the original on PS3 and Royal on PS4 and it's in my top 10 of all time and my Switch OLED is what I prefer so I jumped on this day one of course. Runs perfectly just like Strikers.

@IronMan30 It's funny because they said the lighting and coloring for Crysis Remastered looked better on the Switch OLED then it did on current gen consoles. Make up your mind, DF

Persona 5 on ps3 runs at 1080p and 30fps, so are they saying the switch is weaker than the ps3?

@Rika_Yoshitake Im kind of with you on this one. His voice tends to grate on me and he is negative all the time. Unlike the other Digital Foundry presenters I do tend to skip to the bits I want in his videos or skip altogether. As for the game I know Switch ports will be lacking graphically compared to there counterparts but that comprise is outweighed by the fact its on device that I can take with me. Games like Persona work brilliantly portably because you can just dip in and out when you feel like it.

@JustMonika which makes sense and I did fail to acknowledge, but that isn't funny in this context so I wasn't going to talk about it.

Anyway, thanks for not taking my joke too seriously.

The day digital foundry shuts up is the day society will know peace

@electrolite77 well I felt like I should have said something, as that was my mistake for doing, I usually don’t make that mistake but I did lol.

It runs and looks fine, I'm already 30+ hours in and liking it at a lot.

@Slowdive @Vyacheslav333 I still need to watch the actual DF Video on this game but something I noticed with the Switch Version which I do own on my system is that while all the 3d stuff looks lower quality for whatever reason (I don't know what exactly is happening with the quality but some people are saying it's blur but idk) and it's very noticeable when comparing it to other versions of the game, the actual 2d stuff and 2d elements are all in 1080p even in handheld mode. So basically the pause menu, character portraits, the ux, the user interface, the all-out attacks, the battle ui, the many in-game menus and overall lots of other 2d things in the switch version of Persona 5 Royal are still super high resolution.

Also, I made a comparison between the Switch version vs Playstation 4 version which can be found here: https://imgur.com/a/kiiuIZD

I apologize for typing so much text and this is a habit of mine. I personally think the Switch version doesn't look too bad and I really am just playing the Switch version because of the portability but if I wanna play on a big screen I'll just play one of the other releases like on the Playstation or my computer.

Hm, that's a bit of a turn-off. And what's wrong with DF pointing it out like they did? They didn't demand anything unreasonable, instead they held it up to comparable Switch games that did better.

I'm hardly ever playing the Switch portable, I'm mostly interested in a good experience on the TV. Gotta say I'm finding myself more and more in the "can we have a 4K Switch please" camp.

He has some valid points in the review. But then again it’s Atlus so you can be sure they did the least humanly possible to port the game to Switch. But then again this reviewer cannot be taken seriously he compared No mans sky on the Switch with PlayStation and Xbox consoles and concluded that the Switch version has inferior graphics. I could have told him that without an analysis. So you couldn’t really expect anything positive from him anyways.

@Yomerodes "As they clearly show, the only port that actually fails at the frame rate test is the Steam Deck."

No, in the video they state that the Steam Deck mostly runs at a locked 720p 60fps in portable mode (1080p 60fps in docked). The only "drops" are very small loading area ones, that typically happen in a few areas of town. However, when the frame rate is capped to 30 or 40fps, it completely eliminates those stutters. But for the most part the game runs at 60fps, max graphics, just fine. In portable mode, the Deck runs at 720p, vs 540p on Switch.

But most importantly, the Steam Deck version has the higher resolution textures. A lot of small texture details appear to be completely smeared out on Switch, which, in a game that's all about its art style, is a disappointment.

Also, the average person is going to play Persona 5 docked sometimes as well. When you compare the docked performance of Steam Deck vs the Switch, the Deck is simply better in terms of frame rate, resolution and higher quality textures. On a big screen, the Switch's low res textures are also going to be much more noticeable. One thing I agree with the reviewer about, is the "deeper blacks" of the Switch OLED (I have the OG Switch, so that doesn't apply to me).

Performance wise: Battery life on Deck is about 4 hours with a capped 40 hertz/40 fps frame rate. 40hz/40fps is the sweet spot on Steam Deck, as it draws little battery compared to 60hz/60fps, while still maintaining a very smooth motion. Why? Because 30hz = 33.3ms response time, 60hz = 16.7ms and 40hz is mathematically right in between both at 25ms response time. So while 40 isn't 60, it still feels much smoother than 30. And again, at 40hz, you are getting no frame rate stutters on Deck.

Also, keep in mind that the Digital Foundry guy hasn't played the game all the way through, or for very long, on Deck; if you want more realistic opinions, the following YouTube videos are much more informative:

"With minimal tweaking, I was able to play through the first 10 hours of the game, at a solid 40 frames per second, max graphics, with no drops, and consistent frame pacing throughout."

