Developers Foresight / Persona 5

Persona 5 has a lot of room for player choice, from how they fight their battles to who they fall in love with. Here is a list of examples of how the developers accounted for player decisions.

Metaverse Exploration

• If you input the correct pin codes on the pads in Kaneshiro's Palace (either memorizing them from a previous playthrough, or reading a guide), and then find the letter with the hint later, the team will comment that they don't need the clue anymore. In one instance, Ryuji will say to take it anyway.
• If Haru's Persona has not been awakened when you visit Mementos or the fifth Palace, Morgana will not let her fight. If you try to leave for the Palace or Mementos without talking to her, she will ask to come along, but Morgana will refuse.
• In Okumura's Palace, the presses have three settings — Lunch (which gives you a window of 30 seconds to bypass the presses), Break (which only lasts five seconds, too little time to do anything), and Unpaid Overtime (which is already in effect). If you select "Lunch" before investigating either or both of the other options the first time you interact with a control console, the next time you interact with the console, Futaba will mention that she looked into the other two settings on her own and found that they were useless.
• In the sixth palace, you will have to temporarily leave and attend a trial in the real world to help erase a gate in the Palace. The narrative foresight comes into the potential date: If you go through the palace on November 2nd and reach the barrier, the trial is held on November 3rd. This date is Culture Day in Japan, and it's a national holiday when trials wouldn't normally be held. This actually gets discussed by the party should this come up (although no explanation is given).
• In the seventh dungeon, the player has to fight five mini bosses throughout the dungeon before securing the treasure route. After defeating the fifth mini boss, the Phantom Thieves are ready to return and call it a day. However, the Goho-M item, which normally warps the Thieves back to a dungeon entrance, cannot be used. This is so that the player cannot skip the upcoming showdown with Black Mask.
• In the Depths of Mementos, should the player figure out the first step-limited floor puzzle on the first try, Futaba and Ann will praise Joker for it but the team will be still confused about what is different about it compared to previous floor puzzles, before Futaba explains it based on her own analysis.

Combat

• If any of your party members die, get a critical hit, or exploit a weakness during their first battle, the navigators won't call them by their code names, because they haven't received them yet. The only exception to this is Akechi, since he gets his code name before his first battle starts.
• It's possible to go into battle with just Joker, including boss fights. If you fight a Palace boss this way, the game changes around a few of its mechanics so that Joker can still win the fight entirely on his own.
  • If you fight the boss of the Casino Palace with only Joker, you can't do the special op to expose the boss's cheating. Instead, after awhile, Futaba calls the boss out on cheating, and this enrages them enough that they immediately go One-Winged Angel, allowing you to proceed with the fight.
  • Additionally, it is possible to enter the next phase the old-fashioned way—doing a lot of damage (the Casino boss has 65,535 HP; the boss also has a unique rule that forces the player into 1 HP if they harm them).
  • During the fight with the final boss, the Holy Grail will heal itself continuously with Will of the People, forcing one of the party members to cut off its veins. If the fight is done solo, then after a number of turns, it will stop healing all on its own and only use Arrow of Light.
• If you hack the game so that you go into battle with characters that you couldn't use legitimately based on story progression, there's still models and dialogue coded in to prevent the game from crashing.
  • Morgana has full navigator dialogue for Haru, Akechi, and Kasumi after they join the Phantom Thieves. This is despite the fact that all of them only become playable only after Futaba takes over navigator duties. In addition, Morgana also has navigator lines for the Superboss battle against Caroline and Justine, which can only be accessed on New Game Plus. (Fighting the twins that early in the story is tactical suicide unless you've grinded an obscene amount early on, but you can do it, and Morgana has lines appropriate for the situation.)
    Morgana: H-hey Joker... these two are- y-you want to fight them?! These two are dangerous! I can tell! Don't let their looks deceive you! They're on a whole other level!
  • Akechi and Kasumi have models for being Rattled, despite the fact that the two of them would normally never face a situation that can turn them into mice^note The only dungeons where enemies can inflict the Rattled status are Futaba's and Shido's for reference. In addition, the navigators have appropriate lines should they become mice in battle.
  • Futaba is normally unable to be used in the battle due to her status as the Support Party Member. However, the game has a dedicated HP and SP pool for her to prevent the game from crashing in case she's hacked in anyway. She doesn't have any skills that would enable her to attack enemies, though. In fact, if you take her to the Jazz Club in Royal, the game will actually tell you if her HP increases despite this being irrelevant otherwise.
• Catching Shadows that are under Status Effects in a Hold Up will change their dialogue accordingly. Some can't be negotiated with in that state. After all, you can't really talk to someone that's asleep or frozen in a block of ice. Shadows inflicted with fear will flee if you try to talk to them, shocked enemies can only sputter out word fragments, and brainwashed enemies change the negotiation options and resulting dialogue befitting the situation.
• On a related note if a party member is afflicted by a status ailment they will not comment on Joker’s commands. If you swap from 'Act freely' to 'Conserve SP' as an example, the stunned member will naturally be unable to comment or acknowledge the command at that moment (when normally they do).
• If you equip Akechi's Black Mask outfit in the Casino Palace during New Game Plus before his first battle, his visor actually retracts upon summoning Robin Hood.
• Samael had a new phase in Royal where he isolates Joker for a one-on-one showdown. Should Joker otherwise enter the fight alone (or at least with less than a full party of four), Ryuji, Morgana, and Ann in that order will automatically join the fight as well, to increase the impact of the scene when Samael ejects them from battle.
• During Royal's third term, Akechi rejoins the party at level 75, the same level as Kasumi and about the level you're expected to be at that point in the game. If you somehow got Akechi to a higher level, Akechi retains that higher level when he rejoins. His new Persona doesn't learn any moves besides the ones he starts out with by leveling up, so no moves are lost if this happens, either.
• During combat, in the bottom left corner, you can see the faces of your party in their combat gear and masks. During the final "battle" with Maruki after Joker's mask has disappeared (signifying that the Metaverse is collapsing), his portrait in the corner is mask-less.
• Even though the game automatically overlays artwork for all out attacks, all characters^note except Violet, who will cause the game to crash if this is attempted have animations for their models performing their artwork poses should said artwork fail to load, seen in action here.

