Persona 5

Utnayan

I Love Utnayan he’s awesome
<Gold Donor>
16,290
12,054
Light spoilers:
Then just make sure to not take a very stupid option after one of the palaces. (6th I think? Casino one) And make sure you don't stop before the story makes you during the stuff after the following palace. (The Ship) - if you're afraid you're going to screw it up somehow - make backup saves around 11/18 and 11/23 if my memory serves me right on things (a couple days before each potential finale)

Also with the three real endings (non-game loss ones - there are a few special game loss ones apparently too) I know they basically force you to make a hard save ("OMG! BIG STUFF HAPPENING IN A SEC, YOU PROBABLY WANT TO SAVE!" message with a Y/N toggle) before you make the decision that can result in Ending #1, I forget if it did similar for Ending #2 however, and then the True Ending obviously doesn't really need one. Ending #1 is around mid Nov, Ending #2 is Xmas day, True Ending is into the next year some.

They're all "cumulative" endings anyhow though hinged off a single decision that immediately impacts the game - so its not like some games where you've got to play all the way through to see all the endings. You could easily save, see an ending, reload - replay about 2-15 min of stuff and be working on the next ending.

To my knowledge only two things require an actual replay - one "secret boss" (that's not remotely secret to anyone who played P3/4 since it follows the same concept as their secret bosses) and creating one final persona, Satanael. Everything else can be done in a single playthrough including seeing all the endings (with some small save reloads as stated above).

Ok cool thanks :) That helps a ton. As long as I can scum save it I am good.
 

Intrinsic

Person of Whiteness
<Gold Donor>
14,236
11,655
Finally started this last night and have been just scouring different sources for noob starter tips w/ no to minimal spoilers. Only an hour or two in though. Wife will be gone tomorrow through Sunday so it'll be all game time. Might go so see Alice Cooper tomorrow night though.
 
  • 1Like
Reactions: 1 user

Utnayan

I Love Utnayan he’s awesome
<Gold Donor>
16,290
12,054
If you have not played any of these before, know that the initial hours are very slow and not a lot opens up until after the first palace.
 

spronk

FPS noob
22,592
25,632
the only tip i'd say when you first start is max out the doctor (death) confident first, at rank 5 she opens up selling talismans or whatever and at rank 7 (i think) discounts everything to 50%. She sells a thing which regens 7 SP per round per person for 100k (50k discount) and thats probably the most useful thing to run palaces in 1 cycle, otherwise you end up running out of SP and have to do palaces over 2-3 days.

also there is a "cheat", save up all your mementos targets, and when you go do them save game, build up a persona that has pulinpa (high chance of confuse at 1 target), it'd be nice to also add the passive increase chance of confuse hitting target but not necessary, and right before you attack a mementos target "boss", remove everyone from your party (options, stats, square on everyone else - can only do this after you get 5th party member) and fight the boss with your PC. Confuse the target and guard every round, confuse again when it wears off. boss will drop 5-100k money every round, grind on this for 1-2 hours and you'll be sitting on 2-3m money. money, personal stats, weapons/some gear and personas carry over from first game to NG+ so worth doing. some mementos bosses are immune to confuse however so if that happens just reload and kill that boss and go to another (thats why saving up a bunch for one run is nice).

there's also a way to grind levels using reaper and flu but not till nov and its really not worth doing on your first play through, better on NG+. You really can't max EVERYTHING in first play through unless you have a perfect play through and there isn't any point really, can easily beat the game without it so just play how you feel and bang all the chicks you want to, you can run the game a second time in NG+ pretty quickly and it becomes super easy to max everything out then.
 

Vorph

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
10,996
4,721
The most important part of the Pulinpa exploit is raising Luck to at least 50, preferably more like 70-75. Since they only toss coins like 25% of the time it takes forever to max out your money if you aren't getting at least 150-200k per toss (instead of hours it took me maybe 10 minutes to hit 9,999,999 yen). Pulinpa and Confuse Boost should be on Shiki-ouji too. It's the lowest level persona that nulls phys and gun, which makes it easy to put all of its level ups into Luck. Give it Diarama, Invigorate 3 (so you can wear a 10 Lu accessory instead of the 7 SP one), and whatever else you want and you'll be fine.
 