"At 40 frames, the Deck's battery will also last for around 4 hours"

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_A-Bf2Pt20

Persona content creator prefers playing Persona 5 on Steam Deck over Switch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgDHX6w_94g

Quote: 'I've played Persona 5 multiple times. I've played it on PS4; P5 Royal on PS4 and PS5, and I've also played the Nintendo Switch version of P5 Royal now, as well. I can confidently say that the Steam Deck is the best way that you can experience Persona 5; Valve's Steam Deck is the ultimate way to play Persona 5 Royal':
https://youtu.be/AgDHX6w_94g?t=305

@TheCrabMan Lol. I have edited the damn post like 5 times now 😁

Over 40 hours into the game now, playing in both handheld and docked, and I haven't noticed any issues. I've just been having an absolute blast with it, same as I did when I played it on PS4 last year.

@Sequel they're still annoying and ruined the way people perceive video games and consoles... This video wasn't really that useful unless you like have multiple consoles either

@Jayesbe Okay. Well, I think, that it's technically (without hacking the console) impossible to have 1080p image quality on Switch, because it locked to 720p, if I don't confuse... Well, whatever... I know that 2D stuff usually looks normal or good in blurry 3D games on Switch in handheld mode. The same thing I can say about Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes - 2D stuff in the game looks good, while the main game (3D, top-down perspective) looks slightly blurry.

@IronMan30 Good on you for making fun of people with speech impediments, you must be a real charmer.

@Rika_Yoshitake Yeah, he's my least favorite member. He doesn't seem to value games beyond technical power unlike John, for example.

It's obvious that the game doesn't look as sharp as it does on the ps4 but it runs like butter and the load times don't seem any longer either. For a really high end AAA game that is massive in scope and content, the fact it runs as well as it does on a far less powerful system is remarkable.

In my opinion it's a fantastic port of a brilliant game. I think the devs deserve nothing but praise for it's execution (even if it did take an age to actually happen).

@Vyacheslav333 I mean, it's not really "impossible" on a non-hacked Nintendo Switch since the system can be set to 1080p resolution in the system settings, and yeah that's for docked mode but still there's 1080p. the screenshots I linked in my original reply to you are from my own playthroughs on both the Playstation 4 and the Nintendo Switch and the Switch version really does have the actual 2D stuff in 1080p with docked mode.

And with handheld mode, while I dunno 100% if the 2d elements really are in 1080p resolution, they visibly look much higher resolution than 720p. I'm pretty certain they look the exact same as on other platforms like the Playstation 4 Version (it's the only way I have to compare versions). Right now I'm looking at the pause menu of the Switch version and the Playstation 4 side-by-side and they both pretty much look the exact same at least when viewing both on the actual systems. Thankfully the pause menu and pretty much anything 2D didn't suffer a downgrade in terms of graphics and visual quality with the Nintendo Switch version (also nothing 2D in this switch port is blurry or lower quality, unlike the 3D stuff in this game), in both handheld and docked modes.

Why do people get so upset when someone critiques a game on the switch that absolutely could have a port be on par with a PS3 game?

It's a tech analysis...not a damn review.

@Carlore_Preventis but they're being so negative in the video!

😂

This is one of those times where specs wise/raw data shows the game being a lower resolution but it looks better to me than other games I've played that somehow looked worse at a higher resolution. Can't name anything specific atm besides maybe stuff like Xenoverse.

@SonOfDracula yes, I'm hiwawious.

Damn, fanboys really get defensive when someone doesn't shower in praises their plastic box. It was a nice tech review as always, game looks really boring though

@Jayesbe Yeah, I know. I was talking about handheld mode only. I remember that the 1080p resolution is available only in docked mode.

I could have bought it on Steam Deck but I impulse purchased the Switch steel book - I don’t think there is a big difference

I still want to get it, despite having it on xbox. I've never played Persona on a TV before, just three of them on the vita. Handheld just feels "right".

@Carlore_Preventis Spoken like a true internet coward.

@Rika_Yoshitake

He’s a die hard PC gamer. Even the PS5 and Series X aren’t worth consideration.

He’s very knowledgeable, but he comes from a life long PC background dating back to the 90s. A lot of PC gamers who started with PC have those types of feelings.

@Snatcher

Agreed. There are certain games just tailor made for Switch.

Shredder’s Revenge is a good recent example. I bought it on Switch over PS5 because it’s the perfect game to play for 20 minutes when you’re laying in bed. Just turn on the open invite and have some good old arcade fun.

@OrtadragoonX Yes! I actually do this for a lot of games, there’s definitely an appeal for the switch, indie games are something ai almost always get on switch, they run well, and there portable, so the hard ones I can put time into wherever I may be.

I used to like Digital Foundry's reviews but lately they have been harping on the Switch's weak specs a lot. It's starting to get very annoying.