Persona 5: 11 tips before you play

Persona 5: 11 tips before you play
Persona 5 is a role-playing game about breaking into physical manifestations of people’s darkest desires. It’s also a game about getting good grades, making friends, working part-time jobs, improving yourself, and taking care of your plants over the course of a year in the life of a Japanese teenager.
To call the game sweeping is an understatement; even if you sink dozens of hours into the story, you’ll still be scratching its surface. It can feel overwhelming to start — like deciding to finally read Moby Dick or watch every episode of Adventure Time. To help newcomers and veterans alike, I’ve put together a handy guide of all the tricks and tips I learned along the way. Learn from my mistakes.
DON’T FORGET TO USE THE GAME’S SOCIAL FEATURES Persona 5 has a few helpful social features that you can opt into every time you start up your game. There are the minor ones, like summoning a beatdown in a dungeon when an enemy is trying to flee, or seeing how other players choose to spend their days in game — great for pinpointing new characters to meet. But the best use of the feature is for pop quizzes, little moments in class when teachers will ask you the answer to questions about art, history, language, and other topics. With social features, you can tap the large pad on the PS4 controller to pull up the percentage of players that chose each answer; usually the majority answer is the correct one.
SWAP OUT YOUR TIRED PARTY MEMBERS FINISHING A DUNGEON WITH LOTS OF DAYS TO SPARE IS A THRILL Every palace has a series of safe rooms where you can save your game, chat with your party, or quick-travel to places you’ve unlocked. Your best line of defense against an unexpected party wipe is to save often. And if your character’s are low on SP (the precious fuel of most Persona abilities) remember to fast-travel to the dungeon’s entrance to swap-in fresh, fully powered teammates. It’s also helpful to match the abilities of your teammates with the enemies in a dungeon. You can only bring four people into a dungeon at a time. So, if your enemies are weak to ice attacks, you will want to be sure to bring someone that deals in bufu skills. Your teammates tend to gravitate to one main spell type, and the main character’s ability to use multiple Personas means you’re unlikely to be without a basic arcana you need.
DON’T FORGET TO USE YOUR SENSE SKILL Lost? Make sure you’re using your sensing skills (holding L1) to highlight specific paths in each palace (marked by exclamation points). It’s also the best way to sniff out items to loot and sell later. The sense skill also works perfectly fine when you’re not in dungeons, highlighting places to visit and people to chat with.
SPEND TIME IN MEMENTOS Mementos is akin to Persona 3’s Tartarus, a randomized dungeon with unknown depths. You’ll occasionally be asked to come here to complete requests from the Phantom Thieves fan site. Those requests are worth completing, and sometimes they will help you progress specific social links. Make time for them, and be sure to reach the lowest level available between each dungeon. At the very least, Mementos is an easy place to grind for levels and additional Persona masks.
VISIT THE VELVET ROOM REGULARLY If you’ve played a Persona game before, you’ll be familiar with the Velvet Room, the go-to place to register, fuse, and recall Personas. You can fast-travel to the Velvet Room through various points in the city, or at dungeon entrances; visiting won’t cause time to pass in-game, either.
PRIORITIZE SPECIFIC SOCIAL LINKS Persona 5’s confidants offer different skills, abilities, or general bonuses, like extra time in class. Focus on starting links with all of your teammates to unlock their baton pass ability in battle, and then pick and choose early who you want to completely level. My personal favorites are the confidants relating to the Star and Temperance arcanas. To maximize your time with each confidant, make sure you’re carrying a Persona of their arcana. So if you plan to spend time with Ann, who represents the Lovers arcana, you want a Persona that matches, like Leanan Sidhe.

Persona 5: 11 tips before you play

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