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[LotusHD]

I don't get the trend lately where people freak the F out over the game not shipping from Amazon on Sunday. They rarely do that. Usually it will ship sometime on Monday, maybe even the evening and it WILL arrive on Tuesday.

Not that Amazon is perfect, but I realize every time I'm slowly freaking out over whether my order is coming or not, I usually get those worries/doubts from GAF lol

Everything always works out in the end

Spoiler

for me at least...

 

[ffvorax]

One more day! I actually feared it was an April fool because of the date... lol not really, but after all these delays...

 

[Bendo]

How is normal difficulty? I'm looking for a decent challenge but nothing thats fustrating or require to much grinding. P3 and p4 difficulty was fine for me as reference.

I'm about 15h in on Hard, and it's honestly not that bad. I've done a minimal amount of grinding (all of 10-15m I think), and beyond a few unlucky OHKOs it's been tense but fairly manageable. Nothing like SMTIV.

Also, you can always bump difficulty down later, so there's not a lot of reason to start on a low difficulty.

 

[TheSporkWithin]

How is normal difficulty? I'm looking for a decent challenge but nothing thats fustrating or require to much grinding. P3 and p4 difficulty was fine for me as reference.

It's pretty similar. Some people seem to think it's significantly easier but I have a feeling that it's because they're more used to the systems by now and take advantage of them more thoroughly. I played the Digital Devil Saga games and SMT3 before P3 and 4 and so they never felt particularly rough in comparison.

The first few dungeons don't offer many chances for things to swing wildly out of your control during the battles, but later dungeons certainly have times where if you're unprepared you can get blindsided and have half your team get wiped out very quickly. Also some of the later game bosses are quite tough, requiring smart management of buffs and debuffs (to the point where they can be a bit of a slog).

TL;DR: Normal difficulty is fine. It's not a super cakewalk unless you grind and overlevel/gear yourself. It's also not too difficult if you've played these games before.

 

[Yu Narukami]

Any early tips to earn money?

 

[Anoxida]

It's pretty similar. Some people seem to think it's significantly easier but I have a feeling that it's because they're more used to the systems by now and take advantage of them more thoroughly. I played the Digital Devil Saga games and SMT3 before P3 and 4 and so they never felt particularly rough in comparison.

The first few dungeons don't offer many chances for things to swing wildly out of your control during the battles, but later dungeons certainly have times where if you're unprepared you can get blindsided and have half your team get wiped out very quickly. Also some of the later game bosses are quite tough, requiring smart management of buffs and debuffs (to the point where they can be a bit of a slog).

TL;DR: Normal difficulty is fine. It's not a super cakewalk unless you grind and overlevel/gear yourself. It's also not too difficult if you've played these games before.

Ok thank you. I'll start on normal!

 

[MaximumSpider]

Alright, finall--

Going through issues with them now. RIP.

 

[Ken]

Any early tips to earn money?

Do the cooperation for

Spoiler

Toranosuke Yoshida which you can open up pretty early. Get him up to rank 2 for Negotiation Techniques (交渉&#34899. This lets you extort from negotiations multiple times. So you'd start up negotiation, extort for money 2-3 times, then finish them off. Don't progress to rank 3 cause it gets rid of your ability for multiple extorts in exchange for a boosted single extort which I think ends up giving you less money overall.

 

[haolee]

Any early tips to earn money?

Just sell whatever every junk/treasure you get to the Airsoft Shop, using the yellow Sell tab. Other than that, some guides tell you to just do the part time job. You basically will never have enough money to be comfortable buying equipment from the shop. It's a known problem since the Japanese version was released last year. The economy in this game is tough.

 

[JJShadow]

Any early tips to earn money?

Don't forget to sell all the treasures you find inside the dungeons, they're your best source of money. Also, if you ask a Persona you already have for money in the negotiations they always give you a fair amount

Oh, and sell the "Gold breastplate" piece of equipment, it's much worth they money than its defense values lol

 

[haolee]

Do the cooperation for

Spoiler

Toranosuke Yoshida which you can open up pretty early. Get him up to rank 2 for Negotiation Techniques (交渉&#34899. This lets you extort from negotations multiple times. So you'd start up negotiation, extort for money 2-3 times, then finish them off. Don't progress to rank 3 cause it gets rid of your ability for multiple extorts in exchange for a boosted single extort which I think ends up giving you less money overall.

I might be misremembering, but

Spoiler

progressing to Rank 3 doesn't get rid of the Rank 2 ability. You can still get the extra 2-3 times extortion if on the first one you don't choose the red option.

Still, the amount of money you get from that is laughable.

 

[Ken]

I might be misremembering, but

Spoiler

progressing to Rank 3 doesn't get rid of the Rank 2 ability. You can still get the extra 2-3 times extortion if on the first one you don't choose the red option.