Confidants, hangouts and other related events

• Certain books (Such as "Yonchen Wanderer") unlock locations if they haven't been before. If the player has been to them before, they will be instantly read without taking up a time slot, as Morgana will point out Joker already knows the location in question.
• In Royal, a few Palaces have dates for calling cards locked off or altered because of new events.
  • You cannot fight the boss of the second Palace on May 30th because of a school community service event, which has a cutscene in which Joker establishes his Confidant link with Kasumi. If you try to send the calling card on May 29th, Morgana will remind you about the event, and will not let you send it.
  • October 3rd normally has the event in which Kasumi awakens to her Persona. If you sent the calling card to Okumura on October 2nd, the boss fight with him will happen on the 3rd, and Kasumi's awakening will be moved to October 4th instead.
  • Ryuji meets Dr. Maruki for counseling on May 24. If you're set to steal Madarame's treasure that day, Ryuji's session is moved to the following day.
• Royal added outings where Caroline and Justine will accompany Joker to various locations. The first one is at Big Bang Burger, where they pressure Joker into taking the toughest Big Bang Challenge. Depending on if Joker has already reached the highest rank or not, his dialogue options will reflect this.
• During summer vacation, there will be some days where Ryuji or Yusuke will invite themselves over to watch a DVD with Joker. If you do not have a DVD player, Joker will automatically text them back saying so, and they won't visit.
  • Similarly, after Futaba joins the Phantom Thieves, there will be some days where she'll invite herself over to play games with Joker. If he doesn't have the game console, he'll automatically text her back saying so, and she won't show up.
• Ann and Kawakami are available as hangouts in Hawaii if they've been pursued romantically, while Makoto and Hifumi are available if they've reached Rank 5. The dates are treated differently between the two groups; while Ann and Kawakami's events are romantic, Makoto and Hifumi's equivalents are platonic, since the player might not have ranked up their Confidants and prerequisite social stats enough to pursue them romantically.
  • Similarly, the girls' events during the cultural festival are all romantic except for Haru's, because her Confidant doesn't become available until after the festival is over. By this point, Makoto's date is explicitly romantic as enough time has passed for Joker to properly court her if the player chooses.
• Sojiro's reaction towards Futaba's uncle having a change of heart in his last event will have different dialogue whether he has learned or not that Joker and Futaba are part of the Phantom Thieves. If he doesn't know yet, he assumes it was just a coincidence; if he already knows, he immediately says that he knew Joker pulled it off.
• If you begin a Confidant after Sae's interrogation concludes, the game will not cut to Sae asking you about your Confidant link starting. Similarly, the Fool and Strength Arcanas don't get a flashback pre-interrogation, because Sae doesn't know about the existence of the Velvet Room.
• One part of Futaba's Confidant has her and Joker go to Shujin. If the player has reached the point in the story where Joker briefly takes a hiatus from school, the dialogue changes to reflect that.
• One part of Ohya's Confidant has her commenting that the recent press surrounding the Phantom Thieves seems manufactured. Depending on where you are in the story, she'll refer to either good or bad press. She's right in either case.
• Shinya's Rank 10 normally mentions him being bullied for supporting the Phantom Thieves despite their unpopularity and criminal accusations. If you reach this rank before the end of the Okumura arc, these lines are removed.
• The party meets up at Leblanc to study for finals in December. During their conversation, the question of whether Joker will want to get married one day is brought up. If he's dating a party member, his girlfriend will react accordingly to his answer and her personality. If he's dating more than one party member, they'll give their reactions one-by-one (though thankfully for Joker, without noticing that the others had similar reactions).
• In Royal, you meet Kasumi's father on January 1. The glasses he wears change depending on whether or not you reached rank 4 of Kasumi's Confidant, where Joker helps her choose a new pair of glasses for her father. Similarly, his dialogue upon meeting you is different depending on if you got Kasumi's confidant to Rank 5.
• During Mishima's Confidant, there's a sequence in which the Phantom Thieves have to visit Mementos to speak with his shadow. Depending on what point in the game you're at when you do so, all of the current party members accompany Joker even if you don't get around to it until far later than the game expects you to. Even if you somehow wait all the way until the third semester in Royal, Akechi and Kasumi will show up in the cutscene. There was even dialogue programmed for all members sans Kasumi in this scene, but it was left unused.