DrSpooge

Blackwing Lair Raider
737
2,398
Just got to 5th dungeon and... this so effortlessly catapulted itself into game-of-all-time territory it's not even funny. The jrpg remains my favorite genre, but I don't think anybody can (could?) make an argument asserting that the genre is (was?) anything other than moribund.

I've been waiting for this game as long as anyone - hell, I'd argue longer, since P3FES is an all-time favorite and yet I profoundly disliked P4 - and while I knew Atlus wasn't pulling any punches, I didn't exprct this game to so thoroughly outclass P3. I knew Atlus's decade-in-the-making release would humiliate Square's decade-in-the-making release, but I couldn't predict Atlus humiliating Square so completely that if I was asked, say, to insert P5 into an FF hierarchy entirely shorn of nostalgic forces, I'd rank it alongside FFT and above everything else. I keep meaning to find out how much this game cost - surey a SMALL fraction of what Squeenix spent on the malformed kluge that is FFXV.

And I certainly wasn't prepared to be able to declare unequivocally that in a year that saw Nioh and HZD released, there'd be a fucking jrpg of all things to relegate them to distant second and third positions.

Oh, yeah - best OST since Hotline Miami.

All my opinion, of course :p
 
Last edited:
  • 1Like
  • 1Solidarity
Reactions: 1 users

Intrinsic

Person of Whiteness
<Gold Donor>
14,236
11,655
The most important part of the Pulinpa exploit is raising Luck to at least 50, preferably more like 70-75. Since they only toss coins like 25% of the time it takes forever to max out your money if you aren't getting at least 150-200k per toss (instead of hours it took me maybe 10 minutes to hit 9,999,999 yen). Pulinpa and Confuse Boost should be on Shiki-ouji too. It's the lowest level persona that nulls phys and gun, which makes it easy to put all of its level ups into Luck. Give it Diarama, Invigorate 3 (so you can wear a 10 Lu accessory instead of the 7 SP one), and whatever else you want and you'll be fine.

You're all speaking gibberish! j/k thanks for the tips, will reference once I actually get somewhere to do something in game.
 

Vaclav

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
12,650
877
The most important part of the Pulinpa exploit is raising Luck to at least 50, preferably more like 70-75. Since they only toss coins like 25% of the time it takes forever to max out your money if you aren't getting at least 150-200k per toss (instead of hours it took me maybe 10 minutes to hit 9,999,999 yen). Pulinpa and Confuse Boost should be on Shiki-ouji too. It's the lowest level persona that nulls phys and gun, which makes it easy to put all of its level ups into Luck. Give it Diarama, Invigorate 3 (so you can wear a 10 Lu accessory instead of the 7 SP one), and whatever else you want and you'll be fine.

Is there a means to control stat level ups? I thought they were random.
 

DrSpooge

Blackwing Lair Raider
737
2,398
Is there a means to control stat level ups? I thought they were random.

Leveling via fusion, note the stats highlighted in gold before confirming. If they're not what you want, back out and select fuse again for a different set of stats. You get three stats per level, so if just on stat is highlighted, it gets +3; if two, one gets +2 and one gets +1 (can't tell which is which); if three stats are in gd, all three get +1.

Edit: for min-maxing, you see why you really only wanna level once per fusion. Try getting +6 in tb stat you want
 

Vorph

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
10,996
4,721
I'd be surprised if P5 cost much more than 10 million, including the development of the engine for it.

Is there a means to control stat level ups? I thought they were random.
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX until you get what you want (gold highlight). Mute your TV before you start, listening to the glass-breaking sound and Caroline/Justine saying the same thing over and over again gets really irritating quickly. Especially if you're trying to fuse something like Alice or Yoshitsune and you don't want any worthless stats on the initial fusion, but you have 200k+ XP from confidant levels. They have so few levels to gain before they are maxed that you don't want to waste any of the initial ones, and it can take upwards of 20-30 minutes.

When I leveled my DLC Kaguya from 16 to 99 I did it 1-2 levels at a time, accepting only Ma/En/Ag upgrades so that I could get Ma and Ag to 99 and En as close as possible. It takes exponentially longer to get what you want if you get more levels at a time than that.
 