Still, the amount of money you get from that is laughable.

Oh really. I can't remember myself either but you might be right.

 

[aravuus]

Probably a dumb question, but what happens when you die on easy/normal? Back to main menu and hope you've saved recently, or do you get to continue from a checkpoint or retry the fight or something?

I'm kind of a trial and error sort of guy so I expect to die a lot, even on easy lol

 

[Pachimari]

The manga name is Akira Kurusu.

Thanks. I'm gonna go with this name.

Just sell whatever every junk/treasure you get to the Airsoft Shop, using the yellow Sell tab. Other than that, some guides tell you to just do the part time job. You basically will never have enough money to be comfortable buying equipment from the shop. It's a known problem since the Japanese version was released last year. The economy in this game is tough.

Thanks for this advice. So one shouldn't buy equipment from the shop, but rather loot it?

 

[Bucca]

Just checked tracking on my Amazon TYH edition preorder.

Arrived in Davenport at 11:30pm. Orlando is the destination.

We eatin' tomorrow for sure fam.

 

[Deleted member 518609]

Probably a dumb question, but what happens when you die on easy/normal? Back to main menu and hope you've saved recently, or do you get to continue from a checkpoint or retry the fight or something?

I'm kind of a trial and error sort of guy so I expect to die a lot, even on easy lol

You get the option to either go to the last Safe Room or return to the title and load your last save.
For minibosses and bosses you also get the option to just retry the fight in the state you were in at the very start of the fight.

 

[Venfayth]

Nice mine is being delivered tomorrow! Hype!

 

[Yu Narukami]

Yeah I noticed that money is really tight and everything is so expensive. It isn't required to always buy the best equipment, right? What about locked treasures, do they have good gear? I'm sure I'm going to miss a few due to a certain cat.

 

[haolee]

Thanks for this advice. So one shouldn't buy equipment from the shop, but rather loot it?

No, you can buy equipment from the shop, but you won't be able to do so as comfortably and as regularly as you'd like, and most likely you won't be able to buy for all party members. You can get weapons and protectors from chests in dungeons, but they're kind of rare.

The point is, the amount of money you get will never seem enough for you to freely spend.

 

[Jiraiza]

Probably a dumb question, but what happens when you die on easy/normal? Back to main menu and hope you've saved recently, or do you get to continue from a checkpoint or retry the fight or something?

I'm kind of a trial and error sort of guy so I expect to die a lot, even on easy lol

Back to the last save point or retry the battle if it's a boss.

 

[TheSporkWithin]

Do the cooperation for

Spoiler

Toranosuke Yoshida which you can open up pretty early. Get him up to rank 2 for Negotiation Techniques (交渉&#34899. This lets you extort from negotiations multiple times. So you'd start up negotiation, extort for money 2-3 times, then finish them off. Don't progress to rank 3 cause it gets rid of your ability for multiple extorts in exchange for a boosted single extort which I think ends up giving you less money overall.

Not quite.

Spoiler

It just makes the option a guaranteed success at random sometimes, guaranteeing a larger than usual payout but disallowing repeat extortion.

 

[aravuus]

You get the option to either go to the last Safe Room or return to the title and load your last save.
For minibosses and bosses you also get the option to just retry the fight in the state you were in at the very start of the fight.

Cool, being able to retry the bosses sounds especially great. How frequent are safe rooms? And if you decide to go back to the last safe room, does the game state go back to whatever it was when you left the safe room (lose gained exp, money etc but get back items you might've used between the safe room and your death)?

 

[Stargypsy]

Just checked tracking on my Amazon TYH edition preorder.

Arrived in Davenport at 11:30pm. Orlando is the destination.

We eatin' tomorrow for sure fam.

Mine is 60 miles away right now. UPS has it scheduled for delivery tomorrow.
First time I've ever gotten a game early from Amazon.

 

[JJShadow]

Yeah I noticed that money is really tight and everything is so expensive. It isn't required to always buy the best equipment, right? What about locked treasures, do they have good gear? I'm sure I'm going to miss a few due to a certain cat.

You won't be able to buy the best equipment all at once once you unlock the

Spoiler

Airsoft shop

, it is quite expensive (hell, even recovery items are quite expensive)

Locked treasures usually give you some nice stuff, I think I've found a couple of weapons and an item to recover SP inside them

 

[TheSporkWithin]

Thanks for this advice. So one shouldn't buy equipment from the shop, but rather loot it?

Use the demon conversation options to extort money from them. Level up the social link that improves persuasion (you won't get access to it for a little bit in game, don't remember when). If you don't extort money, you'll never have enough. If you use it liberally, you'll be swimming in it by the end of the third dungeon.

