Re: Persona 5's difficulty
Supposedly it's much closer to an SMT game than a Persona game. Keep in mind, SMT games generally aren't that hard once you reach a certain point in the difficulty curve (or you decide to outright break the game, lol), but I have it on good faith that the game is well balanced on your first run, especially on higher difficulties.
Re: Character viability
The P5 characters function fairly similarly to the P4 characters, but similar to PQ, characters have signature skills.
If you're curious about how each character functions, feel free to read on.
Joker:
Ryuji:
Anne:
Morgana:
Yusuke:
Makoto:
Haru:
Goro:
Supposedly it's much closer to an SMT game than a Persona game. Keep in mind, SMT games generally aren't that hard once you reach a certain point in the difficulty curve (or you decide to outright break the game, lol), but I have it on good faith that the game is well balanced on your first run, especially on higher difficulties.
Re: Character viability
The P5 characters function fairly similarly to the P4 characters, but similar to PQ, characters have signature skills.
If you're curious about how each character functions, feel free to read on.
Joker:
What do you think?
Physical attacker with Zio and some support skills. Gets single target and multi target physical moves including gems like Matarukaja and Power Charge. Total beast!
Magical caster with Agi, Tarunda, single target healing, support and status skills. Supposedly underwhelming due to her pathetically low HP and general lack of versatility.
Magical caster with healing, physical and support skills. Basically a wind version of Teddie and supposedly essential during boss fights.
Physical attacker with Bufu and some support skills. A faster, less powerful version of Ryuji, but with better magic and more versatility.
Magical caster with a few physical skills, healing and support skills. Seems to be a top class character, given her access to group wide healing (RIP Anne), Rakukaja, and general versatility.
A magical caster with...Gun skills?! I can't accurately predict how good she is without knowing how good gun skills are, but she might be amazing. She has PSI skills and a handful of support skills, including Amrita (though she gets it very late into the game
Physical, Megido, Hama and Mudo skills. Literally Naoto.