Last edited:

Leto Eu`Acumen

Peasant
547
49
I'm at 23.5 hours in, saved in a safe room ~75% of the way through the second Palace.

Right now, it is time management that is vexing the hell out of me. Having never played a Persona game before, I had no idea what to expect. It seems most days I get to pick one thing and one thing only before I have to sleep. Am I mistaken? Brew a cup of coffee or craft a lock pick, (one or the other and never both) and that is the whole day?

I picked up a day job and a night job...If I want to do them (and I'm still not sold on if they are worth it compared to everything else anyway), is there any way to manage both shifts in a day?

I am pretty sure I lost some Confidant opportunities while opting to craft lock picks during the first palace. In retrospect, I think I'd rather have taken advantage of increasing confidant relationships rather than get whatever was in those boxes.

I'm enjoying the hell out of the game so far. Been avoiding Story/Character spoilers like the plague, but I don't consider it a spoiler to get my head around the gameplay mechanics outside of the game.

Are lock picks worth the days it takes to craft them? Any general rules of thumb about priorities? Right now I'd guess Confidants > Social Stats > Everything else (outside of Palaces that is).....according to my own priorities, I'm not doing very well LOL.

I'm stumbling my way through fusions blindly, but combat (and mob captures) are not presenting any issues atm. No idea if I will regret my current ignorance on the subject in the future or not....still hoping I'll be able to learn as I go without screwing myself over in the process. Registering every persona I can, so hopefully that is enough for now.

Completely addicted to the game though....can't stop thinking about it when I'm doing anything else.

+1 for "Last Surprise" and "Beneath the Mask" wow
 

Vorph

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
10,996
4,721
The only time worth bothering to craft lockpicks is the night you send the calling card, since that's just about the only thing you can do in that time period. Save and reload until you get at least one bonus pick so that you gain +3 proficiency at the end. Palaces always have 3 or 4 locked chests so that's all you ever need, and the ones in mementos aren't worth bothering with. The value of most of the palace ones are pretty debatable too, aside from the handful that contain weapons.

You will have to craft eventually because it's the best way to raise proficiency (as long as you save scum), but most people will craft stuff other than lockpicks during those times. Goho-M and Treasure Traps are useful, plus there's a trophy for crafting at least one of each item if you care about that.
 
  • 1Like
Reactions: 1 user

Leto Eu`Acumen

Peasant
547
49
Thanks Vorph! I only just saw 2 lock picks from a single craft for the first time a few hours ago....didn't even know it was possible before then. Getting at least 3 the day of the calling card makes a whole lot of sense.

I've been down 6 or 7 levels in Mementos until I ran into the next barrier that won't open yet....definitely won't burn lock picks in there from here out.
 

Vorph

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
10,996
4,721
You get more crafts before getting tired based on your proficiency rank too, like 1 extra per rank. Makes it a lot easier to ensure at least one bonus for the +3.
 

Ritley

Karazhan Raider
15,711
34,227
Plus once you raise the confidant level with the teacher you can have her make tools, coffee, or do laundey without using time (costs 5k each time until you are rank 8 or 9 and then she does it for free)
 

Nester

Vyemm Raider
4,930
3,128
Plus once you raise the confidant level with the teacher you can have her make tools, coffee, or do laundey without using time (costs 5k each time until you are rank 8 or 9 and then she does it for free)

How do you actually get her to do it,? I think i am high enough rank but she does not offer and i don't see an option, she just cries about money, gives me a handy and goes home.
 

Vorph

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
10,996
4,721
Start making tools/coffee/curry or doing laundry yourself, then Morgana asks you if you want to call her instead. Only works at night.
 
  • 1Like
Reactions: 1 user

Ritley

Karazhan Raider
15,711
34,227
Yeah it's a night thing. It becomes a no brainer to have her make coffee or curry every single night, the only downside is when you do that you can't advance Sojiro confidant level that day since he leaves if you ask her to make those.
 

Elidroth

Trakanon Raider
539
1,245
I'm about 10 hours in.. This game is fucking weird, but I'm strangely enjoying the hell out it. I'm sitting here at work wishing I was back in my room playing. Same thing happened with Horizon: Zero Dawn. I've got a LOT of games to play while I'm stuck out here in this shit hole, but this one is going to take a lot of my time for sure..