 

[Ken]

Not quite.

Spoiler

It just makes the option a guaranteed success at random sometimes, guaranteeing a larger than usual payout but disallowing repeat extortion.

Spoiler

Rank 3? Doesn't it also let the enemy get away so you miss out on AOA exp and money? I just remember rank 2 being really good and when I got rank 3 I pretty much stopped bothering with extortion.

 

[Laughing Banana]

GODDAMNIT I hate they're not allowing us to take screenshots.

Urghhhhhhhhhhh (

Anyways, if you folks have a choice of:

- Raising Social Stat
- Raising Confidant
- Doing a Memento

At a day, which one do you think should be better prioritized? I am considering Social Stat since it will be carried on towards New Game + but maybe you folks have some other consideration?

 

[Deleted member 518609]

Cool, being able to retry the bosses sounds especially great. How frequent are safe rooms? And if you decide to go back to the last safe room, does the game state go back to whatever it was when you left the safe room (lose gained exp, money etc but get back items you might've used between the safe room and your death)?

Safe Rooms are fairly regular, probably around 5-8 per dungeon. In the later dungeons you will have to choose between going back to the last Safe Room to save or risking it and going ahead though.
Returning to one will put you in the exact state you were when you were there, so you lose exp and money, but get back items and SP you'd have used for example.

 

[Herbshire]

So I just finished Horizon and I feel I need to play something different before going into another open world game like Zelda, will this a good game to play in between?

 

[TheSporkWithin]

Spoiler

Rank 3? Doesn't it also let the enemy get away so you miss out on AOA exp and money? I just remember rank 2 being really good and when I got rank 3 I pretty much stopped bothering with extortion.

Spoiler

Yeah, all successful demon negotiations end with either you letting the enemy off the hook or them getting angry and attacking you or summoning backup. The bolded red options do this immediately with guaranteed success and either more money than a normal extortion attempt or a better item than they would normally give you, depending on which option it is. It's not like the extortion option is bolded all the time after you hit that social link rank - maybe like 20% of the time?

 

[suracity]

i think team/persona management is more important than level in the later half the game.
Don't be afraid of dying in the boss fight. There is always checkpoint before the battle so if things go south just go back to the checkpoint and regroup.
Sometimes bringing a wrong teammate/equipping a wrong persona can be a huge liability.

 

[Yu Narukami]

Use the demon conversation options to extort money from them. Level up the social link that improves persuasion (you won't get access to it for a little bit in game, don't remember when). If you don't extort money, you'll never have enough. If you use it liberally, you'll be swimming in it by the end of the third dungeon.

That's a good tip but sometimes it's hard to decide between earning a Persona, EXP or money. I think I need to farm money a little.

 

[TheSporkWithin]

GODDAMNIT I hate they're not allowing us to take screenshots.

Urghhhhhhhhhhh (

Anyways, if you folks have a choice of:

- Raising Social Stat
- Raising Confidant
- Doing a Memento

At a day, which one do you think should be better prioritized? I am considering Social Stat since it will be carried on towards New Game + but maybe you folks have some other consideration?

ALWAYS save up multiple mementos missions unless you specifically need the thing it unlocks ASAP.

I prioritized confidants over stats, though sometimes on rainy days I'd put in some study time if I knew the confidant wouldn't level up through the interaction. Rainy days

Spoiler

get you an extra intelligence point when you study at the family restaurant, which makes it a fantastic option for boosting intelligence and courage in the early game.

 

[Ken]

Spoiler

Yeah, all successful demon negotiations end with either you letting the enemy off the hook or them getting angry and attacking you or summoning backup. The bolded red options do this immediately with guaranteed success and either more money than a normal extortion attempt or a better item than they would normally give you, depending on which option it is. It's not like the extortion option is bolded all the time after you hit that social link rank - maybe like 20% of the time?

Spoiler

Mmm, okay. I still felt like it was better to just go for as many extortion until it fails and just kill them.

 

[Laughing Banana]

ALWAYS save up multiple mementos missions unless you specifically need the thing it unlocks ASAP.

I prioritized confidants over stats, though sometimes on rainy days I'd put in some study time if I knew the confidant wouldn't level up through the interaction. Rainy days

Spoiler

get you an extra intelligence point when you study at the family restaurant, which makes it a fantastic option for boosting intelligence and courage in the early game.

I don't know why you feel the need to spoiler that since it's a pretty well known mechanic from Persona 3 and 4, hehehe.

Oh, you can actually delay Memento mission and let them stack up and then do them all in one swoop? Interesting, I do not know that.

 

[TheSporkWithin]

That's a good tip but sometimes it's hard to decide between earning a Persona, EXP or money. I think I need to farm money a little.