Other

• When the player is given the option to name the Phantom Thieves after the first Palace, there are a number of unique responses.
  • If the player inputs any party member's name (including the name the player chose for him), Joker will go against it, thinking to himself that using someone's real name that way would be a bad idea.
  • Ann suggests "The Diamonds" as a team name, but Ryuji shoots it down. If the player inputs "The Diamonds" anyway, there's a unique response where Ann is pleased that Joker liked the name she picked and Ryuji gets frustrated with Joker picking that name.
• It's possible to intentionally run too low on cash to pay the subway fee when going outside of Leblanc, Shibuya and school. This amount is only a few hundred yen for each location, which is so low that you'd have to be trying to run out of money to be unable to afford it. Should this happen, Morgana will reveal his "secret savings" and spot Joker enough for the return trip home.invoked
• Normally, each party member's code name and Arcana appear on the party stats screens and in the Untouchable shopping menu. During the brief interlude between recruiting a party member and giving them their code name, the code name will be absent from both locations. If they're taken into Mementos during this period, whoever is doing analysis will also not mention the character's code name in their combat dialogue.
• After getting your exam results back in Royal, some new wandering comments while exploring Shujin can occur. If Joker struggled, there's virtually nothing new that the students will say... but if Joker's top of the class, many will wonder just how a "delinquent with a criminal record" got the top score, and what exactly that could mean for his character.
• If played during the Third Semester, the Tycoon game in the Thieves Den is specifically programmed to never give you a combination of Akechi and either Futaba or Haru. Because why would either of them want to play with their parents' killer?
• Also in the Third Semester, playing the lottery will always result in a prize, even if it's a net loss, due to Maruki's effect on the world. This also doubles as an Anti Frustration Feature, since there's an achievement for winning the lottery, giving the player a guaranteed way of getting it without relying on luck.
• During the Playable Epilogue in Royal where Joker goes around Tokyo to say goodbye to his rank 10 confidants, checking the party menu (which you have no reason to do since there's no combat left at that point) shows that Akechi is completely absent, referencing how he supposedly disappeared after Maruki's reality was undone.
• If you go to the toilets with Ryuji, when he is following you while you're trying to get information out of the volleyball team members during the volleyball rally, Ryuji will thank you, stating that he needs to go to the toilet, and the screen will go black as both Joker and Ryuji go to the toilet. However, if you try to go to the toilet again after that, Ryuji will ask why you need to go again so soon.

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