Yeah. I did like two or three grinds through Mementos. The first was for

Spoiler

the fortune arcana unlock

, second was for weapons fairly late in the game. Other than that I just pretty much always defaulted to asking for money whenever I ended up in a hold up situation unless I was specifically trying to get a persona.

 

[aravuus]

Safe Rooms are fairly regular, probably around 5-8 per dungeon. In the later dungeons you will have to choose between going back to the last Safe Room to save or risking it and going ahead though.
Returning to one will put you in the exact state you were when you were there, so you lose exp and money, but get back items and SP you'd have used for example.

Alright, sounds great, thanks!

I've decided that since I likely wouldn't be able to do all the optional stuff I wanted to on my first run even if I were to play on safety, I might as well save the 100% run for NG+ and start the first playthrough on easy or normal. Just gotta decide between those two now.

I've always been really awful at SMT games, but I do want this experience to last as long as possible. Hmm.

 

[LurkerPrime]

I'm about 15h in on Hard, and it's honestly not that bad. I've done a minimal amount of grinding (all of 10-15m I think), and beyond a few unlucky OHKOs it's been tense but fairly manageable. Nothing like SMTIV.

Also, you can always bump difficulty down later, so there's not a lot of reason to start on a low difficulty.

I've been wondering about this myself, thanks for the impressions.

I think it's time to jump on the Hard train!

 

[Alex]

Mine shipped, I opted for the normal edition rather than the steelbook, I really do not care for those.

Probably won't be able to play it until the following week, though.

 

[TheSporkWithin]

I don't know why you feel the need to spoiler that since it's a pretty well known mechanic from Persona 3 and 4, hehehe.

Oh, you can actually delay Memento mission and let them stack up and then do them all in one swoop? Interesting, I do not know that.

Yes, you can do as many as you want in one go. Save them for a (non-)rainy day and go nuts.

Spoiler

Mmm, okay. I still felt like it was better to just go for as many extortion until it fails and just kill them.

Spoiler

Well, yeah, it is. But that option doesn't disappear when you level up the social link, it just occasionally (like 20% of the time) gets overwritten by the instant success.

 

[Laughing Banana]

Alright, sounds great, thanks!

I've decided that since I likely wouldn't be able to do all the optional stuff I wanted to on my first run even if I were to play on safety, I might as well save the 100% run for NG+ and start the first playthrough on easy or normal. Just gotta decide between those two now.

I've always been really awful at SMT games, but I do want this experience to last as long as possible. Hmm.

Yeah, never plan on 100%-ing a Persona game on your first go--you will need a guide that will strict your freedom to play so severely I just don't see the point of it.

Aim it on your 2nd or even possibly 3rd walkthrough when you have much more leeway considering you don't need to do stuff like raising stat anymore.

Anyway, can you actually change difficulty for NG+? I don't think you can, can you?

 

[TheSporkWithin]

I think P5 is actually relatively easy to max all confidants in one go compared to P3 and 4, but it definitely requires some planning out and either advance knowledge or a little luck as to which confidants and parameters to prioritize early on.

 

[haolee]

I prioritized confidants over stats

That most likely will come back and bite you in the ass.

Spoiler

Some confidant ranks are locked behind certain stats ranks.

 

[Mengetsu]

😎

 

[TheSporkWithin]

That most likely will come back and bite you in the ass.

Spoiler

Some confidant ranks are locked behind certain stats ranks.

I finished the game with all confidants maxed and two weeks to spare. I didn't have advance knowledge about the

Spoiler

stat requirements

but I did have some advice from a friend as to which confidants would be beneficial to work on early.

EDIT: I did not, however, come anywhere close to completion on

Spoiler

retro games, DVD rentals, fishing or shopping, though I did do most of the books.

 

[aravuus]

Anyway, can you actually change difficulty for NG+? I don't think you can, can you?

Since you can change difficulties any time on NG anyway, I don't think it'd make much sense to lock you to a certain difficulty level when entering NG+.

But if it does work like that, I guess you could just change the difficulty right before finishing NG.

 

[Yu Narukami]

This game is so good that every time I think about it I get an erection.

 

[BrightLightLava]

65 hours in and Ryuji's still just the worst. But there are a bunch of characters that are just great.

 

[haolee]

I finished the game with all confidants maxed and two weeks to spare. I didn't have advance knowledge about the

Spoiler

stat requirements

but I did have some advice from a friend as to which confidants would be beneficial to work on early.

EDIT: I did not, however, come anywhere close to completion on

Spoiler

retro games, DVD rentals or shopping, though I did do most of the books.

That's frankly impressive. I went in blank last year and was still off by a handful of Confidants.

 

[Wunder]

Does anyone know what's in the skill card set DLC?